Welcome to our series where we interview people in a wide range of roles across different think tanks and ask them the how, why and what their job entails. This interview is with Adam Lang from Carnegie UK.
What is your formal job title?
Director of Policy, Insight and Advocacy
How did you get into think tanks?
I have always been interested in policy and politics. I spent some time working for a political party early in my career and pretty quickly realised it wasn’t for me – it was always the policy and systems change side of things that interested me far more than the party-political point scoring. I then spent 15 or so years working across the private, public and third sector in a variety of comms, policy and advocacy roles before settling into the think tank sector.
Was this always what you wanted to do?
No. I wanted to be a fencer – as in a swashbuckling sword fighting type. But I wasn’t all that good at it and the pensions are pretty poor. Then I wanted to be a musician, but the same things applied. I studied history at university and while I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with that degree I greatly enjoyed it and I did realise over time that I mostly just wanted to be able to contribute something useful to society.
This is definitely not what I left school wanting to do – I probably didn’t even know about think tanks back then. But I am very glad I have found this career. I genuinely love it.
How does a typical day start for you? And at what time?
Well, according to LinkedIn, by 5am I should really have already cashed out my passive income from my side-hustle and been to the gym four times. And am I supposed to be washing my face with bottled water these days? It’s hard to keep up.
In reality, I have three (not so young anymore) children. So, a typical day starts in earnest at about 7am in a slightly chaotic whirlwind of lost school ties, misplaced socks, breakfast-making and a battle of wills with a pre-teen that doesn’t like to get out of bed.
Workwise, once everyone has made it out the door to school, I start by scanning the news and various monitoring services. I check in on team messages across the various platforms we use and triage the priority things for response. I update my daily To Do List (big fan of a Trello board) and look at it admiringly, knowing that – despite my best intentions – most things on it will likely still be there tomorrow.
What do you enjoy most about working at Carnegie UK?
This is where it all might get a bit cringey. But honestly, it’s the cause. I’ve worked in a variety of roles across a variety of sectors and industries. The opportunity to work for a social purpose that is bigger than me and is about more than short-term gains, quick wins or making profit for someone else genuinely appeals to me. I am very grateful to work with the colleagues I have on the issues we get to engage with. In nearly three years at Carnegie UK now, I have never yet had the Sunday night blues. Which I take as a pretty good sign.
What does a typical day look like for you?
It really is the case that in a small team with a big remit across five distinct jurisdictions to work in, no two days are ever all that typical or similar. For me most days contain a mix of meetings (internal and external), strategic planning/thinking, review or editing of papers and forward planning. As Policy Director it is my job to ensure that all the programmes of work we are engaged in across all parts of the UK and Ireland are on track and remain focused on impact over outputs. This means that increasingly a lot of our work involves building in structured learning and reflective practice to ensure we are constantly trying to improve how we work and what we do.
What excites you most about your work?
Everything in the answer above. Bit of a cop-out, but it’s true. We exist to help improve the wellbeing of people across the UK and Ireland. That is a very cool thing to get to contribute to, especially when you get to work with talented, curious and passionate people.
What is the most challenging thing about your job?
Knowing if what we are doing is really making a meaningful difference. This is the big challenge for lots of trusts and foundations.
We live and work in a complex and interconnected world where making change happen is hard and can take time.
At Carnegie UK our impact framework was developed in response to these challenges and designed around the ideas of moving from attribution to contribution and from proving to improving. This is because we recognise that we are just one part of a much larger ecosystem for change. We want to actively embrace the difficult decisions and trade-offs required to inform our work and we accept that this means some of what we chose to do may not work as intended. We need to welcome this and ensure we are always learning from our work to inform future activity and how we understand our impact.
As an independent charitable trust, we have a pretty wide scope for work that we could potentially get involved in. We could do almost anything (if it is in pursuit of charitable purpose), but we can’t do everything. We are only 14 people, so we need to think carefully about what work we choose to take forward. What will have the most impact over the long-term? We don’t work to traditional profit or performance KPIs and this makes us a bit unusual in the think-tank world. We have found that you are either ok with this kind of long-term and system focused remit or you are not. Fortunately, I enjoy it, but it is definitely a challenge
Can you think of one thing in particular you have learnt since starting this job?
That not many people or institutions really have the time or ability to step back and look at the system of UK policymaking in the round or in its entirety (devolution, departmental siloes, warts and all). We should never take for granted how privileged we are to be able to do this and how much our community of stakeholders and partners value this perspective and the convening across jurisdictions that we can facilitate.
Which 3 skills do you think are essential for success in your role?
Strategic thinking. Perspective. And a passion for the cause.
What tools or technologies do you use most in your job?
From a tech point of view, it’s probably just Trello, Slack and Outlook. Not the most exciting, but they are effective when well-integrated. We are increasingly incorporating the deliberate and responsible use of AI tools into many aspects of our work and finding this to be pretty useful too.
How do you balance work and personal life?
This is a big question, so forgive the long answer.
The essential thing here is the word balance. My wife and I had three kids in under two years (twins) and so for a while it was hard to find any kind of sustainable balance. So, you have to try and make the choices (often quite difficult ones) that are right for you to help get that balance. And it constantly shifts.
I’m now very fortunate that at Carnegie UK we take seriously our commitments both to good work and to being a good employer. We have a big focus on staff wellbeing and flexibility. I take advantage of flexi-time and things like carer’s leave to help with finding and maintaining balance.
A former boss once spoke about the importance in leadership of recognising that everyone’s balance is different. There is no right or wrong balance, it’s what works for the individual. She spoke about how, for her, it was about accepting that she liked thinking about work all the time, because that’s what she enjoyed and cared about. It wasn’t for everyone, and that’s ok. It was easier for her to accept this about herself rather than try and force herself to shut-off and performatively switch between work and home mode. This acceptance helped her to find more personal balance in how she approached things day to day.
That all probably goes against the prevailing wisdom of boundaries and all that, but for me it resonated. I like what I do. It’s really thought provoking and I like thinking about it. So, if find myself thinking about work in the evening or at weekends I don’t get annoyed at myself. I try and make use of it. I’ve had some good ideas at odd times of day. This personal mindset combined with our formal flexible work policies means that I think I have found a good balance (at least for now) of being present, engaged and happy in both my personal and professional lives.
It works for me, but may not be for everyone.
How much of your day is spent in meetings or working with people vs individual work?
It varies day to day but in general – I suspect like many organisations – an ongoing challenge is getting more time for the doing of stuff and less time spent in meetings generating lists of stuff to do. This is particularly important in a small team. One of my personal aims this year is to try and rationalise down the number of internal policy team meetings that aren’t fully necessary.
What would be your one piece of advice to someone considering a similar career?
Do it. Don’t worry about being a musician or an Olympic fencer. Come work for a policy think tank. It’s honestly really good fun and rewarding. Less chance of hamstring injury too.
