Alignment and Competition

by Gray O'Byrne

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“Let’s set up a meeting to make sure our initiatives are aligned and we’re not duplicating effort.”

I have become wary of this line. On the surface, I couldn’t agree more. We want our time to be well spent. The phrase taps into my human aversion to waste, but like everything else, it can be taken too far.

First off, duplication is sometimes necessary. In a sense it’s impossible to replace an existing system without duplicating it. As we build digital services for citizens, we are duplicating the existing ones. Introducing digital services may not be controversial but what if the existing system is trying to slowly digitize itself? How do we decide if it’s worthwhile trying something new rather than invest more in the improvement efforts?

In a lot of cases there is no clear answer and rather than investing in the new idea, we align ourselves with the existing initiative to avoid duplication. This could be contributing to how long it is taking governments to built digital-first services.

When developing new services we also have a choice to make about what tools or approaches to use. Sometimes a single team has the resources and expertise to try out several options instead of picking just one, but what happens when it’s two different teams each with their own idea? We seem to have very little tolerance for allowing both teams to continue even if it’s unclear which idea is more promising.

In this scenario, instead of waiting to see what we learn from each team, we tend to ask one of them to stop. I’ve seen several promising initiatives shut down this way. The project team eventually met with a group who had more authority and who felt their own project would be doing the same thing. “Why would we create two solutions to the same problem?”

These tendencies to stop others from trying different approaches to solving the same problem are what I am pushing back against. We need to be investing in a variety of approaches because they can all teach us something. Sometimes the alternative projects will result in better services, sometimes in wasted effort but if done properly we will always learn.

Unfortunately multiple groups tackling the same problem means there will be competition between ideas, projects and even the people who want to see their own approach succeed. But there are benefits to competition as well! We’ve come to accept that it is a net positive and helps drive innovation In the private sector and just because there is some competition between groups, it doesn’t mean we need to have winners and losers vying for space in government.

Rather than aligning on execution we can align our goals. Through collaboration we can ensure each project takes a unique approach so it will generate unique insights. Information sharing at all stages will be key, we need to experiment and learn as a whole. The hard part will be for everyone to come together once individual projects have been tested, but it can be done.

I’ve had some success with this approach. 

When collaborating to build a micro-tasking platform for the federal government, my team took a conscious step back from the working group. We knew we could rapidly deploy something in our organisation and felt the group could learn more from us building an advanced prototype than if we participated in the same way as everyone else.

We kept in touch, we built in the open and challenged our colleagues to make something better. This was deliberately duplicative but we got to benefit from our prototype quickly and were able share our work and insights back with the group. A year later when the working group had their solution in place, it had many of the features we had designed. At this point we shut our prototype down so our users would join the superior platform and benefit from the broader community that had access to it.

The strength and weakness of this approach are the same to me: we are working with humans. On one side, a little competition and a strong sense of ownership are both extremely motivating. Trying out a few different ideas in earnest can also help when our intuitions are wrong. On the downside, competition is uncomfortable. If people feel like “it’s us or them” they could stop sharing openly and even create barriers for others. As a believer in human awesomeness, I think these downsides can be managed by aligning our goals (not our approaches) and collaborating openly within our organisations. To get us started though, we will need to become comfortable with the idea that attacking a problem from multiple angles is an acceptable form of duplication.

Open gov, values, and the social contract

by Nick Charney

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The following is the first in a series of guest posts by Melissa Tullio, a friend and fellow public servant; its a cross post from one of the internal platforms within the Ontario Public Service. We are trying to convince her to join the blog as a regular contributor so if you like what you see please share the post, leave a comment or contact her directly; you can find Melissa on Twitter @CreativeGov.

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There’s a great line that may be familiar to you from Yes, Minister – a BBC show from the 1980s that followed the life of civil servants in the office of Administrative Affairs. It frequently comes to mind whenever I hear the phrase open government: “You can either be open, or have government!”
I'm not a cynic, but being in government for more than seven years, it seems like this sentiment continues to be deeply embedded in the way we do things. We create silos to restrict who gets what information. We typically need to ask permission to share draft work with colleagues outside of our office. Some of us even password protect documents (eek!) to add more layers of security because we don’t want to be caught as public-servant-zero who accidentally leaked information to the press about some potential decision.

It’s time to have a conversation about values.

Open government will not work if it does not start with public servants exhibiting behaviours that demonstrate values that align with it. If we’re going to achieve transparency, and if our goal is to have truly open dialogue with citizens, we need to examine if what we say aligns with what we do.

The other night, I went to Design with Dialogue – a monthly event hosted by OCAD university. The topic was timely: Cultural Values and Social Change. Our facilitator, Aryne Sheppard, took us through a number of exercises to identify what kinds of values we think we need to have in order to tackle some of the biggest problems we’re trying to solve – climate change, homelessness, and poverty/inequality, to name a few.

A graphic that visualizes groupings of values as a circle. Click for full-sized image.

The framework she used is from the Schwartz values theory. It divides values into sub-groups like universalism (valuing equality, wisdom, social justice, etc.), tradition (valuing devoutness, moderation, acceptance of the way things are, etc.), power (valuing wealth, social influence over others, preserving the public image, etc.) – among others. Values on opposite sides of the circle are inherently in conflict, while values that are close to each other are complementary.

She emphasized throughout our conversations that there are no bad or good values; studies show that cross-culturally, and around the world, there are a consistent set of values [PDF] that emerge. The key is how each of us prioritize our values, and what to do with the cognitive dissonance that results when values are in conflict with each other.

For example, like our Yes, Minister quote suggests, if we say to the public that we value openness, but inside government we behave in a closed manner, the underlying tension this causes makes it seem like we’re not being genuine (hence, we can have one or the other; not both). Not only that, but it makes it difficult for staff to feel engaged with the priorities we say publicly that we're supposed to be exhibiting.

It’s time to revisit our social contract with people.

Kent Aitken from the federal public service has an interesting blog post from early this year that starts digging into the question, “What is government for?” He mentions the social contract: the “deal or arrangement we can expect from the institutions, people, and environments around us, having been born into a society.”

Kent shared with me a Mowat Centre initiative on this very topic: Renewing Canada’s Social Architecture. The premise is that while we haven’t changed our institutions much since the 1960s (suffrage for Aboriginal peoples was finally granted in 1960, for example), societal values and expectations have changed dramatically.

I believe, like he does, that it’s time we start thinking about a new social contract. And I believe it starts with values.

So the question is, how might we, inside government, start shifting our culture (rooted in the values we exhibit) to become more aligned with social values?

What might a “cognitive government” look like?

One of my contacts recently shared this Nesta post on “cognitive government” with me, which is what got me thinking about all of this. A core element of a cognitive government – a government that adapts more rapidly to emergent shifts – is that “Governments should do more than just opening up; they need to become parts of co-creation ecosystems.” Among other things, this implies the end of the siloed mentality from the days of Yes Minister.

These new ecosystems Nesta refers to are being created and recreated all the time, and outside of any perceived control we think we have inside government. The capacity people have to self-organize and start movements has grown ever more rapidly since the birth of the internet and technologies that bridge geographic barriers to seek out and collaborate with like minded people. To become an activist these days, it’s as easy as clicking “retweet.”

We need to start asking deeper questions.

Are we playing in these spaces? Are we connecting with citizens in a meaningful way – in a way where they have a real stake in decision making, where they’re empowered to co-create policies alongside us, where we truly value their experiential knowledge and apply it to the way we deliver programs to them?

And what about inside government? Do we create safe spaces for experimentation and collaboration across ministries? Have we made an attempt to map the employee experience and identify where risk aversion comes from, and where we can intervene to fix some of the bottlenecks to innovation?

Systems visualized as an iceberg (source). Click for the full-sized image.

Are we thinking beyond the surface level to change our patterns? Have we taken a look at those lower-iceberg levels where our mental models and unconscious or conscious biases continue to define our behaviour?

Who’s willing to try to figure this out with me?

You Can't Play Ping Pong By Yourself

by Ashleigh Weeden

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Ashleigh is a mischief-maker, bridge-builder, barrier-smasher, and dot-connecter. She blogs hootnhowl.tumblr.com. Kent and I have been asking her to post here for some time now, she finally took us up on the offer.

In start-up circles, culture and unique work environments are used as celebratory beacons for what are meant to be progressive, interesting companies. Employers with these cultural signifiers of awesomeness are usually defined in contrast to the perceived rigidity and restrictive nature of organizational behemoths like large corporations and government institutions. What these companies seem to be saying is that they think the work they do is different, that their people can and will influence big changes and that they purposely use specific work environments to support differentness, creativity, collaboration and other qualities promised by the shift toward profit-for-social-good model of doing work.

But someone has to build that environment. It doesn’t just pop into existence. People do that.

Reading Nick's reflections on leaving the Public Service for a different kind of public service at the Institute on Governance (See: Thoughts from the Other Side of Interchange), and noticing the discussions and patterns that seem to be surfacing amongst some of the public servants I admire most, I've been thinking about how much of an impact good people have on an organization and how a critical mass of good people is what creates or changes an organization's culture. This is not a chicken-and-egg scenario to me - you can't have the culture without the people. Public sector renewal, then, seems to hinge on exceptional human resource management.

First, I hate the term "human resources" - it makes my skin crawl. It makes me imagine bad coffee and worse ties and the feeling of being called into the Principal's office. We have got to come up with a better term for individuals whose core function is finding the people that will build the kind of public service we say we want. I'm not sure what that term should be, but it needs to recognize a modern approach to people-first team building. Because that's what an exceptional recruiter and staff developer does - they build teams and build organizations, block by block, by finding and placing the kind of person that will help steer a team, a department, and an organization in the direction it wants to go... Or, at least, that's what they should be doing.

It strikes me that we need a fundamental shift in our recruitment and retention philosophy. I read Karolina Szcur's piece about "Where to Work" (inspired by Paul Jarvis' excellent "You are not a corporation") and, while the entire piece reads as a pretty solid basic course in "great work environments 101" and makes up what I think should be the basic job description of every people-manager in the world, the quote she pulled from a Basecamp job posting hit me like lightning:

"We are not looking for someone who’s already expert in everything they do. We’re looking for someone great who demonstrates the interest, drive, and desire to keep learning new things and continually get better." (from here)

When Basecamp includes this statement in their recruitment ads, what they're saying is that they are an organization that hires character and curiosity, not just credentials. It doesn't fit neatly in arbitration-ready evaluation grids and pokes holes in our flawed meritocracies - but it's the spark that says "Let's build this together."

It's something that I think Tariq touched on when he wrote about letting ideas shine without a prescriptive formula for diversity (See: Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out - Planning and Idea Generation in Government). Kent also hinted at it with his GOC 3.0 takeway. And it's something that I see in the virtual community of practice of public servants in the social media sphere. These are folks with that essential nugget of the virtuous schemer, who are challenging, appreciating and nourishing each other as whole persons, not just cogs in the production process. Remember all my talk about whole-hearted public service? We can't get there if the official channels that manage the employment relationship refuse to acknowledge the important part that our human subjectivity plays in creating our professional realities.

Talent management is tantamount to a very long game of chess with a generous dash of fortune telling and an element of The Labyrinth thrown in for good measure because the chess pieces have minds of their own and are likely to move about the board whenever they want. Overly prescriptive and technical hiring processes may seem like equalizers, but they take humanity out of the picture. The assumption is that everyone with a certain list of qualifications is an interchangeable, blank-chess-piece-widget instead of a highly changeable weirdo (which we all are, really. “Weirdo” is a compliment, I promise). So we’re left without the practical magic needed to create and sustain the kind of professional culture we crave.

Large organizations could learn a lot from ongoing exit interviews of all staff - not just executives, and not just when someone leaves permanently. Think of the gold mine that culture-builders could access from asking George or Nick for their honest reflections - and expand that out to asking similar questions of those who move teams or departments, whether on secondment or for a promotion or for a lateral change of scenery. Extrapolate that outwards to interviewing people moving between levels of government or between sectors. Imagine if everyone completed a “first impressions” review after a month in their new positions, and again six months in, and after the first year and so on. Imagine if your performance appraisal included a culture appraisal that actually contributed to a regular readjustment of the corporate sails. We’d become constructively introspective. My nerdy little social-scientist’s heart beats wildly at the thought of all that deep data collection. We’d have the start of a pretty radical public service ethnography.

Cool culture is not about a ping-pong table in the office, endless coffee or even a keg in the fridge - it's a function of the work you get to do and the people you get to work alongside. Spend too long working amongst too many people who just don't "get" you on some fundamental level, and you're bound to burn out and seek shelter elsewhere. But find yourself on a team of wildly productive sparkplugs who see the same sparkle in the world and in each other that you do? Magic. Because you can’t play ping-pong by yourself.

Public service renewal: the weekly round-up

Fellow govvies,

Here're the must-reads of the week. Stay warm and dry!

Snip snip:

•  Death by a thousand cuts: a compelling argument that a disaster-in-the-making is unfolding across government. 
•  And a more positive analysis to balance things out, the Delta Partners argue for a radical cultural shift.
•  It seems that the saga at DND is continuing … is it just media speculation that DND is facing an exodus of public affairs staff?

Remaking public service culture:

• An out-of-the-ordinary, short read on how and why bureaucracies can amplify psychopathic behaviour
• Got a youth network in your department? New to the public service? Then don’t miss this post on The Rise and Fall of Public Sector Youth Groups
•  Worth checking out: Transport Canada launched the new look for government web sites

This post has been a collaborative effort from Lee-Anne Peluk and Nicholas Charney.You can check out Lee-Anne's blog "In the Shuffle" at www.leeannepeluk.wordpress.com

I would've eaten glass to get this job

Friends, I am currently on vacation in beautiful New Brunswick, but instead of leaving you hanging, here's a guest post by a fellow public servant blogger whose writing caught my eye. Enjoy.

I would've eaten glass to get this job

Moving to the bureaucracy from the world of NGOs, for me, meant serious growing pains.

I really, really wanted a job in the public service. I would have eaten glass in sharp, jagged pieces to make my casual position a permanent job -- if my manager would've asked. I did whatever I was told, even if it seemed like nonsense or a time-waster. I had 90 days to prove I could fit in with the best of them, so I never wanted to rock the boat, in case the door closed on my one foot holding it open.

I know that there are a lot of other people that want a job in the public service, but settle for contract work. In fact, over $1 billion a year is spent on contracts. It’s been called a “shadow public service” – the vast, growing reserve of temporary help. I'm sure that given the choice, any of these contractors would prefer to work with government, rather than alongside it.

It's only natural; it's a good job. I get paid well. I get to think about issues of national importance, and I don't have to worry every single day about the next contract or assignment. And more people want it than can possibly have it.

Maybe you'd be inclined to argue that it's this hunger that drives innovation. I'd say you should watch this awesome little video by Dan Pink. Hunger and innovation do not go hand-in-hand.

When you join any group, there's a period of socialization; the public service is no different. I had to learn "the ways." But the way I see it, this process of socialization is the very place where public service renewal needs to begin. Being on contract essentially silences you because you want that contract to be renewed -- and this is the starting point for a good number of public servants, who then carry this attitude throughout their careers.

The impact of this is insidious. Besides the silencing, it leaves behind a legacy of contradictions:

• We are constantly in competition for jobs, but supposed to work as a team
• Many are 'advisors' who don't actually provide advice, but instead perform highly administrative tasks
• Our system for hiring is supposed to be transparent and fair, but to who? Job applications seem to end up in a black hole. (I applied for over 30 jobs in the PS and I never got called for one of them, until, of course, I had public service experience. Which I could only get by becoming -- you guessed it -- a contractor)

There are some shops in my department that are run completely through the use of contractors. They get the job done, sure. But we need a public service that does more than uphold the status quo.

It's frustrating and enough to make one depressed, and depressed we are -- we have 11,100 public servants collecting disability benefits right now. And headlines have been popping up aplenty in recent years that depression among Canada’s public servants is the country’s biggest public health crisis.

To various degrees, we all behave in a way that we perceive to be expected of us. That happens in all sectors, and it's useful sometimes, too. But my point is that we will continue to pursue public service renewal at only the surface level as long as we continue to perpetuate this cycle of "insiders" and "outsiders."

As long as there are people who are willing to eat glass to get in, there will be a culture that lacks innovation. They will do what they are told, rather than trying to come up with innovative ideas. We must pursue this type of cultural change to get at the heart of renewal.

We need strong, rational leadership that charts an unwavering course forward. We need to think collectively instead of in silos and tribes. We need to make changes in our HR processes; we need to find a way to promote teamwork, downplay hierarchy, and make the #GoC one big team.

Now that'd be really worth eating glass over.

-- Lee-Anne Peluk

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect