Canadian Government Executive January 2012

JOHN KNUBLEY Portfolio management

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DANIEL CARON Archiving the digital record

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JANUARY 2012 VOLUME 18 NUMBER 1

THE MAGAZINE FOR PUBLIC SEC TOR DECISION MAKERS

THE WICKED ISSUE

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12 BIG CHALLENGES FOR 2012

showcase special editions

In Four unIque showcase specIals, cGe will highlight the issues and best practices from across the country in key public sector areas.

feature your product or service in these showcase specials March shared servIces

what works, where are we headed, how can the private sector help frame the experience, what can we learn from each other?

How can we save money and improve internal and client services?

June productIvIty and perFormance: is there a public sector productivity gap similar to the private sector’s? How do we transform “I’m being forced to do more with less” to “I’m proud to increase my productivity and improve performance”?

October cloud computInG

trust and technology – how can the cloud contribute to productivity while respecting privacy and security? What about “cloud resourcing”?

Or the structural impact of punching holes in silos?

December retIrement and leIsure

how do we nourish our souls outside of work -- holidays, hobbies, entertainment, work-life balance? What should we be doing, both financially and lifestyle-wise, to get ready for retirement?

cGe is read by 60,000 public sector decision-makers in the federal, provincial and municipal governments. for sales contact: Patricia Bush at trishb@netgov.ca, 905 727 4091 x336 or Sandra Service at sandras@netgov.ca, 905 727 4091 x228 for editorial contact: Paul Crookall at paul@crookall.ca, 613 565 7117

contents

January 2012 – VOLUME 18 – NUMBER 1

FEATURES 12

From Quality to Excellence New name elicits positive response

BY DON WILSON

14

Science policy 2.0 Science and innovation’s pivotal year?

BY MEHRDAD HARIRI

15

Portfolio management Management of immediate challenges

BY JOHN KNUBLEY

16

Archiving the digital record Transitioning from books to blogs AN INTERVIEW WITH DANIEL CARON

COVER 6

20

Wicked issues

BY SARAH JANE FRASER

Twelve big issues for 2012

BY POLICY HORIZONS CANADA

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Performance management Saved by the dashboard light

DEPARTMENTS 24

Learning with practice Team challenge pushes policy

BY NICK SIMMONS AND MURRAY KRONICK

22

New professionals

Voting digital

A wired public service

Markham connects through tech

BY STÉPHANE TOURANGEAU

BY ADAM FROMAN AND FRANK SCARPITTI

23

Procurement

Turning data into insight

The private sector and the next frontier

Ontario’s employee engagement index

BY MICHAEL ASNER AND SHARON SHEPPARD

BY NICHOLAS PRYCHODKO AND KALIM SHAH

The Leader’s Bookshelf Why we follow bad leaders

BY HARVEY SCHACHTER

29

Governing digitally Life in the public service fast lane

BY JEFFREY ROY

30

Online Extras

Opinion Connecting with a future workforce

BY DAVID ZUSSMAN

12

Online Extras

Missed an issue? Misplaced an article?

Visit www.canadiangovernmentexecutive.ca for a full archive of past CGE issues, as well as online extras from our many contributors.

22 January 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 3

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Toby Fyfe

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Contributors: Policy Horizons Canada, Don Wilson, Mehrdad Hariri, John Knubley, Sarah Jane Fraser, Nick Simmons, Murray Kronick, Adam Froman, Frank Scarpitti, Nickolas Prychodko, Kalim Shah, Stephane Tourangeau, Sharon Sheppard, Michael Asner, Jeffrey Roy, Harvey Schachter, David Zussman Editorial Advisory Board

Ole Ingstrup, management consultant; Vic Pakalnis, Queen’s University; Dr. Sandford Borins, University of Toronto; Reuben Bronee, British Columbia Public Service; Shirley Howe, Alberta Public Service; Denise Amyot, Canada Science and Technology Museum Corporation; Hanny Toxopeus, CEO, APEX; Carol Layton, OPS; Ian D. Clark, University of Toronto; sales National Account Manager: Patricia Bush

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I resolve to …

At the beginning of the New Year, it has become customary to make resolutions.

Not just any resolutions, of course, but penetrating, forward-looking ones that reflect the gravitas of an annual new beginning. In the U.S. the most popular resolution is to “appreciate family and friends more.” Over fifty percent of Americans will make a vow along these profound and reflective lines.

Her Majesty’s Loyal and Trusted Public Servant (LATPUS) will also want to make resolutions that reflect his or her ongoing commitment to better serve both politician and citizen. What follows are some proposed LATPUS resolutions for 2012.

At the top of the list: become indispensable to the elected officials who form the government. Over the past year, the seeming erosion of the familiar partnership between politicians and public servants has continued apace. By responding to this new environment, perhaps by simply giving them what they want rather than considered and informed advice, this resolution, if successful, should result in praise and thus reassure the nervous public servant that he or she remains a necessary cog in the wheel of government.

The second LATPUS resolution for 2012: keep under the radar screen.

Whether it is an internal email questioning a political judgment or a “closed door” presentation to colleagues, the lesson from 2011 is that in today’s world of social media and quick access, you should assume that nothing is confidential any-

more and that a career-limiting bon mot can, in a flash, end up on the front page of the newspaper.

The third resolution: learn how to use Twitter. After all, the reasoning goes, everyone else is, and you may get left behind if you don’t figure out how to collaborate with, and communicate to, colleagues and Canadians in 140 characters. To accomplish that resolution, the new Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat Guidelines on the External Use of Web 2.0 will have to be deciphered, decoded and overcome. Predicted timeline to get the business case done and approved: six months.

Why didn’t anyone check out B.C. whose guidelines run a mere seven pages?

The fourth resolution: manage risk better. This resolution does not reflect a belief that risk has become more important, but rather a realization that professional risk has increased. For the reasons noted above, life for the LATPUS has become more complex and less comfortable. Spending time managing the changing and risky universe of the public sector has become, like PBS, time well spent.

The fifth resolution: serve Canadians better. Whatever the vicissitudes of life in the changing public service, it’s worth remembering that the work you do matters to Canadians, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. How appropriate to strive to do the job better for our citizens’ sake.

Happy New Year.

Governance Information Software

cover Wicked issues

Policy Horizons Canada (formerly the Policy Research Initiative) is a dynamic organization that has been continually evolving to better meet the needs of the Government of Canada.

Authors are Katherine Antal, Teresa Bellefontaine, Colin Dobson, Nicola Gaye and Andrew MacDonald.

What’s on your

horizon?

Join us on a trip

around our planet as we explore the twelve wicked issues that will likely be big in 2012 and beyond.

We start our journey in space and travel down through the interrelated physical, economic and social spheres, touching on human, business and geopolitical themes.

Along the way, we hope that you will reflect upon and consider issues that will play out in Canada and position us around the world.

6 / Canadian Government Executive // January 2012

Wicked issues covEr

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Water, Water everyWhere. can technologies help us drink it?

While junk is a problem in space, back on earth some see it as an opportunity beyond just a source of materials for recycling.

tWinkle, tWinkle little … Junk?

We often think of space as an underexplored, open and pristine frontier.

So sending our extremely sensitive and highly expensive technology into space is safe, right? According to NASA, there are more than 500,000 pieces of space debris orbiting the earth at any given moment, traveling at speeds of over 28,000 kilometers per hour. Space debris is on the rise from the launch of new satellites and space missions and from older satellites breaking apart over time. And it’s dangerous: a 10-centimeter sphere of aluminum would be like seven kilograms of TNT. In 2009 two satellites hit over Siberia adding approximately 2,100 new pieces of space debris into orbit. This very real potential for space collision has important implications for satellite communication networks, space missions, earth observation and even space tourism.

In 2012 the final plans for Canada’s RADARSAT Constellation should be approved and construction will begin with the intent to launch the first of three satellites in 2014.

Images from these satellites allow Canada to conduct maritime surveillance, engage in disaster preparedness and management as well as ecosystem monitoring. Of course, Canada is not the only country placing objects in space. Currently, all countries are doing so in the absence of a global strategy for space cooperation. Can governments work together to better manage our objects in space? If they don’t, what are the chances of our satellites and other technologies becoming part of the space junkyard? As space-based monitoring, data and communications systems become more integrated in every aspect of our lives, how vulnerable are we and in what ways?

Toronto-based Pacific Blue Solutions has developed some unique water reclamation technologies, including the ability to rapidly turn raw sewage or landfill garbage into clean drinking water. The technology, originally developed for applications in the U.S. military in areas of limited usable water, is currently in use in 29 countries around the world. Other companies are developing technologies for the urban toolkit for water diversion and management in times of floods. This includes making use of permeable surfaces or replacing curbs and drains with swales to absorb overflow. Experimental technologies for renewably powered desalination are also in the works. These types of technological advances will be critical as the world faces an uncertain future of water.

This uncertain future has the potential to dramatically increase human migration.

Most would be surprised to know that the number of “water refugees” outnumbers those resulting from wars. What is the potential for that number to increase in the coming years? Nobody knows for sure, but currently over one billion people around the world are without access to adequate water supply. As one of the essentials for human life, when water supplies fall, serious consequences can arise, including political instability, international conflict and loss of life. Will technologies such as those above be used to help mitigate these dangers?

Who will manage water resources? And who will pay to install the technology in vulnerable states where it is most needed?

3

When Weather attacks

Another danger spurring migration may be severe weather events.

In 2011 the U.S. had a record number of billion-dollar weather-related disasters for one year. The federal Canadian Disaster Database recorded 14 where at least 100 people were evacuated including the Brandon, Manitoba floods in May where over 3500 people were evacuated. Is more severe weather in all of our futures? Will Ottawa, Ontario become more like Ottawa, Kansas?

Unfortunately, scientists and insurance companies are projecting an upward global trend in severe weather events.

That’s at least partly why several insurers are supporting a new voluntary framework by the United Nations. It’s called the Principles of Sustainable Insurance and it will be unveiled in June 2012 at the UN conference on sustainable development in Rio. It hopes to get insurers to commit to systematically considering environmental and related issues in all aspects of their industry so as to both improve their profits and to contribute to sustainability. The impact this might have is unclear. Indeed, it remains to be seen how the insurance industry will respond to rising disasters generally. Will it continue to raise premiums? Will it stop insuring some activities? Or both? What economic effects might this have and in what position will this put governments?

Certainly the rise in such disasters will increase pressure to get projects right in the first place by ensuring resilience and preparedness as essential traits for development in the coming years.

January 2012 // canadian Government Executive / 7

cover Wicked issues

4

Fork in the fracking road

What’s two degrees Celsius?

If your body temperature went up by that much, you’d have a fever. It’s also the amount of global warming that nations recognize as the limit beyond which they don’t want to go, in part to avoid more severe weather events. A major way to stay below two degrees is to use cleaner energy sources. That’s why many are excited about the potential of a new technique to access natural gas, which is cleaner burning than oil and coal.

“Fracking,” a way to access large reserves of natural gas and oil locked in rock formations by injecting water, sand and chemicals at high pressure, also has the potential to create jobs, generate economic benefits and help countries become energy independent.

What about potential problems, including excess water use and possible negative effects of substances added to, or resulting from the process such as corrosive salts, carcinogens and radioactive elements?

Different jurisdictions are responding with bans, moratoria or by studying fracking with an eye to regulating it. As 2011 was an emergent year in the U.S. in fracking for oil, what will be the implications for Canada’s oil exports? What might fracking do to our “two degree” problem? With respect to energy, most countries are seeking to employ fracking to some extent while also developing zero emission technologies. Where will the balance of development lie? In 2012, we will likely get a good sense of the path we’re on.

8 / Canadian Government Executive // January 2012

Jumping the tracks of path-dependent infrastructure

5

Our path is also leading us to a future that’s wired and interconnected, and many also talk about development that is smart, affordable and sustainable.

We are on the cusp of big changes to what we need and expect from our infrastructure.

Much of our current infrastructure dates to the Second World War and the paths we chose then are not necessarily the paths we should choose now. There are transportation issues. How can we share the road between competing uses and solve gridlock? There are food issues. Will urban agriculture take off? There are remote area issues. How can they get better Internet access and more affordable energy? And there are issues of emergency preparedness. How can we make structures that can withstand the increasing severity of natural disasters?

Indeed, these are only a few of the issues that make infrastructure one of the top local concerns for Canadians.

Municipalities have been developing Integrated Community Sustainability Plans, long-term strategic plans rooted in a community vision of environmental, social and economic sustainability. Continuing efforts of governments to work in concert with these plans in the face of changing technology and large-scale investment needs will be important moving forward.

Future maintenance requirements should be part of the calculation. Can we find ways to actually reduce maintenance needs for the future? How do we improve and update our infrastructure today with the potentials of tomorrow in mind?

6

A cruise down electric avenue

In 2002 there were three hybrid gas-electric vehicle models available to the Canadian public.

By 2012, we will see more than a tenfold increase in the availability of these vehicles. But adding electricity to our vehicles goes further still. There will also be at least six hybrids that boost their batteries with power from the grid (the “plug-ins”) and four automakers will deliver fully electric vehicles to Canada.

While the auto industry grapples with issues such as price, battery range and access to charging, it is also putting in place the building blocks for the successful electrification of vehicles by retraining engineers, targeting fleets, standardizing batteries, and initiating racing circuits as test beds for innovation.

What you should know is that the move to electrification of transport is not just about changing the vehicles. Instead, it promises to be a fundamental shift in the automotive and related industries.

There will be new players. How will electronic parts manufacturers and electric utilities respond? There will be new ways of charging vehicles. Which will predominate: battery swapping or quick charging stations? There may even be an opportunity to enhance the electricity grid. Could vehicles charged at night be a new source of revenue for utilities? And conversely, could these vehicles be a new source of storage to draw from during peak periods in the day? Canadians have an opportunity to become leaders in this area by using 2012 to understand and act on the evolving trends in this market.

Wicked issues covEr

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8

getting back together

Another way the economy might reconfigure is a return to a familiar business model – co-operative enterprises (co-ops).

for sale! small businesses by the baker’s dozen

Many don’t know that the top ten banks in the U.S. could lose an estimated $185 million dollars in transfers to cooperative financial institutions in 2012.

Although movement in the banking sector might not generalize, does this show a willingness of the market to try co-operatives again? Owned and controlled by their members, co-ops operate without stock-market capitalization and have different incentive structures.

Having traveled through the physical sphere, we now enter the economic sphere.

Another game-changer in the Canadian economy is the wave of retirements happening in our small- and medium-sized business sector. Did you know that small and medium businesses employ over half of Canadians, and that they represent the vast majority of businesses in Canada? Usually we consider the flexibility and nimbleness of small and medium businesses an advantage, but is it possible that Canada’s lack of larger companies leaves our economy vulnerable in some ways?

Currently a gap is forming between the number of owners who want to sell their smalland medium-sized business and the supply of buyers with the skills and capital to take their businesses over. If that task is hard now, it may become harder still as more owners approach retirement, with a peak expected between 2018 and 2020. Particularly in rural areas, vital community businesses and employers are projected to vanish. What are the potential impacts of losing this demographic cohort of SMEs on Canada’s economic growth and retirement projections? How will this impact retirees who are counting on the proceeds from selling their business to retire?

What potential policy levers could governments, business groups and community groups employ? Are there creative financing options? What are the optimal ways to cultivate new entrepreneurs? Or, from an opportunity perspective, can this be seen as a natural economic progression, creating the chance for a newly configured small- and medium-sized business economy?

Co-ops have established themselves in a surprising number of sectors in Canada and have enviable survival rates – and the potential is still there. Homeowners and farmers may use these business arrangements as outmoded infrastructure leads to higher insurance premiums and gaps in coverage. Baby boomers may use their wealth to create health care, extended care and housing options that they can actively shape, as their cohort puts pressure on these services.

The financial crisis presumably played a role in the revival of credit unions in the U.S. What conditions would create a greater shift to co-ops generally? And what effect might the co-operative model have on the Canadian economy?

As the world heads into an uncertain economic future, could an increased role for co-ops diversify our industrial strategy and provide a more resilient economy? Perhaps 2012, designated as “Year of the Co-op” by the UN, will be remembered as the renaissance of the co-operative model.

happy to Work, but happy at Work?

9

While co-ops are a different model, others are seeking different attitudes and norms in the workplace.

How would you feel if you couldn’t attend a meeting because it made you too uncomfortable to be in a small room with no windows, tight seating arrangements, limited air flow and poor lighting? Would your colleagues and managers understand?

Would you understand if your colleague was experiencing those same feelings?

Mental illness is the leading cause of disability in Canada, affecting one in five Canadians each year. Only one-third of affected Canadians aged 15 and over seeks the mental health services they need. Despite effective treatments for many conditions, under-treatment of this issue drives absenteeism and amounts to an estimated $51 billion dollar cost to the Canadian economy.

Of course it also impacts healthy living and functioning in society at large. Will 2012 be a turning point as the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) releases the first Canada-wide Mental Health Strategy and psychological health and safety standard for workplaces?

The MHCC’s measures support the activities of numerous organizations that have taken up the charge to provide mental health information and reduce stigma, for instance through online self-assessment surveys and mental health first aid training. A surge of conferences around workplace mental health and the growing use of employersponsored health assessments are indications that employers are increasingly investing in mental health as an important issue for their bottom-line. Will the importance of this issue grow as employers anticipate future labour shortages and need to be more responsive to the needs of employees?

January 2012 // canadian Government Executive / 9

cover Wicked issues

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11

Carrots and sticks and carrot sticks

People have the right to eat what they want and to decide the extent to which they choose a healthy lifestyle.

Where is the road to success?

The voyage so far has taken us through the physical and economic spheres.

We now travel through issues found within the social sphere, where many are asking: what is a successful society? Is it how much stuff we have, our social connections, or our happiness? Around the world, countries and organizations are starting to redefine success, from an emphasis on gross domestic product (GDP) to a broader measure of “wellbeing.” 2011 saw the release of new measures such as the OECD Better Life Indicators, and closer to home, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW). The latter is a composite index developed to assess progress in living standards as well as community vitality, democratic engagement, education, time use and others. While Canada’s GDP grew 31% since 1994, the CIW measure finds that Canadian wellbeing improved by only 11%.

Our quality of life decreased in areas such as environment, leisure, culture and time use.

Cognizant of the trade-offs of economic growth and other elements of “the good life,” many world leaders are taking interest in such broader measures of success. China, for example, puts these measures into the performance pay of its officials. What would be the implications if such well-being indicators were to become criteria for policymaking? How might this approach affect the behaviour of Canadian firms and other organizations? In some firms, a parallel shift has already occurred, from “the bottomline” to the triple-bottom line: a balance of economic, ecological and social objectives.

Will the trend towards alternative measures of progress take hold?

10 / Canadian Government Executive // January 2012

But at the same time, does government have a responsibility to help guide these choices? Most Canadians would likely say “yes” and a representative American survey found that a majority wanted government help in guiding healthy eating. If that’s the case, what levers are available and appropriate for government to encourage Canadians to do the right thing when it comes to personal nutrition and physical activity? How is the use of these levers changing over time? With the 2012 World Nutrition Summit in Rio, and many similar conferences around the world, public health nutrition is likely to be a hot topic this year.

Dancing with the rising middle stars

12

The trip to this point highlights the fact that almost everything Canada does takes place in a highly interconnected global economy.

Most nations still have a globalized outlook and see the benefit of international trade where economic collaboration and regulatory coordination are touted as moral imperatives. However, many are finding it challenging not to shelter their citizens economically as a result of the global downturn.

Some countries are urging their citizens to buy nationally and some are reconsidering trade barriers.

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Traditionally, government involvement in healthy living has been in the form of guidance and providing information, such as the Canada Food or Physical Activity Guides. Economic instruments have also been used to provide incentives toward choosing healthy lifestyle options, such as the Children’s Fitness Tax Credit to help encourage fitness and activity among Canadian youth. And now, in the age of social media, government is making use of this new technology to further get the message out, possibly to a new population group that would have otherwise been missed. Currently, these new applications include the Public Health Agency’s Twitter and Facebook pages, but over time we will likely see an increase in use of policy levers to encourage healthy living, both from state- and non-state actors.

In this context, can global trust and a greater collaborative and coordinated approach be regained? What international forum might serve this purpose? Whichever one is used or created, it will need to account for and include the new middle powers, as they will play a significant role in shaping new economic and regulatory systems.

These consist of countries from the “next 11” including Bangladesh, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey and Vietnam, to name a few. As middle powers continue to gain influence on the global stage they will also become increasingly important as potential partners in trade, security, development and environmental protection. As a middle-power itself, what new challenges and opportunities will exist for Canada with increasing numbers of like-sized countries in the game?

Conclusion

And there you have it: twelve issues likely to shape the upcoming year and beyond.

Of course, on every trip surprises can arise.

A real trip through this year, like every year, will see its share of unforeseeable bumps in the road, delays and detours. We wish you the best in your roles of helping Canada navigate through the real 2012.

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Feature Management

Don Wilson is the outgoing executive director for the National Capital Region of Excellence Canada.

Moving

Excellence Forward Early in 2011, the National Quality Institute (NQI) board of governors decided to re-brand NQI as Excellence Canada. They had decided that the name National Quality Institute no longer related to what customers and prospects understood to be the focus of business, namely improving performance and recognizing excellence.

12 / Canadian Government Executive // January 2012

Take-up has been impressive.

Both the new name and a total review of the services and material available are eliciting positive responses from all quarters.

Historically, the National Quality Institute has been recognized for the fine work it has done to help Canadians by promoting excellence and providing the tools to help achieve excellence in Canada’s small businesses, large corporations and public institutions.

Public and private enterprises that demonstrate organizational excellence such as quantitative improvements in productivity, quality and customer satisfaction, do so as a result of strong leadership, careful planning, and the involvement of as many people as possible from the workplace. By applying these principles, people engagements are stronger, the workforce is content, collaboration is readily apparent and innovation is exercised.

Anyone who has undertaken to manage quality will recall the history of the quality movement. Well-respected gurus like Drs. Joseph Juran and W. Edwards Deming have allowed us to move forward from excessive product inspection

to quality assurance, then quality management and ultimately to excellence. For many discriminating buyers these days, quality is not enough as it tends to relate to product quality. One needs to set the bar somewhat higher and promote excellence as the goal.

NQI began life in 1992 as an independent non-for-profit organization with a vision of “inspiring excellence in Canada” with assistance from what is now known as Industry Canada and the support of a number of organizations from corporate Canada. In the early days, NQI’s focus was working with industry on ways to improve competitiveness. NQI established two main thrusts to excellence: quality and healthy workplace.

There are many CEOs in Canada who know they have an excellent product and/or provide very good services. Most of them probably feel they are doing all they need to do to continue to succeed.

Unfortunately, most of them eventually will encounter obstacles they will have difficulty turning into opportunities. A number of them will find themselves in serious trouble. That is where the NQI Excellence programs can help.

Management Feature

Excellence by itself can be very rewarding to an enterprise and to its people. It can also be quite cost-effective; the pursuit of excellence is bound to result both in savings and in job satisfaction and that leads to client satisfaction – both internal and external.

NQI focuses on its Progressive Excellence Program, or PEP, a step-by-step, four level program that is progressively more challenging yet helpful to the organization with the wisdom and foresight to undertake a PEP journey.

Excellence by itself can be very rewarding to an enterprise and to its people. It can also be quite cost-effective; the pursuit of excellence is bound to result both in savings and in job satisfaction and that leads to client satisfaction – both internal

and external. Excellence can be a fantastic differentiator and Canadian organizations should take advantage of this.

Many organizations now promote excellence. In addition to NQI, the American Society for Quality, the Canadian Public Sector Quality Association and others have been quite active in tailoring their efforts to the needs of Canadian organizations.

The first initiative to recognize excellence was the annual Canada Awards for

Business Excellence, launched by the Government of Canada in 1984. This was followed, in 1988, by the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the U.S. Others in Europe, Japan, Australia and elsewhere soon followed.

In November 2011, Excellence Canada hosted the 27th Anniversary of the Canada Awards for Excellence. The list of winning organizations over the years is a testament to how world class excellence can be pursued the Canadian way. Indeed, results of a lengthy study revealed that publicly traded companies that are winners of a Canada Award for Excellence enjoy vastly improved share prices than other enterprises.

As we begin 2012, may we all take a hard look at our enterprises – be they private or public – and decide how best to begin a journey to excellence. We owe it to our employees and to ourselves.

January 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 13

Feature Innovation

Mehrdad Hariri is chair of the Canadian Science Policy Conference.

A pivotal year for science and innovation policy 2012 has the potential to be an important year for Canadian science and innovation policy, one to be remembered for many years.

In the past three years Canada has accumulated a mass of raw materials, tools, plans, energy and resources in the area of science and innovation policy.

This coming year is the time to start building on our innovative, green and organic structure; before Canada’s momentum is dissipated, we need to upgrade to Science Policy 2.0.

On the academic side there have already been promising actions. The universities of Ottawa and McGill have stepped in and built new capacity by establishing institutes in the areas of science and society and policy research. There has been action on the part of the Canadian government as well. The release of the Science Technology and Innovation Council’s (STIC) State of the Nations report in June 2011 and the report of the Research and Development Review Panel published in October 2011 provide new insights and shed light on a number of shortcomings. The latter report was a positive shift of gears and many in the community anticipate the implementation of its recommendations.

Canada will be the host of this year’s general meeting of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in February in Vancou14 / Canadian Government Executive // January 2012

ver. This will be an excellent opportunity for the research community to showcase Canadian advancements on an important international stage.

What does all this mean for Canada’s science and innovation community and how can it be leveraged for the building of a more dynamic, interconnected and efficient innovation system in Canada? Based on the common themes of the two STIC and R&D panel reports, and the take-away from Canadian Science Policy Conferences (CSPC) in the last three years, several ideas for our future direction are common: cross-sectoral linkages, networking, collaboration, dialogue on innovation, adoption of international good practices on innovation policies, systematic evaluation and assessment of our innovation system, engagement of younger generation, and better use of our education system.

Capitalizing on and utilizing this generated energy and existing momentum will be the collective responsibility of all sectors and individuals who must work together to shape this indispensable part of Canada’s future, that is to say, science and innovation.

The CSPC is the Canadian version of the AAAS and is based on the same di-

versity model and multidisciplinary concept. Since its establishment, the CSPC has energized and generated confidence in the science and innovation community. It has inspired and brought many fresh faces and has heard from a new generation of researchers and innovators who have had their say in the area of policy making in the science and innovation arena.

The community mobilized following the first conference in 2009. In Ottawa, during the third CSPC in November, the change in the level of energy and enthusiasm was tangible and backed by great anecdotes from diverse areas of academia, industry and government.

A proposal was tabled for the establishment of a permanent and dynamic hub that links the fragmented pieces of science and innovation policy across sectors, disciplines and regions to pave the way for a more dynamic, efficient and agile science and innovation community. A non-trivial task of this hub will be to establish a national dialogue, interlink sectors, generate new capacities, and galvanize the generated enthusiasm into collective action.

This permanent hub will set out to bring the younger generation on board and initiate, facilitate and support the integration of the best and the brightest to the science and innovation arenas. This ground is well prepared to flourish and expand, but for this to happen, collective ownership is needed. The year 2012 can and should be a turning point for science and innovation policy making. Let us all participate and make it happen.

John Knubley is Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Agri-food Canada and leads the AAF portfolio.

Management Feature

Agriculture’s

collaborative portfolio management Strong portfolio management is increasingly important in today’s interconnected world. At Agriculture and Agri-food Canada (AAFC), strong coordination allows effective management of immediate challenges and planning in support of the sector.

Good portfolio governance, first and foremost, is about bringing portfolio players together to achieve common goals and objectives. What I realized soon after becoming the deputy minister of AAFC two and a half years ago is that the Agriculture and Agri-Food (AAF) portfolio is unique in the federal government in that, unlike most other portfolios, it supports a single industry – agriculture and agri-food.

While each organization in the portfolio is working toward distinct policy outcomes, we share a common goal, and the strength of our service to the minister and to Canadians comes from our ability to collaborate effectively to support policy coherence across our complementary mandates.

The agricultural industry has become increasingly complex and driven by the need for innovation and competitiveness.

This complexity requires that a mix of entities – AAFC, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC), the Canadian Dairy Commission, Farm Credit Canada (FCC) and the Farm Products Council of Canada – work together to support the sector’s diverse and ever-changing needs. One of the most important lessons I have learned in governance is that the challenge in effective portfolio management is in allowing each organization to respect and pursue their own mandates, while ensuring collaboration and coherence in achieving overall portfolio outcomes.

AAFC strives to be a model in portfolio management, efficiently and effectively delivering on government priorities. The centralization of a Portfolio Coordination

Secretariat within my office is evidence of the emphasis we place on policy coherence between the department and our portfolio partners. We work in partnership to reduce any overlap and inefficiencies to best serve our clients. A dedicated unit helps drive collaboration through to the working level to facilitate discussion and information sharing among portfolio organizations.

This means my portfolio head colleagues and I receive more coherent policy advice to support effective dialogue and inform decision making. Our plans and advice are based on more extensive knowledge and awareness of portfolio priorities and work.

We have established strong relationships and open communication between senior leaders in the portfolio. This manifests itself in several ways: through regular meetings of portfolio heads, one-on-one portfolio head discussions and joint meetings with the minister.

The weekly dialogue between the minister, the president of the CFIA and me, for instance, is essential as we work together to ensure the safety of food for Canadians and to promote market access for Canadian products. Strong portfolio collaboration has enabled the two organizations to work effectively on horizontal issues with other departments and agencies, such as with Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, in the implementation of the Weatherill recommendations related to the CFIA. Over the past few years, I have seen many other examples of how good portfolio coordination contributes to delivering on the government’s current priorities while also planning for the longer term. For ex-

ample, strong portfolio management has played a key role as the government delivers on its priority of marketing freedom for western wheat and barley farmers. Through close collaboration between AAFC and the CGC, as well as FCC and the CFIA, we are helping to deliver results to transform Canada’s grain sector. This also ensures that the portfolio is better able to work with other partners in the government, such as Transport Canada, as well as the sector itself.

The high level of cooperation between AAFC and the AAF Portfolio has also contributed to longer-term policy planning discussions. In late October, for instance, I invited the president and CEO of FCC, Greg Stewart, to contribute to an AAFC senior management discussion on the future of the agricultural industry. As FCC is Canada’s leading agriculture lender, this was an opportunity for AAFC leaders to gain unique insight from FCC into industry’s outlook on the future of agriculture as we work to develop the next agricultural policy framework.

Strong portfolio management continues to position the AAF portfolio to effectively manage immediate challenges and to plan for supporting the sector today and in the future. Investing in strong portfolio coordination has paid off, and will continue to pay off, for our portfolio, for our minister and for the clients we serve.

January 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 15

FEaturE Leadership

Archiving

the digital record How does a traditional government organization move from archiving books to preserving blogs and other sources of digital information? Library & Archives Canada (LAC) is responding to the new digital reality. daniel caron, Deputy Minister of LAC, spoke with editor-in-chief Toby Fyfe about his vision for the future and how he plans to achieve it.

You’ve argued that “the convergence of Library and archives is propelled by the attitudes and expectations of users in a modern information society.” What does that mean for Lac? If LAC and similar organizations across the country want to be relevant and continue to contribute to democracy and literacy, they need to understand not only where citizens are going in terms of accessing material, but how they create it, preserve it and want to access it.

It’s difficult in the current environment to decide how to select what is going to become historical because there’s so much information produced out there. Traditionally, publishers had to legally deposit two copies of everything, and we were documenting the literates of the world.

Now, everyone can produce something.

So the first question we need to answer is how are we going to decide what we keep, what to acquire in our vaults? To do that, we need to change our business.

How will you decide what makes something worth keeping?

Photo: Jean-Marc Carisse

We are building what is called the All of Society Model. We went through the entire literature around librarianship and archival sciences, and we found that the techniques and approaches cover the ground from the moment you acquire something to the disposals.

We need to involve more than just librarians and archivists but also political scientists and anthropologists to understand our society’s functioning. Who are the major players? What are their roles? When do they intervene? And from there, identify the discourses in society. For example, Aboriginal issues have evolved in terms of discourse. We have, since the beginning 16 / canadian Government Executive // January 2012

Leadership Feature of the ‘70s, a greater presence of Aboriginal people than we used to; before, it was totally the state that was keeping that discourse.

We’ve worked with the entire community across the country on the model. We have 800 archives and 2400 libraries across the country. It’s impossible today, in the digital environment, to think that one institution, one group of people, will have the answers to all of this. In the end, we’re going to have a system where, wherever you go, you will be able to know what is where and how to access it. It may be a province, it may be a local archives, it may be us if it’s of national importance.

react the way we traditionally react; librarians and archivists need to understand that because if they want to be able to put a value on, and to find a document that we need to acquire, they need to understand how people create information and what matters to them.

In the case of public libraries, we need to have people who are open to offering more than published material. People knocking at

the doors now are no longer coming for a book. They found it on the web somewhere so they’re coming for different types of service, such as community services. Again, I see two streams. One is more intellectual, conceptual, in understanding the roots of how we create information as individuals, writers, historians. And the other is the technology that needs to be understood to a point where you will be able to certify that

When you talk about this network of libraries and archives, are they collectors of information, repositories of information, or both?

They can be both. Let me give you an example. Just after I was appointed I started this model, including the idea that we should locate material where it’s going to be used. I went to Newfoundland and brought them two Moravian dictionaries because they were being utilized by professors at Memorial University. Why have them travel to Ottawa if I know that the rooms there are state-of-the-art and can preserve them, and they’re going to be made accessible? Obviously you need criteria, you need standards and we’re working on that. Some provinces like Quebec and Nova Scotia have developed those standards and are already collaborating within the province. We’re trying to bring that model across the country.

What about the skills that librarians and archivists are going to need?

We need technical competencies of classifying and organizing. But there are two more streams. One is, obviously, the technological stream. People will need to be a lot savvier vis-à-vis technology because that’s where they can contribute. It’s no longer enough just to sit behind the counter.

The other stream understands the anthropology of the writing system or the anthropology on how we document. We’re in a digital environment that is changing the way we behave, the way we work. If you look at teenagers and the kids, they don’t January 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 17

S F G

Feature Leadership If you look at teenagers and the kids, they don’t react the way we traditionally react; librarians and archivists need to understand how people create information and what matters to them. this is an authentic document, since that’s the role of archivists and librarians, to have the capacity to tell people that if you come here, what you’re going to find on our website has not been altered, that this is the real, authentic stuff.

I want talk to you as the leader of an organization that went through significant change over the last decade and is now, of course, going through change to reach your vision.

There must be huge concern, if not resistance.

Both in fact. There’s certainly resistance but there is concern because we are changing the traditional role of this institution.

What we need to understand is, first of all, when we put the two institutions together in 2004 we did the machinery stuff that we had to do to create a new Act and put together two institutions. Now the driver behind modernization is the issue of relevance. How can our role and contributions stay relevant in an environment that is moving so quickly and affecting all the work we’ve been doing in the past? For example, based on our backlog we could continue to work for 20 years describing what we already have and think we’re still relevant to society. But as we speak, a lot of information is being created digitally and a lot will be lost if we’re not working upstream to gather, to select, to do the triage. This changing environment is the driver to me.

So what process did you put in place to move the vision?

First of all I put it in a document, Shaping Our Continuing Memory, and from there led the pilgrimage inside and outside. This is the role of a deputy, I think: to convey 18 / Canadian Government Executive // January 2012

the message and to listen. In my document I said clearly that we’re entering into a deliberative decision-making process which means that we’re going to listen to you. It doesn’t mean we’re looking for consensus, no. We have the authority, we have an Act, we need to move and to do our job. However, we’re going to be very deliberative in our discussions. We did a fact-finding exercise. I sent into the field a renowned librarian and a renowned archivist to talk to the community and to come back with the results. With those results, we began a real conversation with the communities.

At the same time inside we started to communicate those objectives. I have delegated to the organization the task of bringing solutions so it’s not something that is top down. What is top down is the vision, the drive, the leadership, but the solutions will come from the professionals and from the communities. The way I approach it is to communicate, communicate and explain, explain, and listen to people. You have to listen and you have to show that you have listened. It’s not enough to say, “Oh thank you, yeah, I heard you.” No, you need to be frank, no bullshit. You’re frank so you have those meetings and if something is in line with what you’re trying to do, you say to them, “That’s a very good idea and we’re going to pursue that.” If it’s just resistance, you say, “Well, you may be right but we think the environment is changing and no, we won’t – we can’t have the status quo here.”

You know, you become a bit impatient because you want this to be implemented yesterday. You have to be patient and give time to people. We have done this with the communities over the last two years. Now it’s starting to pay off a lot. We see a lot of people coming to us happy; they want to contribute.

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FEATURE Policy

Sarah Jane Fraser is a senior policy analyst with Natural Resources Canada.

Team challenge pushes science,

Policy Debate LAST SEPTEMBER, the Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) Women’s Network was approached with a proposal to develop an event for their calendar: a case competition. The idea was a policy development game that would draw on the department’s internal resources and the energy and enthusiasm of employees to create a unique space for learning. Friends and colleagues from across the department gave their time, ideas and skills, and with their valuable help, we delivered an amazing learning experience over 10 days in late April 2011.

The Science & Policy Team Challenge was modeled after business school case competitions but with a public policy twist: the problem was embedded in a case study created just for NRCan. In round one, teams had 48 hours to prepare a written submission. Finalists were invited to participate in round two, a presentation of their work to a panel of senior executives and academics.

The deep sea oil platform disaster scenario explored in the case study exposed participants to a real-life situation that had significant implications for NRCan. Teams from across the department, including two regional teams, brought their

own expertise and abilities to the table in collaboration and in competition with their friends and colleagues. Their proposals brought light to many elements of the problem from both science and policy perspectives.

There were six employees on the steering committee with backgrounds in policy, programs and planning. We drew on our personal and professional networks to gather support from senior executives, middle managers, employee networks, academics, information technology professionals, our colleagues and others from across NRCan. The positive response from the department was encouraging as we were operating on our own, with no approvals processes to catch our mistakes.

We were very pleased to have nine teams register and play the game, with a total of 46 players. There were seven teams from the National Capital Region and two regional teams: one from Victoria and one from St. John’s. A nine-member panel helped us create the evaluation criteria and apply them to identify the top three written submissions. Several teams asked for written feedback so that they can do better in next year’s event.

The challenge responded to several de-

partmental priorities, including NRCan Renewal, science and policy integration, Web 2.0 collaborative tools, official languages, and staff engagement. We never intended to fully resolve these challenge areas, only to create a situation in which people had the chance to learn things that will help them every day, and have fun while they were at it.

There is a wealth of knowledge and creative energy at NRCan, and the Science & Policy Team Challenge allowed us all to explore what is possible when we make space for learning.

All together, more than 80 people were involved in the first challenge. Like other high-quality adult learning endeavours, the ratio of learners to leaders was about 1:1. We would argue that just as much learning occurred in the community that helped to create and deliver this event.

Many questions remain for next year’s steering committee, such as how best to engage with regional participants and handle the inevitable technological complications that ensue, how to accommodate mixed-language teams, and how to effectively advance science and policy integration through future team challenge events.

AND THE WINNER IS …

ACE Team: Natalie Shea, Bradley Thorne, Cheryl Cullen and Jessica Glasco.

20 / Canadian Government Executive // January 2012

After an agonizing wait while the judges deliberated, the Atlantic Canada Energy (ACE) Team won the inaugural Science & Policy Team Challenge. The ACE team is the NRCan complement of the Atlantic Canada Energy Office located in St. John’s. Created as a partnership between the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) and NRCan, the office is a unique integration of science and policy, which provides a new way to look at issues from a number of perspectives. Co-location, shared work-planning and common vision go a long way in effectively achieving science policy integration in our view. The challenge allowed us to further develop our analytical skills, in working with a diverse range of personalities under a short timeframe, which is not unlike our day-to-day jobs. In that way the challenge offered a way to practice what we preach’ as a department and demonstrate our collective strengths.

,

Nick Simmons is a senior consultant with Interis Consulting (Nick.Simmons@interis.ca).

Murray Kronick is a principal with Interis Consulting and the national product manager for business performance (Murray.Kronick@interis.ca).

management FEaturE

PErFormaNCE maNaGEmENt What’s in it for you?

There it is – the light on the dashboard of your car, blinking a warning that you’re almost out of gas. Time to fill up, before you’re stranded on the roadside watching the chances of timely arrival at your destination receding to zero. Now, how can you have that kind of clear and simple tool in your day-today management at work, keeping you on track and helping you to reach your goals?

PERFORMANCE management seems to be everywhere these days, with much of the push coming from central agencies.

Just as with a fuel indicator light, however, performance management can save you from running into trouble, allowing you to make mid-course corrections before the consequences of actions (or inaction) impact on the achievement of expected outcomes.

Athletes take performance management seriously. The Running Room, for example, has created an app that breaks a marathon into smaller increments, giving a time for the completion of each segment in order to finish in a target time. It’s much more useful for a runner to know that she is slipping off her desired time at kilometre 8 of the marathon, allowing her to adjust her pace accordingly, than when the finish line is in sight and it is too late.

In the same way, performance management can help an organization determine the desired intermediate and final outcomes of its programs, identifying milestones along the path to their achievement, and making program adjustments as required to stay on track.

Performance management in a public sector context serves many purposes, including: • Defining “success” for the organization, quantifying it, and tracking it; • Providing input to assist in managing the operations of the organization and taking corrective actions as required; • Aiding the government in communi-

cating activities and results; • Providing transparency to taxpayers on how their tax dollars are spent; and • Meeting legislative requirements.

A certain amount of performance management in the government is directed by central agencies charged with overseeing broader initiatives that go beyond the outcomes of any particular organization, such as meeting overall deficit. However, the key to deriving the greatest benefit from performance management, rather than simply producing the information that is required by central agencies, is to ensure that most of your performance measures assist you in tracking the extent to which your activities are contributing to your program’s desired outcomes.

A logic model or outcomes map explains why you do what you do, and can help in trimming unrelated or less productive activities. Developing and reporting on clear performance indicators gives you the information to make mid-course corrections as needed, so that management is not occurring in a vacuum. Good performance indicators also assist you in recognizing your successes, demonstrating in concrete terms the value of your contribution to the Canadian public, and sending a message to staff about why their work matters.

So when you see that light on your performance dashboard indicating that you’re in danger of missing the target, you’ll be able to use that information to make the adjustments needed to ensure your program delivers on its expected results.

maKING BusINEss sENsE The Bank of Canada undertakes a number of change initiatives each year to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its operations. In early 2011, they turned to their recently adopted outcome management approach to think through the effects of two major initiatives. They integrated this information with the risks that they were introducing through the change and identified immediate and final outcomes that could then be broken down into performance indicators of business success.

Upon completion of an outcomes map and risks and outcomes registers, the two leads and their teams had a similar epiphany: taking this approach to the initiatives resulted in a deeper understanding of what the organization would achieve from a business perspective. The outcomes map clarified the impact of the changes on outcomes (for example, increased staff productivity, reduced risk for the Bank, or increased cost savings).

Understanding and communicating the purpose of the initiatives from this broader perspective creates a stronger business case and increases buy-in from staff and senior executives, who see the return on investment of time and resources.

January 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 21

Feature ICT

Adam Froman is the founder and CEO of Delvinia and AskingCanadians (afroman@delvinia.com).

Frank Scarpitti was elected Mayor of Markham in 2006 and re-elected in 2010 for a further four-year term (fscarpitti@markham.ca).

Voting digital Markham connects through tech

Technology has fundamentally changed the way governments and their citizens interact.

Governments are realizing that the future of eDemocracy is more than offering citizens a means to transact or obtain public service information; it is about listening to citizens and becoming part of the conversation. This is something the Town of Markham understands.

Through the use of Internet voting and the implementation of multiple interactive online initiatives, Markham has become a leader in eDemocracy.

In 2003, the municipality embarked on a plan to overhaul its use of technology to make its departments more efficient and to make more of its services available online. With Delvinia’s support, Markham became the first major Canadian municipality to introduce Internet voting. Since then, there have been three online surveys to gather data on the attitudes and behaviours of Markham residents, the findings of which are outlined in three reports chronicling voter feedback and preferences collected following the 2003, 2006 and 2010 municipal elections.

In 2011, Delvinia received funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to hire an academic researcher to provide an independent scholarly review of the 2010 survey.

The resulting report provides a comprehensive review of attitudes toward Internet voting in Canada, demonstrates how Canadians are embracing digital technologies to interact with government and illustrates why Markham is the ideal pilot site for Internet voting in future federal and 22 / Canadian Government Executive // January 2012

provincial elections. (In fact, Markham is encouraging both Elections Canada and Elections Ontario to use it as a test municipality in both the federal and provincial elections.)

Due to the logistical issues, Internet voting was only available during the advanced polls, which is still the case today. In 2003 Markham experienced a 300 percent increase in the advanced polling opportunity and a 99 percent approval of the concept from the people that used it. The municipality witnessed a further increase in 2006, when the overall voter turnout reached almost 40 percent.

The municipality realized that if the digital experience improved overall voter participation, then engaging residents in government using digital technologies would increase participation in government processes. It launched “Click with Markham” in November 2007.

The multimedia program was designed to gather input during the municipality’s strategic planning process. The online experience included a website and an interactive survey with questions on issues like growth management, transit and transportation, the environment, public safety, diversity and municipal services. More than 7,000 people visited clickwithmarkham.ca and more than 4,300 residents filled out the online survey during the three-week campaign.

Growth management was one of the strategic priorities that came out of the survey. And that led to the development of the Town’s Greenprint Sustainability Plan.

To engage local youth in the creation of that plan, Markham had an online writing contest developed for students.

The resulting “Quest for the Best Markham” contest, which ran in late 2008, gave students the opportunity to share their ideas on the future of Markham. The contest called for short, written submissions about how to achieve a greener community and drew more than 3,000 submissions from 24 Markham schools.

In an effort to raise awareness of the 2010 municipal election in Markham and to increase citizen engagement in the municipality, the town chose to incorporate social media as one component of its larger “Your Vote Counts” campaign. A social media campaign, dubbed DIY Markham, was developed.

Launched in September 2010 to inform local residents about the upcoming municipal election, the campaign centred on the use of humorous online videos distributed through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to engage voters and increase awareness about the delivery of municipal services and the importance of voting at the local level. Overall, the Facebook page received more than 3,300 views.

The project also laid the groundwork for greater potential outreach in the future.

The municipality not only wants more residents to participate in municipal elections, it wants more residents to participate in all elements of local government.

The municipality has a growing number of young tech-savvy residents. To hear what they are saying, it has to go where they are. Connecting with residents is the underlying goal behind Markham’s innovative use of digital technologies. It’s not about platforms. It’s not about networks.

It’s about finding ways to use technology so people can interact.

The Delvinia report on Internet voting in the Town of Markham is available at www.delvinia.com/dig.

Nicholas Prychodko is manager and Kalim Shah is senior advisor in the

management FEaturE

Centre for Employee Engagement and Client Satisfaction, Centre for Organizational Excellence, Ministry of Government Services.

turning data into insight Today’s public sector managers encounter increasingly complex corporate issues that call for empirically-based insight presented in a readily digestible way. Management tools providing actionable insight that support corporate goals are increasingly vital.

oPs EmPloYEE surVEY rEPortING FramEworK Productive Capacity Index Job Fit Orientation/On-boarding Performance Barriers Qualify of Service Provided Support & Tools

Talent Capacity Index

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT INDEX

Leadership Index

Clear Expectations & Direction Direct Supervision Leadership Practices Organizational Communication

Themes

ployees’ perceptions of their ability to effectively provide service and discharge their duties; • Workplace Culture Index: employees’ perceptions of the physical, social and organizational environment in which they work; • Talent Capacity Index: employees’ perceptions of the OPS’ ability to attract, develop and optimize its human resources; and

In effect these indices constitute a “balanced scorecard” reflecting key elements of organizational excellence. These elements are fundamental building blocks for any organization. While the relative emphasis among them may change over time, their essential importance remains immutable.

The corporate indices were constructed on the basis of nineteen themes that drive EE in the OPS model (see chart). These themes were clustered into four groupings that form the basis for each corporate index.

Each theme is in turn comprised of banks of questions that measure its various aspects.

Together, these three layers of index, theme and questions allow the OPS to identify a key priority theme related to each index and drill down to the particular issue most affecting it.

The corporate indices’ role as a strategic “balanced scorecard” is enhanced by the fact that they also serve to bridge a notable gap that previously existed in the identification of EE priorities. Whereas previous analytical approaches based strictly on the EE Index identified priorities related to leadership, talent capacity and workplace culture, the themes associated with produc-

tive capacity never emerged. Yet the themes comprising productive capacity are those most closely associated with the ability of employees to effectively discharge their duties and deliver high quality services.

In fact, quality of service provided is the strongest driver of EE in the OPS. This means that the OPS – which subscribes to the Public Sector Service Value Chain – was not effectively leveraging the potential of EE to drive organizational results, including client satisfaction, and ultimately build public trust and confidence. The introduction of the productive capacity index and the identification of priority action themes supporting it remediates this significant gap.

By identifying priority areas in each corporate index the OPS now has a better overall picture of where to focus its efforts to improve employee engagement as a component of its broader strategic goals. Since scorecards for the indices have been generated for each ministry and for their individual division and even branch levels, more meaningful, contextsensitive action planning has been enabled down through the entire organization. Corporate indices have proven their worth in turning data into insight and in aligning resulting action planning with its key organizational goals.

Career Advancement Commitment to Public Service Learning & Development

Workplace Culture Index

Themes

• Productive Capacity Index: em-

ceptions of the quality of leadership and supervision they receive.

Themes

These indices are:

• Leadership Index: employees’ per-

Themes

Indices are one such tool. Simply put, an index rolls up a more complex set of data into a single overall measure. An index can be used as a high-level performance measure with the ability to benchmark performance over time or across organizational units. For instance, to help inform its service improvement program the Ontario Public Service (OPS) uses a Service Quality Index based on client satisfaction data for a representative “basket” of services.

Since 2006, the OPS has used an Employee Engagement (EE) Index to track overall performance at the corporate, ministry and divisional levels. This EE Index is calculated on the basis of a set of nine questions reflecting Ontario’s definition of employee engagement, namely employees’ level of satisfaction with their immediate work environment and its organizational culture as well as their level of commitment to staying with the OPS and to supporting the achievement of its goals. The index and its supporting thematic analyses have provided increasingly valued insight for corporate human resource policy and strategic management.

By 2011, however, OPS senior leaders were thirsty for even more actionable insight. This was achieved by creating a set of “corporate indices” aligned with key corporate strategic goals.

Co-worker Relationships Inclusive Practices Independence & Innovation Recognition Safe & Healthy Workplace Workplace Morale Work-life Balance

January 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 23

New Professionals

Stéphane Tourangeau is a senior multimedia specialist with the Canada School of Public Service, a member of the Web 2.0 practitioners’ community and a lead for Collaborative Culture Camp learning events.

A wired public service With cuts anticipated in the upcoming budget, many public servants are wondering which programs, services and operating budgets will be affected. Many challenges lie ahead. However, as the public service prepares to do more with less, it continues its dedication to providing quality services for Canadians.

There is a shift underway in how we conduct and deliver our business, and how we adapt as individual public servants and teams is crucial. Being connected and sharing will be key.

During an address to PSEngage in November, Tony Clement, president of the Treasury Board, announced his position with respect to social media use in the workplace: “The government encourages the use of new Web 2.0 tools and technologies such as blogs, wikis, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These tools help create a more modern, open and collaborative workplace and lead to more ‘just-intime’ communications with the public.”

Even with existing limitations on access to social media and online productivity tools in the workplace, those who understand the value of being connected find other ways to help each other and work together to achieve concrete and measurable results.

Consider the User Experience Working Group and the team that developed the new Standard on Web Usability. Over 265 individuals from across the public service dedicated their personal time and effort to contribute to the standard, generating 24 / Canadian Government Executive // January 2012

a high quality output with considerable cost-savings as compared to traditional, hierarchical cross-government horizontal collaboration.

Another collaboration success story is the Collaborative Culture Camp (GOC3) learning series, and its Collaborative Management Day (CMD) events. Inspired

by CERN’s collaborative management model, the goal of these CMD learning events is to encourage public servants to move beyond silos to collaborate more effectively.

And the collaborative culture camp learning series all started with one tweet. The events are organized by over 60 volunteers from more than 15 departments. Interested individuals came together to lend their input, knowledge and passion to create these free events for their peers.

Nearly 1000 public servants from across the country have participated in the three prior events and the fourth event is quickly approaching on January 25.

Building on success and participant feedback from previous events, the next CMD aims to provide public service leaders with the tools necessary to foster open and collaborative environments in their own workplaces.

Without a formal budget, GOC3 relies on the support of a variety of partners, including the National Managers Community, Canada School of Public Service, Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation, Chief Informa-

tion Office Branch of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Institute of Public Administration for the National Capital Region, Federal Youth Network and the Communications Community Office.

Plug in Although networking is not new, sharing information is becoming the new norm in the workplace. Tools such as Twitter and GCPedia helps us expand and share with others doing similar work throughout government.

Chances are, whatever issues you are dealing with today, there is someone who has faced a similar challenge or is currently looking at it and asking themselves the same questions. Collaborative tools can help you find those people faster than through traditional networks. They can help bring together groups of interested people to jointly solve problems and generate new, creative ways of service to Canadians.

The spirit of collaboration has taken hold in the Canadian public service. It’s not just among the “young people,” either. Public servants at all levels are interested, keen and inspired – the volume of registrants at GOC3 events clearly demonstrates that this is not just a fad, it’s the new way of working.

We’ve shifted from a world of where “information is power” to the “power of sharing information.” The public service is getting wired. Plug in and join the conversation.

Procurement

Michael Asner is an independent consultant

specializing in public procurement (michael@ rfpmentor.com). Sharon Sheppard is a freelance writer and editor (sharons1963@me.com).

Procurement reaches the next frontier Our fascination with the future has long roots. Back in the days of boxy televisions, we all tuned in to watch Star Trek. The gadgets and gizmos mesmerized us. We secretly knew that the technology imagined by science fiction was just around the corner and our lives would never be the same.

In public procurement, we don’t have our own version of Star Trek, but we have something almost as good: private sector procurement. In the last few decades, private sector procurement has led the way in innovations and transforming procurement from “buying things” (and reporting through finance) to strategic procurement (and reporting to its own vice president).

In 2010, Ariba, a major consulting firm specializing in spend management, assembled a group of leading private sector procurement executives – a bunch of Captain Kirks, if you will – and asked them what procurement would look like in 2020.

The group included seasoned procurement executives and what some consider today’s vanguard, chief procurement officers in charge of high performing spend management organizations.

The next frontier Not all of their ideas are new, but the executives identified ideas they believe will be the drivers of procurement transformation. Here are three issues discussed in their report that we predict will influence the shape of public procurement over the next decade.

1

Risk will become more visible and a larger factor in rewards, RFPs, vendor evaluations, contracts and performance measurement.

As the new spend management pros get better at segmenting, defining and measuring value, they will begin to incorporate both gain- and risk-sharing into commercial relationships with suppliers.

Beyond sharing risks and rewards in contracts, some suggest they will accept greater risk in commercial relationships with critical suppliers by leaving out all the classic kinds of legal protections that can de-motivate suppliers.

Alongside the general awakening around supply-related risk comes more agreement around how to measure risk, more readily available third-party information, and networked communities where people pool data for operational risk assessment.

Former MetLife CPO Roy Anderson believes that acquisition, aggregation and management of risk-related information will transition fully to third parties and networked communities in the coming decade. “We see an awful lot of work being done today on the risk side, but we are never going to be risk experts, so it is a waste of time to create our own supplierrisk profiles.”

2

Everything will be automated, reducing transaction costs and freeing up valuable, highly trained procurement staff to deal with major issues, problems and strategic initiatives.

“Procure-to-pay (P2P), sourcing, contract management and other automation engines will be de rigueur in 2020; they will be integrated up and down supply chains, fully adopted, providing full transparency and real-time insight.”

As Debbie Manos-McHenry, chief sourcing officer for Huntington National Bank, envisions it, procure-to-pay systems will be open architecture, web-based, and able to interface with many systems; routine purchase transactions will be done by end-users with little to no involvement from sourcing; systems will enforce appropriate compliance, workflow and rules; contract management and administration will be highly automated, using tem-

plates and collaborative tools in traditional redlining of agreements between buyers and sellers; workflow will enable end users to produce agreements that meet minimum criteria while exceptions will be escalated to sourcing; and risk evaluation and assessment will be built into systems and processes

3

Goodbye products, hello solutions: public entities will tap into vendor expertise to harvest benefits not previously available.

Suppliers will continue to take on bigger pieces of things they already do for their customers. Think of it as integrated supply on steroids, where suppliers step out of their comfort zones to drive customer performance.

“I expect to see a lot more total solutiontype relationships with suppliers, whether it’s an OEM, a third-party distribution partner, or a marketing partner,” says Larry Welch, former vice president at HewlettPackard. So, for example, a supplier of printing hardware for the office will either morph into – or be replaced by – a supplier of total print-management solutions. The solution provider will take on the responsibility for things like optimizing office productivity in the placement and quantity of printers; reducing total printing costs from a 360-degree perspective; and developing and implementing printing best practices within the customer’s organization.

We don’t need to be Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry or to have our own space ship to transform public procurement.

We don’t even need more or better technology. Sometimes all we require is the ability to see where we need to go next – be it better control of risk as we suggest or something else specific to our organizations. With that and the help of a few “Scotties” (or excellent procurement engineers) we can build what’s needed to get there.

January 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 25

tHE lEaDEr’s BooKsHElF

Harvey Schachter writes The Globe and Mail’s Managing Books and Monday Morning Manager columns.

He is a freelance writer specializing in management issues.

Why we follow bad leaders

•

Bad Leadership Barbara Kellerman Harvard Business School Press, 282 pages, $40.95 Reading Walter Isaacson’s interminable but also always fascinating biography of Steve Jobs, I was mulling over the question of how someone who was such a bad leader could be such a fantastic leader, and how his bipolar leadership played out in the lives of subordinates, some who clung to him and others who left him, at least for a time, deeply wounded.

It led me to think some more about the ideas in professor Nassir Ghaemi’s book, A First-Rate Madness, which I reviewed two months ago and posited an inverse law of sanity: in times of crisis, we are better led by mentally ill leaders than by mentally normal ones; in times of non-crisis, however, mentally ill leaders will get us in trouble, and mentally stable leaders fare better.

However, while the crisis part applied to Jobs – who seems to have had narcissistic personality disorder, and was successful in founding his company and resurrecting it from its mid-80s collapse – the non-crisis part doesn’t apply, since he was successful in good times for his company as well. I then happened to come across two books from 2004 that seem worth sharing, because they also

26 / Canadian Government Executive // January 2012

The Allure of Toxic Leaders Jean Lipman-Blumen Oxford, 303 pages, $34.95 • help to shed understanding on Jobs, his followers, other leaders we have met, and ourselves as followers.

The first, Bad Leadership, was by Harvard University professor Barbara Kellerman, an illuminating look at failed leadership. After looking at hundreds of contemporary cases of bad leadership, she came up with seven classifications: • Incompetent: The leader and at least some followers lack the will or skill to sustain effective action. With regard to at least one important leadership challenge, they do not create positive change. Her prime example: Juan Antonio Samaranch, in his later years heading the International Olympic Committee.

• Rigid: The leader and at least some followers are stiff and unyielding, unable or unwilling to adapt to new ideas, new information or changing times.

Example: financial analyst Mary Meeker, who couldn’t adapt to the downturn in the tech market and told her legion of followers to hold on to their stock when the market plummeted.

• Intemperate: The leader lacks selfcontrol and is aided and abetted by fol-

•

•

lowers who are unwilling or unable effectively to intervene. Former Russian president Boris Yeltsin is cited, but she focuses instead on former Washington Mayor Marion Barry Jr., for a time a crack cocaine and sex addict.

Callous: The leader and at least some followers are uncaring and unkind, ignoring or discounting the wants and wishes of most members of the organization. Chainsaw Al Dunlap, the former CEO of Sunbeam Corp., is the poster boy.

Corrupt: The leader and at least some followers lie, cheat or steal, putting their private interest ahead of the public interest by an unacceptable level.

Her example: William Aramony, once the highly respected head of the United Way of America, who was caught stealing from the organization.

Insular: The leader and at least some followers minimize or disregard the health and welfare of people outside the group. Example: Bill Clinton and his foreign policy team, when they ignored the genocide in Rwanda.

Evil: The leader and at least some followers commit atrocities, using pain as an instrument of power. Example: former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic.

That’s about more than Mr. Jobs, of course, but an excellent typology on bad leadership. What’s particularly helpful in her work, however, is that she doesn’t just look at bad leaders. She looks at bad followers. And, more importantly, she says that we must not see bad leadership and good leadership as inherently different. She castigates us for not being willing to consider the possibility that the dynamic between Franklin Delano

tHE lEaDEr’s BooKsHElF Roosevelt and his followers had anything in common with the dynamic between Adolph Hitler and his most devoted followers, or to consider that a celebrated CEO and disgraced CEO may have similar capabilities.

She calls such avoidance “Hitler’s ghost,” observing that his impact on the 20th century was arguably greater than anyone else and he was certainly brilliantly skilled at those classic leadership arts of inspiring, mobilizing and directing followers. The people who ran Enron were heralded as leaders and agents of change until the company’s fall.

She also addresses the issue of followers, and their role in bad leadership: “Without followers nothing happens, including bad leadership. Leaders and followers share responsibility for leadership, bad as well as good.” In essence, bad leadership will continue unless followers take responsibility for rewarding the good leaders and penalizing the bad ones.

Those last ideas are further explored in The Allure Of Toxic Leaders, by Claremont Graduate University Professor Jean Lipman-Blumen. She begins with Shakespeare’s Falstaff, who said, “I am bewitched with the rogue’s company.”

And so are we. We may grouse about toxic leaders, but we often tolerate them, for long periods of time. Indeed, tolerate is an understatement. “Followers of toxic leaders often do much more than simply tolerate them. They commonly adulate, abet, and actually prefer toxic leaders to their non-toxic counterparts,”

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she writes. And the media, of course, goes even more gaga over them, in delight over their colourful personalities and dramatic action.

When we don’t have toxic leaders, she says, we go to great lengths to create them. She lists the following six psychological reasons: • Our need for reassuring authority figures to fill the vacuum left by parental figures from our youth. Here we’re affected by our childhood experiences with authoritarian parents, who loved and protected us. We crave the same benefits from our leaders.

• Our need for security and certainty.

Freedom can unsettle us in times of uncertainty and change, so we gravitate towards a leader who will make us feel safe, protected and good about ourselves.

• Our need to feel special or chosen.

“Toxic leaders, who promise security and assure us that we are ‘special’ or ‘chosen,’ become particularly powerful magnets for our unmoored egos,” she notes.

• Our need for membership in the human community. Although we like to feel special, we also have a powerful need to belong.

• Our fear of ostracism and isolation. We don’t blow the whistle and dissent because we fear the consequences. “The sorry fate of many whistle blowers – loss of jobs, families, friends, professions, and sometimes their very sanity – offers little motivation for would-be

resisters to follow suit,” she declares.

• Our sense of personal powerlessness to challenge a bad leader. We may feel confident about our professional abilities but doubt we can stand up to a toxic leader, who seems so powerful.

We have to overcome those psychological factors if we are to overcome toxic leaders. We must learn to be comfortable with the anxiety that surrounds organizational change and stop reaching out for an apparent saviour. We must abandon our role as passive, obedient followers who wait for the almighty leader to direct our action and instead find the leader within ourselves.

We must also opt for leaders who refuse to provide the illusions that toxic leaders offer. “Non-toxic leaders rarely promise us eternal paradise. Non-toxic leaders do not allow anxious followers to hoist them onto pedestals of omnipotence. In fact, such leaders are more apt to call upon constituents – despite their palpable fears and uncertainties – to share the hardships of leadership,” she stresses.

We might all read different lessons in these two books about understanding Steve Jobs. But, of course, the issue is less about Jobs, and more about us, and how we act as followers – who we support, who we tolerate, and who we refuse to tolerate. Kellerman’s book is an enjoyable mix of storytelling and scholarship, and Lipman-Blumen’s is really a lengthy, quite fascinating essay.

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January 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 27

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Jeffrey Roy is Associate Professor in the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie University (roy@dal.ca).

GoVErNING DIGItallY

Life in the fast lane of public life A new year is a good time to reflect on the relentless march of time and its close ally, our growing obsession with speed.

The Internet, of course, is synonymous with speed, with instant access to information, products, and services all just a click away. Have a question? Ask your iPhone and Siri enlightens or does her best to search the web on your behalf. Technology giants and start-ups alike all share the common mission of constant connectivity while getting you what you want (or what you may want but did not yet realize you did) as conveniently and efficiently as possible.

Nonetheless, as the infamous Eagle’s song tells us, life in the fast lane may come with a downside (apologies to younger readers for the rather dated musical invocation, especially given that 2012 is the year that online music sales in North America will surpass that of physical CDs).

For the public sector, the road ahead is far from linear, fraught with both promise and peril. It’s useful here to dissect the discussion in three: service, policy and politics.

With respect to service, the mantra of efficiency is everywhere and not without significant improvements to interacting with public service providers. Governments have little choice but to benchmark themselves with private industry, and tremendous innovations are taking place in both service design and delivery. The rise of social media and mobile applications is particularly fertile ground for sharing, seeking and using information ever more quickly: health care, transportation and public safety are but three examples where the promise of collective intelligence is becoming reality. Looking ahead, our entire payment apparatus is soon due for a major

shake-up as Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon compete to offer faster ways of enabling you to part with your currency.

Government must adapt accordingly.

A key challenge, however, lies in how the public sector decides which services to deliver how and when. Constituencies are increasingly segmented between those online all the time and those doing so only occasionally. Coupled with a deep-rooted culture of risk aversion, it is a tall order for governments to compete successfully.

In fact, across an ever more virtualized service eco-system, whether and how governments should “compete” will become an ever more contested notion.

Shifting to politics, the tensions are far more pronounced. Democratic venues such as parliaments and councils are meant to be methodical and deliberative, which is why they are losing ground, shunned by a YouTube generation preferring imagery and real-time tweets to long speeches and in-depth debate. How, then, to focus on long-term challenges and trade-offs (the very sorts of issues distinguishing public purpose from private gain)?

Companies too, are not without their own governance challenges in terms of an obsession with speed. As stock markets become fixated on quarterly earnings and daily headlines, the role of a board is to set guidance and provide oversight – and to think long term.

Parliament is akin to a board in some respects, overseeing Cabinet and facilitating debate over longer-term questions and choices. In doing so, there has long been contention over the time horizon of a politician, and the relative weight of re-election versus the interests and unheard voices of

the next generation. Historically, such tension gave rise to countervailing mechanisms such as an appointed Senate and more recently independent officers free from shortterm partisanship and politics.

The U.S. offers important insights too as a small but growing chorus of commentators call for a new constitutional assembly to redesign government from the bottomup. The hopes derived from President Obama’s digitally innovative 2008 campaign seem largely quashed by economic uncertainty and institutional gridlock.

Back in Canada, the advent of social media coupled with the decision federally to strip parties of their public funds seems likely to further augment the instantaneous and customer service orientation of partisan action. In a world of smart phones and tablets where fundraising will be top priority, it’s hard to imagine that long-term policy thinking will be priority number one. In majority government settings, where strategic reviews are outsourced to private experts and deputies are rewarded for short-term budget cuts, the risks of hollowing policy capacities within government are real.

2012 promises Facebook’s IPO and the arrival of yet another version of iPad, to name but two notable events epitomizing today’s digital revolution and its ethos of immediacy. At some point, spurred by plummeting partisan legitimacy and involvement (especially among youth) and a need to rebalance customer and citizen orientations online, democratic redesign may paradoxically require a temporary slowdown in order to optimally and collectively leverage technological change as opposed to futile efforts at playing catch-up.

January 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 29

Opinion

David Zussman holds the Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa (dzussman@uOttawa.ca).

Connecting with a future workforce In November, Canadians came face to face with the reality of life in some of northern Ontario’s most isolated communities. The shameful images of poverty and deprivation that were broadcast over the airwaves from Attawapiskat near the edge of Hudson Bay reminded us that, even though these troubled communities are out of sight, they should not be forgotten. Sadly, the deplorable housing conditions and crumbling infrastructure are a backdrop to the more fundamental challenges facing many Aboriginals in Canada today.

Over the past few months, we have grown accustomed to the economic and social plight of citizens around the world.

The Occupy Wall Street movement that was conceived by Adbusters in Vancouver, first acted upon in New York, and subsequently played out across the world, is the most recent manifestation that inequality is undermining our social contract.

At home, the ongoing recession that first appeared in 2008 is a reality for hundreds of thousands of Canadians despite the relative stability of our overall employment numbers. One reason for concern is that the recession has produced a labour market that is relatively inaccessible to young people and especially to Aboriginal youth. Since First Nations youth make up the fastest growing demographic in Canada, their relatively low level of full time attachment to the workforce is especially distressing in light of their other living and psychological limitations.

However, our experience with addressing Aboriginal youth unemployment is a “wicked problem” that has confounded policymakers for decades. The evidence from many earlier youth initiatives shows that traditional income transfer instruments 30 / Canadian Government Executive // January 2012

have not worked and are not the answer.

Aboriginal youth face a number of unique challenges. They suffer from a legacy of low high school completion rates and high suicide rates. These outcomes are not surprising given that research has found that many Aboriginal youth experience a sense of hopelessness for the future, are vulnerable to the effects of poverty, cultural and social alienation, and they live in a world characterized by violence and racism.

These problems are further exacerbated by a loss of identity, language and culture, low levels of educational achievement in job related fields, lack of parental involvement and support in their daily lives because of dysfunctional families and absentee parents.

The overall situation does not present an encouraging picture. In fact, the circumstances call for bold and innovative thinking that goes beyond the traditional social programming if we are to make a serious effort to decrease Aboriginal youth unemployment rates. As a starting point, we have not taken the problem seriously.

Compare the lower levels of funding for job transition programs for recent immigrants to Canada with that dedicated for Aboriginal youth. What is especially frustrating is that the plight of Aboriginals is more extreme than that for newcomers.

No remedy is going to be a simple one given that the problem has been with us for generations and the causes are complex. However, a relatively recent study for the Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples in 2003 made a plea for greater investment in sport and art activities for Aboriginal youth in their own communities. Their argument is that these kinds of activities offer a number of

benefits including that they provide some needed structure to young people’s lives, relieve the boredom of isolated living conditions, and encourage goal setting behaviour among young people Although there have been several recent privately sponsored initiatives, most notably the one sponsored by former Prime Minister Paul Martin known as the Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative, the field is wide open for governments to take a leadership position in addressing this situation.

A number of initiatives could build on the Senate report.

First, the federal government should make a commitment to construct onreserve and urban youth community centres that are dedicated to encouraging Aboriginal youth to become involved in sports and arts activities. Second, build on the physical presence of these centres by training Aboriginals to manage these centres and serve as role models. Third, the federal government must get more aggressive about providing a more effective educational system that prepares young First Nations for the workforce by taking advantage of Canada’s leadership position in long distance education.

Finally, the private sector, especially those companies that earn their income from areas in the close proximately to First Nations settlements, must continue to expand their commitment to providing employment for Aboriginal youth. The Occupy movement has focused attention on the great disparity in wealth between the top one percent and the rest of the population. The plight of First Nations youth is a vivid and shameful example of the inequities that the Occupy Movement is so concerned about.

Â

Make the most of your training budget before year-end 2012 begins with much uncertainty and change but one sure thing is the need for continuous professional development and learning.

The IOG offers programs to equip and empower the leaders and managers of today to meet both immediate priorities as well as the challenges of tomorrow. We offer more then 25 courses in the following streams:

LEADING CHANGE IN A DRAP WORLD: Courses in this series will give participants the tools they need to make sure the organization can thrive even with fewer resources.

SURVIVING THE SYSTEM: Participants who take these courses will learn how to navigate the Government of Canada to achieve their goals.

POLICY: Participants who take courses in this series will learn how to make sense of, and succeed in, the changing public policy landscape.

ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR CAREER SUCCESS: Participants of courses in this series will enhance their management skills.

ABORIGINAL: Courses in this series have been developed for those working in or with Aboriginal organizations to improve Aboriginal well being.

GOVERNANCE: Participants who take courses in this series will learn how to build governance capacity to achieve results.

Executive Leadership Program

The next intake is set to begin in March 2012

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The Governance Continuum: Increasing Accountability and Performance in Times of Fiscal Restraint

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