Towards Copernicus

by Nick Charney

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Right before the holidays Kent and I sat down to discuss how our partnership was going thus far. As we sat in the local pub on a Friday evening we were flanked by a group of staffers doing as staffers do and snow falling as snow does just outside the window. Kent and I reflected on successes and challenges and spoke a bit about the year ahead, jotting down notes feverishly about themes we wanted to explore, products we wanted to deliver, and where we thought we'd be in another year's time. We remarked at the fact that we had not yet had a serious disagreement on either direction or viewpoint despite the fact that both of us expected at least a few points of contention to surface since forming our partnership.


We left the table with a number of ideas questions

How can public servants slow down and focus more on the long game? How can we separate rhetoric from evidence in a professional and non-partisan way? How can we continue to look laterally for solutions that can and should be applied within the public sector? How can we improve public perception of the civil service? And what can we do to keep our skills up when technological advances continue to create uncharted territories for governments around the world?


Not every idea question will be addressed

At least not by the two us in some sort of vacuum. These are questions facing all of us and the best that Kent and I can aspire to is to be deliberate about our goals, err on over-sharing and look for the win-win. In practical terms, and again I'm paraphrasing Kent here (See: Positive-Sum Leadership), that means:

• acknowledging that we can't run with everything, others may be better positioned to do it
• finding value in sharing our ideas because its low-risk and high reward (See: On Writing)
• striving to make something greater than the simple sum of our parts

Which I suppose brings me to the issue at hand

A decidedly anti-TED TED Talk by Benjamin Bratton  (embedded below) is making the rounds right now. The talk, while perhaps controversial in its treatment of TED, pulls on a number of important threads that apply well beyond the world of their popular talks. It pulls on threads that Kent and I spoke at length about that aforementioned evening, threads that I've shared with you above.

At its core the argument Bratton puts forward is - in my view, as much a criticism of contemporary popular culture as it is of TED's uncanny ability to distil the essence of that culture into 20 minute video awe inspiring video. That said, I'm not interested in chasing the pros/cons of TED down an obscure rabbit hole. I'd much rather - and admittedly - completely divorce Bratton's comments from TED-proper and apply them to the theme of public sector renewal because I think they hold true.

Would you argue otherwise if I said we often

• simplify complex problems so that they may be more easily consumed
• avoid tough societal issues when we fear they would offend the public
• put our best and brightest to work on issues of form rather than substance
• engage in placebo politics, placebo innovation and (by extension) placebo bureaucratics (See: The Real Problem of Facelessness)
• are timid in our ambitions and lack the wherewithal to pursue new architectures
• misconstrue process improvement disruptive/transformative innovation
• overstate the upside of technologies and fail to address the innovations that we don't want to see

Perhaps, but I doubt it

That said, where Bratton is particularly brilliant in his assessment in his conclusion. And again, while reading it forget TED, think public sector renewal:

"Problems are not "puzzles" to be solved. That metaphor assumes that all the necessary pieces are already on the table, they just need to be rearranged and reprogrammed. It's not true.

"Innovation" defined as moving the pieces around and adding more processing power is not some Big Idea that will disrupt a broken status quo: that precisely is the broken status quo.

...

If we really want transformation, we have to slog through the hard stuff (history, economics, philosophy, art, ambiguities, contradictions). Bracketing it off to the side to focus just on technology, or just on innovation, actually prevents transformation.

Instead of dumbing-down the future, we need to raise the level of general understanding to the level of complexity of the systems in which we are embedded and which are embedded in us. This is not about "personal stories of inspiration", it's about the difficult and uncertain work of demystification and reconceptualisation: the hard stuff that really changes how we think. More Copernicus, less Tony Robbins.

More Copernicus, less Tony Robbins

Bratton's right, the discussion about renewal needs to go deeper. We need to focus more on the hard stuff - the history, economics, philosophy, art, ambiguities and contradictions - if we are to continue to make progress towards the ever shifting goal posts of public sector renewal (See: Why I'm a Renewal Wonk).  That deeper-look ethos is precisely what inspired us to start up the impossible conversations book reviews, what inspired the most popular post of 2013 (See: Big Data, Social Media and the Long Tail of Public Policy) and what will ultimately underpin everything we choose to create, share or build upon from here on in.

Together then, towards Copernicus.




Bratton is an Associate Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego and can be found on Twitter.

MBR: Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

I decided I was going to read a book a week for a year, here's a quick review of this week's book.  You can see the ongoing list here.

Basic Info

Predictably Irrational Revised And Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely

Why I bought it

Ariely's TED talks caught my eye (a common theme so far), namely  has a couple of TED talks that caught my eye, namely:

1. Are We in Control of Our Own Decisions
2. Our Buggy Moral Code

In both of which Ariely explores the realm of behavioural economics by sharing details of some of his more interesting research experiments (he is a university professor).

How it connects to the public sector

"... we are not only irrational, but predictably irrational - that our irrationality happens the same way, again and again.  Whether we are acting as consumers, businesspeople, or policy makers, understanding how we are predictably irrational provides a starting point for improving our decision making and changing the way we live for the better." (xx, Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely) (emphasis added).

What I got out of reading it
There are a myriad of things that effect our day to day decision making, most of which never gets a second look, but probably always should.  As it relates to work, I was particularly interested in the section on relativity (I was also fascinated by the section on arousal, but for unrelated reasons).
After reading the chapter on relativity, I started thinking differently about how I see success, to whom I compare myself to, and whom I try to learn from an emulate (e.g. the grass is always greener type thinking).  There was a really neat visual experiment early in the chapter that really drove the point home (click to enlarge):

The question Ariely poses in the book is which circle is bigger; but ultimately it's a trick question.  They are both the same size.  The lesson in general is that relativity larger determines perception.  The lesson, as it relates to a concept like success is the same, so be mindful of whom you are comparing yourself to.  In social media fuelled world, where you can see every intimate detail of your extended network of friends, acquaintances and colleagues, its often easy to get so caught up in what other people are up to that you lose your bearings.

But there was a lot more to the book than this particular example.  Overall, I walked way appreciating Ariely's penchant for experimentation and story telling.  Both of which undoubtedly made Predictably Irrational an enlightening and entertaining read.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Coding Better Government

I was laid up sick all last week and didn't have time to put anything together. Rather than leave you hanging, I'm just going to point you at this TED talk about Coding Better Government by Code for America Founder Jennifer Pahlka.

Cheers


Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

The Education System and the Culture of Entitlement

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: our career expectations are totally messed up.

You know what else I think?

The school system, a system that we spend the better part of our lives in, is a key contributor.

In school the curriculum is linear and clearly defined; teachers check homework daily; and students advance en masse (yearly) often irrespective of their relative abilities.

But can we really blame new recruits for failing to understand the complex work environment, for wanting constant feedback or expecting yearly promotions without the slightest bit of introspection vis-a-vis their actual performance?

Personally, I find it hard to hold it against them, or us for that matter; we’ve all become acclimatized to a system that makes little to no effort to mirror the real world.

Maybe it’s time to rethink the education system

Maybe it is time to teach students that work isn't going to be so clear cut, that management won't always have time to give instant feedback (if at all), and that if they want to advance, they will have to earn it by demonstrating enduring value, not simply their longevity.

If I can’t convince you, maybe Sir Ken Robinson can:

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Happy Holidays! Now Watch This!

Work tends to slow down around this time of year as fewer and fewer people are in the office. If you find yourself with some downtime at your work station I suggest you make some popcorn, assemble a few of your colleagues and watch this video entitled "Why Work Doesn't Happen at Work". Who knows with everyone gone you may actually have the bandwidth to stream it from your otherwise archaic government workstation.

Thanks everyone for your ongoing support, see you in the new year.

Cheers.

- Nick

This column was originally published to cpsrenewal.ca by Nick Charney.