Monthly Archives: June 2007

Centralization of Foreign Policy & the Role of DM's

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Yesterday Taylor and I had this oped published in the Toronto Star (PDF version available here). Had a tremendous amount of positive feedback from many friends, including those in the foreign policy community. Please keep sending me your thoughts. Among the most interesting was from David B. who commented that

“Prime Minister Mackenzie King resisted inviting opposition leaders into the Privy Council during the Second World War because he believed it was the duty of the opposition to oppose; he feared that co-opting the opposition would lead to government tyranny. An interesting counter-perspective.”

Fantastic historical anecdote and important counterpoint! In our example, it should be noted that even after Mulroney invited the opposition leaders into the Privy Council they continued to opposed the war. However, his act shifted the discourse from a political debate to a policy debate – although we could debate if that is desirable. Thank you David.

In addition, yesterday’s post on the role of Deputy Ministers and public sector service renewal generated a large amount of email – all of which was deeply appreciated. Many agreed, although some thought that DM’s can’t be completely divorced from the policy process (which was not my intent, but I concede the piece is easily be read that way – my error). My larger point was that, in the conversations I’ve seen, the leadership keeps looking for a policy solution to this problem – a document or combination of changes that will solve the problem. I just don’t think it exists because this is not a policy problem. It’s a cultural issue. This means it requires a different type of solution and in particular some leadership and behavioural modeling from the top (which is not necessarily lacking, its just not focused or sustained on this issue).

In another fun, albeit tangential historical anecdote. Andrew C. noted that JC Watts was not only an African American Republican Congressman, he was also a veteran of the CFL. Who knew? Apparently Andrew.
One final comment (excuse the pun). Many of you wrote me emails yesterday with your thoughts – and every one was both great and appreciated. I’d like to also encourage you to write comments on the blog. This whole project is made much more interesting when people build off of or critique what’s written. While this isn’t the globe and mail, there tend to be 100-200+ people passing through each day, so please keep emailing, but also consider sharing your thoughts with others.

Public Service Renewal – If you're explaining, you're losing

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Today and tomorrow the Deputy Ministers (DMs) of the Federal Public Service will gather to discuss the current state of affairs in Ottawa. In light of this event, I thought I would riff off my APEX speech and write the following post on public service sector renewal.

Towards the end of his famous lecture on Free Culture Lawrence Lessig quotes JC Watts, an African-American Republican Congressmen who once famously said that, in Washington: “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

JC Watts could have easily been talking about Ottawa, and the problem of public service sector renewal. On this subject there has been a tremendous amount of explaining, exploring and diagnosing. And it has been going on for a long, long time. So much talk, and for so long, that I sometimes wonder if we’ve come to believe we can literally talk ourselves out of the problem. Sadly this is not the case. Our talking has not solved the problem. In fact, all it has done is repeatedly lift, and then burst, expectations.

At its core, I believe public service sector renewal isn’t that complicated. It’s about creating a better, more responsive and effective culture, a goal that, at its root, is a management problem. However, we can talk this problem until we are collectively blue in the face (and, yes, I’m aware of my own guilty contribution to this discussion) without getting anywhere. So let us instead ask a more basic question. Why has public service sector renewal not already happened? Is it structurally impossible? Or, are those at the apex unwilling or unable to prioritize it? In short, why, after all these years, are will still explaining and not doing?

The truth is that both structural and incentive factors are at work, feeding off one another and making change almost impossible.

At one end the problem lay the very role of the DM and the culture of the public service. As the Public Policy Forum’s recent report “Leadership in the Public Service of Canada” describes, DMs’ essentially have three roles: provide operational and policy advice to their Minister in support of their agenda; oversee program delivery and the management of their department; and help facilitate inter-departmental co-ordination. The problem however, is that for whatever reason Ottawa’s culture is firmly grounded in the notion that policy is the main game in town. Those who want to move ahead, who wish to rise to the rank of ADM or DM all know: do policy. Ask almost anyone, the public service rewards policy experience over operational experience virtually every time.

Which brings us to the other end of the of the problem – a lack of will to prioritize or address the problem. The public service’s culture has created a DM cadre who are more incented to, interested in, and focused on, providing ministers with policy advice than with addressing the operational and management issues of their ministries. This is not a critique of DMs – simply an observation that they are creatures of the culture that reared them. However, given these influences, why are we surprised to see that those leading the public service have so far proven unable to pull the leavers of management to shift the culture of these complex organizations? Is it any wonder that our efforts to date have been to think, intellectualize, or explain our way out of the problems renewal seeks to address? Or maybe it is the logical outcome for a group, who by their own admission (according to Public Policy Forum Leaders Survey), are strong on analytics, weak on management/decision making, and whose time is split between three highly demanding tasks.

The fact is most DMs manage incredibly large organizations that require full time dedicated managers. The notion that a DM should be advising a minister on a day to day or even weekly basis may have been rational back when ministries were composed of 200 people and the relevant information could conceivably flow through one person, but in today’s world it is preposterous. Many Ministries contain thousands of employees tackling an enormous array of subjects. In addition, thanks to modern technology, that information flows at an exponentially faster rate. It is foolish for a DM, or even a Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM), to believe they can advise a Minister on any of the relevant material. Somewhere in the organization, much further down the chain, is a policy wonk who can, and should, explain the issue just as well.

At the same time, the executive cadre of the public service, and public servants more generally, are desperate for better management. And yet, their model, the person from whom they are taking their queue from, is the DM. When a DM opts to sacrifice spending time on mentoring, professionally developing junior staffers, improving operations, and generally solving management problems, and instead focuses on a policy issue, they send a powerful message to everyone in the ministry: policy matters and management doesn’t. It’s a perverse message, and one that is killing the public service. Indeed, can you think of any other large organization in the world where the most senior executives are involved in producing the final product (in our case, a policy document)? Does the head of IBM design or even brainstorm new services? Does the the head of Blackberry think up new products? No, the heads of these organizations manage. Their job is to foster and create organizations that enable those beneath them to do their work – the real work – more effectively.

And this is what – at its core – public service sector renewal should be about, enabling public servants to do “the real work” of making policy and rolling out programs more effectively. However, until Deputy Ministers can fix their own role and acquire the tools to accomplish this end, we’ll be forever stuck explaining, and not doing, public service sector renewal.

Foundations for a Creative Economy

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I just finished Max Wyman’s “The Defiant Imagination” and have reviewed it here.

The information age doesn’t give rise to an information economy… when we all have access to vast amounts of information it will be our capacity to use that information that will matter. Those who are creative, you can imagine something new and different, will prosper. Max Wyman articulated that when I met him and it struck me as critically important. His book explains how the arts, and particularly the arts in education, will be essential to equipping us with the skills of imagination we will need to prosper in the creative economy.

Open Cities – A Success…

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Finally beginning to relax after a hectic week of speeches, work and helping out with the Open Cities unconference.

Open Cities was dynamite – it attracted an interesting cross section of people from the arts, publishing, IT, non-profit and policy sectors (to name a few). This was my first unconference and so the most interesting take away was seeing how an openly conducted (un)conference – one with virtually no agenda or predetermined speakers – can work so well. Indeed, it worked better than most conferences I’ve been to. (Of course, it helps when it is being expertly facilitated by someone like Misha G.)

Here’s a picture chart of the agenda coming together mid-morning (thank you to enigmatix1 for the photos)

There was no shortage of panels convened by the participants. I know Mark K. is working on getting details from each of them up on the Open Cities wiki as quickly as possible. Hopefully these can be organized more succinctly in the near future (did I just volunteer myself?).

There were several conversation I enjoyed – hope to share more on them over the coming days – but wanted to start with the idea of helping grow the Torontopedia. The conversation was prompted by several people asking why Toronto does not have its own wiki (it does). Fortunately, Himy S. – who is creating the aforementioned Torontopedia – was on hand to share in the conversation.

A Toronto wiki – particularly one that leverages Google Maps’ functionality could provide an endless array of interesting content. Indeed the conversation about what information could be on such a wiki forked many times over. Two ideas seemed particularly interesting:

The first idea revolved around getting the city’s history up on a wiki. This seemed like an interesting starting point. Such information, geographically plotted using Google Maps, would be a treasure trove for tourists, students and interested citizens. More importantly, there is a huge base of public domain content, hidden away in the city’s archives, that could kick start such a wiki. The ramp up costs could be kept remarkably low. The software is open sourced and the servers would not be that expensive. I’m sure an army of volunteer citizens would emerge to help transfer the images, stories and other media online. Indeed I’d wage a $100,000 grant from the Trillium Foundation, in connection with the City Archives, Historica and/or the Dominion Institute, as well as some local historical societies could bring the necessary pieces together. What a small price to pay to give citizens unrestricted access to, and the opportunity to add to, they stories and history of their city.

The interesting part about such a wiki is that it wouldn’t have to be limited to historical data. Using tags, any information about the city could be submitted. As a result, the second idea for the wiki was to get development applications and proposals online so citizens can learn about how or if their neighborhoods will be changing and how they have evolved.

Over the the course of this discussion I was stunned to learn that a great deal of this information is kept hidden by what – in comparison to Vancouver at least – is a shockingly secretive City Hall. In Vancouver, development applications are searchable online and printed out on giant billboards (see photo) and posted on the relevant buildings.Development application According to one participant, Toronto has no such requirements! To learn anything about a development proposal you must first learn about it (unclear how this happens) and then go down to City Hall to look at a physical copy of the proposal (it isn’t online?). Oh, and you are forbidden to photocopy or photograph any documents. Heaven forbid people learn about how their neighbourhood might change…

Clearly a wiki won’t solve this problem in its entirety – as long as Toronto City Hall refuses to open up access to its development applications. However, collecting the combined knowledge of citizens on a given development will help get more informed and hopefully enable citizens to better participate in decisions about how their neighbourhood will evolve. It may also create pressure on Toronto City Hall to start sharing this information more freely.

To see more photo’s go to flickr and search the tags for “open cities.”

Open Cities Unconference tomorrow

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Great news! Open Cities has maxed out capacity (at 90 people). Big thank you to The Centre for Social Innovation who’ve been kind enough to host us…

There has been some good media coverage for our humble event… BlogTO talks about here as well as shares Will Pate’s and my thoughts,and Boing Boing gave us a shout out.

For those unable to participate (cause you’re busy during the day or are on the waiting list) come join us afterwords for a little BBQ at Fort York in Toronto.  The BBQ will likely get going around 5pm.

Looking forward to share more about the event after the weekend…

Lessig changes direction

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For those who haven’t seen it yet Larry Lessig – champion extraordinaire of creative commons and free culture – is stepping back from his research and advocacy in these fields.(side note: if you haven’t read Free Culture or seen this presentation, please do so now!)

His work to date has led him to believe that the political system is fundamentally corrupt. In his own words:

“That the real problem here was (what I will call a “corruption” of) the political process. That our government can’t understand basic facts when strong interests have an interest in its misunderstanding.”

As a result, for the next ten years, he will be refocusing his energy on trying to figure out how to solve this riddle.

I think Lessig walks on water. So am pleased to hear he’ll be focusing his energy on one of the most significant problems in American politics and American history. Why History? Because Lessig is picking up on a theme American Progressives made central to their movement back in the 1890’s-1920’s. Progressives of that time were keen to limit the influence of special interests in American politics. In some regards they succeeded but, in many respects their key reforms such as the primary system and the creation of larger government bureaucracies actually benefited the very actors they sought to limit. As Larry himself admits, the problem may not be solvable.

But then, it’s a new era, and we have new tools. I’m hoping Lessig succeeds. He certainly has the passion and brains.

Crisis Management? Try Open Source Public Service

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Does anyone still believe that government services can’t be designed to rely on volunteers? Apparently so. We continue to build whole systems so that we don’t have to rely on people (take the bus system for example, it doesn’t rely on constant customer input – indeed I think it actively discourages it).

So I was struck the other day when I stumbled into an unfortunate situation that reminded me of how much one of our most critical support system relies on ordinary citizens volunteering their time and resources to provide essential information.

Last Sunday night, through the review mirror, I witnessed a terrible car accident.

A block behind me, two cars hit head on at a 90 degree angle – with one car flipping end over end and landing on its roof in the middle of the intersection.

Although it was late in the evening there were at least 20-30 people on the surrounding streets… and within 5 seconds of the crash I could saw over the soft glow of over 15 cellphone LCD screens light up the night. Within 60 seconds, I could hear the ambulance sirens.

It was a terrible situation, but also an excellent example of how governments already rely on open system – even to deliver essential, life saving services. 911 services rely on unpaid, volunteer citizens to take the time and expend the (relatively low) resources to precisely guide emergency resources. It is an interesting counterpoint to government officials who design systems that pointedly avoid citizen feedback. More importantly, if we trust on volunteers to provide information to improve an essential service, why don’t we trust them to provide a constant stream of feedback on other government services?

Public Service Reform: The Myth of Failure

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I’m getting ready to give my talk at the Public Service’s Executive Summit conference – a group that includes the CIO’s of all the federal ministries and other IT people engaged in service delivery. Although many of the themes will be reminiscent of the APEX talk I hope to blog on some of the newer themes later.

Leading up to the talk I’ve been reflecting on this notion of failure in the public service.

Frequently, when discussing the issue of public service sector reform, public officials seem to be of two minds. On the one hand I hear some advocates – let’s call them the entrepreneurs – argue that the public service needs to be more forgiving of risk and support innovation. Others – let’s call them the caretakers – regularly remind me of how government is different from the private sector. That unlike the private sector, which can take risks and fail, the government cannot. The consequence of the ‘caretakers’ predominance is everywhere: it explains why the government is slow to adopt new technologies and ideas, as it prefers to observe others figure them out and then move cautiously.
Myself, I’m a big supporter of the entrepreneurs – if you can’t fail then you can’t experiment, and while that means it’s hard to make things worse, it also makes it very, very difficult to make things better.

More importantly however, I find the latter statement interesting…  and also troublingly evasive and unrealistic.

It is true that many government services are essential – and the costs of a failure (however defined) can be high. But this is not true of all government services. All across government there is latitude for experimentation and new ideas – and indeed it takes place – but slowly.

More importantly however, the caretakers statement ignores reality. Government programs – like those of many organization – fail on a regular basis. Ask anyone whose worked in the public service, they’ll tell you of programs that never launched, got killed because they didn’t work, or that are continuing to operate and receive funding, but essentially don’t work (indeed, entire ministries come to mind…).

These can even include critical services. Aboriginal policy in Canada has been broadly “failing” for over two decades – and the consequences have been pretty atrocious. If one thought there was a zero risk threshold issue, I might have through this was it. While I believe that ‘caretakers’ are genuinely concerned that new technologies and approaches may increase the risk of failure there may be another, more troubling reason. ‘Caretakers’ may rightly fear that new technologies and structures because they create new types of failure. Failures that the bureaucracy is not practiced in the art of discretely hiding.

This is a powerful motivating factor. Failure, particularly failures that become public can at best cause Ministers great discomfort, discomfort they are likely to recreate for those who work for them. It’s an understandable and real concern. But in many instances the status quo of service and policy can also be dangerous. Experimentation – and as a result risk taking – is the only path I can see out.

Open Media

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For those interested in how ‘open source‘ systems can drive down the costs of establishing a media presence should take a look at The Article 13 Initiative.

By leveraging open-source technologies and providing training The Article 13 Initiative reduces the barriers to entry into the journalism market and reduces the costs of technology for established players (Article 13 is currently working closely with Rafigui, a French language journal focused on the youth market). With less money being spent on software, more money can be devoted to other priorities, like reporters and/or other staffers.

For those interested in open-source, be it in the arts, policy, software, media, etc… consider signing up for the Open Cities unconference taking place in Toronto on June 23rd. No one has updated me on how many slots are left so apologies if it is already full…

Mike Harcourt – Canada’s Al Gore on Urban Sustainability?

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Yesterday evening, at Vanessa T’s prompting, I headed down to the SFU downtown campus to catch Mike Harcourt (former Mayor of Vancouver and Premier of BC) and Ken Cameron (former regional planner) present on City Making in Paradise their upcoming book about the history of city planning in Vancouver.

Two things struck me about the presentation.

The first was how the successes of municipal planning in Vancouver have largely been made possible by a history of local governments thinking, organizing and acting in coordination at the regional level. As Harcourt pointed out, growth and development meant the political and organic borders of the city ceased to be aligned after the Second World War. The regions cooperative approach to this dilemma – which began in the 1970s and that continues today – makes for an interesting case study. In addition to being broadly successful, it appears to have preempted an effort at amalgamation that was so contentious in Quebec and Ontario.

I’ve known for a while that Harcourt is laser focused on urban sustainability and will work with anyone, regardless of political affiliation, who will help advance this goal. That said, I was nonetheless struck by the degree to which he’s transcended partisan politics. While outlining the 9 decisions that “saved Vancouver” Harcourt was happy to praise individuals who’d once been bitter rivals. Given the recent (unusual) trend of provincial parties racing for the centre maybe this is just a sign of the times. Or maybe Harcourt pragmatic, results focused tonic that BC politics so desperately needs. Maybe it’s both. Anyway, for a guy who was dragged through the provincial political ringer, it’s nice see him so motivated and positive.