Governor Asa Hutchinson

It stood to reason that we (Governor Hutchinson and former Chief of Staff Williams) disagreed on certain issues from the beginning. Disagreements were always below the surface. Alison, as chief of staff, has done an incredible job creating an environment of openness within the office to ensure we can talk to each other. I created this whenever we had a meeting with others. And they knew I would ask the interns, “What do you think about this problem”? You create this environment of openness and the ability to disagree.

And then you have to be intentional about bringing people from diverse backgrounds into the office. Under our rule, we had a very conservative Republican legislature, and they expected me to hire everyone who was arch conservative. Well, I wanted to make sure I had people on my team that the Legislative Black Caucus felt comfortable with, as well as some arch conservatives.

I think you have to be very intentional about this. And we had a lot of hot-button issues in Arkansas that came up during my eight years as governor, and there were disagreements, but always, even though we had diverse opinions, every time I made a decision, everyone supported her. There were never any nasty disagreements.

Alison Williams

A more mundane but equally important aspect of Governor Hutchinson’s administration was the reorganization of state government. When he came to power, he had 42 or 43 direct reports, cabinet and sub-cabinet officials reporting to him. I just thought it wouldn’t work. There were 15 of us eventually, which was great. Compromising on this span of control and ability to run your business has made a real difference. And Governor Hutchinson, because he worked at the Department of Homeland Security when it was established, understood what it would take to transform state government in this way.

It was difficult to deal with Cabinet officials who were affected, particularly those who were not going to become secretary of a ministry, or who were embedded in a ministry and were suddenly going to be required to account for their activities to someone. It was my job to manage the egos and behavior of our disgruntled civil servants. And the benefit of that, the result of that, is that we had very few departures of cabinet officials during the reorganization, and that benefit accrued to the taxpayers of Arkansas, both in terms of experience in work and better services that they could expect from their governor and their government.

Was it difficult to manage demoted or dismissed civil servants? Of course. But in all honesty, a lot of it is just listening. People just want to be heard. They want to feel respected, or at least that their position is respected. And so there’s been a lot of nurturing and nurturing in terms of ego management and behavior management.

Jeremy Kennedy

When we came into office, even though we knew each other from campaigning and were already friends, I had never worked in state government before.

But what we learned at the National Governors Association orientation is that the chief of staff is a gatekeeper. You are supposed to be the filter. You’re supposed to keep things out of your boss’s office, so that was my whole vision.

But what I quickly learned about the governor was that throughout her career, she was in touch with the people on the ground, she was very in touch with the people. Everyone in the state had their personal email, their phone number, their Facebook messenger. So when we won on election night, I tended to shut it down. I bought him a new iPhone and got him a new number. But what I quickly learned was that she would be a very unhappy governor if I cut her off from people. The goal of access control is to make the governor more efficient in his job. So if your control makes them feel more isolated, alone and unhappy, then you have failed.

So we had to find a balance where she has to communicate differently. And what I learned is that I have to let her be herself. It can be very easy for a chief of staff to view their governor as a commodity that you move around, you present the talking points to him, he does it, and then you need him to move here. But their job is actually to run state government.

Quotes from panelists have been lightly edited for clarity and space. THE the whole discussion is available online.

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Banner image: (left to right) Jeffrey Liebman, Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Social Policy, director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government; Governor Janet Mills (D-ME); Jeremy Kennedy, chief of staff to Governor Mills; former Governor Asa Hutchinson (R-AR); and Alison Williams, Chief of Staff to Governor Hutchison

Photos by Martha Stewart