cpsrenewal.ca written by Nick Charney

Thoughts About and Analysis of the 2011 Public Service Employee Survey

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Last week the Treasury Board Secretariat released the results of the 2011 Public Service Employee Survey (PSES). According to the Treasury Board Secretariat website:

The Public Service Employee Survey (PSES) has been conducted every three years since 1999. It provides employees the opportunity to anonymously voice their opinions on their leadership, workforce and work environment. It is conducted by Statistics Canada on behalf of the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer. The survey results enable managers and employees to discuss the strengths and areas for improvement in people management at all levels of their organization. The results also feed into deputy heads’ performance assessments.

High level observations (directly from the data)

I took a few minutes to read through the results for the Public Service as a whole, here are some things that caught my eye coupled with some of my own thoughts (broken down by subsections, with references to question numbers):

My job world

A minority of public servants (14%) are dissatisfied with their (technological) toolset in the workplace (Q1)
Roughly 1/5 of people's interests are not aligned with their jobs; improving this alignment could result in increased productivity and retention (and thereby lower operating costs) (Q4)
Only 3% of civil servants ~~hate their job~~ strongly disagree with the statement, "Overall, I like my job". I find this encouraging; I would have assumed it was much higher (Q7)
Only 58% of public servants feel as though they are receiving meaningful recognition for work well done (Q9)
Only 61% feel as though they have opportunities to implement new ideas on how to improve their work (Q12)
Many public servants feel as though changing priorities and the lack of stability is negatively impacting their work. I doubt this sector will rediscover the stability of yesteryear any time soon, as such I think this a strong indication that we need to onboard more people who are comfortable with uncertainty (Q18a/b)

My organization

1/5 of public servants (strongly or somewhat) disagree with the statement: "Senior managers in my organization lead by example in ethical behaviour" (Q42)
1/2 of public servants (strongly or somewhat) agree with the statement: "I have confidence in the senior management of my department or agency" (Q44)
Only 46% of public servants (strongly or somewhat) agree with the statement: "Essential information flows effectively from senior management to staff". What interests me most about this question is that its inverse is not asked on the survey, by this I mean: "Essential information flows effectively from staff to senior management" (Q47)
Only 63% of public servants would recommend their department as a place to work (Q51)

Retention

While 48% of public servants are actively looking for another position (Q56) only 8% of them intending to leave their current position in the next two years are looking at opportunities outside the public service (Q55). This seems to suggest that churn, not turnover, is the key retention issue.
Question 58, "In my work unit, there are effective mechanisms in place to deal with poor performers" caught my attention for two reasons. The first is because the question is restricted to Managers only; surely employees have something to say about the issue? Second was because there was apparently insufficient data to report back on. To my knowledge, this is the only place that reported as such.

General Information

Teleworking and job sharing seem to be incredibly underutilized given their popularity (and effectiveness) in the private sector. (Q75c/d)

A quick comparison of selected results

I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the data in greater detail, so I pieced together the following chart:

(click image to enlarge)

The chart shows a sample of the results of 10 departments/agencies for survey question number 51 (Q51). I didn't want to be accused of playing favourites (I originally compared departments/agencies I have worked for) so I selected the first 9 results alphabetically and used the overall results of the Public Service as a baseline. As you can see the chart is a little messy but there are clearly a number of departments or agencies that follow the trend line while others are clearly outliers. In the chart below, I have isolated the outliers and the baseline in order to make the distinctions more clear.

(click image to enlarge)

As you can see, public servants working at the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) are more likely to recommend their agency as a place to work whereas the Canada School of Public Service is less likely (than the Public Service as a whole). Again, I'm not trying to play favourites or point fingers, but I did want to use an example to help illustrate my underlying argument, namely that there are things to learn from comparative analysis. While departmental results are displayed next to the baseline Public Service data (in HTML tables) there is no single downloadable data set with which to work. If this information was released on data.gc.ca, comparative analysis would be much easier.

Why comparative analysis is important

Obviously the data is intended to give credit where credit is do as well as turn up the heat on organizations underperforming against the average. However, I am far less interested in back patting, and naming and shaming than I am in allowing public servants to measure different agencies against criteria that may be important to them. If for example the rate at which people are promoted (Q78) is more important than meaningful feedback on work well done (Q9) then use the data from the dataset to determine which agencies they'd rather work for. Or say compare the policy sector of one department to its communications department, or the communication departments of three different agencies. I suppose that at its core, I'm simply talking about providing public servants with a greater capacity for data-driven and career-focused decision-making.

Furthemore if we allow people to use the data to test hypotheses about organization design against factors like the size of agency, region of operation, or line of work (e.g. regulatory/enforcement) we may find that certain organizational structures or practices work better than others.

So why not release the data in a single unified data set?

It’s worth noting that the analysis is only possible because the government discloses the data publicly; and while I'm not averse to showing the results in HTML tables, I don't see a compelling reason why the data could not have been released as a complete dataset as a part of data.gc.ca. We already have the data, we have already disclosed the data, re-releasing it as part of the data catalogue would make any future analysis much easier.

I suppose that is precisely why I requested the data be released on data.gc.ca via their contact form.

If you have an interest in the data, like I do, I suggest you do the same.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

For those who think they lack the courage

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

If someone walked up to you and punched you in the stomach, you'd probably react.

You'd lash out; you'd walk away; you'd defend yourself.

Yet, everyday you come into work, sit down at your desk, power up your pc and get willingly get sucker punched by culture around you.

The blow steals your breath, you start to doubt yourself, and eventually you just surrender.

It's easy to fall into the trap of being the victim, of raising your hand to complain, while refusing to get off your ass to do anything about it.

I won't lie to you, it takes courage to step up and shape the world around you.

You may think you don't have it in you.

You are wrong.

You just need to get mad.

Who knows, you might just start a movement.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

That fundamental change we've been talking about

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Visual notes taken by @Prugelmeister at #goc3

Wednesday I attended Collaborative Management Day. The highlight of the day for me was watching the Clerk of the Privy Council listen intently and respond genuinely as a handful of public servants from across the country asked him questions, sought his support and even expressed their frustrations.

The man has a tough job, and carving out time is obviously difficult. I think having the Clerk participate in a dynamic exchange rather than simply swooping in and delivering prepared remarks was a stoke of genius and speaks volumes to the man's integrity and openness.

The most important thing he said

Looking back, I think the single most important thing he said was (and I am paraphrasing a bit, see tweets below for alternative/complimentary interpretations) that while austerity and uncertainty can be paralysing we must recognize the opportunity to fundamentally rethink our business models. The statement obviously resonated.

In a recent contribution to Metaviews I offered a similar argument, saying that:

We need to cut through the noise of ‘greater efficiency through greater collaboration’ and the rhetoric of ‘doing more with less’ and focus instead on doing things fundamentally differently. Given the profound impact of digital communication technologies on our society, I think that doing things differently starts with cultivating a better understanding of how digital is reshaping what citizens expect from their public institutions and how public institutions can best respond to those needs.

But understanding is one thing, and moving beyond the rhetoric requires more concrete action(s). What kind of action? Doing things fundamentally differently, at least in my view, requires disruptive innovation, innovation that breaks traditional trade-offs and establishes entirely new operational models.

But can disruptive innovation actually exist in the public sector? While many public servants I speak with agree that fundamental change is required most of them look at innovation as process improvement and gaining efficiencies rather than at more disruptive approaches to innovation. In their view, and I tend to agree with them, there simply isn't much support for a more radical approach to innovation.

Disruptive innovation through market mechanisms?

Having just read Public Sector, Disrupted, I think I have a better understanding as to why there is so little support for more disruptive approaches to innovation. The report hinges on the idea that:

Creating the conditions for disruption will first require policymakers to view government through a different lens. Instead of seeing only endless programs and bureaucracies, the myriad responsibilities and customers of government can be seen as a series of markets that can be shaped in ways to find and cultivate very different, less expensive-- and ultimately more effective — ways of supplying public services

The report goes on to describe that in many cases the (United States) government enjoys significant buying power; buying power that, if shifted could topple slow moving incumbents and favour innovative upstarts. My reading of this, and feel free to jump in here, is that disruptive innovation within this context requires not only that policy-makers apply a market lens to their analysis but that they actually become far more active in those markets themselves. In my view, this approach quickly enters the realm of partisan politics, a place where even the largest proponents of disruptive innovation dare not follow.

Furthermore, while this approach may work for large national governments like the US government, I seriously doubt it would work for smaller municipal governments like that of say the City of Ottawa.

Check out the report and circle back here with your comments; I'm particularly interested if we can unearth some more tangible (e.g. using policy / regulatory levers) ways to disrupt the public sector, and finally achieve that fundamental change we've been talking about.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

The public sector needs more levity

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Gov + Memes =

Those considering joining this sector don't want to have to sacrifice who they are just so they can work here.

We need to bring back the jester.

We need more levity.

(apologies for the short post, its been a very busy week, click that last link, you will be happy you did)

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

My Submission to the Open Government Consultation

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:07:00 +0000

As you probably know the Government of Canada's consultation on Open Government has now come to a close. I submitted the following on Sunday evening.

=========================

Re: Open Data and Proactive Disclosure of Grants and Contributions

I have investigated how the Government of Canada currently discloses its Grants and Contributions (G&C) spending and I believe there is a significant opportunity to make this already publicly available data far more usable.

Currently:

Each department publishes their own G&C data (i.e. there is no single repository)
Each data point is presented uniformly in an HTML table
Each data point has 6 variables: (1) Recipient Name; (2) Location (City, Province); (3) Date (YYYY-MM-DD); (4) Value ($123,456.78); (5) Purpose (free text), and (6) Comments (free text, often blank)
Each data point is buried in a subset of html pages and is difficult to find; in fact many of my searches using the native web page search failed to return any results from the G&C pages

I have worked with a handful of other public servants to test whether or not the data could be crawled and assembled into a single data set, and it can. We have already compiled a complete data set for all of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) G&C spending. This data set includes every Grant and Contribution disclosed by AANDC since proactive disclosure measures came into effect in 2005. We subsequently verified the data set and cross referenced it with Google Maps to derive longitude and latitude. You can find the data set, additional information, and preliminary visualizations here:

https://github.com/marknca/aandc-grants-and-contributions

Uniting currently fragmented data offering should be a key component of the Open Government Action Plan, as such I suggest that the Government of Canada assemble a team to undertake similar work across the entire domain. This is a low hanging yet incredibly important fruit that is well within our grasp. Given that I, and a handful of other public servants, have already initiated some of this work, we would be happy to share any resources we used (including code), provide advice, or help as needed.

I am looking forward to hearing back from you

Sincerely,

Nicholas Charney

http://www.cprenewal.ca

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Used to be a public servant, took an arrow to the knee

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Don't worry if you don't immediately recognize the verbiage, "taking an arrow to the knee" is an internet meme popularized by the action/role-playing video game Skyrim. In Skyrim ...

... the town guard non-player characters (NPCs) have several stock lines they repeat when the player walks near them, including a bewildered statement about "curved swords", a patronizing statement about “sweetroll” theft, and the melancholy confession “I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee.” The restating of such a specific story over and over again by so many different guards caused it to be noticed by players, who then proceeded to post about it in gaming forums and image boards. -- Know Your Meme (emphasis mine)

So what does a common regret, uttered by otherwise unmemorable would-be adventurers, popularized by the Internet meme machine possibly have to do with the public service?

In a word: everything.

The Skyrim experience and emerging professional narrative

Skyrim relies on a non-linear model of gameplay, meaning that the game doesn't follow a strict path but rather leaves players to explore, discover, and interact with the world on their own terms. In practice this means that Skyrim is less of a game and more of an experience, it also means that the player can exert a significant amount of control over that experience. Players shape the game as much as the game shapes the player, or more rightly their playing style; and while every game of Skyrim starts the same way, players soon realize just how expansive the universe is, and just how many paths are available to them. As someone who has played a significant amount of Skyrim over the holiday season, I can attest to the fact that the game's natural ability to conform to my playing style, interests and goals (even as they change) has undoubtedly contributed to its wild success.

In short, I think that Skyrim delivers an experience on a gaming console that many people are seeking in their careers, namely a completely customizable experience that evolves as they evolve; that perpetually follows their interests; that keeps them challenged/engaged; and that allows them to prioritize their actions and execution (deliverables) in the way they see fit.

As such, I also think it's a perfect proxy for the Internet age's preferred narrative of life as a young professional: self-centric, entrepreneurial and adventurous. But Skyrim also:

is replete with divergent and convergent story lines (but players are free to pick which to pursue and which to ignore);
is geographically vast (but players can travel slowly or at breakneck speed);
is deeply detailed (but players determine how much attention to pay to them);
offers opportunities for specialization or generalist play (but without boxing players in or forcing them to forgo other opportunities); and
allows players to switch focus on the fly (but allows them to leverage past experiences without penalty).

Guards, arrows, adventurers and the public service

If Skyrim is in fact a good proxy for the Internet age's preferred narrative, then examining the difference between the roles of adventurer (the player in Skyrim) and the city guard (the non-playable character who takes the arrow to the knee) is worthwhile.

The adventurer is free to roam, explore, and develop their skill set. They travel the land, find new challenges and have a considerable impact on the world. In fact, when the adventurer enters a city, they often overhear the guards talking about recent events, events that always revolve around the actions of the adventurer themselves. On the other hand, guards are confined to the city, they meander about its walls, and lament lack of excitement in their work. If only they hadn't taken an arrow to the knee! Instead, they suffered an injury that forces them to do something they would otherwise not do: accept a position on the periphery and settle for talking about the events around them rather than actively shaping them. My observation is that risk-averse organizations are similarly polarized, which is to say (and thereby continue the metaphor) they are made up of adventurers and guards; those who define themselves and those defined by the system around them.

Of course, I'm not speaking in absolutes, but rather trying to tease out an important point of comparison. My travels across Canada and the United States have afforded me the rare opportunity to speak with public servants from different levels of government, geographical areas, and functions. Overwhelmingly they all share a single concern: the loss of their adventuring spirit. Interestingly, when I pressed these would-be adventurers, many revealed that they never actually suffered an arrow to the knee themselves, but rather feel (or have been outright told) that they will undoubtedly suffer one should they become more adventurous.

I wonder how many public servants have actually suffered an injury so severe as to limit their ability to be bold, or to seek novel solutions to complex problems? I get a sense that there is a fundamental disconnect between the stories we hear (and sadly perpetuate) and the reality of those on the edges of our organization. Culture is after all built on stories, and if we only ever tell the ones about risk and negative consequences then those two things will ultimately define our culture. Is it any wonder that rather than being encouraged to be bold and adventurous, many of us are, like the city guard, left to meander about our cubicles or blend into the machinery.

Again, I'm not trying to be insulting, this is simply a metaphorical articulation of what a risk-averse culture could (and often does) look like; and while it is clear to me that the culture may inhibit those inside the organization, it must also be said that it inhibits those looking to join it. The people that buy Skyrim, don't buy it to play as the city guard, they buy it to play as its central character. Similarly, public servants shouldn't settle for playing roles on the periphery of their organizations. Instead they should be actively building careers as central characters, pushing other protagonists to elevate their game while simultaneously sharing and collaborating with them. Because I for one am tired of hearing about a culture defined by "arrows to knees".

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

A Few Upcoming Opportunities

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:23:00 +0000

Hi All -
Hope you had a safe and happy new year, I did, despite accidentally (read: foolishly) putting my car into a snow bank on New Year's Eve, but that is a story for another time. I figured I should take the time to share a couple of upcoming events (listed by date) that may be of interest:

Open Government Consultation (ends January 16th)
If you didn't know the Government of Canada is currently conducting a public consultation on the issue of open government, the consultation ends January 16th. If you have something to say, here is your chance.
Details can be found here.
(Disclosure: I have not yet provided input into the consultation, but hope to write an open letter that I will cc my blog on).

Collaborative Management Day (January 25th)
The next instalment of the Collaborative Culture Camp series, a series designed to build capacity for working together openly and embracing a culture of collaboration. This is a free learning series wholly organized by public servants for public servants and should prove to be worth your time.
Details can be found here; the program even boasts regional participation for those of you outside the National Capital Region.
(Disclosure: I had a hand in organizing the first camp of the series, and have since signed up to be a volunteer if needed).

Career Bootcamp 2012 (January 27th)
An annual event organization by various federal government young professional networks in partnership with the National Capital Region Young Professionals Network (NCRYPN). The event is a blend of workshops, professional development, hand-on learning, and networking geared towards new public servants.
Details can be found here; this year the conference is on pace for 300 attendees and seems like a great opportunity to meet your colleagues.
(Disclosure: I am sitting on a panel with Simona Ioffee and Blaise Hebert to discuss Virtual Engagement to Enhance Job Performance).

Crises in Canadian Government: Enable the emerging workforce! (February 9th)
A peer-to-peer roundtable conversation to discuss how the government can enable the emerging workforce and what technologies, policies and ways of thinking/operating could make a difference. This event is connected to the One Million Acts of Innovation campaign and is free to attend.
Details can be found here; I've spoken with the organizers and the discussion should prove interesting should it bridge the gap between those who would be entering the public service and those who are ready to retire from their careers in it.
(Disclosure: I've been invited to attend the event and help animate the discussion, but won't be doing any formal presentation).

Unconfirmed Travel Rumours
You might be able to find me in Toronto, Winnipeg and Regina in the next two months, but nothing has been nailed down just yet. I'll provide more intel when I get it, in the interim if you are in those areas and want to connect, let me know.
Cheers

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

The first step to thinking outside the box, is stepping outside it

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 10:00:00 +0000

I don't care how specialized your organization's mandate is, there will always be more information and knowledge outside your organization than within it.

So here's a question, why are organizations spending money on the dividing line between the two?

Why are organizations effectively cutting off employees from the resources they need to accomplish their mission through measures like Internet access blocking or refusing to let employees work out of their ~~cages~~ offices.

Is it really fair to ask employees to be innovative and think outside the box with one breath while we deny them the means to actually do so with the next?

This is by far the most detrimental cognitive dissonance of organizational behaviour today. It limits the pool of potential solutions to any given problem, feeds paralysis by analysis, and otherwise undermines employee morale.

Innovation is at the edges

5D by Mark Sebastian

I've argued previously that disruptive innovation is about breaking traditional trade-offs and that the people best suited to innovate are nomads and immigrants: people who move seamlessly from one environment to the next, reconciling divergent world views as they go.

If this is indeed the case (and I believe it is) then the logical place to find innovation may in fact be at the organizational limits. Anyone looking to understand the next iteration of mandate, mission, or modus operandi should set up observation posts at the digital and physical organizational boundaries.

The edge of our organizational models will always be the most interesting places. Most of what informs my thinking (and thus my work) comes from outside the organization, and while some may think that is to my detriment, my experience is quite the opposite. The reason I have had any success is because I have demonstrated a clear and consistent ability to approach problems from a different angle and propose novel solutions; I've even been referred to by some as their "alternate lens".

In concrete terms, this means purposely associating and spending time with with people who I might not run into during a typical day at the office:

Public servants from other departments, levels of government, and countries
Developers and hackers
Not for profit organizations
Academics and functional experts
Journalists, communication firms, and consultancy groups
Private (for profit) companies
etc

(... who all share my interest in people, public policy and technology.)

And while the web allows me to do all of this digitally and at relatively low cost, I can not understate the need to supplement online activities with real-world interactions whenever possible. This is one of the primary reasons I am willing to expend my own resources (travel costs, vacation, or weekends) to do things like participate in the Open International Hackathon, go to DC to help the Govloop team hand out free lunch to 500 public servants, or join the Hub Ottawa (a new coworking space).

In short, I make a concerted effort to do these (and other related) things because I know that stepping outside the box is the first step to thinking outside it.

What efforts are you making? How are the people around you supporting (or blocking) you?

Notes

If you are interested in reading more about the confluence of coworking and the public sector I suggest this piece a by Jamey Coughlin entitled "hackers & bureaucrats a beautiful coworking mash-up?"; it was the inspiration for these (and other) thoughts.
Chelsea Edgell wrote a post called Reimagining the Boardroom Part 2: Cubicles and Sleep-pods that I read after having written this but felt worth pointing to.
I've started writing a special series for Apartment 613 (a popular local culture blog here in Ottawa) about the relationship between bureaucratic culture and the city's culture. You can read my interview with a local burlesque dancer and photographer, both of whom also happen to be public servants.

If I don't publish anything between now and the new year have a great one and keep on scheming virtuously.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

The plight of the clay layer

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:00:00 +0000

"When I go to Heaven, I'll Spank God's Ass"
by alphadesigner

Let's face it, new hires want everything.

Senior management, perpetually seeking out the best and the brightest, hopes to give these new hires everything they desire but are often too busy with the work to bring the change to the bowels of the organization, leaving the mission to those in the middle.

While I still believe that middle management may be in the best position to foster innovation, I've also come to realize that they are often rendered ineffective by the very nature of being responsible for satisfying increasingly complex demands from both above and below them.

In essence, I think that middle management is unfairly expected to operationalize culture while simultaneously accomplishing mission. This already uneasy task is made more difficult by the fact that often their contributions go unnoticed, and their resources eroded. On top of it all, we cast them as the problem. We call them the clay layer. We question their motives, their authenticity.

But to be sure I doubt their impermeability is all that purposeful or sinister.

To be fair, the system is simply not designed to deliver what we are now asking of it. Look at how radically technology and the nature of work has shifted in the last 50 years - why haven't our organizational models kept pace?

The grim reality is that sometimes the system can be so broken (or perhaps more rightly, outdated) that it muddies even the clearest of waters (and perhaps reputations).

Most people I have met in the middle are simply ill-equipped to do all that is asked of them. I doubt it's a fun position to be in, and to be fair I'm not sure what (if anything) we are doing to support those being crunched in the middle.

I personally know many people in the middle who have taken on (read: have thrust upon them) more than any single person could (or should) handle; and this only exacerbates the problem.

This is the plight of the clay layer, and I for one, think we ought to take the time to recognize it.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Authenticity is my only metric

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 10:00:00 +0000

My thoughts are a mess - this week has been intense both on and off the ice; invariably many thoughts have passed through my head, but I haven't had the time I need to collect them.
That said, I suggest you read the transcript from this year's Gordon Osbaldeston Lecture given by Allan Gregg (a man I respect greatly, and who is far more informative than I). Gregg's thesis can be summed up as civil society (elected officials, public servants, and citizens) need to be more authentic.
It's a thesis I agree with, one that any proponent of open government or open data will agree with, and one that I have strived for in this space since its very inception.
When the dust settles and my career comes to an end, authenticity will be my only metric.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Look who's talking about the new Web 2.0 Guidelines

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 20:00:00 +0000

If you guessed me, you'd be wrong.

Here is everything I have read thus far on the subject (presented in the order I read them):

Address by Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board, at PSEngage
Guideline for External Use of Web 2.0
Guideline for Digital Oblivion (Jarius Khan)
Web 2.0 Comes to Ottawa With Red Tape Attached (Metaviews)
Social media 101: Feds roll out guidelines for Twitter, Facebook (Globe and Mail)
The Canadian Government's New Web 2.0 Guidelines: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly (David Eaves)
Guideline for External Use of Web 2.0 in the Government of Canada (Mike Kujawksi)

Updates:

Canadian Government Web 2.0 Guidelines Are Disappointing (Andrea Di Maio)
Ottawa's social-media policy too dense: critics (Kathryn May)

If I missed anything, let me know, and I can retroactively add it to the list.

Two things I haven't seen mentioned in the commentary yet:

How the guidelines (and probably more importantly the code of values and ethics) relate to anonymity or pseudonymity online.
According to Treasury Board Secretariat guidelines are usually targeted at managers and functional specialists and the application there of are voluntary (as compared to say a directive where enforcement is mandatory).

Cheers

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Public Sector Microtasking

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:50:00 +0000

Given our propensity for micromanagement I suspect many will look at the idea of micro-tasking with come skepticism, but I think the idea is worth exploring (as do others).

A primer

For the uninitiated, micro-tasking is simply the breaking-down of more complex tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks. The most widely talked about micro-tasking service is Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk); which according to Wikipedia is:

a crowdsourcing Internet marketplace that enables computer programmers (known as Requesters) to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks that computers are unable to do yet. It is one of the suites of Amazon Web Services. The Requesters are able to post tasks known as HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks), such as choosing the best among several photographs of a store-front, writing product descriptions, or identifying performers on music CDs. Workers (called Providers in Mechanical Turk's Terms of Service) can then browse among existing tasks and complete them for a monetary payment set by the Requester. To place HITs, the requesting programs use an open Application Programming Interface (API), or the more limited MTurk Requester site. Requestors are restricted to US-based entities.

Requesters can ask that Workers fulfill Qualifications before engaging a task, and they can set up a test in order to verify the Qualification. They can also accept or reject the result sent by the Worker, which reflects on the Worker's reputation. Currently, Workers can have an address anywhere in the world. Payments for completing tasks can be redeemed on Amazon.com via gift certificate or be later transferred to a Worker's U.S. bank account. Requesters, which are typically corporations, pay 10 percent over the price of successfully completed HITs to Amazon.

In short, corporations post tasks that computers can't do, other people do them, and in so doing earn some small modicum of compensation. (Note if you are interested in learning more about microtasking and Amazon's Mechanical Turk, I suggest watching Aaron Koblin's TED talk: Artfully visualizing our humanity)

In practice

Aphid Farm by binux

Common public sector tasks such as translation, document formatting, fact checking, and basic editing could all be tested in a microtasking environment. While these tasks aren't necessarily sexy they are probably the easiest to manage at the outset. They can be easily broken up into smaller bits (e.g. translate this paragraph, format this 5-page PowerPoint presentation, fact check this page, etc) and are directionally straightforward. In order to ensure some modicum of consistency, users could take qualifying tests prior to being granted access to a particular category of microtask.

That said, microtasking shouldn't be limited to strictly perfunctory tasks. Service providers and policy makers could leverage the same system by presenting scenarios and asking people to complete questionnaires, say evaluating proposed changes to service delivery models or interpreting legislative or regulatory changes. There is an important caveat here, that obviously not everyone in the organization would have the requisite specialized knowledge to provide an in-depth analysis on a given topic. Meaning that feedback acquired from microtasking is more likely to be a better proxy for the general public than it is to be for a specific or specialized stakeholder group.

The motivation

One of the most common criticisms levied against microtasking is the incentive structure; why would people bother completing any of these tasks? First let me start by stating that I don't think that the problem of motivation is a deal-breaker when it comes to public sector microtasking. The answer to the problem is gamification. If we could create a system that leveraged game mechanics while allowing users to engage the system on their own terms it offers them an opportunity for greater autonomy, mastery and purpose; qualities that Dan Pink argues are the hallmarks of motivation.

I've argued in the past that:

An increasingly diverse workforce coupled with an increasingly diverse scope of work means our organizational models have to contend with increasingly jagged edges, wider gaps and unforeseen overlaps. Upon closer reflection, my gut tells me that if we took the time to examine our organizational structures more closely we would find conflict at the jagged edges, delays at the gaps, and duplication at the overlaps.

It also means that many public servants oscillate between periods of hyperactivity and lethargy in the workplace. I think the most compelling benefit of a microtasking system would be that it would help alleviate the pressure of both ends of the spectrum. Those who were incredibly busy could more easily surge as required because they could gain access and expertise from those whom were less busy at that particular moment in time.

Some of our most basic performance issues stem from the fact that few of us have things we can work on when everything else has been accomplished. If you have ever heard anyone say that they had to stretch their workload over the week you know what I am getting at. The problem, at its core, is that we (public servants) don't have a common place to aim our cognitive surplus.

Imagine what we could do if we did.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Lest We Forget

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:00:00 +0000

by FotoRita [Allstar maniac]

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Let me tell you a story

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 09:00:00 +0000

She impressed you. She was professional, articulate, quick to answer, but thoughtful and enthused. That's why you hired her.

You parade her around the office, introducing her to her new colleagues, welcoming her as the new addition to the family. It’s a flood of new faces. It’s a touch overwhelming but she's going through the motions anyway.

Eventually you arrive at her cubicle, give her her login credentials, suggest some reading, requisition her a blackberry, drop off some forms she needs to fill out and head back to your office.

She sits down, still smiling, and starts soaking in the atmosphere.

Atmosphere?

You take it for granted, but the atmosphere feels foreign to her. She just spent the last 7 years earning her Master's. She honed her skills in the noisy campus coffee house, armed with an iPhone tethered to her MacBook, surrounded by others doing the same.

Now she finds herself surrounded by drab grey walls, sitting in front of a desktop computer, and telephone with a cord attaching it to the wall.

A cord?

But it’s not just the antiquated nature of her technological surroundings that puzzles her; no, the discomfort is much, much deeper. It’s so quiet - eerily quiet. No one is arguing, in fact no one is even talking. She misses the conversations about the big ideas. The important conversations.

She listens in as you speak to one of her new colleagues in the cubicle next to her. She is confused by the language you invoke, replete with acronyms and jargon, but what she finds even more confusing is her new colleague's complete and utter deference to authority.

Did he just surrender?

The entire thing is unnerving.

Yet she tolerates it.

She's new, her head swirling with the pressure to be liked, to be seen as a good employee, to otherwise make a good impression with her new 'family'. Her faith, or perhaps more rightly her naiveté, leads her to believe that a larger context will materialize, that eventually her surroundings and her motions will seem less foreign to her.

She is right.

Over time, she slowly learns behaviors from her colleagues and adopts their vernacular. She stops asking so many questions, she goes through the motions, she stops feeling discomfort.

She stops feeling anything at all.

You pass by her in the hall, you smile widely, she mumbles something and keeps walking. You can't help but wonder what happened to that articulate, thoughtful and enthused person you hired six months ago.

The thought is fleeting, you are too busy to look into it now, you are on your way downstairs to the security desk, you have a new hire starting today.

------

Ps - if you are looking to step up the open government conversation, I suggest clicking here.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

This one's for my old man (#movember)

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Friends,

As you may know my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer last February, he has since undergone surgery and to the best of our family's knowledge he is currently cancer free.

But we are never really free from the cancer are we? Fear, worry, reminders of what it has done - or worse what it could still do - linger. Moving on is often difficult, if not downright impossible.

As you probably know, the month of November has, for many, turned into the month of Movember. The month where men grow moustaches to raise awareness and money to help end prostate cancer. This will be my third year participating in the effort.

Sure, its a simple gesture, but one with a noble cause at its core. My Movember team this year is no different, its just me and my Dad.

If you'd like to make a donation my Movember efforts, you can do so here, or better yet, you could support my father's here.

PS - I've set up another blog to hopefully share side by sides of me and my old man as we race to grow the best mo.

PPS - Dad - I love you like a father, like a brother, and like a friend. This one's for you.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Finding Innovation

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:00:00 +0000

Last week I tried to connect the idea of disruptive innovation to Lewis Hyde's anthropological analysis of the mythological trickster. The comparison hinged on a couple ideas, namely that both are focused on the breaking of traditional trade-offs, and that breaking those trade-offs results in a re-ordering of the status quo, a re-ordering that reveals a particular abundance that was previously hidden by man made structures or convention.

I also argued that would be innovators could learn from Hyde's work on the trickster by reading his book with an eye for insight into their behaviours, but it can also be read in a way that helps you find the innovators.

Badi b/w by Emilia Tjernström [Arriving at the horizon]

If you are looking for innovators ...

Look to immigrants or nomads. Those who are new to your organization or those who move around a lot may in fact be your most innovative. New arrivals bring fresh eyes, instinctively connect their new experiences with their previous ones creating a new middle ground for the organization to explore.

Look to people who can take more than a single world view. They have a diversity of interests that drives them to read things from and maintain relationship in different sectors. As a result they bring in ideas that seem foreign to many but yet always seem to contain some nugget of merit.

Look to those who are willing to start from square one, willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater and challenge the fundamental assumptions that dominate the discourse. People who don't simply tear down straw men but build something out of bricks and mortar (or in a digital era perhaps I should say "1s and 0s") to replace it.

Look to people who are good communicators. People who make you feel at ease about things that you are usually uneasy about, who easily bridge the gap between those at the working level and senior managers, knowing how to couch their words with either group.

Look to the people who are comfortable with change. They see everything as an opportunity and welcome whatever the newly reshaped world has in store for them.

Finally, look to the troublemakers. The peoples who's transgressive nature exposes the more deeply problematic roots of more systemic and pressing problems. They use intellect, humour and satire whenever possible, nothing is off limits, and as a result they wind up getting into hot water now and again.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Innovation is tricky, literally ...

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:00:00 +0000

I had the opportunity this week to spend a bit of time with Bill Eggers. Bill is the Global Director of Deloitte's Public Sector practice, is the author of numerous books including If we can put a man on the moon: Getting big things done in government, and is (most importantly) a friend. Bill constantly pushes public sector thinking to the next level and always supports his position with compelling and well-researched examples. His passion for post-bureaucratic government - a model of government that he describes as cheaper, faster, collaborative, open and agile - is both commendable and a source for renewed inspiration.

Disruptive innovation is about breaking trade-offs

In his talk at GTEC Bill argued that disruptive innovation is about breaking traditional and readily-accepted trade-offs. For example Bill argued that modern day smart phones break the historical trade-off between price and performance, citing that a BlackBerry has more computing power than the original Apollo mission. The availability of low-cost and high performance mobile devices has disrupted the market for desktop computers in countries like Africa where consumers are skipping desktops and jumping right into smartphones. The core idea of the argument is that the post-innovation environment looks fundamentally different than the pre-innovation environment, meaning, among other things, that process improvement isn't the same thing as innovation.

Connecting disruptive innovation to comparative anthropology

I recently finished reading Lewis Hyde's Trickster Makes This World. The book, the first chapter of which is available online, uses a group of ancient myths to argue for the kind of disruptive intelligence all cultures need if they are to remain lively, flexible and open to change, or as the TED blog explains:

The trickster is anybody who’s a bit of an outsider. They’re the ones who make change. They’re not thinking about making changes, they’re almost doing it in a selfish way. But because they’re working outside the rules, they change the rules. Everything around them is always new, everything is an opportunity ...

[T]hey got to the place where they are because they worked outside the system. They do mischievous things, but they’re extremely disciplined. Because that’s the other thing about tricksters: They’re never lazy. They’re very industrious.

It’s important to honour mischief-making, in a constructive and creative way, because that’s how we effect change. And it’s so important that we figure out our inner mischief maker. That’s the creative part of us. And everybody’s capable of it.

Trickster Makes This World is also about the immigrant experience, because immigrants are, at first, outside the system, and figure out how to work with the system. And they end up changing the system.

Innovators as Tricksters?

When I was reading the book I started to connect the mental models of Innovators and Tricksters. What I'd like to do is share some quotations from the book that should help you do the same. In so doing remember the core idea above, that (1) innovation is disruptive and requires breaking traditional trade-offs, and that (2) the post-innovation environment looks fundamentally different than the pre-innovation environment.

What tricksters like is the flexible or movable joint. If a joint comes apart, or if it moves from one place to another, or if it simply loosens up where it had begun to stick and stiffen, some trickster has probably been involved... In many cultures, as we have seen, much of the play of tricksters amounts to a reshaping (disjointing, rejointing) of the world around them. (p.257-258)

You can see the from the quotation above that tricksters are drawn to joints (where two ideas or constructs meet) much as would-be innovators purposely look to separate historical trade-offs. Furthermore, you can see from the quotation below that this separation results in some re-ordering of the status quo:

In trickster's world, appetite is a pore-seeking power, and thus appetites prophesy. Their prophesy reveals the hidden joints holding an old world together, the hidden pores leading out. If you don't believe me, try keeping Hermes away from your cattle; try keeping Monkey out of the orchard when the fruit gets ripe. This is the first part of trickster prophecy - appetite seeking the pores of artifice - and it brings directly the second part, the revelation of plenitude. Remember that Krishna, the thief of butter and of hearts, does not steal because the objects of his desires are intrinsically scarce. He steals because they are abundant but human order has limited them. (p.292)

Not only are tricksters drawn to the joints but they actively trying to expose them (if hidden) or exploit them (when not hidden). What interests me here is the latter part of the quotation which indicates that after the trickster breaks the traditional trade-off (the joint) he or she reveals plenitude that "human order" (law, culture or convention) has limited. This makes perfect sense in the context of Bill's example about smartphones that I invoked earlier. Breaking the trade-off between price and performance has contributed to the massive growth of mobile, and has fundamentally reshaped our lives.

Innovation is tricky

If we follow the joining of these ideas to their natural endpoint, would-be innovators (tricksters!) could learn a few things if they approach Hyde's book as a tactical manual. By this I mean that innovators should endeavour to draw ideas from from anywhere, adapt as circumstances require and look at issues from a multitude of vantage points:

[Unrequited] belief is single minded and cannot do what trickster does, open the corridors of humor that allow the mind to toy with itself and with its creations. Along with the revelation of plenitude, then, comes revelation of a complex, joint-working consciousness, one that can always find those corridors of humor, one that will play with any concept, no matter how serious it seems, and one that can create new artifice if need be, that can turn to shaping when it tires of shifting...

The landscape is constant potential for that travelling intelligence, because the present situation is always dissolving and things that the horizon once obscured are coming into view. That intelligence belongs to the wanderer who has heard the same object called different names in different cities. It belongs to the time traveller, the immigrant child in all of us. (p.297-298)

Literally ...

After having read the book, not only do I agree that Trickster makes this world, but I'm starting to think that it may just make an era of post-bureaucratic government too. If you are interested in hearing a bit more about the Trickster I suggest you watch Emily Levine's TED talk (embedded below) called "A Trickster's Theory of Everything", its actually the reason I picked up the book in the first place.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Bureaucrat Shrugged

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 09:00:00 +0000

Atlas Shrugged is a book that is close to my heart, and despite what you may think about the philosophy of Ayn Rand (Objectivism), I can't help but identify with the struggle of the book's central protagonists.

Perhaps it was because I read Atlas in my first year in the public service as I battled work-related depression, having left a job at an NHL franchise in the midst of its cup run in order to try my hand in the public sector. The novel depicts American industrialists as the metaphor for Atlas of Greek mythology, holding up the Earth, whom John Galt (the central character of the novel) persuades to "shrug," by refusing to lend their productive genius to the regime any longer.

(spoiler alert)

Essentially the story is about John Galt, a man stifled by oppressive bureaucratic functionaries and a culture defined by mediocrity and egalitarianism who leaves his job at a motor company and starts recruiting other prominent industrialists to do the same. The book follows the actions of Dagny Taggart who struggles with the choice to either try to change the system from within or simply walk away and leave it to those who would stay the course and (the implication is) eventually run the ship aground (btw this is the origin of the phrase "Going Galt").

This Atlassian struggle is one that has defined my career thus far, and, should I choose to continue my career in this sector, will invariably define it for the remainder of it. Should I continue to push for change from within the system or simply abandon the effort in its entirety? Everyone I've spoken with has identified the pressing need for deep change in this sector; some have even told me that they think we are approaching the breaking point, making this choice all the more important.

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to liken myself to some sort of public sector equivalent to a Greek god, I'm simply identifying with the immensity of the task facing every agent of change in the public sector right now, and I don't just mean here in Canada but everywhere. Changes in our social fabric brought on by advancements in communications technologies coupled with the immensity of budgetary cuts requires a fundamental rethinking of public services. These are difficult and (to borrow the popular verbiage right now) austere times. Given the circumstances I doubt we can afford oppressive bureaucracies or a mediocre culture.

To wit, I don't think its just me contemplating shrugging right now, its anyone who has banged their head against the wall one too many times.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Failure as a Competitive Advantage

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:00:00 +0000

Whenever I speak about failure I try to re-position it as a competitive advantage:

What kind of organization would you rather work for? One that tries, fails, learns and tries again? Or one that never tries, never fails, never learns?

I ask the question because I think that these two organizations are on two radically different trajectories in terms of their ability to be innovative. Furthermore, in a hyper connected world my hypothesis is that talented people will self select to organizations that try, fail, learn, and try again, while the less talented will naturally gravitate towards the organizations who don't (i.e. atrophy doesn't require talent).

When was the last time you stopped to ask yourself what type of organization you work for?

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Public service renewal: the weekly round-up

noreply@blogger.com (Lee-Anne Peluk) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:44:00 +0000

Fellow govvies,

Here're the must-reads of the week. Stay warm and dry!

Snip snip:

Death by a thousand cuts: a compelling argument that a disaster-in-the-making is unfolding across government.
And a more positive analysis to balance things out, the Delta Partners argue for a radical cultural shift.
It seems that the saga at DND is continuing … is it just media speculation that DND is facing an exodus of public affairs staff?

Remaking public service culture:

An out-of-the-ordinary, short read on how and why bureaucracies can amplify psychopathic behaviour
Got a youth network in your department? New to the public service? Then don’t miss this post on The Rise and Fall of Public Sector Youth Groups
Worth checking out: Transport Canada launched the new look for government web sites

This post has been a collaborative effort from Lee-Anne Peluk and Nicholas Charney.You can check out Lee-Anne's blog "In the Shuffle" at www.leeannepeluk.wordpress.com

On Trump Cards and Gatekeepers

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:48:00 +0000

Make no mistake our culture is one largely defined by trump cards and gatekeepers. You undoubtedly have run into one or the other, or perhaps more rightly, the latter deploying the former as some sort of delay tactic, tripping you up on whatever you are working on. For the uninitiated, the term trump card can refer to any sort of action, authority, or policy which automatically prevails over all others" (source: wikipedia) whereas a gatekeeper is someone who controls access to something (e.g. funding, approval, the next stage) (source: wikipedia).

Common trump cards

In the government’s technology space, common trump cards include (but aren't limited to) IT security, accessibility, official languages, privacy or access to information laws. I have run into countless gatekeepers during my travails through the public service; people who overemphasize their concerns, reference a policy in some abstract way, and suffocate your line of thinking in its infancy (not even a project, but a line of thinking!).

At this point in the argument I should probably say that not everyone who occupies a position as a gatekeeper acts strictly as an organizational brakeman. There are good ones out there, ones who will cite concerns, relate them to a specific subsection of the relevant policy document, and either propose an alternative or develop a mitigation strategy (or perhaps even an amendment to the policy!). What follows isn't advice aimed at helping you deal with those types of people, because quite frankly (and you'd probably agree), they are approaching their work the right way. That being said, if you want to move beyond your organization’s brakemen (gatekeepers) you need to be able to push back on them, ask insightful questions, and ask them to cite with precision the points of contention between the legislation, regulation, or policy and the line of thinking you are proposing.

The reason trump cards are so effective is that we understand them collectively to be a final answer. If you want to undermine their utility you simply have to stop accepting them as a the final resolution to a problem. This takes courage, and can make gatekeepers uneasy because they have grown accustomed to using trump cards as a conversation ender; my challenge to you is to use them as a conversation starter.

But this problem isn't unique to the technology space in government, its emblematic of the entire culture.

This is just a caveat to illustrate the pervasive nature of trump cards and gatekeeping. A few months ago I took a photograph in the lobby of a government building. I was outside the security checkpoint, I didn't photograph anyone, nor did I capture any security equipment. I was immediately approached by security who told me I wasn't allowed to photograph the lobby area, citing that it was against policy. He didn't tell me which one, nor did I ask, but as he approached me (presumably to ask me to erase the photograph) I informed him that I was an employee and showed him my ID badge. He glanced at it quickly, retracted his statement and proceeded back behind the security desk. I was (and still am) completely dumbfounded. What policy was he referring to? What were the specifics? How did it differ because I was an employee?

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Public service renewal: the weekly round-up

noreply@blogger.com (Lee-Anne Peluk) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:07:00 +0000

For the week of September 19 - 23, 2011

If you’re involved in public service renewal – or just a curious bystander – here's the run down of stuff you'll want to read and do this week.

To do:

Sign up (as soon as possible!) for an inexpensive (read: $5) opportunity to scheme virtuously and network at: Beyond the Kool-Aid: Open Government? Space is limited and conversation promises to be dynamic. Join experts from Google, other levels of government and Mediastyle to talk Government 2.0; while the ideas have been discussed over and over, for many it feels as if little progress is being made. Where do we go from here?

Join us: Now that school has started we’re gearing up for yet another #w2p mixer, this time with a different twist. Mark your calendars for September 28 where the #w2p community will be mixing it up with the Advanced Leadership Program.

To read:

• The Future of the Federal Workforce: can we apply the cloud model to the PS workforce?

• On cuts: Federal unions launch petition drive to call on Clement to put critical services and the long-term social safety first.

• Junk the jargon, cut the clichés and use plain English – a new tone of voice would help so many public organizations

• The U.S. is having a national dialogue on improving government web sites - and there are loads of fabulous ideas to be found on the site.

Have a great week!

This post has been a collaborative effort from Lee-Anne Peluk and Nicholas Charney.You can check out Lee-Anne's blog "In the Shuffle" at www.leeannepeluk.wordpress.com

subscribe/connect

The Rise and Fall of Public Sector Youth Groups

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 09:00:00 +0000

I've spent a lot of time around departmental youth groups since joining the public service; I've launched them, provided informal advice to chairs, and spoken at national conferences. My general observation is that public sector youth groups are forged out of a deep sense of frustration that plagues many new public servants. It is a frustration born out of over-promising during intake, under-delivering after the hire is made, and otherwise muddling through the logistical details of the on-boarding process (e.g. office space, ID badge, computer login credentials that often aren't ready; managers with no time or materials to brief you with; and no clear articulation of duties in relation to mandate). Back in 2008, I interviewed a new hire who put it thusly:

"Despite coming in really pumped from the recruitment process, the first week on the job was very slow. My manager was away and the rest of the team generally kept to themselves. I spent the first week eating lunch alone."

To be fair, I doubt everyone's experience is terrible, however I would say that my own initial experience and many of the stories others have shared with me of theirs confirms the sentiment of the text cited above. In fact, one could argue that the trajectory of new public servants is not too dissimilar from the 5 stages of grief:

Denial: This can't actually be this bad, people wouldn't just sit back and let themselves be treated like this.
Anger: This is bullshit; management needs to get their heads out of their arses and fix this.
Bargaining: Maybe if I give it a year it will get better. Everything moves slowly here, I'll just give it a year.
Depression: The organization is so broken. Change is hopeless. I'll just self-medicate with coffee and cigarettes.
Acceptance: (a) Retire on the job or (b) Quit or (c) Fight the good fight.

Enter Public Sector Youth Groups

Public sector youth groups are likely to form when you have recruitment efforts that result in large numbers of new recruits entering the organization at the same time because they generally proceed through these stages together. When everything is unfamiliar to them, they tend to coalesce with other new employees because they share a common experience: their relative newness to the organization. My sense is that most youth groups are the formal end point of what starts out as an informal assembly of new friends and colleagues sharing shit stories over beers about how they perceive themselves to be (rightly or wrongly) under-appreciated, under-utilized and over-managed. Yet, if it is empirically true that youth groups form out of a common sense of dissatisfaction or unrest, then their very existence can be construed as evidence that there is something inherently wrong with the organization.

My observation is that as new recruits proceed through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief, they build affinity for one another and the group increases in size. Upon reaching the 5th stage (acceptance) the group starts to move towards collective action (provided they decided to fight the good fight). These actions usually start around the periphery of the organization, and focus in on activities that senior managers wouldn't blink an eye at (social events, lunch and learns, charity events, etc). These activities do a couple of things for new hires: First it gets them out of their cubicles and allows them to meet other people all over the organization; and second, it provides them with unique opportunities to showcase their talents outside those cubicles. In short, participation in youth groups brings exposure, and exposure brings opportunities.

Moreover, many of the youth group coordinators I have spoken to over the years have expressed a deep disdain for doing the actual work within the youth group, but see that work as a means to an end. They see it as the stepping stone to get away from the work at the core of their desk, work they often have an even deeper disdain for. What happens next is what we usually call serendipity, but given the circumstances, is the logical climax of the story line: the on-display abilities of new recruits are noticed, and subsequently they move on to higher-profile jobs. This movement has two related impacts. The first is that these now not-so-new hires are less dissatisfied with the overall status quo because their own lot has ameliorated (i.e. they have been satiated for the time being). The second is that they now have additional responsibilities so they have less time to invest in the youth group and related activities. In short, their interest in and ability to participate are lessened. This is how most youth groups disband, the majority of the drivers move onto bigger and better things and the group loses its critical mass until the next batch of new recruits is hired and inevitably stumbles upon the novel idea of forming a youth group, allowing the cycle to simply repeat itself.

To be honest I don't have a lofty conclusion, I just thought this was an observation worth sharing.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Public service renewal: the weekly round-up

noreply@blogger.com (Lee-Anne Peluk) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 13:25:00 +0000

For the week of September 12 - 16, 2011.

G'morning --

Here they are, top 3 reads from last week on PS renewal.

The report from the Public Service Alliance of Canada on the Public Service Modernization Act five-year legislative review is out. Interestingly, a story on Canada.com highlights that the new act allows for any person to accuse a public servant of "improper political activity," and gives the Public Service Commission (PSC) plenty of space to interpret which actions are acceptable. How far does ‘political activity’ extend? On Mirriam Webster it’s simple: something relating to government, or the conduct of government.
We’ve heard a lot about open data for governments, but what does open data actually look like? It’s all about how this info is organized for other people to use. Check out the beta site for the B.C. government to see open data in action.
It’s worth checking out the Delta Partners Blog on Strategic & Operational Reviews. This week’s part 3 has started a very interesting unpacking of tribalism and the public service.

Find these helpful? Want to see something different? Let me know.

This post has been a collaborative effort from Lee-Anne Peluk and Nicholas Charney.You can check out Lee-Anne's blog "In the Shuffle" at www.leeannepeluk.wordpress.com

On Seeing Risk Differently

noreply@blogger.com (nickcharney) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:44:00 +0000

Whenever anyone steps up and tells you that [social media] and the public service don't mix; when they tell you not to, and when they tell your that you are risking too much tell them that the real risk is failing to soldier on. Tell them that the truth of the matter is this: the real career limiting move is keeping your head down, never taking a risk, and fear-mongering when you realize that the calculated risk-taker beside you is likely to quickly surpass you on the career path. -- Nick Charney, The Truth About Career Limiting Moves

I admit (at least I've been told, and my experience seems to confirm) that I see risk differently than many people who share my line of work. When it comes to risk, my primary concern is the risk that arises from inaction or leaving assumptions unchallenged. It is a quality that Gilles Paquet impressed upon me very early in my career when I had the privilege to sit next to him on my very first panel, it’s what led me to write Scheming Virtuously, to start this blog, and to otherwise engage myself in the conversation around the public sector. Despite my efforts over the past four years, the dominant worldview is still one that argues that risks (and therefore consequences) arise primarily from taking action and questioning the status quo. I offer no direct evidence, but feel that few among you would argue the point.

Surely, this dichotomy is a false one. But I'd rather talk about its cruel irony than argue over semantics. Perceiving risk in either of the ways I've articulated above makes you blind to the other side of the equation. In taking a side we fail to see the absolute potential for risk (and thus consequences) before us. Instead we base our decisions (or more likely our nascent gut reactions) on only one half of the equation. Yet if the idea that consequences more readily follow action than inaction is empirically true, than the equation isn't a balanced one at all but rather a question that is skewed in favour of status quo thinking. The exact degree to which it is skewed may be directly related to (if not at least correlated with) the distribution of the people across the dichotomy. I can't help but wonder if this is what people are trying to communicate when they tell me I am a risk-taker (a label that I have never really identified with); that my actions are more likely to be met with negative consequences than others.

When facing consequences, my hope is that, regardless of what side of the divide you sit on, you are willing to take them on the chin.

I certainly am.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect