Samuel Damren
Where new leadership assumes top executive roles in an institution but lacks prior experience in the organization or specific field, extra steps must be incorporated in the transition of leadership. That is especially true, when course-changing policy initiatives are involved.
Nick Bolton, the new Executive Producer of “60 Minutes,” and Bari Weiss, the new Editor-in-Chief of CBS News, have backgrounds in journalism, but neither has prior experience in broadcast news. At issue for staffers and the public is whether Bolton’s and Weiss’s actual intent is to “kill” the highly-rated Sunday night program.
If their purpose is otherwise, that is, to create meaningful reform while preserving “60 Minutes” as an independent voice of a free press, then the new CBS executives should have taken a much different approach to the transition of leadership.
This commentary – based on recent personal experience — will examine the “right approach” to leadership transition where reforms are on the agenda and the qualifications of new leadership are an issue.
In 2020, Eli Savit won the August primary as the Democratic candidate for Washtenaw County Prosecutor in the November general election. Although he grew up in Ann Arbor, Savit’s prior professional experience was outside Washtenaw County.
As a then 38-year-old lawyer, Savit’s resume was impressive. After law school, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. At the time of the campaign, he served as senior legal counsel for the City of Detroit with extensive experience in civil litigation and appellate work.
Savit, however, had no prior experience as a prosecutor. In the primary, his principal opponent was an “insider,” a respected assistant prosecutor in Washtenaw County. Both candidates ran on Progressive Platforms contrasting proposed policy initiatives with the soon-to-be past administration.
As Democratic nominee for the position in Washtenaw County, Savit was a proverbial “shoo-in” to win the general election and assume office in January 2021. What he accomplished during the four-month interval between nomination and “swearing in” is an example of the “right approach” and model to successful transition by a reform candidate.
The model is not unique to Savit, but there are parallels and contrasts to the ongoing “60 Minutes” transition.
—————
What reforms? Be specific with detail and support. A wide array of lawyers and volunteers supported Savit’s campaign in Washtenaw County. He put them to work in August to create 14 written “Policy Directives,” totaling 95 pages, setting forth the underlying rationale and legal support for Progressive changes promised during the campaign.
The Policy Directives were posted on the Washtenaw County Prosecutor Website in January 2021 and remain available online to date.
Lesson 1: If you run on a reform agenda, show that it is serious, support the reasons, and provide the detail to its implementation.
—————
Lack of prior experience? Address the concern. Savit’s campaign supporters in the August primary did not include individuals with prosecutorial experience. This was not surprising. Assistant Washtenaw prosecutors who made known their candidate of choice uniformly supported their fellow assistant prosecutor.
Although I did not know Savit prior to August, I joined his transition team as one of many volunteers after the primary. Recently retired from Dykema, I provided six years of prosecutorial experience at the beginning of my career followed by White Collar criminal defense work in private practice. In 2016, I served as pro bono lead counsel for Davontae Sanford in an exoneration case receiving national press.
Along with later being selected to serve on his “Kitchen Cabinet,” my initial contribution to the transition was to personally interview all assistant prosecutors in “one on one” sessions. The reason was threefold.
First, to provide Savit with a preliminary assessment from a prosecutorial perspective of the talent, range, and expertise of the current staff. Second, to establish a “two-way” street for the staff to begin to provide critical input for the implementation phase of the Policy Directives. Third, through the lens of an experienced practitioner to learn about the prosecutor’s office from “insider” perspectives and solicit suggestions they might additionally have to improve its performance.
In September, Savit selected a 10-member “Kitchen Cabinet” to advise him during the transition. The cabinet was balanced and diverse including experienced lawyers with varied backgrounds and non-lawyer community leaders. The “Kitchen Cabinet” met regularly by Zoom with set agendas, assignments, prep work, and continual updates.
Lesson 2: If your qualifications for office do not include prior experience, shore it up during the transition so it does not remain an issue.
Lesson 3: Reach out to the existing staff in a meaningful and time invested manner for expertise and input. If you don’t, you risk creating an adversarial relationship with staffers from the onset.
As presumptive prosecutor, Savit expanded his outreach during the transition period to the business, education, and judicial communities in Washtenaw County as well as to local police chiefs and law enforcement. He sought input, answered questions, and sought to identify and address possible frictions that could be avoided or minimized through greater partnership and cooperation.
Lesson 4: You are now in a position of authority, expand your horizons to agencies and individuals you will interact with as part of your responsibilities. They may have valuable insights you do not yet appreciate.
—————
Transition without drama. The principal goal for Savit’s transition was to “hit the ground running” in January. The new Policy Directives were previewed to a wide audience and the subject of robust analysis by the Kitchen Cabinet. Many steps were taken to ensure procedural and administrative continuity. Most importantly, while reforms were on the agenda, it was equally important to the new prosecutor to preserve the integrity and professionalism of the institution of county prosecutor and its dedication to public safety.
As noted, this model for the “right approach” to the transition of Leadership – where reforms and preserving the integrity of the institution is at the shared forefront of concern – is not new. The model has been utilized by like-minded leaders, irrespective of partisan affiliation, for leadership transitions in institutions of journalism, science, medicine, education, and many others.
Over the last year and a half, the Trump Administration rejected this approach by installing new leadership at the Department of Defense, Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal institutions through the “chainsaw” model of transition championed by Elon Musk.
What is jeopardized by this model of transition is the integrity and continued professionalism of the institutions and agencies. They serve not only in their respective areas of responsibility and expertise, but also as “checks and balances” on private and competing government interests.
In that stead, they also provide independent perspectives and non-partisan sources of information to assist the public and other government officials to arrive at informed judgments.
Which method of transition should now be followed, or course corrected to going forward, is the issue confronting the new CBS executives.
Nick Bolton, the new Executive Producer of “60 Minutes,” and Bari Weiss, the new Editor-in-Chief of CBS News, have backgrounds in journalism, but neither has prior experience in broadcast news. At issue for staffers and the public is whether Bolton’s and Weiss’s actual intent is to “kill” the highly-rated Sunday night program.
If their purpose is otherwise, that is, to create meaningful reform while preserving “60 Minutes” as an independent voice of a free press, then the new CBS executives should have taken a much different approach to the transition of leadership.
This commentary – based on recent personal experience — will examine the “right approach” to leadership transition where reforms are on the agenda and the qualifications of new leadership are an issue.
In 2020, Eli Savit won the August primary as the Democratic candidate for Washtenaw County Prosecutor in the November general election. Although he grew up in Ann Arbor, Savit’s prior professional experience was outside Washtenaw County.
As a then 38-year-old lawyer, Savit’s resume was impressive. After law school, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. At the time of the campaign, he served as senior legal counsel for the City of Detroit with extensive experience in civil litigation and appellate work.
Savit, however, had no prior experience as a prosecutor. In the primary, his principal opponent was an “insider,” a respected assistant prosecutor in Washtenaw County. Both candidates ran on Progressive Platforms contrasting proposed policy initiatives with the soon-to-be past administration.
As Democratic nominee for the position in Washtenaw County, Savit was a proverbial “shoo-in” to win the general election and assume office in January 2021. What he accomplished during the four-month interval between nomination and “swearing in” is an example of the “right approach” and model to successful transition by a reform candidate.
The model is not unique to Savit, but there are parallels and contrasts to the ongoing “60 Minutes” transition.
—————
What reforms? Be specific with detail and support. A wide array of lawyers and volunteers supported Savit’s campaign in Washtenaw County. He put them to work in August to create 14 written “Policy Directives,” totaling 95 pages, setting forth the underlying rationale and legal support for Progressive changes promised during the campaign.
The Policy Directives were posted on the Washtenaw County Prosecutor Website in January 2021 and remain available online to date.
Lesson 1: If you run on a reform agenda, show that it is serious, support the reasons, and provide the detail to its implementation.
—————
Lack of prior experience? Address the concern. Savit’s campaign supporters in the August primary did not include individuals with prosecutorial experience. This was not surprising. Assistant Washtenaw prosecutors who made known their candidate of choice uniformly supported their fellow assistant prosecutor.
Although I did not know Savit prior to August, I joined his transition team as one of many volunteers after the primary. Recently retired from Dykema, I provided six years of prosecutorial experience at the beginning of my career followed by White Collar criminal defense work in private practice. In 2016, I served as pro bono lead counsel for Davontae Sanford in an exoneration case receiving national press.
Along with later being selected to serve on his “Kitchen Cabinet,” my initial contribution to the transition was to personally interview all assistant prosecutors in “one on one” sessions. The reason was threefold.
First, to provide Savit with a preliminary assessment from a prosecutorial perspective of the talent, range, and expertise of the current staff. Second, to establish a “two-way” street for the staff to begin to provide critical input for the implementation phase of the Policy Directives. Third, through the lens of an experienced practitioner to learn about the prosecutor’s office from “insider” perspectives and solicit suggestions they might additionally have to improve its performance.
In September, Savit selected a 10-member “Kitchen Cabinet” to advise him during the transition. The cabinet was balanced and diverse including experienced lawyers with varied backgrounds and non-lawyer community leaders. The “Kitchen Cabinet” met regularly by Zoom with set agendas, assignments, prep work, and continual updates.
Lesson 2: If your qualifications for office do not include prior experience, shore it up during the transition so it does not remain an issue.
Lesson 3: Reach out to the existing staff in a meaningful and time invested manner for expertise and input. If you don’t, you risk creating an adversarial relationship with staffers from the onset.
As presumptive prosecutor, Savit expanded his outreach during the transition period to the business, education, and judicial communities in Washtenaw County as well as to local police chiefs and law enforcement. He sought input, answered questions, and sought to identify and address possible frictions that could be avoided or minimized through greater partnership and cooperation.
Lesson 4: You are now in a position of authority, expand your horizons to agencies and individuals you will interact with as part of your responsibilities. They may have valuable insights you do not yet appreciate.
—————
Transition without drama. The principal goal for Savit’s transition was to “hit the ground running” in January. The new Policy Directives were previewed to a wide audience and the subject of robust analysis by the Kitchen Cabinet. Many steps were taken to ensure procedural and administrative continuity. Most importantly, while reforms were on the agenda, it was equally important to the new prosecutor to preserve the integrity and professionalism of the institution of county prosecutor and its dedication to public safety.
As noted, this model for the “right approach” to the transition of Leadership – where reforms and preserving the integrity of the institution is at the shared forefront of concern – is not new. The model has been utilized by like-minded leaders, irrespective of partisan affiliation, for leadership transitions in institutions of journalism, science, medicine, education, and many others.
Over the last year and a half, the Trump Administration rejected this approach by installing new leadership at the Department of Defense, Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal institutions through the “chainsaw” model of transition championed by Elon Musk.
What is jeopardized by this model of transition is the integrity and continued professionalism of the institutions and agencies. They serve not only in their respective areas of responsibility and expertise, but also as “checks and balances” on private and competing government interests.
In that stead, they also provide independent perspectives and non-partisan sources of information to assist the public and other government officials to arrive at informed judgments.
Which method of transition should now be followed, or course corrected to going forward, is the issue confronting the new CBS executives.
––––––––––––––––––––
Subscribe to the Legal News!
https://legalnews.com/Home/Subscription
Full access to public notices, articles, columns, archives, statistics, calendar and more
Day Pass Only $4.95!
One-County $80/year
Three-County & Full Pass also available
