Professional and Non Partisan Thoughts on Renewing the Public Service

The real problem of facelessness

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:00:00 +0000

by Nick Charney

I wrote a few weeks ago about the facelessness of bureaucrats (See: How Can Bureaucrats Be Interesting When the World Demands that they be Boring), the ensuing conversation focused a lot on the question of whether or not bureaucrats can remain faceless given the pressures of the new media environment. What I've come to realize since then is that its the wrong question to be asking.

Bureaucratic cultures are indeed defined by facelessness

But not the facelessness between individual public servants and the public they serve but rather among and between individual public servants themselves. By this I mean that facelessness isn't some abstract problem out there where we interface with the public, but rather a very real problem in here where we interact with one another.

I may be wrong, but I can't help but wonder if we are slowly coming to the conclusion that our self-isolating, postmodern and deconstructivist organizational cultures are no longer tenable. That it is no longer sufficient to accept as given the close reading and even closer enforcement of rules without reference to the cultural, ideological, and moral opinions of those who first brought those rules to bear. In the words of Derrida, "Il n'y a pas de hors-texte" (there is no such thing as outside-of-the-text) is no longer a cultural pillar we can build around.

In other words, are we realizing that we need to move away from facelessness and rehumanize the civil service? Is this the mountain that may or may not be ready to move? (See: Moving Public Service Mountains, Part 1)

I can't say for sure, but I get the sense that it may be time to shift rewards away from the cold comforts of facelessness and the predictability that rules, frameworks and protocols afford. Make no mistake, these things are still needed, but they ought to be used to build platforms for civil servants and public services to stand on proudly, not cast shadows for them to hide in.

The most obvious and important realities are often are the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.

Above is an excerpt from a new take on a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace that went viral last week.

Watch it (embedded below)

Its simple, effective and drives home the discussion I think we ought to be having about problem of facelessness and the deference to "the default setting" of our shared office cultures. It also does it in a far more convincing manner than I ever could.

What We Don't Know

noreply@blogger.com (Kent Aitken) — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:59:00 +0000

by Kent Aitken

I was supposed to continue a previous thread about what is happening, right now, in Canadian Public Service [See: Moving Public Service Mountains, Part I]. Wasn't on my mind tonight. I'll get back to it.

Have you ever read Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson?

It's an amazing book, both for content and impact. It was fundamental to environmental movements, and gets much credit for the ban on DDT in the 1970s.

Over the past few weeks, many people in my circles have touched on the question of whether knowledge workers are losing an appreciation for genuine, deep understanding. The alternative, it seems, is a reliance on statistics, data sets, frameworks, and processes*. Most poignantly, a commenter on a previous post referred to the onset of “methodolatry.” [See: Rearranging the Briefing Room Chairs on the Bonaventure.]

I started thinking of case studies of the need for such understanding from the world of organizations, particularly in the context of change initiatives, but kept returning to Silent Spring.

Silent Spring

The management framework and data analyses were clear: insects were causing massive problems to plant life in the United States. Chemical pesticides, including DDT, could be applied in concentrations low enough to kill the insects, but not the plants they were feeding on. What Silent Spring brought to the public attention was that, unfortunately, there was an element missing from the understanding. What ended up happening was that other animals that ate the insects in massive quantities, particularly birds, eventually hit lethal concentrations of the chemicals and started dying, too. This disrupted the natural check on the insect population and threw the ecosystem out of whack.

Poor results resulting from an inaccurate or incomplete understanding of the environment. This happens in the world of organizations, too: businesses, governments, and civil groups. I'd like to explore some cautionary tales, and some counterpoint success stories.

Modern Medicine in the Developing World**

Timothy Prestero's design team developed a simple treatment for infant jaundice, which was bathing them in blue light. They built a great device to do so, and started trying to implement it. What they didn't realize is that, if there is room in a device for more than one infant, a terribly overwhelmed hospital in a developing country is going to crowd three infants in and dampen the intended effect. After righting this misconception, and a litany of others, they came out with a top-notch solution. By talking to distributors, manufacturers, hospital administrators, mothers, doctors, and watching the device used in action. A lot.

The tech specs said the original version was an incredible device. But they didn't account for what people actually do. It's not “the device in action.” It's “the device used in action.”

Really, the necessity of dealing with people, notoriously complex entities they are, throws a gigantic wrench in the best laid plans. Deep understanding is irreplaceable.

Transforming the NYPD

William Bratton took over the Police Commissioner role in NYC in 1994, when the force was in a sorry state. The turnaround he managed is amazing, captured in one of Harvard Business Review's top ten must-reads, Tipping Point Leadership.

“Yet in less than two years, and without an increase in his budget, Bill Bratton turned New York into the safest large city in the nation. Between 1994 and 1996, felony crime fell 39%; murders, 50%; and theft, 35%. Gallup polls reported that public confidence in the NYPD jumped from 37% to 73%, even as internal surveys showed job satisfaction in the police department reaching an all-time high.”

The first change described in the HBR article is that he started requiring NYPD officers to ride the subway, even though the statistics showed they were the venue for relatively little crime. But the subways felt unsafe, and it sensitized officers to what life was like for those they served.

There are three massive points to consider here.

The statistics, without additional strategic thought, would not have led to this action.
The goal was to build a genuine understanding.
Specifically, the goal wasn't to build a genuine understanding for the Police Commissioner himself. It was to help front-line officers build that for themselves.

Which leads to my next case study.

Canada's Homeless Partnership Strategy (HPS)

The Homelessness Partnering Strategy is an interesting example of a community-based approach to “a wicked problem***.” Former Clerk of the Privy Council Jocelyn Bourgon describes it as showing:

“...how states can address complex issues by applying power through others (via funding) and with others (through processes of collective governance)... the federal government's efforts involved very little direct action but a great deal of capacity building for local action.”

The Senate currently holds HPS up as a success story and a model on which to build.

Some problems are simply too complex for one-size-fits-all solutions, and having stakeholders involved in the decision-making builds legitimacy for decisions. It creates adaptability in the system for things that are working or not working. A doctor on Prestero's design team (one from the hospitals that would use the device) would have exposed the shortcomings. If a loudmouth Mockingbird**** was on the U.S. Science Advisory Committee when DDT was being applied around the country, the unintended effects would have been known far quicker.

One official for the HPS got this, saying that there was “more known outside of Ottawa than inside.”

The lesson from Bratton and the HPS (organizations far larger than Prestero's design team) is that the top of the hierarchy doesn't need to try to understand everything. But they do need to make sure that, collectively, the organization understands as much as possible. And they should constantly wonder about what, and how much, it doesn't.

The Critical Path to Corporate Renewal

The 1990 book The Critical Path to Corporate Renewal attempted the academic approach***** to understanding how positive change happens. Studying six large organizations that had pivoted dramatically, with various levels of success, the authors came up with six success factors:

Mobilize commitment to change through joint diagnosis of business problems
Develop a shared vision of how to organize and manage for competitiveness
Foster consensus for the new vision, competence to enact it, and cohesion to move it along
Spread revitalization to all departments without pushing it from the top
Institutionalize revitalization through formal policies, systems, and structures
Monitor and adjust strategies in response to problems in the revitalization process

When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. So yes, I'm biased because this has been on my mind this week, but with the exception of #5, this list reads like an emphasis on deep understanding, with a significant degree of engagement with the front line, and with stakeholders.

Think of change initiatives you've witnessed, or experienced. What worked? What didn't? What elements of this list were present?

How were communications pieces, data sets, frameworks, and tools being used (by, as we've established, notoriously complex people who do not always use tools as intended), where the rubber met the road?

How did the strategists and champions know, and get feedback about, that front line use?

What we don't know, and don't understand, would fill a boat with no hull.

How do we mitigate that?

* Don't get me wrong. I love data. Heck, I have a borderline uncomfortable relationship with it. But I also like context.

** Please continue to not get me wrong. The term "developing world" is debatable, and at best, an oversimplification.

*** Interestingly, the data wasn't even available to show how big of a problem this was. Bourgon's book describes homelessness as a complex function of "poverty, housing, health, mental health and the security of communities."

**** Link is to poet Rives summing TED 2006, and contains, perhaps, my favourite line from any TED talk. It's about recording everyone's conversations with a Mockingbird, and then getting a key to the city: "And that is all I need. Because if I get that, I can unlock the air. I'll listen for what's missing. And I'll put it there." The role of the artist, redux.

***** Yes, in the context of this post I should be preaching caution towards data. But it's always worth thinking about.

Open Government: Be Bold, Innovate and Engage [Video]

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 10 May 2013 11:08:00 +0000

by Nick Charney

As a part of the Federal Youth Network Armchair series, the Honourable Tony Clement delivered a presentation at the Canada School of Public Service entitled Open Government: Be Bold, Innovate and Engage; I thought it was worth sharing:

Cheers

Moving Public Service Mountains, Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Kent Aitken) — Wed, 08 May 2013 08:59:00 +0000

by Kent Aitken

This post will be part one of at least two. Next week I'll explain why I believe this is so incredibly important.

At The Museum of Nature in Ottawa, visitors can simulate an earthquake in the Vale Earth Gallery. You turn a crank to pull a spring-loaded hunk of simulated mountain over a surface, and at some point the force overcomes the friction and it slams back into place. The intended lesson is that it's impossible to predict exactly when the tipping point will be reached; each experiment plays out differently.

On To The Dogs or Whoever I referred to a possible “tectonic” shift approaching for public service. I can see the possibility of a very different model for how the bureaucracy functions, develops policy, interacts with Canadians, and creates a competitive advantage for Canada. And in the last few weeks, I've discovered that others have the same hunch. People arrived at this prediction from two very different roads, some on account of mounting evidence, and some from feeling the increasing weight of necessity.

But like the museum counterpart, it's hard to tell if that tectonic shift is actually about to happen. If this mountain worth of inertia is about to move. Or if it needs a shove.

Holmes! A CLUE

Some of the evidence I would point to:

I've noticed some outspokenness from former Clerks of the Privy Council lately. Mel Cappe has called for Canada to respect its faceless bureaucrats. Alex Himelfarb, to celebrate public service [see: Can Bureaucrats Be Interesting When The World Demands That They Be Boring?]. Another, Jocelyn Bourgon, launched the New Synthesis Project to work with partner countries to explore the future for bureaucracies. Her 2011 release, A New Synthesis of Public Administration, paints a fascinating portrait of the world in store for us, and it looks quite unlike today [see: Is There a Gap Between What We Know and What We Do?].

Throughout 2013, a Deputy Minister Committee on Social Media and Policy Development will be soliciting input on how public servants carry out a key function in today's world.

It was recently announced that Deputy Minister Robert Fonberg would join the Privy Council Office with a specific mandate to examine the broader policy development model.

The Seventh Report of the Prime Minister's Advisory Committee on the Public Service has “modernizing the employment model” as its theme, going so far as to say that the current model is “outmoded in every respect.” The focus, they say, is “managing for high performance at all levels.” I'll admit that my optimism about progress here is cautious, but it is optimism all the same.

Treasury Board President Tony Clement has echoed the above report's priorities; performance management is on his radar as well. He's also encouraging public servants to push against the status quo, and to innovate.

Lastly. Last week, the Clerk's Twentieth Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada was released. It left us with a teaser of announcements to come, presumably during National Public Service Week in June:

“I believe that we need a clear and shared vision of what Canada’s Public Service should become in the decades ahead,” the Clerk wrote, adding that Deputy Ministers have been tasked with engaging “all public servants in this important dialogue about our shared future.”

Some may greet this litany of anecdotes with skepticism. One could point to Public Service Renewal, the push for a strengthened public service that launched in 2006 or 2007, and ask how far we've come. Is today any different?

Necessity is the Mother of Innovation

On the necessity side, I feel that we have a better grasp now of the mounting need for committed renewal:

Deloitte's William Eggers highlights, in his Public Sector, Disrupted report, that government is the one sector of economy where innovation has not pushed down costs.

Samara's research suggests that the number of Canadians satisfied in the way Canadian democracy works dropped from 75% to 55%, in only 10 years.

Research from Nanos also puts Canadian's level of trust in public servants at record lows. Only 14% surveyed responded that they had a distinctly positive view of the role of Public Servants in developing public policy.

The rate of mental health related absences in the public service is 300% what it is in private sector*.

All is not necessarily well. I would go so far as to suggest that the status quo is a risky position. So what's next?

Mountains to Move

So here stand we. Staring at a mountain that may, or may not, be ready to move.

We know that it needs to, and we have some forces pushing. It could be another Public Service Renewal, in which we never quite leaned in enough to overcome our inertia. But we have that lesson learned to build on, and the rules have changed. We have black swans proving the possible: there is a Deputy Minister conversing frankly and openly with public servants of all levels and backgrounds about policy development on GCConnex. Another deputy head has resoundingly proven the worth of employee engagement through honest, personal social media interaction. Pictures of cats and all. And the silo-defying, self-organizing GC community is stronger than ever, and has a science fair of success stories to showcase.

Often, we don't know what we don't know [see: The Importance of Being Earnest (and Open)]. And that (unnecessarily) incomplete picture of the world leads to pitfalls and obstacles; in this case, additional friction holding this mountain back. But today, that cold fact is increasingly recognized, and input is being widely solicited. I think we have a unique opportunity now to create discussion.

I don't want to look back, years from now, and wonder if that mountain was ready to go. If all it needed was one more good shove.

*I'd like to unpack that last one for a moment. When I first heard that figure, I found myself wondering how much was due to a safe and generous benefits system, and how much was due to mental health issues. Not that either exists in a vacuum. If a portion is due to the benefits system, it makes me wonder how many of our private sector peers are suffering through untreated mental illness because they are worried about losing jobs, or because they don't have needed benefits. And I'm certain that the system, alone, doesn't explain the discrepancy between public and private rates. Public servants are also more likely to binge drink, which is indicative of stress and mental health issues (although income and education levels impact here as well). There's a direct, and significant, correlation between engagement levels and absenteeism. And there are links between one's perception of control over their jobs and their health. I believe that mental health issues for public servants are a genuine issue and merit significant concern.

The Public Promise of Big Data

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 03 May 2013 09:00:00 +0000

by Nick Charney

Right now the web is awash with articles about Big Data; it seems like everyone is getting caught up in the rush.

I myself even declared that Big Data will become one of the most important policy inputs over the next 10 years (See: Big Data, Social Media, and the Long Tail of Public Policy).

From what I've read thus far, Big data seems to be most most effective in systems that are stable over time and abrupt shifts are often to blame when big data goes astray.

For government that means that there could be broad ranging implications for not only large scale changes (e.g. the cancellation of the long form census) but also smaller changes in methodology (or even phraseology) that breaks up data that could otherwise be used in longitudinal studies (e.g. changes to the questions asked in Public Service Employee Survey between 2005 and 2008).

As governments inevitably learn more about the importance of Big Data they may find that decisions made in the past - even those made by past governments or long retired bureaucrats - that were originally thought to be relatively straight forward may actually have had a number of unanticipated consequences.

Therefore in the interim, current governments (and their bureaucrats) may want to consider to stay the course with current data collection efforts, ensure any new data mining (surveying) is backwards compatible and avoid locking data into proprietary systems that are not likely to age well.

But big data is not, as they say about every new thing that is expected to eventually make it big, a panacea

Or, as a recent article at the New Yorker's blog put it:

Some problems do genuinely lend themselves to Big Data solutions. The industry has made a huge difference in speech recognition, for example, and is also essential in many of the things that Google and Amazon do; the Higgs Boson wouldn't have been discovered without it. Big Data can be especially helpful in systems that are consistent over time, with straightforward and well-characterized properties, little unpredictable variation, and relatively little underlying complexity.

But not every problem fits those criteria; unpredictability, complexity, and abrupt shifts over time can lead even the largest data astray. Big Data is a powerful tool for inferring correlations, not a magic wand for inferring causality.

In other words, Big Data can help policy makers better formulate their options, not make their decisions for them. I think it is worth quoting the New Yorker further:

As one [skeptic put it], Big Data is a great gig for charlatans, because they never have to admit to being wrong. “If their system fails to provide predictive insight, it’s not their models, it’s an issue with your data.” You didn't have enough data, there was too much noise, you measured the wrong things. The list of excuses can be long.

The quotation shows what is likely the introduction of 'data quality' as a likely scapegoat for poor or unpopular decisions and drives home the importance of data literacy for not only bureaucrats and politicians but also for citizens.

That said, what the quotation fails to address (likely by design, as it wasn't written specifically for a public policy audience) is the fact that the introduction of more complex data may actually increase decision gridlock by creating paralysis by big data analysis.

For example, what happens in the inevitable case where big data fails to paint a clear path forward but citizens continue to press for action?

Make no mistake, this is not a hypothetical problem, but rather likely one of the first problems to follow on the heels Big Data becoming a substantial policy input.

To date, (and correct me if I'm wrong) much of the public sector data discussion, and by extension the appification of government services built thereon, has focused mainly on alternative or augmented service delivery models, not public policy development. In a previous post I addressed how data abundance could impact government policy (again, see: Big Data, Social Media, and the Long Tail of Public Policy but given what has been laid out above and the length of the aforementioned article, it bears both repeating and concluding with:

As a starting point, bureaucrats can anticipate a renaissance of the language of data driven decision making within the larger nomenclature of evidence based policy making. Make no mistake, these terms are still very much in vogue in bureaucratic culture but likely require a fresh definition given that the nature of what underlies them – namely the availability of detailed data, and as a consequence analysis – will improve significantly over the foreseeable future. As a conceptual framework, it would look something like this (click to enlarge):

Note that the framework recognizes that data driven decision making must be understood within a larger context. In this type of environment, policy makers will need to consider the types of data being collected, the analysis being performed and decisions being made across all levels of government: municipal, provincial, and federal. Under this type of model, there is a significant probability that analysis will expose untenable points of in-congruence between the highly contextual and specific insights pulled from the intersecting data points and governments’ tendency to pursue universal, one-size-fits-all, policy solutions. In other words, providing policy makers with a deeper understanding of the complexity of a particular public policy challenge is likely to yield equally complex public policy solutions.

That is, after all what we - politicians, civil servants and citizens - are after, isn't it?

The Importance Of Being Earnest (And Open)

noreply@blogger.com (Kent Aitken) — Wed, 01 May 2013 09:00:00 +0000

by Kent Aitken

For many readers, my last post on collaboration [see: Collaboration: Overhyped and Underappreciated] may have seemed about five years late. But the evolving understanding of collaboration is still huge for government leaders and industry executives.

And so, even in recognizing that I'm preaching to the choir, I have a little more exploring to do. I wrote this:

I think the most amazing thing about effective collaborative platforms is often not the mechanism for collaboration, but rather the mechanism for finding others who are interested in the same thing. It's easier to get past our natural incredulity: “I can't imagine how I can contribute to X,” or, “I can't imagine who'd be interested in Y.”

I want to expand on the value of finding others with similar interests - and part of it is leaving rough edges of your life, for others to latch on to.

Small Talk

Here's the simplest example. You get asked this question near daily: “What have you been up to?” And, broadly speaking, there are two possible answers: “Not much,” or “Something.”

“Not much.” It's almost certainly untrue, but it's easy and doesn't impose any social duty to investigate on your listener. It's also boring and unlikely to lead to more interesting conversation.

On the other hand, “I've been really busy volunteering with a conference” or “I spent the weekend rock climbing” leave rough edges for others to latch onto, to identify commonalities, and to create conversations around. It's the cocktail party game: we engage in small talk in an effort to hit something really worth talking about. It's not much fun spending a few hours learning what every attendee thinks of the last few days of weather.

Professional Rough Edges

This principle easily expands into professional lives. You can blog, attend conferences, contribute to employee networks, engage on Twitter, discuss ideas at speaker events, or get involved with working groups. Anything you do whereby your ideas become known – whether right or wrong – gives potential collaborators better information on whom to productively involve in future problem solving. These rough edges give people a reasonable context to offer advice, insight, research, or perspective. It's the equivalent of the cocktail party's “Oh really! Did you hear that rock climbing at ______ is half price on Tuesdays now?”

You don't know what you don't know. So, you want to give other people – other people being a demographic that knows a metric boatload more than you – opportunities to help you fill those gaps. But, to open that door, make it apparent what it is that you're interested in and working on. Be open.

Open Living

Being open about ourselves leads to connections and results.

I could write the value proposition, if not a reasonable facsimile of a résumé, for dozens of colleagues based solely on their contributions to community platforms (we can even exclude LinkedIn profiles). Anyone can show you a paper degree; now we publicly embody* our expertise and interests, over time. The difference is that I know, beyond a doubt, that my colleagues didn't earn their degrees with 51% averages – they are experts who care deeply about their fields.

From an organizational perspective, it matters that I can do this. It facilitates productive teamwork and advice-seeking. From a personal perspective, this is important because hiring managers can do this. 2013 is the year of social HR.

Technology doesn't change the foundational principles behind the importance of being open – networking and reputation-building have always been crucial. But it does change the application. In a hierarchy, credit and expertise recognition are muddied by the game of telephone that information gets run through from officers to executives. Open platforms are disruptive here, making it increasingly clear who the contributors are.

Open Government

I'm barely even going to touch open government, because there are so many people with a better understanding. But increasingly, it's hard to ignore the case for open government and stakeholder engagement. My short version, in the context of this piece: the more that government is open about what it's thinking, planning, or researching, the easier it is for appropriate stakeholders to latch on and help said government improve its strategy, build legitimacy for ideas, and avoid potential pitfalls. As Un Tacons commented on my last post, the greatest potential for collaboration is providing clarity on complexity. Or, as Einstein put it:

“If I had 20 days to solve a problem, I would take 19 days to define it."

Multiple eyes are particularly useful for figuring out exactly how wicked the problem you're facing really is.

In Sum

High school was a long time ago, and we can stop trying to be cool and detached. Own up to what you care about, and recognize the value of erring on the side of oversharing. In a hyperconnected world, the Venn diagram of whose business is what is messy and mobile. Accept, and appreciate, those ideas offered in good faith.

Economically, it's building positive-sum games out of even-sum games. It's analogous to $20,000 of GDP representing a car purchase. If privately owned, it creates $20,000 worth of value, for one person. If shared through a service like Vrtucar, the increase in GDP doesn't reflect the real-world value that many people get out of that one car. Just by being open about their needs and interests: “I need a car for four hours on Sunday.” That's it.

More importantly – and this applies to my post on collaboration, as well – if we can derive value from openness and collaboration (and we can, massively), and don't, it's an economic opportunity cost. We may as well be burning money.

So be open. Leave some rough edges.

*I debated different words here: prove, or demonstrate. But I want to make the point that it's not, necessarily, a conscious effort. Some people use open platforms to market themselves; others, more convincingly, contribute to communities and, in doing so, cannot help but prove their expertise.

Impossible Conversations: A Review of The Unfinished Canadian

noreply@blogger.com (Tariq Piracha) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

by Tariq Piracha

Andrew Cohen's The Unfinished Canadian

The Unfinished Canadian published by Andrew Cohen in 2007. The book examines the many faces, or personalities of Canada, looking at our identity, citizenship, multiculturalism, and our anti-Americanism, to name a few. He dispels some myths, questions some "facts", and proposes some potential ways to evolve a Canadian narrative.

Now arguably cliché, Canadians often define themselves by what they are not, instead of what they are. Despite our tendency to define ourselves "in the negative", Cohen has plenty of nothing-to-do-with-the-United_States adjectives to describe our many personalities: The Hybrid Canadian (also sometimes referred to as a hyphenated Canadian), The Unconscious Canadian (who has little awareness of the past), and The Casual Canadian are just some of the terms (also the names of his chapters) that he addresses.

While most of Cohen’s content is a reflection upon these Canadian tendencies, some of his content is not just about civicness or collective identity — it is also about governance; it carries potential implications for public administration. Here are a few of our impressions that were captured from the conversation:

The Tall Poppy Syndrome

The most telling touchstone from the book for me was Cohen’s treatment of the tall poppy syndrome; a syndrome that has successfully worked its way into many aspects of bureaucratic culture. For the uninitiated, the tall poppy syndrome is essentially the tendency to cut down anything that stands out above the rest. Organizationally, the prevalence of a “tall poppy” culture proves challenging as it undermines any attempt at performance management.; but this tension — between a culture that cuts you down and a management regime that stands you up — seems utterly impossible to reconcile, especially when its not something we bureaucrats are supposed to talk about.

How’s that for an elephant in the room? Lead, but don’t stand out. Renew the public service, but don’t rock the boat. This is a particularly salient point as, despite the risk involved, we are seeing are more of these impossible conversations taking place more publicly.

Canadian Citizenship - a global model or a cautionary tale?

Andrew Cohen warns, early on in this book, that it is very subjective. It's a reasonable caveat. I felt that it read more as a curious museum of Canadian anecdotes, and it is largely up to the reader to assess each anecdotes’ impact on an overarching narrative about "Canadianness." I actually enjoyed it, precisely as a curious museum, though I don't know if I was left with stronger feelings in any direction about any particular take on our national identity. The strongest chapter, in my view, was The Casual Canadian. Here, Cohen explored Canadian perceptions on citizenship, noting our relaxed standards for acceptance, which led me to wonder if Canada is a sign of the future, in which national identity loses importance in a global world.

Citizenship, and the chapter The Casual Canadian, took up a substantial amount of our discussion. There is a long history of political debate about what it means to be citizen, or for a nation to be sovereign. With the almost free-flowing movement of people, the nature of citizenship is undoubtedly being challenged. Where it goes from here, and how citizenship is managed, in whatever form it takes, will prove to be an interesting exercise and compelling model to examine.

Canada: A People’s (unknown) History

Cohen’s The Unfinished Canadian explores various aspects of the age-old question “who are we?”, using history, geography, politics, language, and culture as lenses. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he comes up with few answers to that question. On education, he espouses that we don’t learn enough of our own history. On multiculturalism, he notes that it’s a recent phenomenon. On citizenship, he notes we confer it too freely and without attaching enough responsibility. All fair points, all well-argued. As a result of his book I’ll be re-watching Canada: A People’s History, because the book made me realize that in my entire life as a Canadian, I really haven’t learned that much about this country, and there is so much more to know.

Cohen ties history and our citizenship (or perhaps civicness?) together. He argues that Canadians have a duty to appreciate, at least, the major Canadian milestones. We may even find that new Canadians know more about this country than Canadian-born ones. It is a sentiment to which many (myself included) are sympathetic, but it raises some interesting questions about the composition of Canada, and the need or desire to focus on the future vs. the past. Does the Casual Canadian need to know our past in order to contribute to our future?

The Ignorance and the Apathy

Cohen quotes Thomas Homer-Dixon in his book and I feel it’s worth repeating here: “Our greatest failing is our unwillingness to face the reality of our second-rate performance in so many areas, and to do something about it.” This quote touches on two major themes that struck me about The Unfinished Canadian. First is our ignorance about our history, and second, our apathy. I find it interesting to note the mixing of the two: we have so few icons and symbols that inspire, commemorate and link us to our past. Yes, hockey is often touted as the essence of what it means to be Canadian, but are we to leave it at that? I am not arguing that hockey should not be a part of the Canadian identity, but I am also hopeful that we do not feel as though hockey is a sufficiently meaningful characteristic of what it means to be Canadian. But, as Cohen points out, what choice do we have when history is largely absent from the Canadian consciousness? History, Cohen argues, is too often written by experts for experts.

However, this isn’t just about what it means to be Canadian. In the context of these discussions, what does it mean to be a public servant? Can we be anything more than a second rate public service if we have little to no appreciation of the history of the people, regions and nation we serve?

There are significantly more topics covered in The Unfinished Canadian making this post an unfinished review at best. However, I can assure you that the conversation had much more depth, richness and clarity than can be demonstrated here. Thoughts? We invite you to share yours below.

Next month, we’ll be discussing Donald Savoie’s Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher? Interested in taking part? Send us an email, leave a comment, send us a tweet. You know the drill.

Make no mistake these are impossible conversations

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

by Nick Charney

On the heels of a lengthy discussion about the nature of faceless bureaucrats (See: Can Bureaucrats be Interesting When the World Demands That They be Boring) and borrowing a page from the highly successful Toronto based Academy of the Impossible, the expanding team here at cpsrenewal.ca wants to host a series of impossible conversations.

Conversations that bureaucrats just aren’t supposed to have, conversations that cut to the core of what it means to be a public servant and what it could mean in the future.

While we are still mapping out the ideal program for the next few months, we can say for certain that one of the ongoing core elements of the impossible conversation series will be a monthly review of books that address issues in the field of public administration.

Real, live, and in person

Does a semi-facilitated difficult conversation around books that are obviously of interest to public servants but obviously shouldn't be talked about them beyond a dull whisper interest you?

We thought so.

The first review will drop Monday, the book in question is Andrew Cohen’s The Unfinished Canadian; and while that conversation has already happened, we are in the midst of planning our next conversation around Donald Savoie's Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher.

If you would like to be a part of that conversation, please let us know.

I want to thank Jesse Hirsh of the Academy of the Impossible for inspiring the idea, and Tariq Piracha for humbly agreeing to help us with the impossible task of pulling together a synopsis of these conversations to share with you here at cpsrenewal.ca.

Collaboration: Overhyped and Underappreciated

noreply@blogger.com (Kent Aitken) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

by Kent Aitken

I fought the temptation to dig into the topic of faceless bureaucrats (see: Can Bureaucrats Be Interesting When The World Demands That They Be Boring? and The Problem Of The Faceless Bureaucrat), but I don't think CPSRenewal.ca needs to head straight for the singularity quite yet. Instead, I tried to answer a question I've been asking myself lately: Why does the idea of collaboration hold so much sway for me?

Overhyped Old News

I look forward to the day when we once again use the word collaboration to simply mean that we're working with others on something. Stripped of baggage and connotations of tech trends, paradigm shifts, and buzzwordiness. Collaboration is overhyped, and nothing new. But don't get me wrong. It is also an increasingly crucial driver of value creation.

Overhyped is an oversimplification; more so, collaboration is asymmetrically hyped. By that, I mean that there are far too many instances of collaboration being hyped without commitment. Overappreciated, on the other hand? It is not. By a long shot. We can use more hype, but only when there's meaning waiting behind it.

And it is nothing new. I need not dwell on this, but collaboration has been an effective approach to problem-solving since before our ancestors were recognizably human. More recently (relatively speaking), the capture of ideas through language and art allowed intertemporal collaboration: the ability, essentially, to collaborate with brilliant ghosts and build on their work.

Some of the drivers of collaboration's current celebrity are opportunity and clarity on complexity. And government has quirks that make it even more important.

Opportunity

We have far more avenues, platforms, and options for collaboration now, and the reach is literally beyond world-wide. In principle, this is also old news. The Oxford English Dictionary, for instance, was partially crowdsourced by mail in the mid-1800s. In practice, however, the opportunities for collaboration represent a radical change. I think the most amazing thing about effective collaborative platforms is often not the mechanism for collaboration, but rather the mechanism for finding others who are interested in the same thing. It's easier to get past our natural incredulity: “I can't imagine how I can contribute to X,” or, “I can't imagine who'd be interested in Y.”

Without search, it would take forever for someone to find enough other Ottawa fountain pen enthusiasts* to develop a society.

Complexity

We're faced with increasing complexity, and increasing clarity on the complexity that has always existed. I'm bothering to muddy this point by adding clarity because I think it is important. It's comparable to the history of astronomy – the night sky changed little, but our advancing telescope technology continuously revealed greater and greater mysteries. I wonder what we'll think of our current lens on the complexity of the world when we look back in a few decades.

But it's not just that our focus has sharpened. I think the statement "the world is getting more complex" passes muster as well.

Many wicked problems we face are unsolvable by individuals. Gerry McGovern's take is that “the more complex the world becomes the less we can depend on individual experts”, citing how recent economic events blindsided economists and other spectators. It's not because two heads are better than one, but because two very different heads are much better than one. Business writers and leaders are looking at diversity as a competitive advantage, and this idea clicks with some really interesting research on creativity that suggests that teams that are a mix of new and familiar faces develop more creative output. Or, consider that companies whose Board of Directors includes women outperform those that do not. By 26 percent over six years. Lastly, consider Philip Tetlock's groundbreaking research on expert predictions:

“Classifying thinking styles using Isaiah Berlin's prototypes of the fox and the hedgehog, Tetlock contends that the fox--the thinker who knows many little things, draws from an eclectic array of traditions, and is better able to improvise in response to changing events--is more successful in predicting the future than the hedgehog, who knows one big thing, toils devotedly within one tradition, and imposes formulaic solutions on ill-defined problems.”

A fox could be a fox because they, themselves, are a jack-of-all-trades. Or, they could arrive at their conclusions through collaboration.

And, Just To Twist The Knife

Amidst the above transitions, we've opted to make it even harder on ourselves, as government officials are moving from being service providers to relationship managers. In policy, we're increasingly engaging stakeholders, industry, and think tanks. For operations, we're turning to the private sector wherever possible. More and more, we'll be relying on collaborating with non-governmental actors, and on our governmental colleagues to help us do it**.

So back to the premise I left hanging: Collaboration is, and always has been, a crucial driver of value creation. But the current attention is not collaboration's fifteen minutes of fame. It's a big deal - for good reason - and getting bigger.

* I like fountain pens, but I just don't want to ever be referred to as a "fountain pen enthusiast." I hope they call me "a guy who likes fountain pens." And everyone should. They're easier on the hand, better for writing, create less waste, and are likely cheaper in the long run***.

** I'm glossing over this point. If you read my old blog, you know that I do this. I'm sorry, but this post is getting long, but it means that I'll likely return to this idea later.

*** The Ottawa Fountain Pen Society website is an excellent resource on where to buy fountain pens in Ottawa.

Can bureaucrats be interesting when the world demands that they be boring?

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

by Nick Charney

In a previous blog on his former site (See: The World Needs Us to Stop Being Boring), newly minted co-author Kent Aitken, expressed his lament at the fact that the public service is rich with unrealized creativity, extolling that the world needs us (public servants) to stop being boring.

While I whole heartily agree with Kent's plea, I do with the following caveat (which I left verbatim as a comment to the original post):

What the world needs and what the world wants are two different things. In the arena of public perception bureaucrats always lose, stereotypes prevail and reputations are generally sullied until proven otherwise.

Intellectually, I get it. The accumulated history of bureaucracy writ large is rife with boondoggles and bafflegab.

Experientially, I’ve seen – and, as one could imagine, have been on the receiving end – of some pretty ridiculous things. Professionally though, its often hard to stay passionate about a vocation that is consistently dragged through the mud.

I suppose what I am saying is that the world may need us not to be boring but it certainly doesn’t want us to be interesting.

This tension, between what the public 'likely needs' and what it 'demonstrably wants' is, in my view, akin to the similar tension I see playing out between the time honored archetype of the 'faceless bureaucrat' and renewed calls to celebrate the public service. While I am reserving further comment on this issue for now, I whole heartily encourage you to read both of the articles linked to in the paragraph above.

Both are written by former Clerks of the Privy Council (Mel Cappe and Alex Himelfarb respectively) and come on the heels of a recent Public Policy Forum testimonial dinner. You may also wish to read this Toronto Star Editorial which makes a case for protecting the public service.

Below you will find some questions I'd like to discuss as well as excerpts from both articles to wet your appetite; if you have any thoughts, I'd encourage you to share them in the comments below.

Questions I'm pondering

Can bureaucrats be interesting when the world demands that they be boring?
Can they remain faceless while being celebrated?

Excerpts from Cappe's 'faceless bureaucrats'

"We take for granted that each day, because of the work of dedicated and committed Public Servants: Thousands of planes take off and land safely; hundreds of thousands of people come through the border securely; thousands of prisoners stay incarcerated and in remediation; our food is assured safe; thousands of communities are well policed; OAS, EI and CPP cheques are delivered to the right people at the right time in the millions; path-breaking research is undertaken in government laboratories; and nobody notices."

"We need ministers to be the demanders of good analysis and evidence in the policy process. If ministers don’t ask, then public servants will get out of the habit of serving the public interest. I fear that we, they and the public are taking for granted the public service and analysis and evidence that should inform the policy process."

Excerpts from Himelfarb's Celebrating the public service

"Such celebrations [the Public Policy Forum Dinner] are pretty rare these days though the public service is an institution that deserves celebrating, and may need it now more than ever.

My hunch is that I can speak for all the former clerks here this evening that for us public service was deeply satisfying, a privilege, a source of pride, an opportunity to make a difference. Public service was more often than not fulfilling, and, believe it or not, even fun.

I wonder what proportion of public servants would say this today. Things were much easier for us. Public service was more valued. Public servants were treated with respect. Politicians sometimes got angry at our advice but they kept asking. The media often ignored us – we liked that – but they sometimes reminded Canadians that we existed and that we mattered. When I left academics to join the federal public service, I didn’t have to explain my decision. My friends and colleagues didn’t think it was strange. They thought joining the public service was worthy, maybe important, at the very least, respectable.

Things do seem different today. The public service is no less important but it sure seems more than ever under attack and from every side. Less valued. Less trusted. More under the gun. It must be less fun."

Rearranging the Briefing Room Chairs on the Bonaventure

noreply@blogger.com (Kent Aitken) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

by Kent Aitken

Yesterday, my colleague joked on Twitter that his son had agreed to make the family lunches as part of his allowance, but the bread, mustard, and cheese sandwich from day one wasn't exactly up to snuff. I joked back that he should institute a sandwich accountability framework and make a portion of his son's allowance at-risk, contingent upon results.

Er, it's just something bureaucrats do.

Sorry.

And Speaking of Segues

My colleague responded – as any normal person should – that in fact, he was just going to teach his son how to be a better sandwich maker. And then simply let said sandwich maker, well, make sandwiches.

My colleague is accidentally following the advice from the 1962/1963 Glassco Report. This report, formally the Royal Commission on Government Organization, published recommendations for the management of the public service of Canada. The most memorable of which was this lasting soundbite: “Let the manager manage.”

How'd that work out?

Shortly thereafter, the Canadian House of Commons spent a considerable amount of time debating the minutia of contracts for the retrofitting of the aircraft carrier Bonaventure. As Donald Savoie explains in Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher:

“During the debate, opposition members from all parties hurled accusations at the government and concluded with pleas to introduce 'administrative integrity.' Specific details were brought up, including the awarding of two separate contracts – for different amounts – to remove fifty-two chairs from the Bonaventure's briefing room.”

That was 1970. Despite it being less than a decade after the Glassco Report, the resounding call was for increased oversight, rather then letting managers figure out the underlying issues and manage on. Increased oversight may protect the public purse in the short term, but it may also lead to important questions going unanswered, or worse, unasked.

Did decision-makers have the information they needed to make solid decisions?

Were they generally well-equipped to do their jobs?

Asking Tough Questions

I suspect Glassco would prefer the story of Tom Watson Jr., former CEO of IBM. As legend would have it, a young executive once walked into Watson's office after making a decision that cost the company millions, expecting to be fired. Watson's response was that firing was out of the question because, as he put it, he had “just spent a couple of million dollars educating” the executive.

No kneejerk reaction, no changes to accountability regimes. Watson recognized the difference between structural deficiencies and management issues. In that case, the issue was an ill-prepared executive. In my colleague's, it was an inexperienced sandwich maker.

Asking tough questions about the why behind events is the sustainable approach. And it leads to good results. For sandwiches and management.

What You're Giving Now? You Can Never Give Less

noreply@blogger.com (Kent Aitken) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

by Kent Aitken

I love writing.
These days, it tends to be about public administration, Canadian government, and democracy. It’s just what’s on my mind - I spend about half my waking hours thinking about strategic planning, program management, and governance as a by times engaged, by times unengaged public servant. And I've realized that I'm actually very passionate about public service and democracy in Canada.
Nick had kind, perhaps overly generous, words about my critical approach to things in his introductory post (see: Pivots, Badges, A New Contributor, and Bureaucratic Ipsum); and anyone who read my old blog knows that I like dissecting concepts. But after considering at length what the subject of my first post here would be, I opted for something more general that has been on my mind lately.

What You're Giving Now? You Can Never Give Less
A while back, a colleague was on a young managers panel at a conference. She was asked, in the Q&A, what one message she would impart to future managers: The response, in a split second, was “What you're giving now? You can never give less.”
She was right.
Your days spent treading water now are your baseline for the rest of your career. A few years from now, when you’re managing the demands of a portfolio on top of the complex personal dynamics of a team? That’s the easiest it’ll be from that point on. Such is the tragedy for those who are good at things; they keep being asked to do them.

Your workload may fluctuate, but the trendline over a 35 (ish) year career is going to be pretty definitive:

You can never give less.

One can interpret this as a cautionary tale; a warning about going too far, too fast. Or you can view it as a challenge, and lean into it. (See: Lean Into It)

If the prospect sounds daunting, consider this. People are great at setting goals and making lists, but it means we're always looking at the loose ends in our lives. It makes us feel like we’re running to stand still, so try looking back occasionally. Make a list of everything that you understand, or know how to do, that you did not three years ago.

You may be surprised, and you may find yourself with greater confidence about what you’ll be capable of three years from now - when you set the bar a little higher for the Nth time, knowing full well that it’s never coming down an inch.

Pivots, badges, a new contributor, and bureaucratic ipsum

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

by Nick Charney

Hi All -

You may have noticed things changing around the blog recently - new logos, new pages, the bio of a new contributor - in short, I'm widening the tent, bringing people in, and trying to branch out into a couple of different things.

First, last week's post (See: Big Data, Social Media, and the Long Tail of Public Policy) is a bit of a pivot in focus, expect me to spend more time writing about what public sector organizations can do with data in the near future.

Second, I've devised a badge that now adorns the site and much of my social media presence; it signals to others that you take your responsibilities as a professional and non-partisan public servant seriously online. Over the next few weeks I will create a widget and a crowd source a corresponding set of principles for those wishing to use the emblem on their own sites/social media outposts. In short, think of it as a practical, principles based, opt-in badge for those among us who want to engage online while ensuring we do so in a manner that preserves our professional integrity.

Third, I've invited Kent Aitken to join the blog as a full time contributor. I'd give you a long back story but quite frankly the reason I invited Kent to contribute is simple: he impresses me. I like the fact that he approaches things with a critical eye, that he is committed to thoughtful and respectful discourse, and quite frankly, that he gives off a really solid vibe. Kent's first post drops this Friday in lieu of mine as I will be spending Friday recovering from day surgery (nothing serious, just some minor foot repairs). Kent and I still have to discuss a number of things, but suffice it to say we will be working towards an editorial calendar that likely has some empty spaces for those interested in contributing.

Well that's it for me for now, look for Kent's inaugural post on Friday. See you next week.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I threw together a bureaucratic ipsum generator with the help of a friend, enjoy.

-- Nick

Big Data, Social Media and the Long Tail of Public Policy

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

by Nick Charney

Street Fighting Years

Preamble

You may have noticed that I didn't publish last week; as a result this week's article is both weightier and lengthier. Accordingly I decided to experiment a bit by providing a TL;DR version of the article up front, namely: Public Engagement via Social Media + Big Data Analytics = Future of Public Policy.

How I got there ...

To say that either Linked Data or Big Data are new would be a mischaracterization; to say that they are still new to government on the other hand is likely a fair assessment.

Linked Data: A Primer

For the unfamiliar, linked data is simply a way of structuring data so that it can be easily aligned with other data sets; linking data together increases its usefulness by providing richer strategic overviews or by facilitating a greater depth of analysis. Tim Berners-Lee first wrote about it in 2006 and delivered a TED talk on it in 2009:

If you are interested in seeing the quality of public policy analysis that properly linked data can inform Hans Rosling’s demonstration below is a prime example:

Big Data: A Primer

Big Data on the other hand is a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using traditional data processing applications. Large consulting firms such as McKinsey, Deloitte and IBM have already published a lot of material on Big Data and while the majority of that material focuses on how its application to the private sector there are surely lessons in it for public sector policy makers.

Abundance is the common denominator

Whether you are talking about linked data or big data – or more simply calling it the data deluge – the fact of the matter is that the information landscape has shifted from scarce to superabundant. This shift is likely to have profound implications for the public sector; many of which are still ahead of us and will undoubtedly involve profound growing pains.

How could data abundance impact how governments do policy?

As a starting point, bureaucrats can anticipate a renaissance of the language of data driven decision making within the larger nomenclature of evidence based policy making. Make no mistake, these terms are still very much in vogue in bureaucratic culture but likely require a fresh definition given that the nature of what underlies them – namely the availability of detailed data, and as a consequence analysis – will improve significantly over the foreseeable future. As a conceptual framework, it would look something like this (click to enlarge):

Note that the framework recognizes that data driven decision making must be understood within a larger context. In this type of environment, policy makers will need to consider the types of data being collected, the analysis being performed and decisions being made across all levels of government: municipal, provincial, and federal. Under this type of model, there is a significant probability that analysis will expose untenable points of incongruence between the highly contextual and specific insights pulled from the intersecting data points and governments’ tendency to pursue universal, one-size-fits-all, policy solutions. In other words, providing policy makers with a deeper understanding of the complexity of a particular public policy challenge is likely to yield equally complex public policy solutions.

The complexity of the long tail

Bureaucrats can also expect to continue to see their monopoly on information erode; to realize that many of the levers of change are outside the reach of traditional approaches; and take stock of the fact that there a very different skill set may be required to accomplish their mission.

In other words, under these conditions they may have to formally recognize what David Eaves calls the long tail of public policy. In The Long Tail of Public Policy (Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice) Eaves argues that there is a tremendous amount of capacity for public policy in the long tail and that the widespread availability of free communications technologies is starting to unlock that potential (click to enlarge):

Eaves goes on to discuss the rise of “patch culture” online indicating that it is spilling over into both public policy and service delivery, arguing that citizens are able to create “patches” that improve government service delivery when they are given access to basic raw data, how decisions get made and the underlying system of how government works. Eaves points to an innovative service like FixMyStreet as a prime example of how the long tail of public policy can be activated under the right conditions. What is interesting about this particular example is that not only is its origins in the long tail but so is its final resting point. In other words, FixMyStreet is a niche solution to a niche problem.

Closer to home, the Ottawa based company Beyond 2.0 recently launched a real time bus arrival screen levering the city’s data before the municipality could get its ducks in a row and do it themselves. The company applied a “patch” solution to an acute problem faster, better and cheaper than it could have been done otherwise.

What the patchwork can teach policy makers

As this patchwork becomes increasingly elaborate we can expect policy makers inside the walls of government to take notice, to expand their realm of the possible, and to adopt more the approaches used outside their walls. In this vein, policy makers may want to purposely turn their attention to fields like design and manufacturing to borrow lessons from fields such as rapid prototyping. Rapid prototyping is an approach that places considerable importance on:

Increasing effective communication;
Increasing viability by adding and eliminating features early in the design
Decreasing development time;
Decreasing costly mistakes; and
Decreasing lifetime before obsolescence.

At first glance, these objectives may not strike you as anything new. After all, bureaucrats have been “finding efficiencies” along this particular supply chain for some time now; that said supply chain management and rapid prototyping are two very different things. The former is akin to sustaining innovation (innovation that helps you better serve your current market) while the latter is akin to disruptive innovation (innovation that allows you to serve a new or emerging market) (See: Innovators Dilemma by Clay Christensen).

This is not surprising given that large organizations have endured because they focus on delivering their core business while faltering at their margins where (more disruptive) innovation happens (see: Finding Innovation). However, if governments want to be able to serve emerging markets – which is to say meet evolving citizen expectations – then they will likely need to scale back sustaining innovation efforts and invest more readily in disruptive innovation. This seems like relatively new ground to break given that bureaucracies are often too busy to innovate. It is highly probable that the emergence of Big Data will help make this shift possible. However, pivoting in this direction will not be easy for large monolithic organizations that require not only a change in the cultural mindset but also a changes in the available skill sets of those called upon to do the actual work.

New Skills for Communicators

There are likely three very specific roles for modern communicators. Communicators need to be able to provide strategic guidance on matters of public policy and the culture writ large, and steward technological and policy modernization while engaging the public using new communications technology (e.g. social media) (See: The Long Tail of Internal Communications). In order to carry out these duties effectively, communicators will need to be able to:

Find, verify and link stakeholders and their viewpoints;
Weigh a multitude of inputs from multiple sources;
Draw out highly contextual and relevant insights; and
Transform those insights into practical communications advice.

New Skills for Analysts

When it comes to analysts the shift sounds simple but is actually quite profound. Analysts will need to move away from report writing and the standard 6-month production cycle towards in depth data analysis, insight formulation and feeding real time dashboards used by (data driven) decision makers. Since the numbers can't actually speak for themselves, it will be important that analysts are able to:

Find, verify and link (or liberate) useful data sets;
Analyse complex data pairings (again, different than report writing);
Draw out highly contextual and relevant insights; and
Transform those insights into policy options.

The future of policy development hinges on two things

The future of policy development hangs on two things: (1) enhanced public engagement through social media and (2) data driven decision making and while bureaucracies aren't quite there yet, evidence suggests that it at least now visible on the horizon. For example, the recent institutional response at the senior levels of government – the formation of the Deputy Minister’s Committee on Social Media and Policy Development – signals the arrival of the early majority to Social Media indicates that Social Media as policy input has in fact crossed the chasm (click to enlarge):

There is also growing evidence that suggests that Big Data is about to cross the chasm in the private sector, meaning that it is still within the realm of early adopters in the public sector.

Success belongs to those who can balance them

In a communications heavy and data rich world, unlocking the long tail of public policy and exploring the richness of niche solutions to highly complex policy challenges will likely continue to be one of the most significant developments in the policy environment in the next 10 years.

The key to achieving this is balancing both sides of the house: public engagement through social media and in depth and contextual Big Data analysis; meaning of course that Public servants who have the skill set to do both are bound to be in demand.

Using the disruptive web to your advantage

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:00:00 +0000

I'm excited to be off to Toronto today (vacation) to deliver a pair of workshops to students at Humber College. As you likely know by now I am very particular about my presentations. I spend countless hours agonizing over images, placement, word choice and the relationship between the different elements; here's what I've come up with:

(Aside: Yes, I take vacation days to deliver pro bono workshops to students about the intersection of social media and the public sector.)

Given that this has eaten up most of my time this week, I wanted to (again) share some key messages from my presentation. In many ways this presentation is the natural extension of some of the ground I covered last week (see: Thoughts on the Disruptive Web), it runs the gamut from the philosophical and the practical and back and while my speaking notes are quite extensive (each workshop is an hour long) what follows is the hard and fast of it because, quite frankly, my flight is less than 8 hours away.
Use the Disruption to your Advantage
You need to get out ahead of the curve and build your brand. If you don'd define yourself, someone else will (or, perhaps, they already have).
Find your Niche
Draw a Venn diagram and pencil in 3 of your interests; this is your niche. This is your new wheelhouse. Google the three terms together. Start reading, make notes. Who are the big players? What are the big ideas? Where is the controversy? Find the boundaries between these three things are explore them; be a Trickster. Mash things up that others tell you have no business being mashed up and see what shakes loose.
Start Writing
When you write, include hyperlinks to the things you've read recently that have informed your opinions. Whenever possible comment on the works of others and leave a link back to your own site. Avoid bullshit comments like "great post". First of all those comments don't add value to the conversation, second it doesn't help you build a rapport with the author. Tease something out, build on something they wrote, or challenge (not troll) them.
Start Sharing
Have a plan on how to push your content to all the big services. Explore a service like If This Then That (see: What Organizations Can Learn from If This Then That) to automate your cross publication. Be predictable, check in regularly. Something that doesn't do well on Facebook may play well with Twitter. And don't underestimate other subscription options, especially email. Start Connecting
Spend time being helpful to other people online, share things you think may be valuable to them (not just things you write) and ask them to reciprocate. Ask people to guest blog, offer to guest blog, find places to syndicate your content to that help you reach your niche audience.
Set up Google Alerts
To let you know when people are talking about you (your name) or linking to your site so you can engage them (or defend your position).
Find 1,000 True Fans
A true fan is someone who can't wait to see your next work. They subscribe to it, read it, comment on it, push it to their social graph and help you amplify your reach. In other words, they help you find other fans. 1,000 people might sound like a lot but it’s a completely achievable number. Govloop – a large US based online social network for government workers – already has over 60,000 members and if you are writing on issues in the public sector it is a perfect place to start. The community managers actively curate and promote content via their main page, RSS feeds and daily email newsletters. It's in their interest to help you connect with your true fans. Understand the Risks
If you choose to try your hand at influencing old systems with new technologies you will likely be challenged along the way. The culture inside large public institutions is often at odds with the culture outside of it. There is evidence however that the culture is changing, that we are transitioning from the early adopters to early majority (see: Mapping Internal Policy to the Hype Cycle), but there is still a lot of distance to cover. The government of Canada has recently launched a Deputy Minister's committee on Social Media and Policy, HRSDC ran a call for concepts related to social finance that has been called a crowdsourcing by many exercise, and yesterday's budget announcement had a number of social media elements.

Walk the Line
In short there is still much work to be done and if you want to engage in it you need to be prepared to alienate some, be ignored by others while also exciting and engaging those whom are interested. Ultimately the choice is yours, but I can say with conviction that the public service – that all public services – are in desperate need of new blood, new thinking, and new energy. Is that something you are up for?

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca

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Thoughts on the disruptive web

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 09:00:00 +0000

I spoke to a group of civil servants this week as part of their development program's lunchtime speaker series; the talk covered a lot of ground and I wanted to take the opportunity to share some of my key messages from the discussion.

The web is disruptive

The internet has disrupted, is disrupting, or will disrupt every business model currently in use today. To think it hasn't, isn't or won't disrupt the public sector is naive at best. Understanding the impacts of these changes is critical to understanding the role of the public service because context is key and the context is now constantly changing.

GCPEDIA is a microcosm of a larger problem

GCPEDIA is still the only open communications tool that holds that could help us mitigate our geographic, ministerial and hierarchical information challenges and yet we have tremendous difficulty integrating it into the fabric of our business. The fact that as an organization we have such difficulty understanding how to best lever a technology (wikis) that is (conceptually) almost 20 years old concerns me (see: Debunking the Myths of Working More Openly).

But this is likely just a symptom of a larger problem. The cognitive dissonance we create by expecting new recruits to use desktop computers, blackberries, and slow, heavily blocked internet connections when they have spent their time at university learning how to collaborate over iPhones, MacBooks, and uninhibited internet is even more unsettling. Surely there is a rising productivity cost associated with maintaining the status quo that could be minimized by moving to bring your own device (BYOD) environments.

The culture is falling behind

The web gives us a window into the best in class work cultures and sets global expectations around what a work place could offer; in other words, like it or not, this is the workplace culture your office is competing with.

I understand that government offices can't compete with Google in terms of technology but that doesn't mean that we can't build a culture that places greater emphasis on key motivators such as autonomy, mastery, and purpose (see: Motivation and Incentives in the Public Service). Ultimately I think these these qualities not only effect how motivated we are but also our ability to deliver the fearless advice that has historically been our hallmark. Autonomy is closely linked to impartiality, mastery determines quality, and purpose sharpens our focus. The lack of cultural emphasis on these elements has likely contributed to what I view as the skewing of the balance between fearless advice and loyal implementation (See: On Fearless Advice and Loyal Implementation and On Risk, Fearless Advice and Loyal Implementation).

The fix is in new ways of thinking

The solution to our technological and cultural challenges - I think - is to encourage more public servants to be tricksters; encourage them to explore and integrate ideas that typically "don't have a place in the bureaucracy"; encourage them to take the risks, reap the rewards, and most importantly, accept the responsibility (See: Innovation is Tricky, Literally and Finding Innovation)

These are not easy things to do, but they are the things we must do.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca subscribe/connect

So I'm back at work now ...

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 10:00:00 +0000

So I'm back at work officially after a 6 week hiatus to deal with the implosion of my parental unit, it’s not pretty, there are sweeping implications, I'm exhausted, frustrated, and trying really hard not to let bleed into my interactions with my kids, my wife, and my day job now that I'm back in the office. But I'm seeing a counsellor through the Employee Assistance Program and otherwise trying to take care of myself.

DM Committee on Social Media and Policy

While I was out of commission there was a Deputy Minister level Committee struck on Social Media and Policy Development which according to the Privy Council Office website “Considers the linkages between social media and policy-making, including new models for policy development, public engagement and the role of the public servant in the social media sphere.” They have a GCPEDIA page that you may wish to check out and/or leave your comments as well as an English and French Twitter feed that you may wish to follow. I don’t have any further details but assume they will emerge via any of the links I have provided above.

The formation of a committee at this level could signal the arrival of the early majority to the social media and policy-making discussion. It provides a certain amount of legitimacy and will hopefully provide an opportunity for early adopters to add their accumulated knowledge to the mix in a more systematic and official way. I for one dropped a link on the GCPEDIA page to a deck I put together articulating typical organizational policy responses to the diffusion of emerging communications technologies.

Interesting article in the Ottawa Citizen provokes a Book Club

A discussion on Twitter about an article entitled “Thirty years of business-like “reforms” have backfired on the public service: expert” (worth reading BTW) in the citizen last week prompted a discussion about starting a book club that you may or may not be interested in. Here’s an internal link to the discussion on GCConnex that fleshes it out more fully.

See you around the digital water cooler.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca subscribe/connect

Update: One Month Later

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Pic is unrelated, but awesome.

I won't lie, the last 4 weeks have been gruelling, and the situation is no where near resolved.
Luckily, I've got a broad network I can lean on for support, access to the Employee Assistance Program (which I would recommend to anyone in crisis), and a loving wife, who has done more to support me day-to-day than I thought was possible in a lifetime.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca subscribe/connect

I'm Going Dark

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:04:00 +0000

Friends, I am in the middle of a fairly difficult familial situation regarding my folks. I will spare you the details but suffice to say that you likely won't see or hear or see much of me online or in the office. I will continue to answer any inquiries / correspondence, but know that the ensuring the continued health of my family is my top priority. Thanks for your continued support.
- Nick Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca subscribe/connect

Some Recent Advice from an Assistant Deputy Minister

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Earlier this week I sat down with an Assistant Deputy Minister of a major Canadian Government Agency to discuss employment opportunities, career progression and where I saw myself in the near to long term. For the record it was more of an informal discussion than a job interview, but the ADM did give me some advice I thought was worth sharing.

Be specific

Near the end of the conversation the ADM said that I wasn't being specific enough with my ask (in my defence I wasn't going there with an ask in mind) and that whenever I was going to sit down with a Senior Official I should have a clear ask and a (two page max!) CV that points directly at it.

Despite my often over the top nature, I am still prone to deference to authority, especially in my first meeting with senior leaders. I like to lay back a bit and get a sense of where they are coming from and why they asked me to meet with them. I like to think I'm good on my feet and can draw quickly on the breadth of my experience to back up my statements on the fly. That said, I've always wondered what would happen as a not-yet-executive if I just drove hard to the hoop as the ADM suggested. It obviously wouldn't work in every situation but at the very least using a CV as a map that clearly demonstrates what makes you valuable to their organization is far better than one that summarizes your responsibilities.

Draw them a map

During the meeting I committed to a complete overhaul of my CV in an attempt to do just that. Here is my old resume (PDF) and here is the new one (RTF). I'd love to know what you think about the two. Please note that I haven't proofread the new CV yet as I only just completed it.

I'm also interested in your thoughts on how aggressive (or perhaps is it decisive?) you have been with senior management in "hire-me" types of situations?

Thanks for taking the time, and Happy (belated) New Year!

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca subscribe/connect

Top 10 of 2012: A Year in Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Before heading out for the holiday season, I figured I'd take a look back at the year that was. Here are the top 10 most popular posts on cpsrenewal.ca last year:

Thanks so much for the support and your time over the past year. I appreciate every read, share and comment.

See you all in the new year.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca subscribe/connect

Cubicle Hacking 101

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the cube farm; pictured is my office, at least a small part of it.

I - like many of my fellow paper farmers - have been allotted an internal plot of carpet with no direct access to natural light. While paper doesn't necessarily need light to flourish, paper farmers do, at least this one.

Building a solid base

After nurturing a good relationship with the bureaucrat on the other side of the divide from me, we agreed to remove the middle panel from our cubicle walls. The result was a window into the world of natural light, a sharp increase in serendipitous and humanizing contact with others, and a dramatic improvement to our collective moral.

Positive spillover effects

It worked so well, when someone else joined the team she immediately opted to install her own window; meaning that I now have two windows that connect me directly into my colleagues' offices.

We often lament the fact that the culture writ large is hard to change (see Eat or be Eaten), but the truth is that we exert a tremendous amount of control over it in the areas immediately around us (see On Fearless Advice and Loyal Implementation). Taking advantage of this fact creates a number of positive spillover opportunities. For example, every single person who has come into our space since we added the windows has commented on them and/or asked us about them; each conversation is a perfect opportunity to shift the yard sticks a little.

Installing a couple of makeshift windows isn't the radical approach that will change the office culture in a day (see How You Could Change Your Office Culture in One Day, and Why You Will Never Do It), but it is definitely a step in the right direction.

Do you have any interesting cubicle hacks that help round the square corners of your office culture? If so, I'd love to hear about them.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca subscribe/connect

On risk, fearless advice, and loyal implementation

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 10:00:00 +0000

I've been thinking a lot lately about the issue of risk and how it relates to the idea of fearless advice and loyal implementation. Admittedly, these thoughts aren't entirely formed yet so bear with me.

When it comes to risk, we are our own worst enemy

Generally speaking I feel as though civil servants over-inflate the risks of almost everything they (we) do. We often chalk it up to the culture, forgetting that if you stripped bureaucracy of the bureaucrats the risk averse culture would likely disappear. Sure the written rules will remain, but no where (to my knowledge, and in my experience) are the written rules actually as stringent as our interpretations thereof. My thoughts on how we approach to risk are best summed up with the famous Walt Kelly line (pictured to the left): "We have met the enemy and he is us". We are responsible for the culture, to blame it, is to blame ourselves; on this, I doubt I can be convinced otherwise.

The relationship with fearless advice and loyal implementation

Before delving any deeper, I should probably hang this caveat out there. Recent discussions with a number of colleagues (at different stages in their career) have led me to the conclusion that I am likely an outlier in that I have a fundamentally different understanding of risk than is the norm. Yes - its surprising isn't it - I have a high tolerance for risk, but I also have a high tolerance for consequences arising from my actions; and in the real world risk and responsibility are inextricably linked.

However, inside the bureaucracy I'm of the view that they are artificially divided. By this I mean to say that even when someone is willing to take a risk and bear the responsibility for its consequences they can't actually do so. Rather than being able to simply pull the trigger on something they are forced to crunch their willingness to move ahead into some sort of recommendation (often in a briefing note) that gets pushed upwards onto someone else. Sometimes this can be a good thing, for example it protects junior employees from taking the heat if the shit hits the fan, but it can also be paralysing since it concentrates risk in certain areas which likely makes those areas more sensitive to risk than they would otherwise be.

That said, here's my (related) observations on fearless advice and loyal implementation

Giving fearless advice is a low risk activity; there are plenty of opportunities to do so all along the long tail, and most of them are behind closed doors. Loyal implementation on the other hand is a high risk activity; execution is always a delicate matter, and always held to the highest degree of public scrutiny. I think that perhaps we (public servants) have been spending far too effort on loyal implementation and not enough on fearless advice. Our natural hypersensitivity to risks out there in the public realm have crept into our conciousness in here.

Here's my best effort and trying to boil that all down to a single image (click to enlarge):

Cheers

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca subscribe/connect

Giving credit where credit is due

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 10:00:00 +0000

There have been a lot of really influential people thus far in my career, but one of the most influential has to be Etienne.

Etienne's now dormant blog on management in the public sector was an incredible source of inspiration and learning when I first broke into this business and his paper "An Inconvenient Renewal" was (and still is) one of the most well articulated arguments for public sector renewal I have ever read. While we can all benefit from the public nature of Etienne's work, I feel particularly privileged to have been able to have a number of private one on one conversations with the man.

In fact, the highlight of my week was dinner with Etienne here in Ottawa. He finally got to meet my wife and our children. We shared a bottle of wine and talked at length about life, change and the public service and even though he stepped back from the public sector right now, his passion for it (and life in general) is still as infectious as it was when we first spoke on the telephone almost 5 years ago.

One of the highlights of that conversation about the three bits of advice he would give a public servant looking to be successful in the current environment:

Do what you are told
Don't rock the boat
Make your boss look good

What followed was a hilarious and telling conversation about whether he and I were capable of doing all three at the same time, or if we were more likely to search out opportunities to do combine them in some novel ways. My favorite combination by far was rocking the boat while doing what you are told and making your boss look good; after all, those are the types of opportunities I think many change makers are looking for. The icing on the cake was having my wife there to keep us both honest.

In the end, the meal, the wine and the conversation was exactly what I needed; and that's fitting because it sums up my relationship with Etienne. He's always been someone who has been there for me offering me exactly what I needed when I needed it.

Keep an eye out for these people as you advance in your career, because they are as rare as they are important.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca subscribe/connect

Debunking the "risk" of working more openly

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Charney) — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 10:00:00 +0000

I've heard a lot of chatter recently about how we (public servants) can't work in a more openly because of the "risks" of putting our information "out there". I've always tried to push back on people who hide behind the risk argument because, quite frankly, I feel as though their fears are vacuous, unfounded, and have yet to run into someone who can substantiate them with a real world example.

At the risk of being pedantic, "risk" is often the public service equivalent of the boogie man, a ghost story we tell youth to scare them into compliance with the established norms of behaviour.

There are core assumptions that underpin this fear

However, when we examine them logically we quickly find that they are all categorically false. To be clear, when I speak of "openness" I'm not referring to out there in the wild writ large but within our borders - not the borders of your cubicle, directorate or department, but rather that of the enterprise as a whole - the municipal (local), provincial (state), or federal governments within which we work. This isn't the first time I try to tackle this particular issue on this blog, but given some the discussions I've had recently, the subject merits a redux.

But first I wanted to set up the discussion by arguing that GCPEDIA (the Government of Canada's official internal wiki) has the potential to be the single most transformative technology adopted by the Government of Canada since the first computers were issued to civil servants twenty years ago. It is the only technological environment (possibly with the exception of the lesser known GCConnex and GCForums) that allows public servants to share information across the entire enterprise. It has the potential to level geography, silos, and hierarchy and in so doing allows the civil service to tap into its cognitive surplus like no other technology to date has.

Yet, much of this potential goes unrealized

While there is likely a wide range of reasons why this is the case, I want to focus narrowly on the issue of the perceived risk of using GCPEDIA. For the remainder of the discussion, when I refer to "working more openly" what I am really saying is "working inside the Government of Canada's Open Wiki Platform known as GCPEDIA". That said, below are the false assumptions that keep civil servants from working more openly; I will go through each one after listing them:

People are interested in your work
People will search for your work
People will read your work
People will comment / edit / interact with your work
The comments / edits / interactions of others will decrease the overall quality of your work

#1: People are interested in your work

The first assumption is that other people are actually interested in the work you do, putting it in the open will obviously attract immediate and widespread attention from your public servant peers. However, the truth is that while you may think your work is of the utmost importance the simple fact is that majority of other people in your organization simply don't care. They have diverging responsibilities and areas of interest; yes, there will be overlaps but not anywhere near the frequency or intensity that the fearful would have you believe. The In Canada, the federal Government employs over 250,000 public servants and the breadth of the work is as wide as it is deep. This leads me to think that it is far more likely that the mechanics of our work overlap than it is the substantive nature of that work. In other words, we may both be policy analysts (convergent tasks) but that which we analyse is radically different (divergent subject matter).

#2: People will search for your work

The second assumption flows naturally from the first, that people are looking for your work. We assume that putting it out there (in the open, on GCPEDIA) means that it will be exposed to everyone when in reality its more akin to hiding in plain sight. Think about open work environments as akin to the web itself. You aren't bombarded with everything on the web when you open your browser. It's more likely that you use an intermediary - like Google - to help you parse through the ridiculous amounts of data on the internet. Think about how much is actually on the web versus how much you have actually seen. The same holds true in open work environments. People use intermediaries - search - to help them parse through the massive amounts of information available to them. Having to search prior to discovering the content you are sharing may not sound like much, but think about the things you search for on a regular basis and then compare that to volume of things you don't search for. This is a akin to needle in a field of haystacks. Moreover, the act of searching should be considered as proof of interest. By this I mean the people who search for your work and find it, are likely to have a genuine interest in it.

#3: People will read your work

The third assumption - that your work is actually read-worthy - is another big leap. What percentage of things you search on the web do you actually spend time reading? If you are like me its probably a small fraction. I search, scan, move on, scan, move on, scan, pinpoint, deep dive, move on, scan, etc. There is simply too much information out there to engage with it all in a meaningful way.

#4: People will comment / edit / interact with your work

The fourth assumption, that people will interact in some way with your work is a stretch at best; in fact, I presented evidence to the contrary in a previous blog post. Think about your own usage of web based environments. Do you comment, edit, or share every article you read online or are you more meticulous in your interactions? Its more likely that you don't have the interest, time or expertise to interact with all of the content flashing across the screen.

#5: The comments / edits / interactions of others will decrease the overall quality of your work

I think that the final assumption - that the contributions / interactions of others will water down your work - is fairly presumptuous and smacks of a touch of ego. The prevailing thought process here seems to be (and pardon my plain language) that if I expose my work to others they are going to screw it up in some way. I think this line of reasoning also signals a complete lack of trust in your fellow civil servants.

Why would they troll you? The technology (GCPEDIA) provides some built in protections. All contributions are done through attribution and are easily traced back to a Government of Canada email address, you can set up alerts on specific pages so you are notified when changes occur, and the version control is extremely tight. I find it ironic that many people are willing to hand a printed document to a colleague and ask them to provide "a second set of eyes" but far fewer are willing to use a technological medium to offer that same opportunity to far more people.

The redux in sum

The false assumptions that the fear of open is based on I'd classify them as interest, search, read, interact, and detract. I would like to conclude simply by encouraging you re-articulate the argument above to anyone who regularly pushes against greater openness in the enterprise.

Cheers

Addendum (Update 25/11/2012)

What I didn't mention, but is worth adding is that if someone actually does take the time to go through all of these steps, they likely were interested enough to search, read, and interact with your work. Under these conditions - and the technological restraints of a place like GCPEDIA - it is far more likely that they are adding value to your work, not taking it away. For evidence of this nuance, click here.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca subscribe/connect