Category Archives: Positive Change

PROTECT THE DEVIANTS!

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Two golden retriever dogs in a puddle as the sun sets.
Otis and Saul enjoying their deviance.

I was a “risky” hire.  Not quite cut from the same cloth. A slightly irregular education. A different sort of professional background. An advocate for better, maybe not anonymous enough…someone with an opinion.

The system, like any mature system, naturally tried to reject me. I failed exams for subjective reasons. Was disqualified based on narrow interpretations. Limited opportunities due to my background and maybe even gender and age.  In fact, I am pretty sure that if the HR System was a person I would have grounds for a complaint. Alas, the system is not a person and harassment only applies to people.

The people I have met are polite, concerned and friendly. Most of them want to do a good job.  Some of them have seen beyond the risk and helped me, and I thank you very much for that.

Now that I am in the system, I realize that I am a bit of a deviant for the same reasons that I was a risky hire.

https://gfycat.com/IdenticalThoseDarklingbeetle

If you imagine government organizations as living organisms and apply some biological logic, it is not hard to see how they would naturally try to reject anything foreign. And in some parts of government culture, I am definitely foreign.  Luckily in other parts of government culture, I fit right in, in fact, I am not as “deviant” as some!

Nevertheless, the places where I do fit in are generally bucking the system, or at least trying to hack it. Their directors and managers are committed to finding a way to do the right thing today, even when the rules are trying to force them to do the right thing for yesterday. It is not easy, they have to work hard, be persistent and continually challenge existing thinking. All before getting on with their mission. 

There is a point to this rant. In his seminal book on organizational culture, Organizational Culture and Leadership Paperback,  Edgar H. Schein talks about how people that first exhibit new traits become different than their co-workers. In most groups of people, this deviance from the norm results in marginalization—cultures by their nature seek the harmony of homogeneity.  Because of this human dynamic, if an organization wants to change it needs to protect the positive deviants from the forces that would see them banished.

The forces that marginalize deviants come in all shapes and sizes. Some are hidden in cognitive biases, others come out as classification, age, level, gender or discipline discrimination. Still, others manifest as well-intentioned policies and rules with narrow interpretations that result in prejudicial side effects.  Risk aversion plays a role here as well. Managers often equate risk with being challenged and the easiest way not to be challenged is to do things the way we have always done them. Deviants are risky by definition, even if they are positive, so the logical path is to get rid of them or not hire them in the first place. 

I think of myself as a positive deviant, and I know there are hundreds, if not thousands of public servants that feel the same way. If the public service is to remain relevant in a different world, it must be different and to be different it needs positive deviants, not former employees. 

Protect the positive deviants! 

The Crowded Boardroom: When the long tail collides with hierarchy – a true story.

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This not a random picture, it is how I envision the government. Each ship is a department or agency. The ships have commanders with considerable authority. Communication at a distance is very bad, (they did it with flags). Groups of ships are supposed to work together and sometimes they do so effectively, but collaboration is difficult with many strong egos and conflicting agendas. My hope is that we can use the current enthusiasm for all things digital, to get better at working together.

The goal of this post is to try and share some of the lessons from an extraordinary experience that I (and many of you) have been part of for more than a decade now. The experience was leading the collaborative tools team that created GCpedia and GCconnex across the Government of Canada (2007-2010).

My journey began with the 2000 tech bubble burst and the ride that preceded it ended. Looking for new consulting challenges I looked to government and found a world of opportunity for improvement.  Over the next few years, I undertook dozens of interesting projects in a variety of departments that eventually led to a three-year executive interchange appointment that changed my life, and I dare say, changed the Government of Canada.

When my interchange ended and I realized that this was a career highlight that would be difficult to surpass. So I wrote a paper about it.  The paper reflects on the origin story of what is certainly one of the most successful government collaboration platforms in existence. I started to update it, but other things keep getting in the way so I am sharing it again now in its original form.

In the paper, I look at how the project seemed to transcend cultural and institutional barriers to enterprise change in the context of Government.

Reading it today I am struck by a few things:

  • Navigating complexity is challenging, but applying the principles of complexity is useful in growing a complex adaptive system.
  • Introducing change to an organization requires a willingness to manage by exception —the long tail does not easily fit in a boardroom (page 19).
  • Stealth works. Formal approval mechanisms cannot be expected to understand and preemptively approve the specifics of innovation. A small group with sufficient “policy cover” but limited formal governance can do a lot for not very much money.
  • A senior central agency executive who is willing to risk manage can enable wide-spread innovation (we had one in 2007 with Ken Cochrane and we have another in 2018 with Alex Benay).
  • The Governance and Stakeholder model is something we should be looking at and talking about to deal with our shared accountability issue (see the governance description starting on page 12).
  • I am intrigued by the idea of viral horizontality (see Table 2, page 16).
  • The basic underlying assumptions of organizational culture are the hardest to change (page 18). These include things like:
    • Responsible autonomy is best
    • Deference to the most respected
    • Shared sense of purpose
    • Free information is powerful
    • Mistakes are learning opportunities
    • Beg forgiveness rather than ask permission
    • Working for Citizens, (it’s a way of life)
    • Challenge the rules
  • The factors that influence governance in table 2 are still true and worth looking at if you are into that sort of thing.
  • “Good enough for next to nothing” I like that line and think that projects that achieve this goal should be rewarded. And improved upon in the next iteration.
  • In a complex adaptive system, neither use nor content can be fully anticipated.
  • There are real implications for our policy planning and service design philosophies as we embrace an agile digital approach.

This paper examines the cultural and internal governance implications of the introduction of a horizontally enabling Web 2.0 technology (open source MediaWiki) in a large enterprise (the Public Service of Canada), in the period 2007-2010. It was written and presented as part of the World Social Science Forum Conference in Montreal, October 2013.

The paper was later published in the scholarly journal Optimum Online Vol 43, No4, Dec. 2013 (registration required).

I would be delighted to hear your thoughts.

More articles and stuff.

The sausage and the salad

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Over the last few years I have been trying to understand how open government can save democracy and help us deal with the big challenges in society today. Recently I have turned my attention to the policy making process as a big part of what government does.

Policy, according to Wikipedia is “a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes”.  Government does a lot of policy.  It creates laws, regulations and a whole series of policy instruments.  You could argue that government really only exists to create policy, and implement policy via services.  So policy is important.

Traditional government policy is like making sausage

Wikipedia 1200px-Kielbasa7.jpg
Various types of government policy produced in the traditional way.

To make sausage you grind up some meat, add some spices and maybe some filler. You stuff it in a tube of something using a special machine and package it up for cooking and consumption.  Once the sausage is made, it is pretty much impossible to change the recipe.

To make policy we grind up some knowledge, add some words and maybe some regulation. We get it approved by the department, the cabinet or the legislature in a process that takes years. Once approved, it is pretty difficult to change. Lessons from implementation are frequently lost as the policy does not get renewed for years.

The thing about sausage is that even though it might taste good, you never really know what goes into it.  Also too much of it is probably not good for your health.

Open policy making is like making a salad

Modern open policy produced with collective input and open to iterative improvement.

On the other hand, let’s think of a salad. Not only is it more colorful and diverse, you can instantly see all the ingredients. You can tell by looking at it whether it is fresh or not. Salads are versatile and easily changed. In fact, if you really want to you can still toss in some tasty sausage at the last minute.

Open policy making lets you know what went into the creation of government direction, you can easily see and examine the ingredients in the end product. In open policy making you can even offer up your own ingredients.  And salads are generally good for your health.

The world is changing and we need to adapt

We have spent centuries in government perfecting a convoluted sausage policy making process that depends heavily on expert advice and a bureaucratic understanding of the

Declining meat consumption in Canada as a metaphor for the changing policy landscape and rising demand for open policy making. 

public good.    But the world is changing. Meat consumption has been declining for decades and for government to stay relevant it must adapt.

I think we need more salads in our policy diet, what do you think?

Links and credits:

Government as a platform eh?

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I came across this draft post from when I attended the 2009 Gov2.0 Summit in Washington.  It was just after Obama became President and the excitement in the air was like that in Ottawa recently with our new Prime Minister. 

Reading it again, it occurred to me that it might be useful input into the conversation about what digital means to the governments of Canada.
Gov20summitThere was lots of talk about government as
a platform on the first day of the summit and I must admit that I came to Washington a little unclear on the topic. There are multiple “layers of abstraction” and no doubt those who build hardware and software have a more detailed understanding, nonetheless I will share with you what I took away about one of the big themes of the conference.

platform for change

  • A data platform for services
    By sharing data in open machine readable ways, the government can enable industry to create social and financial value by building services on top of that data. The dominate examples had to do with GPS and GIS data, (location, maps and details). There were impressive examples from the battlefront in Afghanistan to the streets of LA. The Obama administration has taken a bold step towards embedding this behavior in the bureaucracy with its Open GOvernment Directive.
  • A social platform
    With its power to convene and consult with groups of citizens the government can be a powerful catalyst for civic action. With much of the credit of Obama’s election win going to the power of the internet to mobilize voters, the administration is very interested in how to involve Americans in taking action to solve their problems. By using modern internet tools the government could fulfill the promise of Jeffersonian Democracy it seems.
  • An economic platform
    Finally with its power to invest the government can initiate market moves and affect the direction of the economy. The feeling in the room was that if government investments in infrastructure good things will happen.

There are probably many more ways you could describe Government as a platform. Gosh, I even heard a sidewalk referred to as a platform for social interaction. (Depending upon how you design and build it, you will get different behaviors. Add a bench and people sit down. Make it narrow and people walk on by.)

The thing about Government as a platform is that it provides a new perspective on the old problem of making government more effective. As I believe that genus with the funny hair said:

 ” you can’t solve old problems with the same thinking that created them”  

New perspectives are a good thing.

There are many ways you can think of Government as a platform. The take away for public servants is to use this perspective to create new forces for good.  To create policy and programs that will address the real problems the world faces today.

There you have it. My thoughts, such as they are. Feel free to comment, correct or elaborate, express whatever you want, just be polite about it ok?

You can change culture now: 3 essential truths for public service leaders

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stick man on stairs squareThe Canadian federal public service has been trying to change its culture for a few years with initiatives like Blueprint 2020 and the Innovation Hubs. Now we have a new federal leadership that wants to adopt a new and more collaborative approach to governing. One might wonder what is keeping us from our goal…

I am not a millennial, but I am a pretty hip, late baby boomer who has been part of the interweb since close to the beginning. My career has been a little eclectic and I have had the opportunity to observe and participate in a wide range of transformational activities. I am telling you this, because it is that experience that has provided the fodder for the observations that follow.

A few years ago I was deep into an analysis of how governments could realize the potential of collaboration and social technologies. As I was mulling over how to synthesise all of the data into a sound bite that could be easily consumed by a busy executive, I was also thinking about how it connected with what I had learned from working in advertising and teaching consumer behaviour. In a rare moment of clarity while waiting for a red light I scribbled down three truths that seem to me to be both obvious and profound.

1. Sharing is good

Sharing is the activity that fuels successful collaboration, knowledge management and communication, which in turn are fundamental to a “capable and high performing” organization. By sharing we become authentic to those around us, sharing preserves hard earned knowledge and makes us more productive, telling stories makes us real, and helps to build the common purpose which is so important to successful change.

Most of the major research firms agree that the biggest challenge organizations face in implementation of social technologies within the enterprise is creating a culture that supports information sharing. Having been involved with over a dozen enterprise collaboration efforts I can say that my personal experience supports those findings. Culture, as the saying goes eats strategy for breakfast, apparently it also eats technology, and probably has a taste for deliverology as well.

Many people don’t share because they are afraid of making a Career Limiting Move (CLM), while others, (kudos if you are one), consider sharing part of their responsibility. Unfortunately too many seem to equate sharing with a CLM, and ultimately we need to institutionalize ways of rewarding sharing and punishing information hoarding. Maybe we can make sharing part of management accountability accords, it is pretty easy to count contributions to sharing platforms like GCpedia and GCconnex…

2. Ego gets in the way

By ego I mean an unhealthy focus on self. We have all come across individuals that try and withhold information, and manipulate those around them for personal gain or promotion. When combined with a lack of emotional intelligence I believe this is one of the most destructive forces in the public service today. We need to get our self-worth from something other than the size of our empire, we need to get emotional and career points for collaborating. We need to recognize the common purpose, (serving Canadians anyone?), as more important than our personal gain. Not only is the, “I only do what is good for me” attitude, bad for the organization, its beginning to look like it may be bad for your career as well.

I have worked on enough horizontal files to have come across this issue more than once. No matter how you structure a collaboration, the people involved can always sabotage it. While researching the horizontal governance issue sometime in the early 2000’s, I came across an Auditor General’s report examining the lack of progress on the climate change file. Without much reading between the lines it was obvious that the real problem was that the primary departments involved could not find a way to collaborate, mostly because the Deputy Ministers did not like each other. Now I am not pointing fingers at the senior ranks, you see this kind of behaviour at all levels. I suppose we should not be surprised, given the competitive, individualistic socialization most of us have grown up with. But humanity’s greatest capacity is to learn, and I like to think that we can learn to work together despite personal differences—if we set aside our ego once in awhile in favour of the common goal.

3. You can’t communicate too much

“You can’t communicate too much”,  I posted this comment on twitter during  a conference  once and it quickly became one of the most re-tweeted updates, so it seems the sentiment hit a nerve.

Back in my advertising days we used to spend a lot of money on media buys and printing, and one of the worst things that could happen was for a print run or advertisement be published with a mistake. When it did happen it was an expensive and embarrassing lesson. After the first time we began to repeat instructions, in different languages if necessary, we would draw pictures, leave notes on the artwork, call the publisher, even attend press runs to make sure all was understood. Later in my career I worked with a Product Line Manager at a major telecom who told me that for an idea to get traction you had to say the same thing over and over again in as many different ways as you could think of —when you are sick of saying the same thing, it’s time to say it again— you can’t communicate too much.

In today’s information intense and dynamic workplace, trying to get the attention of information inundated executive ranks will take more than a little repetition. Going the other way, management can’t communicate too much with staff, especially during times of change. The mushroom school of management (keep them in the dark, and feed them sh*t), simply has no place in an agile and high performing organization— you can’t communicate too much.

In dynamic times, perfection is the enemy of communication, waiting for a complete and crafted message simply leads to speculation and fear, while communicating often and openly, even admitting you don’t know everything, leads to trust and understanding. Having a clear and common purpose is more important than knowing the details of how you are going to get there— you can’t communicate too much.

Conclusion

Changing the culture of something as big as the public service is a daunting task, sometimes compared to turning a supertanker. But the public service is not a ship, it is an organization made up of people, and it’s people who make the culture. The three truths that I have shared can and should be applied from the top down, but more importantly they can be applied by individuals regardless of rank, when you think about that, it means you have the power to change culture.

What are you going to do with that power?

Image Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Triskele-Symbol-spiral-five-thirds-turns.png

Editorial Note:

This post is adapted from one of two posts that was written for a GTEC 2013 blog series exploring what it means to be an Agile, Open, Collaborative and Mobile Government. The original post was entitled “Three truths to help you change the culture of the Public Service.” My focus in the series was on the Cultural, Organizational and Policy Infrastructure that provides the foundation for public service culture.

Good enough, is.

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I have worked with government now for about 15 years and somewhere in that period I became infected with Public Service Renewal disease.  I call it that because that was I how I first learned to articulate it. But you could also call it Blueprint 2020, Destination 2020, Gov.20, Agile Government, Open Government or the current favorite, Digital Government.

One of the differences I have noticed between the federal government and other sectors of society is a preoccupation with obligation. The bureaucracy of government sees itself as obligated to meet a higher standard. Mistakes are rarely tolerated and staff routinely strive to achieve the impossible;  programs that will measurably create results with no risk.  The goal is laudable but consider for a moment how difficult it is to achieve societal goals that are actually measurable in a 4-8 year term. Society changes, but it does so in decades and in ways that economists struggle to understand much less measure. The other side of the equation is risk and as my mother used to say; ” nothing ventured, nothing gained”, venture implies risk so if you are unwilling to risk being wrong for fear of unfavorable media attention, or just because you want to create the perfect solution, you are doomed to an eternity of cost overruns and mediocre results.

Part of the problem is the way that accountability and reward are structured. Senior managers with performance pay are motivated to eliminate mistakes are frequently adopt a strategy of micro-managing. Because that is so unsustainable they quickly become overwhelmed with details.  When they are presented with an innovation that will take some additional effort, it is much easier to say no.

I started this post with the statement, “good enough, is”.   Early in my career, (decades ago now), I was working for the engineering group in a telecommunications firm, I was writing the project charter for a five-year multi-million dollar product transformation. Working with one of the executives articulating project principles, and he insisted that one of them should be  “Good enough, is”.  His rationale was that engineers were constantly almost finishing projects, and then thinking of better, more elegant solutions and restarting the entire effort. This constant pursuit of the very best was getting in the way of actually shipping a product. It struck me then as interesting, and worthy of consideration in realms beyond engineering and telecommunications.

Since those days I have come across the sentiment expressed in a number of ways, from “perfection is the enemy of good”, to perfection is a moving target, to the minimum viable product. Whatever you call it, I think it is worth reflecting on the question of whether you and your team are pursuing excellence at the expense of good enough. In these days of extreme demands and minimal resources, ask yourself is it worth the price?

Recently (2014) I have been encouraged by all the talk about bringing Agile processes into more aspects of government. But one thing that concerns me is I am not sure that folks understand that “good enough is” lies at the heart of the process.  I suspect that a few public servants with a passion for excellence, can pretty easily kill agile with good intentions.  We have to remember that agile is an iterative process. We need to build this into our thinking. Each iteration of a policy or service development cycle may be just good enough, but that is OK, because we can make it better in the next iteration. This leads to the next challenge which is making the iterations short enough, as in next quarter rather than in five years.

Kaizen

This is not to say I think the public service should under-achieve. The idea of “Good enough, is” should always be countered by the concept of Kaizen or continuous improvement. The dynamic tension is a healthy thing.

What do you think?

Note: This post originally appeared on the Government Executive Blog.

Three words for the season

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This holiday season I would like to share a song with you from a band that my teenage son introduced to me to. It is certainly not a Christmas song, but I think the sentiment is one that is appropriate.

The song is called the Shen and it is track 4 from Infected Mushroom’s album Classical Mushroom, released by YoYo Records, in 2000. Infected Mushroom is an Israeli psytrance/electronica duo of producers Erez Eisen and Amit Duvdevani. The intelligible lyrics start around the 6:20 mark in the 8:34 minute long track. According to Metrolyrics.com the entire song consists of these words:

Patience, understanding and love;
Patience, understanding and love;
Patience, understanding and love;
Most of all you need love.

Patience, understanding and love,
that’s what I want for Christmas.

All the best to you and your loved ones,

Thom

If you like this type of music have a listen.

 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2BK48mIdZw

The song may or may not have something to do with the one time secret healing Technique of the Shun Shen Tao.  While preparing this post I came across this video where Grandmaster David Harris shares the “Shen” Technique in the art of Shun Shen Tao.  Interesting stuff.

Colour me naive

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This post originally appeared on the Canadian Government Executive Blog
September 17,2013

You know, I have been around long enough to know better, but still choose to believe in stuff like Blueprint 2020, because change can’t happen unless we believe it can. Don’t get me wrong, I am no Pollyanna and healthy scepticism is, well, healthy, but seriously the first step to making anything happen is believing that it is possible.

Can you imagine an Olympic athlete who didn’t think they could? Do you think they would be any good? It starts with belief.

I choose to believe that the individuals that make up the public service can make a difference. Everyone has a sphere of influence that they affect. Most of us can’t change policy or re-arrange the functions of government, but we can choose how we do our jobs and interact with those around us. When something stupid gets in the way, we can hold up the flag of Blueprint 2020 and maybe stop a little of the insanity.

In his recent post on CGE Blog, (see Does Blueprint 2020 hold Wouters? ) John Wilkins says that authentic public service renewal “…calls for a bottom-up approach, top-level commitment, and continuous improvement.” I agree with his statement, what’s more I think it could already be here.

A bottom- up approach
I know a bunch of Public Servants that have taken the Clerk’s words to heart and take ownership for implementing good ideas within their sphere of influence. What if they all did?

Top-level commitment
I choose to believe that despite their constraints, leaders actually want to the right thing most of the time, but it doesn’t really matter because they have opened a can of worms and will have to do something, it may not be revolutionary but even a “measured response” (see Blueprint 2020: Raising expectations for real change ) is better than nothing.

Continuous improvement
Blueprint 2020 discussions are taking place across the public service and some of those discussions must be turning into conversations that lead to mutual learning and eventual improvement. Learning is infectious and when individuals decide to take ownership for their own improvement the institution either goes along or becomes irrelevant.

There you go, easy as pie. Change is already here, you just have to believe.

Of course it’s not that simple and it’s not that easy, but my point is that our attitude shapes what is possible, and if public servants choose to believe, and I know many who do, then real change is not only possible but inevitable. If you don’t believe me, listen to what Master Yoda has to say.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F15dgBzwOrc&w=560&h=315]

Would you attend a Chatham House party for Blueprint 2020?

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UPDATE, August 1, 2013

A total of 36 people signed up for invitations. We are now coordinating times and such.
The next update will be a blog post after the event is held.

UPDATE, July 29, 2013

We have reached the magic number of 30 and are now preparing.
The list will close on Thursday, August 1 at noon.

See you soon!

Some blurry people celebrating Canada.

A few weeks ago I posted an idea on this blog about using the Chatham House rule as a way to get some frank and honest input into the Government of Canada’s Blueprint 2020 vision for the public service. I was afraid that some public servants might self censor in an attempt to avoid making a “career limiting move”.

Having barely survived producing the two PS Engage events, I am a little hesitant about jumping back into event management. However the idea generated some interest and as you know I am pretty passionate about making the Public Service better, so…

I have created a mailing list that you can join if you would like to attend a Chatham House event in support of Blueprint 2020.  You can sign up using this form. If more than 30 people sign up, I will organize and facilitate at least one event.  If others decide to organize events then I will let you know what I know via the mailing list.

That’s all for now, lets see what happens!

Three truths to help you change the culture of the Public Service

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This is one of two posts for the GTEC 2013 blog series where we are exploring what it means to be an Agile, Open, Collaborative and Mobile Government. My focus will be on the Cultural, Organizational and Policy Infrastructure that provides the foundation for public service culture. This is a great time to be discussing these topics as the Clerk has recently announced the Blueprint 2020 initiative with a call to action for all Public Servants to participate in shaping the vision for the Public Service of the future.

Recently I was deep into an analysis of how Governments could realize the potential of collaboration and social technologies. As I was mulling over how to synthesise all of the data into a sound bite that could be easily consumed by a busy executive, I was also thinking about how it connected with what I had learned from working in advertising and teaching consumer behaviour. In a rare moment of clarity while waiting for a red light I scribbled down three truths that seem to me to be both obvious and profound.

1. Sharing is good

Sharing is the activity that fuels successful collaboration, knowledge management and communication, which in turn are fundamental to a “capable and high performing” organization. By sharing we become authentic to those around us, sharing preserves hard earned knowledge and makes us more productive, telling stories makes us real, and helps to build the common purpose which is so important to successful change.

Most of the major research firms agree that the biggest challenge organizations face in implementation of social technologies within the enterprise is creating a culture that supports information sharing. Having been involved with over a dozen enterprise collaboration efforts I can say that my personal experience supports those findings. Culture as the saying goes eats strategy for breakfast, apparently it also eats technology.

Right now, in the Public Service many people don’t share because they are afraid of making a Career Limiting Move (CLM), while others, (kudos if you are one), consider sharing part of their responsibility. Unfortunately too many seem to equate sharing with a CLM, and ultimately we need to institutionalize ways of rewarding sharing and punishing information hoarding. That kind of change will probably take decades, so maybe in the meantime maybe there is a need for some responsible anonymous input to Blueprint 2020? What do you say, should we throw a Blueprint 2020 Chatham House Party…err… Workshop?

2. Ego gets in the way

By ego I mean an unhealthy focus on self, we have all come across individuals that try and withhold information and manipulate those around them for personal gain or promotion. When combined with a lack of emotional intelligence I believe this is one of the most destructive forces in the public service today. We need to get our self-worth from something other than the size of our empire, we need to get emotional and career points for collaborating. We need to recognize the common purpose, (serving Canadians anyone?) as more important than our personal gain. Not only is the, “I only do what it good for me” attitude, bad for the organization, its beginning to look like it may be bad for your career as well.

I have worked on enough horizontal files to have come across this issue more than once. No matter how you structure a collaboration the people involved can always sabotage it. While researching the horizontal governance issue a few years ago I came across an Auditor General’s report examining the lack of progress on the climate change file. Without much reading between the lines it was obvious that the real problem was that the primary departments involved could not find a way to collaborate. Now I am not pointing fingers at the senior ranks, you see this kind of behaviour at all levels. I suppose we should not be surprised, given the competitive individualistic socialization most of us have grown up with, but human’s greatest capacity is to learn, and we can learn to work together and set aside personal differences if we set aside our ego once in a while in favour of the common goal.

3. You can’t communicate too much

“You can’t communicate too much”. I posted this comment on twitter during one of the conferences I attended recently and it quickly became one of the most re-tweeted updates, so it seems the sentiment hit a nerve.

Back in my advertising days we used to spend a lot of money on media buys and printing, and one of the worst things that could happen was for a print run or advertisement be published with a mistake. When it did happen it was an expensive and embarrassing lesson. After the first time we began to repeat instructions, in different languages if necessary, we would draw pictures, leave notes on the artwork, call the publisher, even attend press runs to make sure all was understood. Later in my career I worked with a Product Line Manager at a major telecom who told we that for an idea to get traction you had to say the same thing over and over again in as many different ways as you could think of —you can’t communicate too much.

In today’s information intense and dynamic workplace trying to get the attention of the information inundated executive ranks will take more than a little repetition. Going the other way, management can’t communicate too much with staff, especially during times of change. The mushroom school of management (keep them in the dark, and feed them sh*t), simply has no place in an agile and high performing organization.

In dynamic times, perfection is the enemy of communication, waiting for a complete and crafted message simply leads to speculation and fear, while communicating often and openly, even admitting you don’t know everything, leads to trust and understanding. Having a clear and common purpose is more important than knowing the details of how you are going to get there.

Conclusion

Changing the culture of something as big as the Public Service is a daunting task, I applaud the sentiment behind Blueprint 2020 and encourage everyone to get involved. But it is also important to remember that an organization is people, and an organization’s people are who make the culture. The three lessons that I have shared can and should be applied from the top down, but more importantly they can be applied by individuals regardless of rank, when you think about that, it this means you have the power to change culture.

A final note:

I am writing this on Father’s day, 2013 and as it happens this date is also the anniversary of my father’s passing at the age of 89. A child of the depression and a jet setter of the 60’s he lived his life with an ethos of “doing the best you can, with what you have”. In these uncertain times it is easy to blame others for inaction, but I say, do what you can, with what you have.

What do you say?

Image Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Triskele-Symbol-spiral-five-thirds-turns.png