Friday, May 4, 2012
Survivor's Guilt
Monday, April 30, 2012
MBR: Scheming Virtuously The Road to Collaborative Governance
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.
Scheming Virtuously: the road to collaborative governance by Gilles Paquet
Why I bought it 
Actually I didn't, Gilles sent me a copy years ago after having sat on a panel with him and subsequently accepting his invitation to virtuous scheming. Despite my enthusiasm for the book I only wound up reading about half of it at the time as life got in the way (as it tends to do); it's been sitting on my shelf waiting to be finished ever since.
The book argues for a new, more collaborative governance model and points at a number of things that we (public servants, civil society and public intellectuals) could change in order to achieve it. That said, the target audience seems varied and at times the text becomes incredibly complex and frequently invokes Latin and/or French to convey the underlying sentiment.
The best chapters of the book were by far chapters 5 (Stewardship vs leadership) and 8 (An agenda for change in the federal public service), the latter of which tackles the issue of change head on:
The core message being, it isn't enough to simply follow orders blindly, one must speak truth to power at every opportunity.
Cheers
Ps - Sorry for the lack of post last week. It was an odd week and I took my wife to NYC for the weekend so I was naturally a little sidetracked.
Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca subscribe/connect
Basic Info
Actually I didn't, Gilles sent me a copy years ago after having sat on a panel with him and subsequently accepting his invitation to virtuous scheming. Despite my enthusiasm for the book I only wound up reading about half of it at the time as life got in the way (as it tends to do); it's been sitting on my shelf waiting to be finished ever since.
How it connects to the Public Sector
The book argues for a new, more collaborative governance model and points at a number of things that we (public servants, civil society and public intellectuals) could change in order to achieve it. That said, the target audience seems varied and at times the text becomes incredibly complex and frequently invokes Latin and/or French to convey the underlying sentiment.
What I got out of reading it
The best chapters of the book were by far chapters 5 (Stewardship vs leadership) and 8 (An agenda for change in the federal public service), the latter of which tackles the issue of change head on:
"No change will occur if employees continue to perceive that rewards go mostly to those whose policy skills and political savvy are geared entirely to serving mindlessly the whims of their supervisors, irrespective of their capability for meaning-making, their capacity for community-building and their ability to inspire trust and confidence, and to deal with people at all levels." (p198)
The core message being, it isn't enough to simply follow orders blindly, one must speak truth to power at every opportunity.
Cheers
Ps - Sorry for the lack of post last week. It was an odd week and I took my wife to NYC for the weekend so I was naturally a little sidetracked.
Monday, April 23, 2012
MBR: The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking
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.
The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking
Why I bought it
I was hard pressed to find anything novel in the business section and I'd never read anything by Hawking so I figured why not.
Again, there was not explicit connection to the public sector. It is, after all, a physics book about the genesis of the universe and the laws of physics that govern it.
Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca subscribe/connect
Basic Info
Why I bought it
I was hard pressed to find anything novel in the business section and I'd never read anything by Hawking so I figured why not.
How it connects to the Public Sector
What I got out of reading it
This book was a difficult read despite being only 200 pages long. While written in a fairly straightforward manner, I definitely felt the fact that I had not dabbled in physics since high school.
Reading the book was also a humbling experience. Once you know a bit more about the science of the universe and the timescale upon which it has existed you can't help but feel at least somewhat (if not fully) inconsequential.
Reading the book was also a humbling experience. Once you know a bit more about the science of the universe and the timescale upon which it has existed you can't help but feel at least somewhat (if not fully) inconsequential.
While there wasn't a whole lot of learning to be applied to the public sector (with the possible exception of its modeling techniques and measurements) what it did allow me to do was close a bit of the conversation gap between me and a friend of mine who is currently doing his PhD in bio-chemistry. The biggest lesson I pulled out of reading The Grand Design is perhaps that reading things that aren't normally in your wheelhouse may be difficult, but it may help you bridge the gap between your world and the worlds of those around you. This is most likely important in business, friendship, and of course, public service.
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