Indicators and Costs of PAS Success
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What makes for a successful PAS? Certain personal and professional qualities recurred in the literature and in interviews with PASs and others. The Council on Excellence's
Prune Book
suggests that successful appointees possess at least a majority of the following qualities:
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 | | 1. An informed and flexible intellect. Respect for the facts, including a readiness to discard inaccurate preconceptions and pet theories. 2. The ability to absorb large amounts of information quickly, discern its essentials, and identify workable solutions among conflicting views and currents. 3. Functioning political instincts and a robust skepticism. The courage of one's own convictions, but the wisdom to know when compromise is the better, or only, road. 4. Skill in getting acceptable and timely results from colleagues and staff. 5. Personal integrity. 6. Friendships or working contacts in upper echelons of the professions, business, government, or journalism. 7. Experience in public speaking and handling the press. 8. Influence in the selection of the deputy. 9. An ability to deliver testimony before Congress' committees and deal easily with its staff members. (Trattner 1988, 15-16)
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Hess adds other personal qualities for PAS executives: persuasiveness, personal stability, broad intelligence, flexibility, a sense of duty, a thick skin, patience and impatience (and the knowledge of when each is required) (Hess 1988, 206-07).
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Light suggests eight sets of skills that appointees need. They are:
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| | negotiating skills, analytical skills, public speaking and other communication skills, congressional relations skills, substantive knowledge of relevant policies, familiarity with Washington politics, management skills, and interpersonal skills.
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| | [He found that] in every case, appointees who consider themselves very adequately prepared find themselves better able to work with careerists and find careerists very helpful. Yet only slightly over half of the appointees considered themselves very adequately prepared in any of the eight areas. The highest perceived preparation was in the area of interpersonal skills, where 55% of the appointees rated themselves very adequately prepared; the lowest was familiarity with Washington politics, where 12% rated themselves very adequately prepared.
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| | Only half of the appointees studied by NAPA rated themselves very
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