Category Archives: interesting people

Public Service Renewal Event in Ottawa: Etienne LaLiberte

For public servants who read my blog I wanted to let you know that Etienne Laliberte, who I’ve got a lot of time for on the Public Service Renewal front, is coming to Ottawa to do an armchair discussion this Tuesday. I consider Etienne a must talk to person around this stuff so if you find the ideas on this blog interesting, definitely go check him out.

Armchair Discussion – National Capital Region

Tuesday, March 17, 2009, 8:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. (ET)

Living Renewal: How to Turn an Organization Around in 1,000 Days

Speaker: Etienne Laliberté
Senior Advisor, Change Management and Organization Development,
Conservation and Protection – Fisheries and Oceans Canada

English Presentation

Challenge the myths around change management and demonstrate how simple – and yet difficult! – turning an organization around can be!

To say the organization was in a poor state would be an understatement – it was a mess! Much of the pride and commitment of the employees had been eroded, if not lost altogether. Relations between management and staff were strained and the organization was preceded throughout by its “bad reputation”.

Fast-forward 3 years later: trust has been rebuilt, employees are as dedicated as they ever were, and people are now saying: “If this organization was able to realized great change, anyone can!” How did this organization renew itself? What were the steps that lead to organizational healing? What were the big lessons learned? What can you do to make renewal a reality in your organization?

In this presentation, Etienne Laliberté, will tell the story of the renewal lived in his organization over the years, and even share the secrets of how they systematically do staffing in three weeks (yes, that is correct: only three weeks!!!). Please join us!

You are invited to attend this Armchair Discussion on-site at 65 Guigues Street (Ottawa) or participate online via live Webcast (video and audio feed offered online).

Speaker: Etienne Laliberté is Senior Advisor, Change Management and Organization Development, for Conservation and Protection at Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Vancouver (Etienne.Laliberte@dfo-mpo.gc.ca). He is best known for his provocative paper “An Inconvenient Renewal“. He is also the author of the blog “Contrarian Thinking“. A federal Public Servant since 2003, Etienne holds a Masters in Project Management (M.SC.) and has ten years of experience in the subject areas of consulting and management. He has received recognition for his work including the 2005 Management Trainee Association (MTA) Merit Award; the 2008 Fisheries and Oceans Canada Pacific Region Distinction Award, and; the 2008 National Managers’ Community Leadership Award for the Pacific Region. For more: http://www.gcpedia.gc.ca/index.php/User:EtienneLaliberte

To register, please visit the School’s Web site:

http://www.csps-efpc.gc.ca/eve/air/index-eng.asp

Discussion informelle – Région de la Capitale Nationale

Mardi 17 mars 2009, 8 h 30 à 11 h (HE)

Vivre le renouvellement: comment transformer une organisation en 1000 jours

Conférencier: Etienne Laliberté
Conseiller principal, Gestion du changement et développement organisationnel
Conservation et protection – Pêches et Océans Canada

Présentation en anglais

Détruisez les mythes entourant la gestion du changement et voyez à quel point il est simple – et pourtant si difficile – de transformer une organisation !

Ce serait un euphémisme que d’affirmer que l’organisation était en mauvais état – c’était un beau gâchis! La fierté et l’engagement des employés avaient été gravement ébranlés, voire complètement anéantis. Les relations entre la direction et le personnel étaient tendues et partout, la mauvaise réputation de l’organisation la précédait.

Projetons-nous dans l’avenir, soit trois ans plus tard : la confiance est restaurée, les employés sont plus dévoués et les gens disent maintenant : « Si cette organisation a réussi tout cela, tout le monde peut y arriver! ». Comment cette organisation est-elle parvenue à se renouveler? Quelles étapes ont mené à cette guérison organisationnelle? Quelles sont les grandes leçons apprises? Que pouvez-vous faire pour faire du renouvellement une réalité dans votre organisation?

Au cours de cette présentation, Étienne Laliberté relatera le déroulement du renouvellement vécu dans son organisation au cours des dernières années, et partagera même comment on y fait de la dotation en trois semaines (oui, vous avez bien lu: seulement trois semaines!!!). Soyez des nôtres!

Vous êtes invités à assister à cette Discussion informelle en personne au 65, rue Guigues (Ottawa) ou participer au moyen de la webdiffusion en direct (couverture vidéo et audio offerte en ligne).

Conférencier : Etienne Laliberté est Conseiller principal, Gestion du changement et développement organisationnel, Conservation et protection, Pêches et Océans Canada à Vancouver. Il est l’auteur de « Un renouvellement qui dérange : les gestionnaires de la FP sont-ils disposés à modifier leur mode de gestion ». Il est également l’auteur du blogue « Contrarian Thinking » (site anglais). Fonctionnaire au gouvernement fédéral depuis 2003, M. Laliberté est titulaire d’une maîtrise en gestion de projet (M. Sc.) et compte dix années d’expérience dans les domaines de la consultation et de la gestion. M. Laliberté a été reconnu pour son travail. En effet, il a été récipiendaire du Prix d’excellence de l’Association des stagiaires en gestion en 2005, du Prix de distinction de Pêches et Océans Canada pour la région du Pacifique en 2008, et du Prix du leadership de la communauté nationale des gestionnaires pour la région du Pacifique également en 2008. Pour en savoir plus: http://www.gcpedia.gc.ca/index.php/User:EtienneLaliberte

Pour vous inscrire, veuillez consulter le site Web de l’École:

http://www.csps-efpc.gc.ca/eve/air/index-fra.asp

friends of eaves.ca now online

A couple of friends and colleagues have recently made the transition online and I wanted to point readers in their direction:

For foreign policy fiends Daryl Copeland – who has always had a thoughtful and forwarding looking view of foreign policy – has a new blog up in anticipation of the release of his new book Guerrilla Diplomacy. I like Daryl cause he’s smart, outspoken and has been a supporter of anyone, like those of us who worked on From Middle to Model Power, who are trying to figure out what the future of diplomacy and the foreign ministry is. He and I agree that that the current model probably isn’t working.

On the environmental front Chris Hatch has launched his new blog – Zero Carbon. Part of the PowerUp Canada initiative, it serves as an outlet for the ideas and thoughts of several long time Canadian environmentalists as well as an aggregator for environment and climate change related news.

Finally, for the men out there who are looking to look good for less, my fiend Chris K. has recently launched his new company, Moniker. As Chris puts it on his site: “Moniker is a global group of friends who have cracked open the luxury supply chain.” And cracked it they have! Finally, I’ll get some french cuffed shirts for all the cuff-links I own…

The internet is messy, fun and imperfect, just like us

Last October 23rd David Weinberger gave the 2008 Bertha Bassam Lecture at the University of Toronto. I happened to be in Toronto but only found out about the lecture on the 24th. Fortunately Taylor pointed out that the lecture is online.

I’ve never met David Weinberger (his blog is here) but I hope to one day. I maintain his book – Small Pieces Loosely Joined – remains one of, if not the best book written about the internet and society. Everything is Miscellaneous is a fantastic read as well.

The Bertha Bassam lecture is classic Weinberger: smart, accessible, argumentative and fun. But what I love most about Weinberger is how he constantly reminds us that the internet is us…  and that, as a result, it is profoundly human: messy, fun, argumentative, and above all imperfect. Indeed, the point is so beautifully made in this lecture I felt a little emotional listening to it.

Contrast that to the experience of listening to someone like Andrew Keen, a Weinberger critic who this lecture again throws into stark relief. After reflecting on Weinberger, Keen dislikes the internet and web 2.0 mostly because I think he dislikes people. It may sound harsh but if you ever hear him speak – or even read his writing – it is smart, argumentative and interesting, but it oozes with an anger and condescension that is definitely contemptuous and sometimes even borders on hatred. If the debate is reduced to whether or not we should, however imperfectly, try to connect to and learn from one another or whether we should just hold others in contempt, I think Weinberger is going to win every time. At least, I know where I stand.

Indeed, this blog is a triumph of Weinberger’s internet humanism. It is a small effort to write, to share, and to celebrate the complexity and opportunity of the world with those I know and those I don’t, but who share a similar sense of possibility. Will millions read this blog. No. But I enjoy the connections, old and new, I make with the much more modest number of people who do.

I hope you’ll watch this lecture or, if you haven’t the time, download the audio to your ipod and listen to it during your commute home. (lacking the slides won’t have a big impact)

Must see show this Sunday in Vancouver

It’s Friday and time to prepare for the weekend. In that spirit the perfect opportunity has arisen to both notify Vancouverites of a great cultural opportunity and give a shout out to my friend Misha Glouberman who is bringing his famous Trampoline Hall event to Vancouver! What is Trampoline Hall you ask? Look no further then the links above, the text below or the event’s facebook page:

Trampoline Hall is a barroom lecture series usually based in Toronto, but sometimes in other places. On Feb 1, it will be in Vancouver for the first time, as part of the Push Festival.

Trampoline Hall is this: Three people talk, on subjects outside their professional field of expertise. The lectures are sometimes ridiculous, sometimes moving, and always wildly unpredictable. Each talk is followed by a Q&A with the audience which is usually also a lot of fun.

Trampoline Hall was invented by the writer Sheila Heti, and is hosted by Misha Glouberman. In Toronto, it is something of an institution, playing every month for the past seven years or so. It’s also played to great crowds in around a dozen US cities, including Atlanta, Boston, New York, Louisville, Chicago, and San Francisco. Feb 1 will be Trampoline Hall’s first time in Vancouver.

All lecturers for the Vancouver show selected are selected by Veda Hille. Here is the lineup she has chosen:

1) Andrew Feldmar will talk about Cooking from Memory.
2) Kevin Chong will discuss Fraternal Polyandry
3) Faith Moosang will assert “There are Clues Everywhere!!” in a talk about Nancy Drew.

~~~~

“”Unruly… Caustically Funny” – Durham Independent

“They’ve been doing this for several years up in Toronto… now New Yorkers are in its thrall. Clearly, we love it.” – The Village Voice

“Cloud-splitting Genius” – Lola Magazine

“Eccentricity and do-it-yourself inventiveness” – The New Yorker

I’m hoping my plane lands in time so that I can make it!

Noam Chomsky name drops Taylor Owen

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Check out this video of Noam Chomsky dropping my man Taylor Owen‘s name over and over again in regards to the excellent article he and Ben Kiernan wrote in The Walrus about the scope and impact of the bombing of cambodia.

Definitely check out the article if you haven’t already – it outlines a compelling case for why bombing campaigns are so problematic against insurgencies. It is a thread that Taylor and I picked up on in this op-ed in Embassy magazine last May.

name dropping begins around minute 46 – you can skip straight to it

left wing tonic for Michael Byers

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Recently I’ve been reading more and more of Policy Options. I’m not a reading every issue (although I’m not trying to) but I am enjoying much of what I do get through.

Going way back to the February issue there was an article by Robin Sears entitled “Canada in North America: From Political Sovereignty to Economic Integration.” The piece was a hard assessment about the limits of Canadian sovereignty and economic independence in light of our geographical position next to the United States. He notes that our position is one where we must work with our American cousins and try to gain as much influence as possible – a bold statement these days – but one that remains true. Perhaps no more so today. When things are at their worst (and I’ll admit, they are) that’s precisely when we need a map for a better path. As Sears points out…:

Imagine the vision, the courage and imagination that it took in the harsh winter of European famine of 1947-48 for two powerless French statesmen to sit in a Paris café and begin to plan for a united Europe! …They reflected grimly on “the success of the victorious Allied powers” in Europe.

The continent was being savaged by Soviet armies in the east and staggered under starvation in the west. The only European unity any rational person could foresee was a shared visceral hatred of Germany and everything it had stood for. The miracle that was the Marshall Plan was still in the future. Germany was a decade away from its economic leap forward. England, torn by its loss of empire, with its special relationship with the United States and its eternal ambivalence about Europe, was unreliable.

The simple fact is, we are stuck on this north american rock with the a powerful neighbor who knows little about us, and cares less and less every day. The only thing that will be worse is when they suddenly do care about us – like our border after 9/11. Sears’ is at pains to find ways to foster political structures to promote cooperation between Canada and the United States and he’s right. We need them. Those who wish to die at the altar of sovereignty, preserving it absolutely at no matter what cost, will find that they have significantly less influence, not only abroad, but at home as well. Worse, sovereignty is usually not what they care about. In perhaps the pieces most biting line, Sears points out:

“Canadian nationalists trying to ring-fence our sovereignty are engaged in an especially ironic struggle, given their citizenship in the nation that invented the modern, more supple form of sovereignty: federalism. Those who are most determined to draw deeper lines in the ongoing crusade against American encroachment on our national sovereignty are often the strongest advocates of Canada’s leadership in the development of global governance through multilateral institutions. The contradiction reveals less about their convictions about sovereignty than about their plain vanilla anti-Americanism.”

Ouch.

The piece is interesting and worth reading on its own merits. But what makes it still more compelling is its author. So who is this man? Excellent question. First, despite the article’s bent, analysis and conclusion, he’s not a Conservative. No, for the uninitiated (like me) Robin Sears was the national campaign director of the NDP during the Broadbent years and served as Bob Rae’s chief of staff when he was premier. He was also Deputy Secretary General of the Socialist International. For those on the left whose only prescription to our geographic conundrum is to seal the border and throw away the key (a proposition that would see no end of pain for the Canadian economy) it is interesting to find those, on the same side of the spectrum, who disagree. I hope we see more of them… frankly the debate needs their perspective.

Someday I hope to give a speech this good

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Just listened again (for possibly the 3rd or 4th time) to Clay Shirky’s speech on software, community and how we can do big things with love.

Confused?

Listen to the talk.

It’s short, there are lots of references to software programs that you probably won’t know – and don’t need to know. Underlying this is one of the greatest explanations why much of what we thought was solid is dying and what we believe is ephemeral is thriving.

It does mean that the ability to aggregate non-financial motivations, to get people together outside of managerial culture and for reasons other than the profit motive has received a huge comparative advantage. It also means that many of the future commercial opportunities are going be inextricably intertwined with that type of work and those types of groups.

myforeignpolicy.ca

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So in February, during the online discussion with Granatstein and Axworthy, when I picked up on the Canada25 Middle to Model Power thread and argued that:

“As a country we may appear adrift, but, as individuals, Canadians are more effectively and successfully engaged than ever. Quietly, we’ve transitioned from a middle power — a plucky country whose government prevented conflicts and ensured stability — to a model power — a country whose plucky citizens innovate solutions to new global challenges.”

and that

“In an era where technology enables individuals to self-organize, deploy resources, or simply get involved, Canadians have jumped at the opportunity.”

These women – profiled by the Globe & Mail – pretty much refer exactly to what I was talking about.

They are making their own foreign policy – and power to them.

giving

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Some of you may remember that last August James Wright – Governor on the Board of McGill, Executive Director of the Sauve Scholars and all round great person was suddenly killed in a tragic accident. After posting an obituary literally hundreds upon hundreds of people visit my site from every continent – usually after googling “Jim Wright.” It was a testament to how, around the world, one man had impacted so many lives.

For those who knew Jim, a new scholarship – the James Wright Memorial Scholarship – has been established in his honour. I beleive more details will emerge but you can read about it and donate towards it here.

Take it, and make it better…

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Here is why I love the internet. It allows anyone to take their idea or research and share it with the rest of us. In this case Johnny Lee shows us how $250 worth of gear can enable us to create something people have been trying for decades to get right. Better still, he shared the code so others could do it too – and even build on his work.

Everything about this video is great. From the idea, to Johnny’s presentation style (which is clear to the non-expert) as well as his casually humour and charming delivery.

It will be interesting to see how Nintendo reacts to this and Johnny’s other innovations.

Sony both set the bar and wrote the book on how to alienate your customers when it launched lawsuits against the owners of its digital AIBO dog (pictured right) who offered up software hacks that allowed the digital pet to do (cool) new things.

So far my google research shows they’ve been silent. This is at least one step up from Sony.