Canadian Government Executive June 2012

KEVIN LYNCH Canada’s innovation challenge p.12

JAMES KENDRICK Executive resilience p.16

JUNE 2012 VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6

THE MAGAZINE FOR PUBLIC SECTOR DECISION MAKERS

THE BUSINESS OF SCIENCE GARY GOODYEAR, MINISTER OF STATE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

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contents

June 2012 – VOLUME 18 – NUMBER 6

FEATURES 16

The right stuff Improving executive resilience

BY JAMES KENDRICK

18

Tied in red tape Survey shows tangled purchasing card process

BY MICHAEL ASNER AND SHARON SHEPPARD

20

IT replacement Are your projects aligned?

BY KELLY MCDONALD

21

Early learning Childcare model finds lessons on the road

BY JIM GRIEVE

COVER 6

Science solution The business of innovation

DEPARTMENTS 23

AN INTERVIEW WITH GARY GOODYEAR

9

Shifting investment Research and innovation drives B.C. jobs plan

BY THE POLICY SEED BANK COLLECTIVE

24

New solutions Collaboration key to Saskatchewan environmental innovation

BY ART STEWART

25

Global competition

BY JOHN READ

26

Canada’s innovation and productivity challenge

Opportune convergence

BY HARVEY SCHACHTER

29

Governing digitally From austerity to agility

How to plan your innovation

BY JEFFREY ROY

BY ROBERT WEISMAN

30 Online Extras

The Leader’s Bookshelf Finding your ego equilibrium

BY KEVIN LYNCH AND KAREN MISKE

14

Procurement Are you growing mushrooms or flowers?

BY BARB BAROOTES

12

Performance management Enhancing program oversight

BY SHAUNA TURNER

10

New professionals Collecting the seeds of good ideas

Opinion The people management challenge

BY DAVID ZUSSMAN

Online Extras

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

June 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 3

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Contributors: Shauna Turner, Barb Barootes, Kevin Lynch, Karen Miske, Robert Weisman, James Kendrick, Michael Asner, Sharron Sheppard, Kelly McDonald, Jim Grieve, Art Stewart, John Read, Harvey Schachter, Jeffrey Roy, David Zussman Editorial Advisory Board

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A reason to celebrate National Public Service Week happens in June, and federal government departments have been trying to decide how to appropriately celebrate the event.

Clearly the federal public service is feeling some disarray and concern as the effects of Budget 2012 and other cost-cutting initiatives are starting to be felt. So, the thinking goes, as jobs are being cut and government organizations are transforming themselves to meet the new reality, is it appropriate to celebrate the work of public servants?

From this corner, the answer is “Yes, it is.”

We should celebrate the public service because the work done by public servants is critical to Canada’s well-being. In other words, there is a role for government in supporting national prosperity. Of course, the question being asked today by many is what exactly that role is and what does that mean for the public service as an organization. How, as has been asked in this space before, does government remain relevant?

One way to remain relevant is to provide value. Value at one level means improving service and becoming, as the Clerk of the Privy Council stated in the Nineteenth Annual Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada, more collaborative, innovative, streamlined, high performing, adaptable and diverse.

But relevance and value to taxpayers and elected governments must mean more.

Any organization can, and should, have the above qualities.

In a rather unfortunately named monograph called The Case for Big Government

(which should have been called The Case for Government. Period.), American Jeff Madrick argues that “government’s management of change is what is critical.” The role of government is to both manage, and create the environment for, a country’s successful response to change.

The forces of change are well known and summarized by Kevin Lynch and Karen Miske in this month’s edition ( see p. 12): global structural trends that are reshaping economies, the shifting to Asia of the economic centre of gravity, an aging population. The Clerk is arguing that the public service, as an organization, needs to respond to these changes by learning how to do business better.

But there is more to it than that entirely appropriate response. The public service needs to both set the stage and provide direction and support for a national response to change.

As Gary Goodyear, Minister of State, Science and Technology, sees it (see p. 6), the government will do so by enabling the private sector to benefit and profit from change so that, his argument goes, it can drive innovation and contribute to national prosperity.

The exact outcome of this evolving story of the future role of government and its relevance is not yet finished. But government will always have a role in managing change, both by doing business better and as a sector that supports national goals.

This is what public servants are doing now and this is why their contribution should be celebrated.

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Feature Innovation

Science solution

The business of innovation

There is little doubt that the federal government is reshaping the public service. In science, the government is also looking in new directions, with an emphasis on creating value through the private sector.

Gary Goodyear, Minister of State, Science and Technology, spoke with editor-in-chief Toby Fyfe.

6 / Canadian Government Executive // June 2012

Innovation Feature What do you see as the connection between innovation and national competitiveness?

Well, I think when you compare us to our peer nations, Canada has some of the top post-secondary institutions, a well-skilled labour force, and, according to some experts, far too many programs that help Canadians and businesses succeed. That said, though, we are in fact number one in a number of areas, and that’s a good news story.

But we’re not number one in some areas that are very important. We are not number one in business expenditure on research and development. We’re trying to identify those reasons and assist business by making changes both in the programs and how we do business as a government to close those gaps, to, in fact, literally create the environment and provide the tools with which businesses can better succeed in a changing global environment.

In Budget 2012, a theme related to science and innovation was that the government is going to make it easier for business-led initiatives and easier for the private sector to generate wealth by moving from indirect to direct support. Is the notion to move faster, more efficiently, or both?

I would say both. Right off the bat, the first priority is more efficiency. Obviously we want to make sure we return to balanced budgets. But time is of the essence in terms of innovative capacity. So we want to move there quicker than we were going ten years ago.

It is time that the government takes a role in encouraging businesses to recognize the need to be innovative, and become, as a result, more globally competitive. Things have changed, markets have changed, and products have changed, so the majority of our Canadian businesses, while many do great research and development, could always do more.

Is it correct to say that the government’s short-term goal is to translate public research into knowledge for the private sector?

Well, the Expert Panel leading the Review of Federal Support to R&D, led by Tom Jenkins, said we had to find a better balance.

There are far too many programs, which not only confuses business but also makes them accessible only to the few that do know about them.

The other identified issue was that we needed to find a better balance between direct and indirect support. And we have had more investment in science and technology as well as a plan. Let me just tell you in very brief terms what that plan was. You will remember the Knowledge Infrastructure Program. Ultimately that program ended up being over five billion dollars spent specifically on improving infrastructure at our colleges and universities.

The second thing we did, pretty much at the same time, was to provide three quarters of a billion dollars that had to be matched to the Canada Foundation for Innovation to put state-of-the-art equipment in those buildings. The third thing we did was fund to significant levels things like our Vaniers, our Banting post-doc-

toral fellows, the Canada Research Chairs, the Canada Excellence Research Chairs – those alone are $10 million over seven years.

You can see just briefly that we now have a brain gain. We have the equipment for those people to use in brand-new buildings across the country. We are now focusing on the other end of the spectrum. The balance, the natural next step for the nation, is to look at those areas where we can make sure that Canada and Canadians are getting the maximum benefits out of these tax dollars.

Are you concerned that the various players – the private sector, universities, the federal government, the provinces – run the risk of becoming a highly fragmented system?

We all have areas to continue to improve on efficiency, but I will say that no perfect storm lasts forever. Over the past couple of years in the science and tech file, as well as the economic development file, what I have seen is a remarkable team effort. I believe I can say with fairness that the provinces are working hard with us, the universities and colleges are working hard with us, and now, as I say, our focus is the natural next step, the business side of the innovation and job creation section of this plan. And I have to tell you that I see folks working more and more side by side, working together, not competing against each other, but getting the bigger picture, working together as a team to compete against the world.

One of the concerns with this focus on direct, as opposed to indirect or pure science, is that we will lose pure science capacity and possibly knowledge in the longer-term. Are you worried about that?

Not in the least. The last time the nation faced a recession – nothing of this magnitude – we saw governments cut science and technology. This government has taken entirely the opposite approach. We are now at historic levels of investment in all areas of science from the Perimeter Institute and the Institute for Quantum Computing in Ontario all the way through to Triumph and Neptune in British Columbia, as well as more funding for the next-generation medical isotopes and so on. We have a very strong respect for all levels of science, and why wouldn’t we? The economies of the future, whether it’s ten years from now or 50 years from now, will be bolstered by the discoveries from the investments we make today in basic research.

We have a very balanced approach, now approaching $12 billion per year in science and technology, the full range. I can tell you that when we took government, it was around $5 billion. So for every scientist, whether they’re applied or they run their own companies, or they are on the pure discovery end of something, there is more money for more work. In every spectrum. I don’t see that changing.

This government has provided funding for every level because we respect that those areas that are closest to market will help us now and we need to maximize that, and those areas that are furthest away, the pure, basic discoveries are, in fact, the power for commerce in the future.

June 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 7

Feature Innovation What’s the cost to Canada if we can’t get more innovation and higher performance?

The Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity estimates the cost to our productivity differential with the United States at over $100 billion a year. I’m not talking about working harder; in fact, quite the opposite: working smarter, adopting the latest technologies, spending money on research, every single business in every sector finding new ways of doing things or new materials to be used in the product they’re making. A different way, for example, to do a procedure or a process. Working smarter and improving our productivity closer to where it should be could translate into ten to fifteen thousand additional income dollars for every family in Canada.

Some businesses say, well, the Canadian dollar has been a very good thing for me, or I’m doing okay – this is a common one that I hear – Canada’s doing okay, what is the need for us to push that envelope? And I say to them, yes, Canada is doing okay, better than most, that’s a good news story. But the world is changing.

And you need to be globally competitive. Your competitors are no longer across town or in the next town, they’re across the world.

So, to have businesses perform better in terms of researching and adopting new technologies, and finding new markets for interesting products and so on, can only lead to businesses growing

8 / Canadian Government Executive // June 2012

and becoming stronger. And when we can move our new knowledge to our factory floors and make a product creating jobs and more prosperity here at home, we sell those new products and processes to the rest of the world. So that actually improves the quality of life of people around the world.

The government of Canada has multiple departments and agencies involved with science. What steps must we take to make to make sure there is an integrated federal strategy among these players?

That is a very important question. With respect to whole-of-government and various levels of government, including academia and business, there should be an effort toward harmonizing those efforts and coordinating what is happening across the nation so we do things better, faster and at less taxpayer expense.

This is a process that starts with the National Research Council, changing it into a more business-facing organization that looks at some 60 programs across some 17 federal government departments and begins that process of coordination and harmonization.

I like to say that this is a video we’re watching, not one moment in time. We started in 2007 and here we are in 2012 with a great record and some clear measurable outcomes. I am very hopeful that by improving the innovative capacity of the private sector we will see a very positive future.

Shauna Turner is the assistant deputy

minister for British Columbia’s Competitiveness and Innovation Division, Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation.

Innovation Feature

Research and innovation drives jobs plan What is British Columbia doing to change its approach to scientific research and innovation as a result of the signals sent in the federal budget? What is the importance of and opportunities presented by research and innovation?

Over the past decade, the government of British Columbia has invested $1.8 billion in research and innovation.

This investment has resulted in rapid economic diversification and strong growth of the province’s knowledge economy.

In September 2011, the provincial government released Canada Starts Here: The BC Jobs Plan. The plan sets out three areas of focus: job creation, market expansion and export infrastructure. It provides a roadmap for economic expansion, prioritizing provincial sectors on the basis of competitive advantage, and recognizing fiscal discipline and a skilled workforce as critical to the B.C. economy. Research and innovation are core to achieving the desired outcomes of the plan.

The release of the Jenkins Report on innovation in October 2011 signalled a shift in the federal approach to research and innovation in advance of the 2012 federal budget. With many changes already underway as a result of the B.C. Jobs Plan, the release of the budget underscored the importance of linking B.C.’s research and innovation strengths and opportunities to supporting jobs and growth.

British Columbia recognizes the value of incremental innovation to translate ideas rapidly into value-added products and services, and to increase exports. Government is creating more linkages between knowledge sectors and resource sectors, with a focus on those sectors identified in the jobs plan. The province’s strong technology sector, which currently accounts for 5.9 percent of provincial GDP, is of particular importance for achieving the favourable economic outcomes related to innovation.

B.C.’s entrepreneurship programs will continue to expand their networks into the province’s regions. This approach is building support for entrepreneurial talent and innovative small businesses, increasing economic diversification in communities. This shift also positions the province to attract additional support for small to medium enterprises through increases in the Industrial Research Assistance Program for these businesses.

Broadband Internet coverage, currently available to 93 percent of British Columbians, is also related to innovation networks. We are working to expand this coverage to 97 percent as we continue to reduce geographic challenges to education, research and training.

B.C. is assessing programs and policy to further reduce barriers to research and development collaborations between academia and industry. We are developing improved opportunities for research and

innovation talent to address market-driven R&D challenges, as well as support for B.C. companies to increase their access to federal and provincial procurement programs.

World-class scientific research in British Columbia remains an important pillar of the economy, providing quality employment and attracting highly skilled talent and global research investments to the province. Genomics research is an area of particular strength in B.C., with applications in human health and the province’s natural resource sectors. The government will continue to support new research opportunities and applications in alignment with commitments in the federal budget.

British Columbia has a unique and innovative partnership with the federal Immigrant Investor Program. In 2008, the province launched the B.C. Renaissance Capital Fund to attract venture capital and increase the amount of capital available to B.C. businesses. The $90-million fund leverages a portion of capital transferred to the province under the Immigrant Investment Program to attract funding partnerships from top Canadian and U.S. venture capital firms. Since 2008, the program has leveraged $37 million of capital commitments into $146 million of invested venture capital for the province. B.C.’s model has generated a great deal of interest and support from other provinces. In addition to U.S. partnerships, the Renaissance Fund has established partnerships in four pan-Canadian venture funds. B.C. continues to assess new models and alternatives for venture capital programs and innovation funding.

B.C.’s approach to scientific research and innovation has shifted, first and foremost to ensure that the province achieves the economic prosperity goals set out in the B.C. Jobs Plan. As the federal government implements its budget, British Columbia will continue to look for opportunities to leverage provincial assets in support of Canada’s economic prosperity.

June 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 9

Feature Innovation

Barb Barootes is a communications

consultant with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment.

Collaboration key to environmental innovation Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Environment is leading a new approach built on results-based regulations to enhance environmental protection while encouraging innovation.

The results-based model focuses less on process and more on promoting new solutions and holding proponents accountable for achieving desired environmental outcomes.

It also builds on one of the ministry’s guiding principles: “Environmental protection and regulation will be based on science and environmental domain knowledge applied by appropriately qualified professionals, whether acting on behalf of industry or in the public service.”

In recent years, increased public knowledge in fields of science and interaction with the ever-changing environment has created a need to address more complex questions from the public, industry and interest groups.

10 / Canadian Government Executive // June 2012

There is no single discipline in science that can speak to these complex environmental issues. Saskatchewan needed to move from a silo working approach to multi-disciplinary teams of highly qualified people able to advise, evaluate submissions and advance the business of the ministry.

In response, the ministry established the Technical Resources Branch in 2010.

A team of scientific professionals and experts was established to provide technical and scientific support for ministry programs and to collaborate with key stakeholders, within and outside of the ministry, to address environmental concerns in the province.

The Technical Resources branch, led by chief engineer, Dr. Kevin McCullum, has

developed partnerships with stakeholders, forming multi-disciplinary teams to promote a scientifically strategic approach to environmental risk assessment, cooperative monitoring and open, transparent reporting of information.

“We have been working to develop solid relationships with academia and industry so that we have a pool of qualified persons to call upon when addressing these new emerging issues,” McCullum said. “These partnerships form the basis of researchdriven advice that will ultimately provide direction in science-based decision making.

One such partnership has been through the formation of a Science Community of Practice within the ministry, bringing together individuals with shared interests, knowledge and concerns for science. It is also an opportunity to share best practices and cross-collaborate on projects while providing an informal point of contact.

The ministry continues to seek for syn-

Innovation Feature ergies in order to garner experience and expertise from a variety of current and potential partnerships. As government becomes leaner, it is essential that the ministry engage with internal and external stakeholders to work on common goals such as monitoring, assessing and reporting environmental data.

The results have been positive. The Technical Resources Branch has developed partnerships with several universities, other ministries and interest groups to help deliver the five-year Boreal Water Management Strategy, a northern Saskatchewan monitoring program now entering its second year.

The program was developed to identify and assess potential environmental issues concerning development in the region.

The information gathered will be available for ministry decision making and to stakeholders.

First Nations and Métis expertise has been engaged to assist in data collection.

The ministry has partnered with the Sas-

As government becomes leaner, it is essential that the ministry engage with internal and external stakeholders to work on common goals. katchewan-based uranium companies, Cameco and Areva, to sample water, food and soil in the Eastern Athabasca Region of the province. It will compare environmental data from community and industrial sites.

Other partnerships include the ministry’s commitment to the national Comprehensive Air Management System (CAMS) in which government, industry and community have established regional airsheds that will work in collaboration to monitor air quality in the province. Currently, the ministry is partnering with the South East Saskatchewan Airshed Association to monitor air quality throughout the southeast corner of the province and with the newly established Western Yellowhead

Air Management Zone, responsible for air quality monitoring in the west central part of Saskatchewan.

This joint monitoring program ensures that local knowledge and partnerships between industry and government are utilized to identify regional air quality issues and develop innovative monitoring solutions.

Collaborating with partners is key to a positive approach in scientific research.

While significant progress has been made, there is still work to be done. “We strive to continue to develop new and innovative strategies of delivering monitoring programs using satellite remote sensing in a fiscally responsive, cooperative manner with open and transparent methodologies,” McCullum said.

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Feature Innovation

Kevin G. Lynch is vice-chair of BMO Financial Group and a former Clerk of the Privy Council. Karen Miske is a senior advisor with BMO Financial Group.

global competition

Canada’s innovation and productivity challenge

There is no reason for Canada to be an innovation and productivity laggard. Governments can and should play a leadership role, and it is not all about spending – part of their role is framing the questions and convening the players.

Business, university and labour all need to be part of the innovation leadership imperative. We need to make the question, “what will it take for Canada to build an innovative and productive economy?” part of our ongoing public discourse, as well as the continued focus of future budgets.

We are in the midst of a changing world order. Structural trends are reshaping economies, societies, and politics and the economic centre of gravity is shifting to Asia. The demographics of aging are putting an incredible premium on skilled workers. This is a world where productivity and innovation are at the root of the new competitiveness.

Innovation is the ability to create new products, produce existing products in new ways, and develop new markets. It drives productivity. A more productive economy grows faster, adapts better, and supports higher wages, more jobs and improved living standards. It helps answer the question of how a high-wage economy like Canada’s can compete with those of emerging countries.

Herein lies Canada’s challenge: we are a sophisticated economy, with a well-ed12 / Canadian Government Executive // June 2012

ucated and multicultural workforce, but a chronic under-performer in innovation and productivity. In fact, Canada’s business productivity level is now only 72 percent of the U.S. Moreover, our business spending on R&D is one percent of GDP, half of what U.S. businesses spend, and places us 20th among OECD countries.

In a world where competitiveness is increasingly defined by creativity and flexibility, Canada cannot sustain above-average living standards and below-average innovation investment, especially with a Canadian dollar around parity, weak U.S. and European demand, and growing demographic pressures.

When speaking with businesses and researchers about our innovation challenge, eight factors frequently surface as elements to be considered in attempting to make Canadian business, universities and government more productive and innovative. We will use these as a framework to look at the 2012 Budget through an innovation lens.

• Leadership, creating a better understanding of why productivity and innovation are in everyone’s interest – business, workers, unions, civil society government;

• Shifting to more direct innovation support, with greater sectoral targeting and critical mass, and away from Canada’s excessive reliance on indirect support for private sector innovation; • Retooling the financing for innovation, particularly building a viable and effective venture capital sector; • Strengthening our university research underpinnings, with a relentless focus on global excellence and better commercialization; • Expanding public-private innovation partnerships, because both bring essential insights to the innovation table; • Increasing market competition and regulatory flexibility, to stimulate new ways of doing things; • Retooling our education norms, to equip new graduates for success in the global marketplace of tomorrow; and • Moving to greater market diversification, particularly towards the dynamic emerging economies of Asia and the Americas.

A number of these elements were touched upon in the recent federal Budget, a welcome sign that the government recog-

Innovation Feature nizes the importance of innovation to our long-term competitiveness and prosperity.

There was the beginning of a shift to more streamlined indirect innovation support and a redirection of tax expenditures to more direct support.

This Budget is changing the way the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax incentive works in two ways. First, for greater simplicity, capital will be removed from expenditure base and there is a commitment to improve the design, predictability and flexibility of the program. Second, there will be a reduction in the general tax credit and resources will be shifted to direct forms of support, including the Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP).

Financing for innovation, especially venture capital, is an area where Canada lags other economies, and this clearly inhibits our ability to create and build innovationdriven firms. The 2012 Budget committed to make funds available for venture capital in several ways: to help increase private sector investments in early-stage risk capital; to support the creation of larger-scale private sector venture capital funds; and to

support BDC’s venture capital activities.

Business-linked university research was a feature of the budget. Funding was allocated to the Canadian Foundation for Innovation to support Canada’s advanced research infrastructure and to the granting councils to enhance their support for industry-academic research partnerships.

Public-private innovation partnerships support innovation because they align applied research resources on issues critical to business. The Budget committed funding to double the size of the Industrial Research and Development Internship program, which helps graduate students undertake hands-on research in innovative firms. As well, it allocated funds to the National Research Council to refocus on business-led, relevant research and doubled support to the IRAP. Companies often become more innovative by necessity – when they are forced by competition. The government took some initial steps in the area of increasing competition and improving regulatory flexibility by announcing the introduction of targeted improvements to the foreign ownership review process and legislative

amendments to lift foreign investment restrictions in parts of the telecommunications sector.

The Budget laid out the priority the government places on market diversification, particularly toward dynamic emerging economies. It promised to intensify Canada’s pursuit of new and deeper trading relationships with emerging markets in Asia and elsewhere. As well, it proposed to refresh the Global Commerce Strategy, to align our trade and investment objectives with specific high-growth priority markets and ensure Canada is branded to the best advantage.

And, to support firms to compete globally, Canada needs to ensure our education norms meet the needs of the new global marketplace, including languages and cultures, entrepreneurship, and international business skills. The 2011 Budget announced an expert Advisory Panel tasked with recommendations to deepen educational links between Canada and international institutions. A start, but much more needs to be done by governments at all levels to foster a next generation workforce that is more innovative, collaborative, multilingual and creative.

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June 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 13

Feature Innovation

Robert Weisman, MSc, PMP, PEng, CD, is CEO of Build The Vision. He is involved in the formulation of global standards and methodologies.

Innovation must be planned

tion and e e al lob ation g d nov nd se a -ba us in tive e e g o fec d u th f le in in ow cont ble e ery itive n liv y, na et ak In nom to e e de omp l . c o i c a ec ruci serv and ivate r c t r p n s o i cie ect the effi lic s e in g b pu anta v ad

Organizations are in the eye of a perfect storm with an opportune convergence of culture, knowledge and technology.

Culturally, today’s well-educated knowledge-workers (or “creative” class) intuitively collaborate and take the use of technology for granted. Challenge is their mantra and, unlike their industrial age predecessors, they thrive on being told what to do, but not how to do it.

Corporate information and knowledge assets are increasing at an exponential rate and enterprises have the choice of managing and leveraging their holdings or being swamped by them. For example, the consistent definition of a citizen in government is abstract (compared to an actual truck) but is far more valuable when it comes time to modernize services to government clients.

Also, ignorance of information held by the enterprise is not a defence, not to Parliament, the corporate board of directors or the judiciary.

Information and communications technology continues to evolve but the underlying concepts of its use are stable. The aim 14 / Canadian Government Executive // June 2012

is to make all of the resources/services on the network available to stakeholders. Today, the Internet and World Wide Web are mature and everywhere. “Cloud” is the latest way of implementing a shared services environment and is as much a cultural phenomenon as it is technical one. Essentially, everyone can share services with everyone else providing they adhere to enterprise standards.

In government the latter should be “open” vice proprietary.

Making it happen Given enterprise talent, innovation will happen regardless; it is just whether it will be useful or not. What is required is a combination top-down, bottom-up approach to implementation.

For top-down, the first step is to adopt/adapt an existing planning framework, such as the Balanced Scorecard, Strategy Maps, U.S. Federal or Australian Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEA/AGA), or TOGAF, for example, and use the integrated hybrid as a planning skeleton to which everyone can add their contribution. Also, the project management and operations management functions have to be jointly involved with the plan-

Innovation Feature

In government it is crucial to use open, shareable standards and methodologies – an enterprise repository should be created to communicate and share resources with all stakeholders.

ners through an integrated governance framework.

In government it is crucial to use open, shareable standards and methodologies – an enterprise repository should be created to communicate and share resources with all stakeholders. The repository should also include existing resources to avoid re-invention of the wheel as well as reduce risk by using something that already works.

Then, the enterprise has to create and communicate a business vision/strategy and a clear definition of what constitutes business value in the enterprise. The adapted framework will provide a structured approach to ensure that enterprise objectives, often couched in the creation of enterprise capabilities, are realizable and take into account all of the factors, especially culture, information and technology.

The next step is to conduct a gap analysis and create a highlevel implementation and migration plan that recognizes what has to be done, especially what services are needed to support the incremental creation of the capabilities. These services are often couched in reference models as in the Municipal Reference Model and Governments of Canada Strategic Reference Model and the Australian business, service and technical reference models. Business, information and technical interoperability standards should also be included.

At this point, “what” has to be done has been defined and now the enterprise knowledge-workers can start their task of creatively figuring out “how” to implement in a collaborative manner using the repository to create a state of shared situational awareness of what already exists, what is needed and what is under development. This avoids duplication of effort and allows flexibility to take advantage of opportunities.

This cycle is regularly refreshed to ensure that the top-down business strategy and plans (communicated using the organization-specific enterprise architecture framework) and the bottomup implementation remain fit for purpose.

The potential to innovate is greater than ever but will require a disciplined approach to create an enterprise driven by a shared vision and collaboratively implemented through a shared awareness. Such an enterprise innovation environment will attract bright minds and enable effective and efficient service delivery; it is up to the leadership to make it happen.

June 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 15

Feature Leadership

James Kendrick, PhD is an Ottawa-based consultant specializing in executive education, leadership and talent development (james.kendrick@rogers.com).

The right stuff

Improving executive resilience

Across the country, public sector leaders are challenged with the daunting task of managing change and transition while delivering business results with fewer resources and increased scrutiny of their performance. They need to rely increasingly on resilience in order to strive for excellence and recover from adversity.

While much has been done to modernize HR policies and practices in recent years to support our public sector leaders, including significant investments in management basics and competencies, there remain significant gaps in how we develop leadership resilience. Based on data gleaned from 360-assessments of more than 1,200 public sector executives, there are at least three aspects of resilience that need attention: deference to authority, managing uncertainty, and balancing action and influence.

Deference to authority Public sector executives need to be dedicated, trustworthy and loyal within the 16 / Canadian Government Executive // June 2012

context of serving the public good and operate responsibly within the authorities delegated from Parliament through ministers. However, there is empirical evidence to suggest that a growing number of today’s executives are showing signs of extreme deference to authority manifested somewhat by blind acceptance of assigned tasks, established procedures, rules and regulations within their organizations.

Organizational theorists would characterize such environments as “command and control” and “need to know” where the core power base is held by an upper echelon of leaders.

In such environments, especially in the current climate of seeking budget reduc-

tions and improved efficiencies, it may be more advantageous for executives to “go with the flow” rather than to challenge basic assumptions, values and ways of doing things. The danger of this type of “group think” in its extreme form can prevent both current and future executives from speaking “truth to power,” and from providing bold, professional advice when and to whom it is needed.

What’s worse, compliance is encouraged ahead of creativity and innovation, speed and efficiency are rewarded more than comprehensive treatment of issues and, ultimately, the quality of decisions and actions may compromise the public good.

A second, related, issue is the emerg-

Leadership Feature

ing submissiveness of our executive cadre.

While professionalism and respect are core values that need to be upheld, being overly polite and not speaking up is problematic.

Research shows that in some cases, executives prefer not to make waves or rock the boat in situations involving people they know they will be interacting with again in the future. Others appear to put a good deal of trust in the goodness of others and do not want to come across as breaching that trust.

In other cases, executives seem ready to suppress individual desires and self-sacrifice if necessary or “do whatever it takes” to achieve organizational goals. And, there are signs that a growing number of executives are micro-managing their work environment, re-doing the work of employees, and protecting less able members rather than dealing with the management issues head-on.

The consequence of such behaviours may mean that executives do not “take their space” by demonstrating assertiveness in the right instances, e.g., to stand up against domination or one-track thinking, to prevent dependency and unrealistic trustfulness, to unify team members in key situations, etc. Many such executives fail to seek clarification or to question basic assumptions due to fear or embarrassment, and the resulting submissive behaviour sends mixed signals at best and leads to poor results at worst.

Managing uncertainty In today’s ever-changing, fast-paced, environment public sector executives are being asked to manage ambiguity and change at every level of the organization. They need to understand the context, the structure, the strategy, the people and the process of change in order to make the right decisions at the right time and for the right reasons. They need to do this regularly to achieve authenticity and trust.

Evidence suggests that many executives are finding it difficult to break away from their own, and others’, vested interests associated with maintaining the status quo.

The result is often seen as an attachment to established, or “correct,” ways of doing things that some characterize as con-

The balancing act

SPHERES OF ACTION Doing a good job Organizational context People matter

SPHERES OF INFLUENCE Upward Across Downward

servatism or rigidity in behaviour.

Other executives appear to have difficulty managing the fine line between competing, but necessary, tensions or conflicts such as: being tough-minded yet empathetic; pushing the change yet waiting for it to take effect; building a sense of urgency while trying to maintain calmness; being strong as an individual while trusting others; being optimistic yet realistic; etc. Conflict of a cognitive nature – over basic goals, norms, procedures, expectations – is not only normal but it is healthy.

Today’s executives need to know how to manage conflict and to leverage it to their advantage.

Invariably, successful change requires effort that, sooner or later, tends to disturb the equilibrium of a group. It requires changes in role, changes in attachments one has to particular people, things or processes. The strength to manage ambiguity comes from within and appears to others in various ways, e.g., clarity, calmness, vision, direction, empathy, etc. These skills can be acquired through the right measure of learning and experience.

Very few executives have the ability to manage equally what can be described as the spheres of action and the spheres of influence.

Public sector executives toggle their time between focusing on doing a good job (and under increasing metrics of scrutiny), navigating through an ever-changing organizational context, and being good “people” managers. It can be argued that all three are important, especially these days where efficiency and effectiveness are assumed and how one does the job is as important as the job one does.

The second and equally formidable challenge facing executives is the ability to successfully manage their spheres of influence which can be thought of in a 360-degree manner: upwards (bosses, senior management, DM community, ministers), across (colleagues and peer networks both inside and outside the organization), and downwards (direct reports, indirect reports, contractors, etc.) Some executives appear to put more energy into managing upwards at the expense of their staff and peer relationships while others seem to thrive in liaison functions or task force roles that are away from direct line management.

Ultimately, public sector leaders today need to balance all of these spheres without losing site of the main goal of serving the public good.

Call to action One way to remedy these deficiencies is by using an integrated talent management approach that links together core building blocks of development and retention, namely performance management, leadership development and succession planning.

In other words, performance feedback that is honest, accurate and consistent helps identify the behavioural gaps. Those gaps need to be addressed through formal and informal learning and development activities tied closely to on-the-job performance.

Finally, a career pathway linked to longer-term succession planning helps round out executive experience, know-how and abilities. Neither building block, alone, is sufficient to improve executive development and leadership resilience.

June 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 17

Feature 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).

Tied UP iN red TAPe Survey shows tangled purchasing card process Purchasing card (P-card) systems provide decreased costs per transaction, higher purchasing efficiency and other benefits touted by credit card providers. A rough and simple survey of North American public procurement departments provides some hard data on how widespread the usage and how efficient these P-card systems are across public agencies.

WHAT PROMPTED US TO LOOK AT THIS? It all started with a simple book sale. A U.S. state agency recently tried to purchase a $50 book from our web store. This is a frequent occurrence for us and doesn’t usually merit much attention.

Credit card info comes in. We process it.

Book is shipped out. Easy.

This particular state agency, however, raised our eyebrows. We were shocked to discover how much work was required to process a simple credit card payment. The agency required no less than 13 separate emails (see Figure 1) requesting additional information to complete the transaction.

Because of this agency’s accounting and procedural constraints, they could not use their P-card to complete a simple $50 book purchase transaction. Instead, the purchaser was required to ask the bookseller to register as a vendor and provide a tax form, after which they sent out a fax (yes, a fax!) purchase order. The agency then needed to have the invoice revised to accommodate their system’s constraints.

Needless to say this made us take pause and wonder if other public agencies implement their P-card systems in such a way as to actually eliminate many of the cost/ time/efficiency savings.

The survey Our survey was not designed to be scientific. We sent our database of public procurement agencies across North America a simple question: can you use a P-card to make a $50 book purchase? If yes, can you provide any details as to how the process works? If no, why not? We received 279 responses of which 261 had actual usable data.

18 / Canadian Government executive // June 2012

What we found was encouraging: 81 percent of our respondents actually have P-card systems in place. The remaining 19 percent, though, did not have any P-card system at all.

Of those that did have P-card systems, we categorized the respondents as “High Red Tape” or “Low Red Tape” based on whether the use of the P-card also required additional paperwork processing such as requisitions, vendor registrations and/or purchase orders.

Low Red Tape responses had a very simple P-card use process: order book online using P-Card number; keep the receipt; log it in a monthly reconciliation report.

High Red Tape responses required additional extra paperwork similar to our nightmare book purchase example. These included additional steps such as requiring the purchaser to file a purchase requisition first and obtain sign off on a particular form before obtaining and filing the vendor registration/tax information and/or creating a purchase order in the system.

Roughly half of the Low Red Tape Pcard system respondents also provided information to indicate that although they don’t use elaborate requisition, vendor registration or purchase order add-ons, they do require a monthly credit card reconciliation report. Some of these required senior managers to sign off. Some required the purchasers to code and input their list of monthly purchases into the agency accounting database. Most had some sort of budgetary accountability assigned to the cardholder and/or imposed credit value limits (from $500 to $10,000). Most required receipts to be attached, but that was it.

It was interesting to note how varied the responses were. On the Low Red Tape side, one respondent said that they were required to submit a budget for anticipated P-card expenses for the year and once the budget was set/approved, they could only use P-cards to make the allotted purchases. In fact, in this agency’s case, purchase orders were forbidden.

FIGure 1 - stePs INvolved IN oNe $50 Book PurChase Agency Emails

Michael Asner Consulting Responses

Do you accept Credit Cards?

Yes

Is this a Third Party Transaction?

If so, the transaction

Yes, this is a Third Party Transaction.

is not allowed.

Need to talk to supervisor.

You need to register as vendor.

Completed Form 204

Need W-8

Completed Form W-8

Thanks! We’ll enter it into the system.

Did you receive our P.O.?

When will we receive it?

We need more invoice data to pay you.

Yes, we received your fax.

Note: Sent Book & Invoice

Procurement Feature Several Low Red Tape users stressed the importance of training and boundary setup to the success of their P-card systems.

Setting up the card for individuals and getting them to understand their limits are key factors in the efficient use of a P-card program.

Of the High Red Tape users, some of their additional paperwork requirements (vendor registration and purchase orders in particular) seemed to be attributable to their accounting software constraints (sorry SAP users, but this was the system most cited as having lots of constraints that diminished P-card system efficiencies). As one High Red Tape purchaser said, “the SAP system requires that a REQ be created in the system to offset the credit card transaction and then a PO is created to do the reconciliation.”

This left us to wonder, as we did in the case of our 13-step book order, whether these agencies were achieving any of the benefits from P-card usage. As one user stated quite plainly: “We use the P-card for the payment only… it really doesn’t cut back on any paperwork.”

Yes, we can but we need to fill out some forms. As transactions are placed, the cardholder logs them and includes a short business justification for each. At the conclusion of the billing period, the cardholder creates a requisition in SAP that matches his/her statement and includes all of their transaction receipts. The package is sent to Purchasing and a PO is then created for that account. Payables pays the statement referencing the PO as Invoice Receipt only. The cardholder also has to specify how the cost was considered to be fair and reasonable. We don’t need to have the vendor in our master records but we recommend it. If we register the vendor, the cardholder requests the vendor be added and sends the vendor the required forms. The vendor submits them to our Master Data Office. We limit transactions for goods and services to under $5,000. ~ One respondent’s description of how a P-card would be used for a $50 book sale transaction

Summary It’s important to stress that our findings are meant to provide a rough snapshot of P-card system usage. This is not a scientific survey based on a multi-step, pre-weighted questionnaire. Nonetheless, we hope you find the results as interesting as we did.

Surprisingly, 19 percent of our responses still don’t have P-card systems, good or bad. About half of the 80 percent of agen-

cies that do use P-cards seem to have gotten the spirit of P-card usage, which is to save time and money. The other half seem to have a P-card system in name only.

There may be many, many reasons for this (pre-existing accounting software system constraints, legal or procedural requirements), but it’s clear that there is room for improvement.

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12-05-11 10:40 AM June 2012 // Canadian Government executive / 19

Feature ICT

Kelly McDonald is a manager in Deloitte’s Systems Integration, Application Modernization and Technology, Media and Telecommunications consulting practices (kemcdonald@deloitte.ca).

Are your projects aligned?

There are several key principles that organizations can use to guide their efforts to replace legacy IT systems based upon a portfolio approach that allows the identification of priorities and effective allocation of scarce IT dollars.

Once an application has been identified for modernization, the focus shifts toward the successful delivery of its replacement. Unfortunately, the track record of many organizations (both private and public) is mixed, with too many examples of projects that have come in late at substantially higher costs (or, in some cases, not at all).

The challenge organizations face is how to approach projects in a way that improves their chances for success. While applying the formal disciplines of project management is fundamental, the single largest contributor to escalating project costs and failures is often the mis-alignment of project objectives and expectations across stakeholders.

Ensuring there is alignment between executive sponsors, political leadership, project managers and vendors, and a common view of “what defines success,” is a critical exercise that needs to occur early in any new project – ideally before it is even approved.

A good starting point is the creation of a set of standardized (and agreed upon) project type definitions that quickly convey the nature of a project, its scope, and the associated organizational change that may be required as part of implementation. Three definitions are used here based on past experience.

Direct replacement At times, the best option is to replace a legacy application with a modern solution designed to provide a near identical set of functionality. This new solution should leverage new technologies and architectures to improve robustness and maintainability, but the services it provides should not change in any significant manner. These 20 / Canadian Government Executive // June 2012

projects are best suited when a core legacy system is surrounded by a large number of applications that are expected to remain in place.

While the risk associated with these projects is generally low due to the known quantities of the legacy system, it is important that the assumption that surrounding applications will remain largely unchanged be maintained throughout the project. Direct replacement projects run into difficulties when the scope of the project begins to expand into surrounding applications or when changes to core functionality are made. In cases where the life of a legacy application has been extended by “bolting on” elements such as screen scrapers or terminal emulators to enable interactions with modern systems, a replace and extend approach may be more appropriate.

Replace and extend As legacy applications often lack the ability to support modern interfaces (such as SOA) and critical capabilities (such as privacy, security and web accessibility), elements frequently have kludged together to emulate this functionality. If the organization does not plan to make significant changes to its business processes or the way it delivers client services, then a replace and extend approach should be used.

Similar to a direct replacement, the objective is not to significantly change core functionality but to incorporate modern capabilities directly into the new application as it is replaced. These projects will be larger than a direct replacement as they often result in changes to surrounding applications, which must be considered

when developing estimates. While this does increase the level of implementation risk, operational risk will be reduced once the solution is in operation.

Like direct replacement, these projects can run into trouble when functionality changes are added to the scope of the project. This is commonly seen as the “while we’re at it” problem.

Business process transformation If, however, the organization has decided that a more substantial change is needed to the way an application functions, it must consider changing the surrounding business processes in parallel with the application itself. Process redesign and organizational change management are often missed when technical estimates are created, yet they represent a substantial effort.

While these projects can result in significant operational savings, they are by far the riskiest as the scale of transformation can vary widely. So focusing on early stakeholder alignment is even more important.

By using a classifying framework, organizations can better recognize the risks where changes in underlying assumptions can alter the fundamental nature of a project, often leading to substantial increases in cost and time.

Jim Grieve is assistant deputy minister of early learning for the Ontario Ministry of Education.

Policy Feature

Road testing

A Childcare model Every province and territory is focusing on early learning. In Ontario, a new full-day kindergarten program is being implemented gradually over a five-year period.

When I began to lead implementation of a new full-day kindergarten program for four and five year olds in Ontario, the first thing I did was to take to the road. Every week for the past two years, I’ve been visiting communities across the province. From Kenora and Red Lake to Ottawa and Smith Falls, from Windsor and Chatham to Moosonee and Moose Factory, I’ve spent time in schools, childcare centres and community coalition meetings.

Staff from the division have often been right along with me. Almost every member of the Early Learning Division has been on a least one school visit. From policy and administrative staff to those responsible for implementation, we’ve all made it our mission to personally see and experience the program up close and personal. We’ve crawled around on the floor with the children, discovered how high a tower of blocks can be built before it falls over, and played tic-tac-toe using a fouryear-old’s rules.

one-to-one with partner organizations at least annually.

We also connect with our partners informally in many ways. For example, we have six early learning education officers who work in regional offices throughout the province and connect directly with school boards and other partners.

We’ve deliberately taken a collaborative approach – listening to our partners at every stage of policy and legislative development and implementation.

This staged approach was designed to give school boards time to get ready for the program. But we also knew we’d learn a great deal from the first and second years of the implementation that could be used as we move toward full implementation in September 2014.

Innovative model Attending kindergarten is optional. But, once it’s fully implemented, the program will be universally accessible to all families who want to enroll.

One groundbreaking aspect to the program is the team approach in the classroom. Each classroom has a registered early childhood educator and a certified teacher. Both ECE and teacher bring individual strengths and perspectives as well as

Phased-in approach Our new program reflects the intersection of research, international best practice and policy that integrates the needs of families, children, schools and other stakeholders.

In every aspect of our work, our success depends on our partners. We regularly meet, consult with and provide information to hundreds of partner and stakeholder groups. Through advisory, reference and working groups, we have formal relationships with our partners. We meet

Learning the rules of the game in a full-day kindergarten classroom.

a set of professional competencies, knowledge, skills and abilities. The two professionals work in partnership and share responsibilities. The average class size is 26, so the adult/child ratio is 1:13.

Another innovative feature is the playbased curriculum. It’s based on the latest brain research and the most up-to-date understanding of how young children learn and develop.

Extending the learning program into the before- and after-school programs is also a unique feature. Though optional for parents, school boards must provide before- and after-school programming (on a cost-recovery basis) if there is sufficient interest. Boards can operate the program themselves or contract a licensed childcare provider to run the program.

Now in the second year of our implementation, we have 50,000 or 20 percent of kindergarten children in the new program. In September 2012, almost half of the four and five year-olds will be in fullday kindergarten.

At full implementation in September 2014, the program will provide about a quarter-million student spaces.

Sharing the story Through the Council of Ministers of Education Canada, we’ve established an early learning working group which I’m pleased to co-chair. Formed in September 2011, we’ve already done considerable work.

Our collaboration extends beyond national borders. Ontario welcomes many international delegations every year – educators who’ve taken to the road to gain new policy perspectives about kindergarten and early learning by visiting our province. In the past year, I’ve been pleased to meet and speak with delegations from China, Vietnam, Norway and India, among others.

To learn more, visit www.ontario.ca/kindergarten.

June 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 21

National Public Service Week, June 10-16

Celebrating Our Commitment

In the Nineteenth Annual Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada, Wayne Wouters, Clerk of the Privy Council, writes that public servants have “the chance to shape our institution for a new age.” As he notes, “these are remarkable times in which to be a public servant. As a nation, we are living through a period of significant transformation.”

And there is no doubt that public servants, not just at the federal level but across the country, are earning their spurs as they work through this period of transition to a future that is not clearly defined.

Since June has federal Public Service Week, it is timely to recognize the challenges that public servants are facing as they continue to provide service to Canadians in these times of change. Hence the slogan “Celebrating our Commitment!” is entirely appropriate.

Each year, the Association of Professional Executives of the Public Service of Canada (APEX) identifies exceptional individuals or teams to receive an APEX Award of Excellence.

All of us at Canadian Government Executive magazine salute their achievements, as well as those of the hundreds of thousands of dedicated public servants who continue to serve in federal, provincial and municipal governments across the country.

Career Contribution Award

Dr. Patabendi K. Abeytunga, vice-president and director general of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety

Partnership Award

Denis Bergeron, director of the National Research Council Codes and Evaluation Program

Leadership Award

Diane Lorenzato, assistant deputy minister, Human Resources Branch, Public Works and Government Services Canada

Public Service Citation

The Honourable Jocelyne Bourgon, the first woman to hold the position of Clerk of the Privy Council of Canada and Secretary to the Cabinet

Pierre de Blois Award

Paul Hession, for outstanding contribution while in public service and for dedication in supporting his community through many acts of volunteerism

Innovative Team Award

The National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy Secretariat 22 / Canadian Government executive // June 2012

This article was wiki-composed by the Policy Seed Bank Collective, a virtual group of federal public servants with a passion for policy.

New Professionals

Collecting the seeds of good ideas The topic of conversation in the corridors and cubicles of government buildings has recently focused on the need to “trim” costs and “prune” programs to better serve Canadians. As spring blooms across the country, a group of public servants is trying to initiate a new conversation about the growth that follows pruning. Using GCpedia, the federal public service’s collaborative wiki space, a new initiative is underway for collecting and disseminating the innovative policy ideas that can help improve the public service – the Policy Seed Bank.

In this context, “policy seeds” are the ideas that eventually sprout into federal policies, programs and processes. Like real seeds, we see them as being full of potential, but fragile to the financial, cultural and political climate around them. These policy seeds develop and evolve in many ways: from reports and audits, citizen movements, water cooler conversations and, sometimes, from out of thin air.

Public servants are great sources of policy seeds. Unfortunately, institutional barriers often prevent the seeds within the public service from ever reaching the light of day. Hierarchies prevent them from being sown. Silos prevent crossfertilization. Turnover rates stop growth prematurely.

We know that for some seeds, the conditions are not yet right to germinate, while for others the idea may be so new or novel that no one knows what to do with it. In

other cases, people have plenty of policy seeds, but lack the time or the right environment to plant them and let them grow.

What is needed is a way to prevent policy ideas from being lost when people change jobs, or when good ideas, for whatever reason, cannot take root. A place where policy seeds can be stored and then retrieved when the right policy conditions take shape. What we needed is a Policy Seed Bank.

To be successful, the concept needed to be simple, accessible and user-friendly. We created a space on the government only GCpedia (www.gcpedia.gc.ca/wiki/Policy_Seed_Bank), and developed a template to help anyone capture and plant their seed using basic information: • What is your idea?

• What is its story?

• Where can I find out more?

Good ideas do not need to be complicated. They can be about public service renewal, improving human resources processes, increasing collaboration across departments, how to address the challenges of the future – whatever you feel would be of interest to federal public servants. And we believe that, just as with genetic diversity, the greater the diversity of ideas, the greater the integrity and potential of the Policy Seed Bank.

Anyone from across the federal public service can contribute to helping various seeds bloom and grow. While the condi-

tions may not be right to bring a policy idea forward at one department, another department may have a need for just such an idea.

By harnessing the collective intellect of public servants from across the government to work on ideas that they are passionate about, we are able to have better and stronger policy proposals to bring forward. Even more than that, it encourages the cross-fertilization of ideas across departments and policy areas that do not always seem compatible.

We hope that as participation increases, the Policy Seed Bank can act as an incubator of ideas by selecting seeds for “watering” by the policy community at large through online deliberation, by connecting with events that cater to the federal policy community, or through new communities created to harvest policy seeds.

And as the seeds grow and develop, we hope that decision makers can use it as a place to find the occasional fruit of a policy ripe for the picking.

So the next time you are looking for a good idea, have an idea you want to share, or are simply looking for inspiration, visit the Policy Seed Bank and take a look around.

And if you are not with the federal public service, ask yourself: what do you do to help “conserve” good ideas? Because as any gardener will tell you, pruning may stimulate new growth, but transformation starts with a seed.

June 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 23

Performance management

Art Stewart is an independent management

consultant with over 35 years of experience in internal performance measurement, audit, financial management and strategic policy planning.

Enhancing program oversight Senior public sector managers, deputy heads of departments and parliamentarians need to maintain a sound understanding of the role of effective oversight to positively influence public sector decision making and results for Canadians.

Why does this matter? As Canada and its public service heads into another period of fiscal restraint and reductions to government spending, there are calls for even more oversight. Others think the “oversight burden” has become unsustainable, with few measurable results shown for the investment of resources. Still others are concerned that with budgetary restraint, key oversight mechanisms, such as in the areas of program delivery and financial management, could be weakened.

So, perhaps we should be aiming for oversight mechanisms that facilitate transparency, accountability and the achievement of expected results, without burdening the system with unnecessary and costly internal red tape.

Oversight is about senior management ensuring that there are reliable and costeffective systems of management controls to ensure accountability for resources allotted and results achieved, based upon advice, assurance and recommendations provided by internal and external bodies. It is a key component of effective governance over federal institutions and, in turn, an important contributing determinate of successful program and service delivery.

Effective exercise of oversight requires three essential elements, working as a comprehensive system: • A clear management authority and accountability framework; • A comprehensive, rigorous and transparent system of management controls; and • Rigorous oversight processes, including measurement frameworks, monitoring, audits and evaluations.

The reach and scope of oversight processes and mechanisms across federal institutions 24 / Canadian Government Executive // June 2012

is vast: from Parliament’s legislative and accountability responsibilities which occupy the attention of both Houses and their twenty-plus Standing Committees; the regulatory, policy, decision making and remediation authorities of central agencies, particularly the Treasury Board and it’s Secretariat; to the exercise of a multitude of oversight related governance, management decision making, control, monitoring, reporting and accountability functions and processes that exist within some 200 federal organizations.

All of these rely extensively upon the use of performance measurement information for the effective exercise of their oversight responsibilities. Much of this information is contained in several key government-wide planning, performance and accountability documents, such as Reports on Plans and Priorities, Estimates, Public Accounts, Departmental Performance Reports, MAF assessments and OAG Audits. To this are added many other department- and agency-specific oversight performance-related processes and documents.

There are opportunities to further enhance these processes and information, including: • Reviewing the mandates and operations of committees and the role, impact and effectiveness of Officers and Agents of Parliament to clarify, strengthen or possibly even consolidate some of them; • Strengthening, streamlining and/or integrating the research capacity and performance information and reporting requirements of committees, central agencies and departments (such as human resources management, financial management and audit) to help reduce reporting burdens while improving the focus on performance and accountability; • Reviewing the Federal Accountability Act, now six years old, to assess its contribution to improved accountability, and its practical impact on departments and agencies; and

• Streamlining the work of the Treasury Board by reducing the need for consideration of routine and low-risk cases.

Furthermore, it might be possible in certain areas to streamline (or even integrate) the reporting requirements of the Estimates and Public Accounts processes, particularly the Reports on Plans and Priorities and Departmental Performance Reports (this could also be extended to the MAF as well).

Greater attention to governance, values and ethics, risk management, and oversight competence and experience could help mitigate risks of potential inappropriate behavior/control failures of senior leaders, particularly in smaller federal institutions.

Departments may better leverage risk management in oversight and performance. The experience and advice of departmental audit committees can play an important oversight support role, to more efficiently address oversight expectations of deputy heads. Given the relative growth of oversight arrangements in response to parliamentary, central agency and other demands, deputy heads might well continue to review, reassess and integrate oversight mechanisms, for example, in the areas of financial reporting and contracting.

Experienced managers, senior leaders, and parliamentarians themselves will no doubt have as good or better ideas for improving oversight and the use of performance measurement. Let’s consider what we can do and act on them.

Art Stewart is past president and treasurer of the Performance and Planning Exchange (PPX), a learning and research organization dedicated to identifying and sharing best practices in results-based management. To learn more about PPX, visit www.ppx.ca.

John Read provides procurement consulting services to public sector clients.

He served for almost 15 years in the Public Works procurement arena.

Procurement

Are you growing mushrooms or flowers?

Are you going to the IPAC annual conference in St. John’s in August? More important, are your procurement people going?

Embracing the Tides of Change is not an obvious topic for procurement types.

Procurement is so regulated, what can change? Besides, any change will be at someone else’s direction, so why bother?

And there are budget cuts, so don’t even ask. Sound familiar?

Ask your procurement people how many ways they know to evaluate the price component of competitive bids as part of the contractor selection process. Many will say two, three or maybe four. At the 2010 International Public Procurement Conference (IPPC) in Seoul, two Finnish academics presented a paper in which they identified ten! Not all necessarily good or useful, but if you don’t know that they are there, how can you select the best? Learning needed.

The Canadian Institute for Procurement and Materiel Management (CIPMM, formerly the MMI) has for years presented an annual conference in Ottawa. With subject matter of obvious relevance, attendance is usually in the many hundreds. One year, the session moved to Montreal: it was a financial disaster as attendance dropped precipitously; the next year, same thing, same result. Apparently departments believed the learning benefits were not worth a train ticket to Montreal and a night or two in a hotel. Learning avoided.

A couple of years ago at the 4th Annual Workshop of the Commonwealth Public Procurement Network, procurement professionals from more than 20 countries, all

in the same line of business, shared experiences and perspectives on dealing with our challenging profession. On paper it may all look the same, but in real life context and experience are so important: you can’t get that from articles, books or locked up in a cubicle. Any Canadians there? Learning opportunity lost.

I asked a former colleague whether she would attend an international conference where we both had experienced the quality of the presentations and the contacts to be made. She was going on her own time and at her own expense. She knew the benefit. Lesson learned.

Neal Peart from Rush may be the best rock drummer around. After more than 20 years with the band, having achieved the pinnacle of his métier, he took drumming lessons, and added complete new dimensions to his playing style. An acknowledged master of his craft, still learning.

I wrote this article in Tunisia, working on a contract by myself for three months.

With time on my hands, I took courses on teaching, decision making, leading change, effective writing. Not one on procurement.

I thought I knew – but I learned more – about employee and organizational resistance to change; how to lead change and how to ensure its effects are long-lasting; about imbuing people with a life-long desire to learn, rather than knowing more and more about less and less; and that effective decision making likely results less from who makes the decision; and more on the process through which decisions are arrived at.

I learned that in times of crisis organizations too often turn inwards, relying on the tried and true rather than seeking inspiration from the outside; of the risks of entrusting key decisions to people due to their position in the hierarchy, rather than seeking out and harnessing the creativity of the entire organization; and that even in a team environment groupthink is high risk.

With the government looking for savings, the annual procurement spend of $20 billion is an obvious target. Major change is in the air. The government needs to do better – much better – and the solutions probably do not reside within.

Nobel laureate Niels Bohr said, “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” In today’s risk-averse public service, procurement people have less and less chance to make mistakes. By Bohr’s definition the government is creating fewer and fewer experts.

Couple that with the possibility that developing options and questioning management is increasingly vulnerable to “tell the boss what she/he wants to hear,” and it is a recipe for disaster.

Procurement organizations need to seek out new and different ways to work. Answers may come from procurement, or general management or human resources.

Inspiration comes in many forms, and someone “out there” may well point out the path to success.

Send your people to St. John’s, or Seattle or Montreal: the journey offers significant value. Forget the mushrooms: grow flowers.

June 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.

Finding your ego equilibrium

The Well-Balanced Leader Ron Roberts McGraw-Hill, 256 pages, $30.95

Ego can do us in. It can lead to arrogance, blindness, and a destructive relationship with those we need to help us attain success. At the same time, ego can make us successful. It gives us the selfconfidence and self-esteem we need to push ahead with our ideas and to forge healthy relationships with others.

Too much ego and we can run aground.

Too little, however, and we can also run aground. We need the right balance.

Consultant Ron Roberts calls that balance Egolibrium. “Egolibrium helps you get unstuck from the disabling power of the ego,” he writes in The Well-Balanced Leader. In effect, it’s the balance between ourselves and others. It’s the ability to toggle back and forth between ego-centric and other-centric attitudes, values and behaviour.

Other-centric means that the world does not revolve around you. By paying attention to others, Roberts argues that paradoxically you will become more in touch with your true self. “Having a

26 / Canadian Government Executive // June 2012

clear perspective about your importance (or lack thereof) in the bigger picture and larger scheme of things within your workplace is the sign of a great leader,” he says. He sees great leaders like astronauts circling the earth in a state of weightlessness, aware of how small they are in the larger scheme of the universe.

That gives them high levels of objectivity and detachment, and can make them more authentic.

At the same time, great leaders need conscious awareness. They strive to become more conscious of what drives them and what determines how they relate to others. He says such leaders constantly move from an unconscious state where they have lack of awareness and are controlled by ego to fully conscious when they are in touch with their inner authentic self. Switching metaphors for this element of success, he says “some leaders are as unconscious of their egos as fish are of the water that surrounds them. Great leaders work to remain conscious of the invisible unseen ego.”

Balance is needed. That means thinking about the repertoire of responses available in any situation and acting on them as required. It means not acting compulsively or automatically. It means not going to extremes, without careful consideration. “Balanced leaders think about the results of their behaviour before acting or speaking,” he says.

And he offers yet another metaphor: great leaders are like acrobats on a trapeze. They know where their own center is, and are always conscious of their circumstances and surroundings. Even when things seem to be spinning out of control, they remain balanced, poised and nimble. They are prepared to change and always land on their feet.

If that seems too general, he gives more clarity by identifying nine behaviours where this balance must be sought.

In each, there is an ego-driven approach that we can easily succumb to, and, alternatively, an other-centric approach. Egolibrium means finding a proper balance.

Here are those behaviours, with the ego-centric instinct listed first: • Judgmental versus nonjudgmental.

Many leaders make snap decisions, without the facts, going on their emotions and beliefs, and ignoring people around them. They are also eager to criticize others, as a way of elevating themselves. Great leaders, on the other hand, see things in an open, clear, nonjudgmental manner looking at all sides of a decision. To learn how to tolerate increased levels of criticism, he recommends sitting with a trusted friend and making a list of the criticisms that are true about each of you, starting with the mildest. Then have the friend read them in a quiet, calm voice, followed by a discussion of how you feel as you hear the list and whether the friend feels the criticism is warranted. Repeat this every week, until desensitized.

• Defensive and closed vs. nondefensive. Defensiveness compounds other mistakes, as we err and then dig in our heels. “The ego-driven defensive leader builds interpersonal walls, displays deadly silo thinking, and can even generate full-blown turf wars,” he writes. Instead, we must strive to be open, maintaining a broad frame of reference, and adapting ourselves to people, processes and situations. To become less defensive, try this affirmation he shares: “If I am honest with myself and listen to others’ feedback humbly, I have nothing to defend!”

the leader’s BookshelF

• Controlling vs. relinquishing control. Many leaders are over-controlling, micromanaging subordinates and forcing their will on others. That inevitably leads to low morale, as well as poor communications and a culture in which folks are afraid to take risks. “Paradoxically, it is only by relinquishing control that leaders can ever achieve the kind of control that is the mark of great leaders,” he says. If this is a problem area, you may want to consider his claim that the ability to relinquish control is the major difference between people who are leaders and people who are managers, as well as the crucial marker between average and great leaders. The affirmation here: “I know that I get better results and better performance from staff members when I relinquish control.”

• Know-it-all vs. open to learning.

No leader knows everything. It’s therefore vital to be open to learning more.

When organizations have leaders who are closed to learning more, you get disasters like NASA’s space shuttle and the O-rings. “How open are you to learning from others’ advice and ideas?” he asks. “Do you share your own knowledge with others, or do you feel the need to hold back the information for your own benefits? Are you able to learn from your own mistakes and understand that embracing failure brings you one

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step closer to success?” He urges you to practice being transparent and to invite your colleagues to join you in this quest for greater openness.

• Doing whatever you want vs. doing the right thing. As leaders rise to the top of the hierarchy, they can feel invincible, convinced they can do anything they want. But great leaders adhere to solid principles, whatever dizzy heights they achieve. They are humble, have the willpower to control their feelings and actions, and can delay gratification. “They choose convictions over desires, will over emotions, clear thinking and self control over the easy way out. They do the right thing consistently,” he says.

• Impatient vs. patient. Speed is a virtue in today’s world while patience has become a sin. The result is that too many managers are ferociously impatient, over-scheduling people and processes.

But Roberts insists you’ll get further if you can be patient, flexible and adaptable. Aim for small successes in short periods of time, encouraging initiative and gaining greater group buy-in. Avoid the frantic, panicked atmosphere of too many modern workplaces. The guiding principle, he says, should be: “patience gives you power over time. Impatience gives time power over you.”

• Holding on vs. letting go. It’s important not to hold on to attitudes

and values past their useful date. “Although, at times, it is necessary and even admirable for leaders to stick to their goals and hold to a course, they must also be able to face reality and let go when that’s what the organization needs,” he says. As an exercise, think about two or three areas where you have done things “the way they have always been done” just for the purpose of maintaining past practice. Think about how you could have been more effective in those situations, managing in the moment rather than the past.

• Resistance vs. acceptance. Great leaders accept the current reality. They change what they can change and adapt to what they can’t. That’s much like sports stars, who accept the situation on the playing field and deal with it.

• Self-focused vs. other-focused.

Some leaders see themselves in everything they are doing. Ego predominates. But great leaders value everyone. They see reality with great clarity, and base their decisions on what is actually happening, not what they wish were happening.

No doubt at least a few of those behaviours hit home as areas where you could improve. For each dialectic, Roberts shows not only how to deal with your own foibles, but how to work with others and help them.

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June 2012 // Canadian Government executive / 27

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Governing Digitally

From austerity to agility With the federal public service in a state of budgetary retrenchment, for many managers the focus is understandably on the here and now. Yet, there has never been a more important time to think longer term about the government of tomorrow and the sorts of skills and capacities that shall be required in an era of heightened mobility and complexity.

One risk in the present climate of austerity is that technology is viewed almost exclusively as an agent of efficiency. When asked how their departments will cope with fewer workers, many ministers in recent months have invoked new IT systems as a response, enabling more to be done with less. Shared Services Canada, already facing resource cutbacks, is viewed as a platform for infrastructure consolidation internally and a means of outsourcing more components externally.

With the notable exception of military procurement matters, the traditional media has thus focused much effort in tracking and revealing the impacts of spending cuts, real of feared. The cycle of retrenchment and secrecy intensifies as government messaging takes hold. Indeed, at one point Minister Tony Clement suggested that many details of the federal cutbacks could not be made public until well into next year (soon thereafter departing for Brazil to address a conference on open government!).

Lost in such context is any strategic notion of public sector reform with regards to enabling the next generation of democratic and operational governance. This is dangerously short-sighted.

As technology goes mobile via cloud systems and social media, there are signifi-

cant opportunities to rethink the organization and functioning of government.

While it is certainly true that many federal public servants recognize such prospects for reform – as many contributions to this publication effectively illustrate – this movement nonetheless requires openness and support from above. Star chambers of expenditure reviews cannot suffice.

Moreover, perhaps the key design issue going forward will be the requisite balance between centralizing governmentwide initiatives and unleashing reforms in a more flexible and devolved manner. The research literature has often been schizophrenic on this point, oscillating from the decentralizing tendencies of new public management to more recent pressures for interoperability and, presently, austerity.

Spending pressures within a perpetually adversarial partisan-media regime have done seemingly little to quell the secretive and inward tendencies of this government despite their newfound majority status.

Such leadership starts at the top and does not bode well for genuinely open-sourced approaches to engaging stakeholders and citizens in new and more collaborative manners.

At least, that is, within the federal government sphere. One impact of federal retrenchment may well be a rise in assertiveness and leadership by provincial and municipal authorities. Health care is evolving in such a manner and the recent admonishment by Alberta mayors of extremist political views during the provincial campaign suggests a similar bottomup trajectory. Certainly, open data was not pioneered in Ottawa.

The federal government remains, however, the leviathan of the Canadian public sector: its actions and outlooks matter greatly, both in terms of its own performance and with respect to inter-governmental arrangements at a time when interdependence often trumps separateness. In fact, here lies the crucible of public sector cloud computing in this country: a new and genuinely shared platform for all levels of government to collaborate and innovate, or a federally-led initiative with the participation of other government levels as a mere afterthought?

The government of Canada is also a huge employer, and its ability to recruit and retain the brightest and most creative knowledge workers hinges on moving beyond austerity. At a time when local and national media routinely feature stories of the unique and aggressive antics of technology companies to lure and nurture human capital, federal departments and agencies can hardly afford complacency.

More than austerity, agility is what counts going forward, especially as knowledge societies grow more digitally mobile and socially empowered. Although Canada’s digital leadership has stalled in recent years, fortunately the rest of the world is looking ahead and offering important insights. A 2011 report by the World Economic Forum outlines the essential challenges for “the future of government” and this coming fall, the OECD will provide an equally important contribution on the makings of an adaptive, high-performing and agile public sector.

Let’s hope such a global conversation finds a receptive audience in Ottawa.

June 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).

The people management challenge The 2012 federal budget has come and gone but the huge challenge of implementing its key human resource and programming elements are now underway.

While it is difficult to fully gauge the likely impact of the extensive cuts that were contained in the budget speech and in the implementation bill (C-38), the reality is that the public service of Canada will likely be downsized by much more than the 19,200 jobs that were initially identified as part of the cost-saving exercise. This is because, once the program and operational cuts are fully scoped out by the human resource experts, they will likely find that there are more jobs associated with the program cuts than were originally anticipated.

Regardless of the size of the final personnel cuts, the scale of the exercise is massive given the need to inform all the potentially affected employees, to assess the qualifications for those who are deemed affected, and to inform those whose jobs are being eliminated. The key is to ensure that those remaining can be trained and motivated to deliver high-quality services to the Canadian public. The success of this understanding will depend heavily on how well managers can deal with these employees.

There are primarily three key acts that guide the work of managers in the federal public service: the Public Service Employment Act, the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Financial Administration Act. They were significantly revised in the early 2000s as part the Chrétien government’s effort to modernize the public service with the passage of the Public Ser30 / Canadian Government Executive // June 2012

vice Modernization Act (PSMA) in 2003.

In 2011, a Review Team led by Susan Cartwright submitted an evaluation report to the President of the Treasury Board that zeroed in on the impact of the PSMA on people management in the federal public service. In her report, she described the PSMA as “the single biggest change to public service human resources management in more than 35 years.”

The 170-page report provides a clearly stated, coherent and comprehensive overview of the state of human resources management in the public service. It portrays the PSMA after five years in operation as having accomplished many important goals to modernize staffing, improve learning opportunities, and transfer the responsibility for people management to the deputy minister community.

Overall, it concluded that the implementation of the PSMA had gone relatively well. However, it also pointed out some serious problem areas that remain.

In particular, Cartwright targeted the lack of a clearly stated vision of the public service, too much uncertainty about the roles and responsibilities of the key players in the HR regime, and the need to improve manager’s attitudes towards the importance of managing people.

Moreover, the review team also noted that “there is a sense of powerlessness” among managers in large part because too little time was spent on a sustained implementation plan. This follows a traditional approach for well-intentioned federal governments to declare a new policy as being successfully implemented the day after the

policy is announced. In fact, the Review Team “encountered almost no one who was unequivocally positive about people management in the public service.”

The negative views about people management are because the needed cultural change among managers has not taken place and “there has been a lack of sustained attention to change in part due to a misplaced confidence that the momentum would continue.” In the view of the review team, without a renewed commitment among the leadership cadre, the full potential of the public service will not be realized.

To further underscore the challenges ahead, the team also highlighted that “the combination of accountability and oversight also contributes to risk aversion. The much-heralded flexibility in the legislation is not well articulated and as a consequence, there is reluctance to embrace it, and little evidence of innovation and experimentation on the one hand or sensible standardization on the other.”

The review team report provides the context for the enormous challenges facing the federal public service as it grapples with Budget 2012. The PSMA was designed to liberate the public service from unwieldy and outdated legislation and to encourage the public service to be innovative and creative in fulfilling its mandate to serve the Canadian public. The PSMA provided the tools but at this point they have not been adequately implemented. As a consequence, the layoffs and reorganizations that were announced in the budget will be much harder for managers to implement than the government expects.

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