Risk, Failure, and Honesty

by Kent Aitken

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Last year Nick and I went down a long rabbit hole on the idea of the faceless bureaucrat (see: Embracing Authenticity Means Embracing Complexity). There's a maxim that bureaucrats are rightly anonymous, in that it facilitates professional, non-partisan advice, but I've been wondering if the foundations on which that maxim rests are shifting. We're in an era of hyper-connectivity, citizen engagement in governance, and an increasing recognition that end users' needs should be the starting point for policy and program design. In other words:

• The public service (and the public, for that matter) is made up of people
• People not in government can be trusted, invaluable partners in governance
• The starting point for solutions should be a genuine understanding of the problem

All of which begets pretty fundamental questions about the relationship between government and citizens. One that Nick and I did not thoroughly cover is the approach government takes to honesty, problems, and failure.

Recently, David Emerson suggested that public service needed to adapt quickly to the state of the world, and the article was summed up with the headline that Public servants risk becoming policy dinosaurs. Is this a problem we have to face?

Well, the strongest language that we tend to admit to is that we face challenges and that there are risks. We don't have problems, we don't have failures. So it can't be a problem.

That said, over the last year, there has been talk about adopting Engineers Without Borders' Failure Report model, one Crown Corporation has admitted the need to reinvent its business model, and the idea of change labs has spread, a model dependent on a laser focus on problems, as well as experimentation and iteration based on past results, including failures.

It seems as though we recognize that honesty is needed about the problems that we're facing, so that we can bring to bear the appropriate resources to solve them. And yet, the language stays firmly fixated on opportunities and innovation, never on problems or failures. When multiple people approve documents, it becomes very likely that at least one of them will soften the language.

Innovation requires taking chances, and chances can lead to failures. Any system that involves humans, no matter how reliable, will generate mistakes as a matter of statistical inevitability. It's okay. And small failures, if done well, will contribute to consistent successes. And until a would-be innovator can as easily summon anecdotes of failures being accepted as being maligned, we're stuck with the safe road or, at least, pretending to others that we're on it. Either of which is exceedingly hard to learn from.

I think part of it is the Shopping for Votes approach: defenders of soundbite-based communication argue that average Canadians don't have time for complexity, and won't appreciate the nuances of real, gritty problems. To boot, every piece of even internal communication can suddenly become external through Access to Information. However,there is evidence that experts that own up to their shortcomings, or demonstrate a degree of fallibility, can be seen as more credible and reliable (and certainly more likable) than those who maintain an strictly stoic veneer. Nick once suggested that a culture of acceptable failure could be a competitive advantage.

And the decline in trust in government would suggest that in general, the problem-free communication approach isn't working ideally. It may be worth considering the possibility that we systematically overestimate the risk of admitting to problems and failures, and underestimate the longer-term risks of losing trust and credibility - and the risks of inappropriately intervening on ill-defined problems.

It could be a tragedy of the commons effect, in that individual actors know that long-term stewardship requires a certain approach but are incentivized to take a different one. In that view, it's not so much a question of whether we should embrace an honest focus on problems, or that our communications model needs to evolve, but a question of how we normalize those admissions of humility and humanity.

When everyone around you is touting success, who goes first on failure?

If it is a tragedy of the commons, the answer is less in the culture change and more in altering how the market works.

What We Lost in the Fire, We Gain in the Flood

by Kent Aitken

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Several observers of Canadian civil society have painted a portrait of increasing centralization of power, over at least the last half-century. And perhaps it is a failure of imagination or thoroughness on my part, but I haven't found anyone aiming to dispel that notion. I'm writing on the premise that it is true, and from the point of view of the bureaucracy, which I believe has lost influence at the national table of leaders.

The rationale for increased centralization tends to be increased efficiency. With information and decision-making power held in one place, it's easier to launch bold initiatives and move an agenda forward. Consultation and consensus is tricky and time-consuming.

Yet there are trends in decentralization. There is increasing recognition that policy expertise exists in a distributed network of networks in NGOs, think tanks, citizen groups, and individuals. This was a major theme at the 2012 IPAC conference, and you see it in open policy initiatives such as the Open Data Policy in the U.S. that anyone can edit on Github. Like, right now.

But this seems like adding insult to injury for the bureaucracy: losing voice at the top, and losing the de facto monopoly on policy advice (see: The Bazaar World of Fearless Advice 2.0). But distributed policy actually represents the best opportunity for reclaiming some of the influence lost at the national table: the key distinction is "at the national table of leaders" and "at the national table. Period." That is, though the bureaucracy will remain a small player at big tables, it'll become the core of a distributed ecosystem of influence in Canada that will only grow in importance.

This is a good thing.

What we lost in the fire, we gain in the flood

What's going to drive this? Complexity and legitimacy leading to increasing public engagement, and technology as a thread running throughout.

We live in a time when we can no longer pretend that issues aren't complex, and decisions predicated on an oversimplified world get called out. When Radio-Canada announced a name change to ICI in June, they suddenly found that they hadn't considered all of the consequences. They walked it back after listeners and journalists expressed incredibly strong feelings about the name, based on complex feelings about identity, tradition, and politics. Broad consultation is a very effective way to figure out how complex an issue really is.

Partially for this reason, and partially because it builds legitimacy for decisions when people feel included, public engagement in policymaking is gaining traction in Canada and around the world. Well, digitally-enabled engagement. Lifelong public servants and politicians that held townhalls, knocked on doors, and wrote letters would probably take issue with the idea of complete novelty, here.

And I actually think that the increased transaction speed technology affords in soliciting opinions will be partially offset by the wrenches that having more voices will throw into an issue. And the fact that some of these voices have bullhorns to turn to, if their ideas aren't respected. Regardless, policy wonks will have a well-networked civil society on their side when synthesizing and submitting policy advice.

There are both dark clouds and silver linings for public participation in democracy, but I don't think there is a countervailing force that can prevent the rise of public engagement in policymaking. As the public's uptake and demand for involvement increases, the bureaucracy will get better at including the public in the policy process, which will increase demand, and voilà: virtuous cycle.


The Ecosystem of Influence

Michael Lipsky argues that "frontline public servants, such as police officers and social workers" are policymakers, as a result of the discretion and autonomy they have in carrying our their jobs. Here's an example: when I was sixteen I got pulled over for speeding, in the gray area between the speed limit and mandatory ticketing. So the options were a warning, or a ticket.

However, the officer ran the license plate and invented a third option: he called his friend about it, instead. My dad. 

With direct interaction with the public, there's a level of influence, and accordingly responsibility, within the leeway available in achieving results. What's going to happen is that far more bureaucrats are going to find themselves in that position, as policy analysts become the face of public engagement in policymaking. Policy is increasingly going to become a frontline activity, and bureaucrats will be able to put their mark, embrace a greater responsibility, and add value. On the ground, in the weeds, with Canadians.

As I said, this is a good thing. But it won't be an easy thing. 

Embracing Authenticity Means Embracing Complexity

by Nick Charney

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Today I wanted to focus on the connection between authenticity and complexity but before jumping to the meat of it I wanted to recap how we got here. Whether you've noticed or not, we've been deliberately walking you down a very deliberate path recently:

• I asked a thought provoking question about the tenuous relationship between bureaucrats who see value in pursuing innovative and a public narrative that demands predictability (See: Can Bureaucrats be Interesting When the World Demands they be Boring);
• I put forth an argument that positioned the problem of facelessness as one that is self made, that the bureaucracy relies on passive rules and protocols rather than active relationship buildings (See: The Real Problem of Facelessness); 
• Kent argued that continuing to rely on these things is unsustainable and that potential for public servants to have an impact on the lives of others at this point in time is nearly unparalleled (See: Moving Public Service Mountains Part I & Part II); 
• I positioned the solution to the problem of facelessness as greater authenticity in our dealings with each other and by extension those we serve (See: The Solution to Facelessness is Authenticity);
• I shared a whimsical video and a powerful story that exemplifies the type of authenticity that the civil service desperately needs (See: Peak Bullshit & A Noteworthy Example of Authenticity);
• I re-iterated a recent discussion that helped me realize the importance of the stories we set in motion today while Kent argued that good storytelling is akin to usability for ideas (See: On the Stories You Tell Today & Towards a New Professionalism in Government);
• I shared a personal story about a little boy I met ten years ago that still shapes my expectations today to illustrate the point (See: We All Have Our Defining Moments); 
• We even reviewed a book that serves as a powerful example of the need to and the difficulty of elevating a more authentic public policy discourse (See: Impossible Conversations: A Review of Jeffrey Simpson's Chronic Condition); and
• As an added bonus, the conversation spilled over to another a blog we happen to like (See: The Whole Hearted Bureaucrat: The Public Service as Reflective Practice written by Ashleigh Weeden)

So here's the rub

If we are going to embrace greater authenticity than we must also be willing to embrace greater complexity; or as Ashleigh put it:

If we disallow public servants to embody their authenticity by insisting on facelessness, we are taking away the critical factor of connection that allows human beings to find and create meaning. Creating spaces that function solely on technical objectivity and risk aversion ... we numb our institutional nervous system with a false anaesthetic that makes it incredibly difficult for public servants to exercise compassion and holistic understanding. And the problems we face today require and deserve the full force talents of courageous, compassionate, wholehearted people.

Which is precisely what I take to be the meaning of fearless advice: courage, compassion, and wholeheartedness, not just with our political masters but with each other.

The connection to public policy

The complexity that authenticity creates in our interpersonal relationships and the friction between that malleable authenticity and our rigid organizational structures is not only palpable but also serves as a fair proxy for what we should expect as we enter more authentic discussions about pressing public policy issues. This is precisely what Simpson gets to in his book and can easily be extended to a number of other public policy challenges.

Where does that leave us?

Given what I've outlined above, our course of action seems fairly clear. From where I sit, I think we ought to wholeheartedly embrace the richness of complexity in both our interpersonal relationships and the policy solutions we pursue while telling the right stories today with a view to making them usable tomorrow.

My hope is that you agree with me, my fear is that you don't.

The Solution to Facelessness is Authenticity

by Nick Charney

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In my last piece I positioned problem of the facelessness bureaucracy not as an abstract problem that manifests between civil servants and the citizens they serve, but rather a very real problem between civil servants themselves (See: The Real Problem of Facelessness) and in so doing encouraged individual public servants to push back on facelessness and the deference to "the default setting" of our shared office cultures by invoking a clever video remake of a commencement speech by David Foster Wallace that happened to go viral.

What I want to do now is pick up on that theme again and tie facelessness to authenticity by leaning on a speech given by Allan Gregg at the 2011 Gordon Osbaldeston Lecture called "On Authenticity - How the Truth Can Restore Faith in Politics and Government". It was a speech that took aim at restoring authenticity to the relationship between elected officials and the public rather than among public servants, but I think that at their core Gregg's arguments apply equally well to how we - public servants - interface with each other.

We crave authenticity

Gregg argues that disdain for authority has replaced deference; that society is increasingly craving authenticity due to the fact that technology allows us exert increasingly greater control over our daily lives; and in so doing has connected us to others in more intimate and immediate ways. The result of which, according to Gregg, is a reduced reliance on traditional authorities, especially those that have not been able to adapt under these conditions:

At one in the same time therefore, technology has disintermediated citizens from traditional authority and allowed us to plug directly into the world and an alternative social network. The by-product of our more distant relationship with authority and our more direct relationship with our peers is that we are now constantly enveloped with the pretext of intimacy and realism. Not only is our ever-more connected and plugged-in citizen confronted with realism in their day-to-day lives, he and she now demands authenticity from their leaders as atonement for the deceit they believe is being perpetuated upon them.

We crave authenticity then because, as individuals, we have become saturated with authenticity in our day-day-lives – we are informed, connected and can respond in real time, at any time. Yet as citizens, we are deprived of authenticity – we feel our leaders do not understand our concerns, share our beliefs and experience or speak a language we understand. In this new environment, truth has become the oxygen and artifice is the kryptonite of public life.

The same thing can be said about what is happening inside the bureaucracy; a similar technological disintermediation is creeping in and creating space between traditional structures of authority (e.g. the classification system, organizational hierarchies, ministerial accountabilities, and the public-private divide) and giving public servants unprecedented access to each other and to the world at large. Today a civil servant's access to information is now only limited by their capacity to engage with others, find and retrieve information and make sense of the context of both the relationships that inform the process and the weight to give to the information retrieved therein (See: Big Data, Social Media and the Long Tail of Public Policy). To force them to work in a command and control system that is in-congruent with an emerging culture that is "enveloped with the pretext of intimacy and realism" simply isn't tenable.

Because authenticity is the glue

... everything I know about public sentiment tells me that authenticity is not only the glue necessary to repair this breach between our citizens and politicians, I actually believe that telling the naked truth, in today’s environment, can be extremely good politics.

If the naked truth is good politics, than fearless advice is good bureaucratics. I've argued previously that fearless advice is actually an inherently low risk activity, and that despite it being low risk, the public service has slowly moved away from it and focused more on loyal implementation (See: On Risk, Fearless Advice, and Loyal Implementation). That said, there is a growing sense - at least among those non-partisan and professional public servants I speak to - that while implementation is important, in the absence of fearless advice it is insufficient.

Both Kent and I have independently made our respective cases for the complexity of the tasks ahead in a general sense (See: Collaboration: Over-hyped and Under-appreciated and The Public Promise of Big Data) but there are a number of specific and pressing public policy issues on the horizon - issues such as healthcare, the environment, immigration/multiculturalism and, yes, the economic policy - that are so complex in their own right that they require thoughtful and prolonged debate and require both making existing systems more efficient but also the introduction of new policy thinking and instruments. This is precisely one of the arguments that Jeffrey Simpson makes in his recent book on Medicare entitled Chronic Condition (the next book to be discussed in our Impossible Conversations Series). I suppose what I am getting here is that thoughtfulness and principled debate requires authenticity and therefore it isn't sufficient for civil servants to simply crave greater authenticity from an amorphous system but rather must take concrete actions to be more authentic themselves and  imbue each of their tasks with deep authenticity no matter how trivial the opportunity may seem (See: On Fearless Advice and Loyal Implementation); in other words civil servants must find their faces.

That draws us together and makes us human

Gregg goes at length about a particularly pointed Rex Murphy rant that implored politicians to do a number of things reclaim their authenticity and engage citizens, I've remixed them below so that they address more directly the issue of facelessness and authenticity within the bureaucracy:

1. End “gov speak”; stop using language that is intentionally vague, that conceals meaning or motivations, all communication should be more accessible 
2. Stop using whatever hierarchical authority you have to slow others down or jam a stick in their spokes (see: tall poppy syndrome) 
3. Tear down the facades of manufactured crisis and importance, abandon process where adherence no longer makes sense given the external environment or where it is demoralizing or dehumanizing 
4. Speak to others like they are human beings, messy, complicated, exuberant, and intelligent human beings, embrace their complexity and embrace your own humanity.

Or as Gregg puts it:

Throw out the scripts. Talk to the people – really. Decide the three big issues and deal with them at length. End the ads. Stop sounding professionally pious. Speak from the top of your head and the bottom of your heart.

because:

This is not an agenda that calls for complacency, inaction or timorousness. In fact, without bold and innovative ideas to tackle these problems our nation will inevitably drift and then decline, and trust in the public sphere will surely erode even further.

and:

Speaking the truth is not bad politics. We may all have the right to our own opinions but we do not have the right to our own facts. And the idea that you can longer speak the truth with impunity; that government doesn't matter; or that repairing trust in our public figures and institutions is an impossible or unworthy task is just plain wrong. And those who offer these opinions as fact must be challenged.

And it is also wrong for those who are tasked with serving our political leaders to offer anything less than the absolute best advice, based on the best analysis, whether they want to hear it or not.

Which is precisely where you come in.

The real problem of facelessness

by Nick Charney

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I wrote a few weeks ago about the facelessness of bureaucrats (See: How Can Bureaucrats Be Interesting When the World Demands that they be Boring), the ensuing conversation focused a lot on the question of whether or not bureaucrats can remain faceless given the pressures of the new media environment. What I've come to realize since then is that its the wrong question to be asking.

Bureaucratic cultures are indeed defined by facelessness

But not the facelessness between individual public servants and the public they serve but rather among and between individual public servants themselves. By this I mean that facelessness isn't some abstract problem out there where we interface with the public, but rather a very real problem in here where we interact with one another.

I may be wrong, but I can't help but wonder if we are slowly coming to the conclusion that our self-isolating, postmodern and deconstructivist organizational cultures are no longer tenable. That it is no longer sufficient to accept as given the close reading and even closer enforcement of rules without reference to the cultural, ideological, and moral opinions of those who first brought those rules to bear. In the words of Derrida, "Il n'y a pas de hors-texte" (there is no such thing as outside-of-the-text) is no longer a cultural pillar we can build around.

In other words, are we realizing that we need to move away from facelessness and rehumanize the civil service? Is this the mountain that may or may not be ready to move? (See: Moving Public Service Mountains, Part 1)

I can't say for sure, but I get the sense that it may be time to shift rewards away from the cold comforts of facelessness and the predictability that rules, frameworks and protocols afford. Make no mistake, these things are still needed, but they ought to be used to build platforms for civil servants and public services to stand on proudly, not cast shadows for them to hide in.

The most obvious and important realities are often are the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. 

Above is an excerpt from a new take on a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace that went viral last week.

Watch it (embedded below)

Its simple, effective and drives home the discussion I think we ought to be having about problem of facelessness and the deference to "the default setting" of our shared office cultures. It also does it in a far more convincing manner than I ever could.