Fully, completely.

by Nick Charney

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The last three-ish years have been busy both personally and professionally for me. In that time, I played a critical role in helping design a new challenge-based government program, took on management responsibilities within that program, and had the opportunity to assemble a crackerjack team that is absolutely crushing on its delivery. We're a weird hybrid of policy advice on innovation and impact, and experimentation with program delivery. Our team works well not because of a particular governance structure, but rather because of the culture we've been able to cultivate, the quality of the our team members, and our trusted relationship with our executive cadre.

Over the same period of time, I stopped writing. It was a slow but continuous denouement that culminated in me hanging up skates and declaring that I used to write things on the internet. I was a new manager, we were a new team, we were working on a new program. It was all very exciting and I wanted to dig into the substance of the task at hand. Doing that took significant amounts of time, mental energy, and was (at times) all consuming.

It was a tremendous learning opportunity, but entailed certain sacrifices. For example, I had always told myself that writing about my experience in the public service was something that I wanted to do throughout the course of my career. That being able to look back on this blog as a sort of journal of public service things would be valuable to myself and, if I struck the right tone or raised the right issues, to others. I thought it was an all or nothing proposition. I've always been an all or nothing kind of person, to quote the late (great, and highly influential to me personally) Gord Downie: "Either it'll move me or it'll move right through me. Fully, completely".

But careers are funny things, they ebb and flow, and while everyone's opinion may differ, mine has evolved to a place where I feel like there's neither a right nor a wrong way to go about making decisions about them. I was speaking to a friend of mine recently about relationships but his advice applies equally to careers and other human endeavors (paraphrasing): "You've only got some much energy to give, if you make a withdrawal in one place, someone else has to come in and pick up the slack. That or the relationship suffers." Or put another way by another friend (again, paraphrasing): "Time is your most valuable resource, and you once you've spent it you can't get it back".

I was so busy doing the work -- designing a program, delivering it, managing the day to day operations of the team -- that I simply didn't have the time to share what I was learning with others the way I had previously. Sure, I was still having conversations, exploring issues and positing solutions, but I was hyper focused on the immediate issues and people in front of me. Reporting back on what I was dealing with and learning along the way didn't seem as important, or if I'm being honest, interesting, or even fair to those who were living through it with me.

Often I was just trying to keep my head above water, but along the way I learned that solving real problems in front of you, and seeing the impact of their resolution first hand, is an incredibly meaningful experience; that helping the five people immediately in front of you can feel (and be!) more meaningful then writing some esoteric think piece that gets loaded into 5,000 anonymous web browsers (the impact of which is hard to quantify and more importantly, qualify).

Last year I also had the good fortune of being able to spend ~3 months in Denver, Colorado on a temporary duty assignment as a Trade Commissioner. The experience was unlike any other in my career and forced some introspection -- I'm in the middle of what I'm jokingly referring to my 'early' mid-life crisis.

When I got back I started to reflect on how much I've learned by doing, how many different people, ideas, and issues I've collided with over the past few years and what I find the most rewarding about my work.

Embracing interesting ideas and even more interesting people is what made me who I am today, it's what put me on the path, gave me the skills, and created the worldview that I continue to bring to bear on difficult but important tasks such as creating new programs, building new teams, and learning how to continue to be a positive influence on the our systems of governance.

I feel as though I'm emerging somewhat from the personal and professional ether, and if I'm being completely honest with myself, I'm not sure what this all means.

Maybe it means taking time to pause, reflect, and share more. If that's the case then sharing a new updated version of Scheming Virtuously: A Handbook for Public Servants.

The new version includes new content under both the Scheming and Virtue headings as well as hints for both employees and managers. You can also watch me deliver the handbook as a talk should you be interested. Thanks to the Canada School of Public Service for making the video available online.

On Writing

by Kent Aitken

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I have an interesting relationship with writing. I actually frequently feel unqualified, unsuited, or presumptuous in writing anything.

In my head, every sentence I write starts with “I think,” or “I believe,” or “It appears to be the case that.” My fingers edit those parts out, for two reasons. One is that you, reader, can infer that I believe the things I’m writing by virtue of the fact that I’m writing them. The other is that it would otherwise make for a terrible read.

But it belies how doubtful I am. I’m really not that self-assured.

So why do I write, and publicly?

1. Practice. Writing is an invaluable skill, and consuming the writing of brilliant others will only get you so far. This is part of the impetus behind Tariq’s writing challenge (which I've, embarrassingly, missed for two weeks). I think that I’m pretty good at putting together sentences. I’m far less comfortable in my ability to draw connections between concepts, and to organize thoughts logically to make it easy for readers to follow. Structuring things on a blog adds psychological incentive to write more, and write better.

I believe that almost all skills are learnable, like music, and that we’re probably all writers, too.

2. Insight. “Writing is the art of discovering what you believe.” I typically spend a few days writing in my head before I ever approach a piece of paper or a keyboard, but it is rare that I finish a post without coming up with something novel to add while getting everything down. I never know quite what is going to happen, and the surprises are sometimes really worthwhile. Part of it is imagining the piece from the perspective of readers and listeners, and part of it is simply a function of staring and obsessing over an idea for hours. It’s a close and clear lens.

Of course, this happens in conversations with other people, too. But I have a complex relationship with “other people” and like to spend time exploring ideas myself.

3. Perspective. Somewhere in your mind, there’s a switch labelled “I write about things.” When I cajoled that into the On position, my relationship with thoughts changed. Faint traces of ideas waft by, and I chase them down and hold on to them for dear life. I carved out a cellar for them, stowing them away and taking stock periodically to see if it is their time yet. Or if new ideas have appeared that I can mix with the old. Sometimes they sit for years.

I compared it to hiking with a camera. I don’t think it detracts from the raw experience: enjoying nature with your eyes, ears, nose, and skin. But it adds another layer, and keeps me alert for unconventional ways of framing and seeing my surroundings.

4. Resonance. Less reliable than the other reasons, but every now and again, something I make resonates with someone. It’s incredible when it happens.

I’ll point you towards Andrew Kurjata’s fantastic piece on why he creates, Shut Up and Say Something. He nailed it.

I’ll just add that if you create something, and don’t share it, the chance of it resonating with someone else stays exactly zero.

5. Because the world keeps not ending. I started small with sharing, and the world didn't end. Then I opened the doors a bit wider, and the world didn't end.

So I’ll keep writing as long as catastrophes keep not happening when I do.

Originally posted at Tothedogsorwhoever.com.

Think, write, repeat

While you may be able to download an application that turns even your crappy cell phone pics into something hipsters will rave about on Facebook, or transform your worst karaoke showing into a pop song that would make Bieber proud, there isn't an app on earth that can make you a better critical thinker, or compensate for deficient writing skills.  In a world where (almost) everyone is a publisher, good writing skills and the ability to think critically are likely key differentiators.  

They are also mutually reinforcing

The more you think critically the better you are at expressing those thoughts in writing, the more you express those thoughts in writing, the deeper you can push your understanding.  

The thoughts I share here are ones I bat around in my head for weeks at a time.  What goes live on Friday mornings is always something that has been written, rewritten, completely torn apart, and slowly pieced back together.  I understand that the process, while often brutal and stressful, ultimately leads to a depth of understanding that I couldn't achieve if I simply shot from the hip and riffed on a particular subject.  In fact, over the years, I have collected a number of unfinished blog posts (over a hundred in fact) that I simply haven't been able to frame properly yet.

But this blog is not just a training ground for my skills, it is a living and growing portfolio that demonstrates those skills in action, and as such it's become far more valuable than my (traditional) resume alone (more on this below). 



It's a knowledge economy, stupid

The problem with a conventional resume is that it actually doesn't demonstrate any of the abilities listed on it (with the possible exception of effective communication). This week I came across a post called "Github is my resume" (via Ycombinator).  In it, a Python coder (named pyDanny), argues that, while traditional resumes are a passive inventory of tasks and responsibilities (and thus ripe for embellishment), an online repository of your work (in his case Github) is an active demonstration of those abilities. The comments on the article brought some nuance to the discussion, which eventually settled on the idea that a static resume is still a valuable tool, but what programmers really need (and what a service like Github can be) is a portfolio.

Given, I'm not a coder (you might not be one either) but the logic is the same (paraphrasing pyDanny): 


If you write every day or every week, over time your writing will get better; you'll also be able to demonstrate a consistent body of work, and your passion will be obvious. 

Where's your passion?

Where is your living portfolio? 

Isn't it time you started thinking, writing and repeating?



Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect