Bureaucrat Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged is a book that is close to my heart, and despite what you may think about the philosophy of Ayn Rand (Objectivism), I can't help but identify with the struggle of the book's central protagonists.

Perhaps it was because I read Atlas in my first year in the public service as I battled work-related depression, having left a job at an NHL franchise in the midst of its cup run in order to try my hand in the public sector. The novel depicts American industrialists as the metaphor for Atlas of Greek mythology, holding up the Earth, whom John Galt (the central character of the novel) persuades to "shrug," by refusing to lend their productive genius to the regime any longer.

 (spoiler alert) 

Essentially the story is about John Galt, a man stifled by oppressive bureaucratic functionaries and a culture defined by mediocrity and egalitarianism who leaves his job at a motor company and starts recruiting other prominent industrialists to do the same. The book follows the actions of Dagny Taggart who struggles with the choice to either try to change the system from within or simply walk away and leave it to those who would stay the course and (the implication is) eventually run the ship aground (btw this is the origin of the phrase "Going Galt").

This Atlassian struggle is one that has defined my career thus far, and, should I choose to continue my career in this sector, will invariably define it for the remainder of it. Should I continue to push for change from within the system or simply abandon the effort in its entirety? Everyone I've spoken with has identified the pressing need for deep change in this sector; some have even told me that they think we are approaching the breaking point, making this choice all the more important.

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to liken myself to some sort of public sector equivalent to a Greek god, I'm simply identifying with the immensity of the task facing every agent of change in the public sector right now, and I don't just mean here in Canada but everywhere. Changes in our social fabric brought on by advancements in communications technologies coupled with the immensity of budgetary cuts requires a fundamental rethinking of public services. These are difficult and (to borrow the popular verbiage right now) austere times. Given the circumstances I doubt we can afford oppressive bureaucracies or a mediocre culture.

To wit, I don't think its just me contemplating shrugging right now, its anyone who has banged their head against the wall one too many times.







Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Public service renewal: the weekly round-up

August 8 - 12, 2011

It’s Monday, folks. Here’s the weekly.

If you read one thing this week, it should be this post from the Snarky Optimist. It’s a thoughtful, well-written, and eye-opening response (in part) to my previous post: I would’ve eaten glass to get this job. I love a good dialogue, and Chelsea’s post illustrates that the story of contractors in the federal government is a complicated one, with many equally valid perspectives.

This week in cuts:

• An excellent overview of the federal government job cuts, so far
• Why you, not me? The Hill Times publishes a piece on the Environment Canada cuts from last week
• And, more opportunities and even bigger challenges loom large for our newest department, Shared Services -- who is responsible for giving us an infrastructure for the 21^st century

Social goodies:

• Who loves Haiku? People in Japan are flocking to Twitter to make social poetry
• Are Twitter and Facebook the anti-social networks?
• Old, but new to me: Malcolm Gladwell – why the revolution will not be tweeted. OR: Social media can’t provide what social change has always required
• An argument that all of our disclaimers do not matter – and that there is no difference between our personal accounts and your professional ones
• What does the U.S. Army really think about social media? Find out!

Relationships and Cultural change

• Since the PS culture is shifting all around us, here are the 10 key lessons you can take with you for the ride
• The newest web standard is out for us to view, and it’s got me thinking all about content strategy. Here’s a read on why making relationships with your web visitors is important

And let’s end with a laugh, shall we?

• How to kill a dead horse

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

Column: What Drives You?

[Photo: my father Rick and my son Kohl, taken back in June 2008]

At the last #w2p mixer (an unofficial social event in Ottawa for Government of Canada Web 2.0 Practitioners) a colleague asked me "What drives you?".

I replied that I cared in the movement in a general sense; that I believe in a more open and transparent government; and that I think it will produce better outcomes for citizens.

I also told her something much more personal. I told her that I did it for my old man.

What follows is partially what I said, and partially what I would have said if I had more time to answer the question.

My father worked almost his entire career in the automotive industry here in Ottawa, and he did it in a time before there were safety standards. I remember being a child and being told to wait in the sales office until my father was done work. From the office I could see him walk into the spray booth to spray paint some part of a car, lit cigarette in his mouth, no mask, no ventilation. He worked hard, like his two brothers and his father. In fact, all the Charney men worked in the automotive industry.

Naturally I wanted to take up the family trade and started to work summers in a couple of the local dealerships, detailing cars and doing some prep work. Upon learning that exposure to industry chemicals had not only caused my grandfathers terminal cancer, but was the reason I would never have a sibling, I was forbidden from entering the family trade.

Years later, my father left the automotive industry and now works for an engineering firm as a health and safety coordinator. His job is to make sure that people work in a safe environment, something that he didn't have the benefit of when he was working. In short, he chose to work in a way that allows him to be difference maker. He constantly strives to improve working conditions and minimize needless exposure to harmful substances and dangerous situations.

I draw a tremendous amount of inspiration from that fact. In hindsight, it would seem that I did get into the family business after all: difference making.

I want to help build a public service that treats people better than I was treated when I first started.

What drives me? That's easy - my dad.

[Final note: my father lost his little brother last year to cancer related to his working conditions and he hasn't really been the same since, this column is for you dad.]

Column: Lest We Forget

Given that Remembrance Day was this week, I just wanted to dedicate this column to those who risk more than any of us so that we can enjoy the freedoms many of us often take for granted.

To those brave men and women in uniform, I say thank you.

I say thank you because I care, and I say thank you because you've earned it.

To the public servants out there reading this column, I say this:
Given everything they have done and continue to do for us, I see no reason not to give 100% every day when we come in to work.

In fact, I would argue that anything less would be doing them disservice.

Lest we forget their sacrifices.

Lest we forget that those sacrifices are not owed to us.

Lest we forget we ought to earn them.

Column: From Practice to Practitioner

It is funny that a friend and colleague just blogged that she finished reading Bob Chartier's book, Bureaucratically Incorrect: Letters to a Young Public Servant.

You see, I met Bob about a year ago and, although we haven't been in direct communication much, we always get along smashingly - which is one of the reasons why I was very excited to open for him on the last day of the 2009 Alberta Managers' Learning and Development Forum in Calgary a couple of weeks ago. The other reason I was glad to speak ahead of him is that he is an impossible act to follow. If you have ever seen him speak, you know what I am talking about. In short, he is awesome and I consider it an honour to be able to speak on the same bill as him. What really did it for me was when he suggested (to the crowd) that he and I should embark on a speaking tour, which he affectionately dubbed "The Geezer and the Grasshopper".

Anyway, I just wanted to share some of the wisdom that Bob shared with the group in Calgary, blended with some of my own thoughts.


Moving from 10% to %100

At one point, Bob asked us to envision a public service where we each devoted only 10% of our time to "do our practice", whatever that practice is. We all have varying interests and skills, many of which are lost when we simply do what our job requires us to do. He asked what we thought the public service would look like if we all embraced our practice as an integral part of doing our job? If my interest is public service renewal, then shouldn’t I be encouraged to make contributions to it when I can? If your interest/expertise is in alternative dispute resolution, but you are an auditor (the example Bob used), you should be able to take some time to participate in the communities that practice your practice, that practice your passion. There are a lot of spectacular learning opportunities for public servants right here at home - within the public service - but the dominant mental model isn't one that recognizes the opportunity as an opportunity but rather paints the opportunity as a cost: the cost of not doing one's job for that period of time.

Bob went on to explain that if we were all able to move from investing 10% of our time in our practice to 100%, we would become practitioners. In doing so, we would all become more connected with our work. We would be more passionate about it. We would be at the place that David Irvine describes as the "sweet spot" - where our interests and our responsibilities to the organization overlap (Side note: I had the pleasure of meeting and speaking after David Irvine at the Alberta Human Resources Conference in Red Deer a couple of weeks ago). This is exactly what I mean when I show this picture in my presentations and tell people that this is how I feel about my job.



Career Evolution

Looking at the evolution of my career in the public service thus far, I can say with great certitude, that I have made the shift from practice to practitioner, I have found the sweet spot that Irvine refers to and I have to tell you it wasn't easy, but being there now is pretty f***ing awesome. The other thing I can say with certitude is that the time I have invested in my practice (prior to becoming a practitioner) has done at least as much, if not more, for my career than my substantive work. My practice delivered new opportunities that would otherwise be outside the purview of my substantive role. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying that I haven’t learned anything on the job, because I have. What I am saying is that the daily tasks of one’s substantive position are generally more static and (so the theory goes) you have already demonstrated that you can do them (by winning a competition based on the skill set/expertise to actually do the work). Practice on the other hand is considerably more dynamic and has no preordained areas of responsibility. Practice can shift with your interests and as you discover other things, people and passions through the serendipitous nature of that discovery.

But making the transition from practice to practitioner is difficult (it took me over 3 years), but the work is worth the reward. In order to achieve that transformation, the first thing you need to do is realize that your practice is in fact not a cost but a contribution, a contribution that, in some non-traditional or currently immeasurable way helps improve your organization. The second thing you need to do is start to convince others of this very same thing. Start a conversation with your manager. Ask them how you can better align your passions with what the organization asks of you. Public servants, Bob says, are not only dying for this conversation, but also for the more genuine relationships that this conversation engenders. I think that this is why Bob sees communities of practice as the most powerful/transformational tool at the disposal of the public service. He sees them as a tool that grows sustainable leadership within the public service.


Why We Do What We Do

This is why I think that you are so important - that the community that has formed around this blog and the blogs of my fellow public servants, on twitter, LinkedIn, Govloop, GCPEDIA or GCConnex are so important.

What we are doing with all of these social media tools is having the conversations we were dying to have; connecting communities looking to forge better relationships and in so doing, growing more sustainable leadership.

What we need to do now is rally more people into these conversations, increase the number and quality of these relationships, and uncover more of the leaders buried under the weight of the bureaucracy.

Are you with me?

Column: A Personal Story of Renewal

Below you will find the audio/slide capture of a presentation I did in Vancouver at the Governexx Conference and again in Ottawa at PWGSC's National Youth Network Annual Forum. First I want to thank both groups for the invitation, it is always a pleasure to meet other public servants.

The presentation below is just over twenty (20) minutes and chronicles my personal story of renewal, explaining the challenges I faced when I entered, how I almost left the public service after one year, my decision to get more involved in my organization and in public service renewal more generally, and finally my call to action directed at others (leveraging that personal story), because "we" can do so much more than "me" ever could.

Feel free to watch the embedded video below, or grab it at the source. My apologies about the poor quality of the audio/video, but it is the best I have.

Warning: Viewer discretion is advised.

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Column: The Three Laws of Open Public Servants

1. If you don't act, you don't exist
2. If you don't share, you can't engage
3. If you can't act or share, you can't empower

Act, share and empower. That's what we want, and that is what public service renewal is at it's core.


(Note: This post was prompted by some great work done by David Eaves, namely the three laws of open government piece.)

Special Edition: I admit it, I care.

One of my recurring jokes with my peers is that I don't actually have a great deal of public service motivation (PSM): The desire to serve Canadians for the greater good.

I doubt I am alone in this, although I’d hazard a guess that the subject is somewhat taboo. After all, who wants to be considered a public servant lacking the motivation to serve the public?

But somehow, I don't think where you draw your motivation matters so much as the fact that you are actually motivated. The most important thing is finding and using that motivation to do your job effectively. This is actually a topic that Etienne has blogged about before.

Think about it.

Who would you rather have working next to you, for you, or managing you? Someone who is highly motivated by their desire to serve the public, but can't deliver results based on that desire? or someone who simply loves to solve problems, and goes about doing it based on its own merits (e.g. a passionate communicator who loves to deliver the message, or a financial officer who loves crunching numbers, etc)?

Don’t take this the wrong way. I am by no means trying to say that those motivated by their desire to serve are in some way inferior or poor performers. The point I am trying to make is that it cuts both ways, namely that high PSM is not necessarily a determinant of performance, poor or otherwise.

But, does the degree to which I draw my motivation from serving the public make my contribution any less real or valuable?

I think I know the answer.

I often joke with people and tell them tongue in cheekily that I just don't care about the bigger picture. I am intrinsically motivated and always have been. Given the role I play in the renewal discourse, that joke often provokes an interesting exchange.

Colloquially, I make the argument that it is highly unlikely that a Canadian would approach me in order to thank me for my work (let alone give me a hug). Public recognition isn’t necessarily a deterrent from being PSM, but it may have implications on how we draw our motivation. I often undersell my PSM because it isn’t the thing that comes to mind immediately when people ask me why I am a public servant, and I purposely dismiss it in conversation with others because I find that it gets them thinking about why they are doing what they do.

But the truth of the matter is that I care (there, I admit it).

I care about Canadians. I cry every time a fallen soldier comes home (now that is public service), I tear up when I hear the national anthem - hell my wife and I sing it to our kids as a lullaby. I care about the future of our government and I care about our citizens.

But when I am at work, I can’t draw the inspiration I need from those larger-than-life connections. I draw my inspiration from my friends, my colleagues, and from you. So when I say I care, in the context of my work the thing I care about most is the apparent lack of introspection on the part of the disengaged public servant.

When was the last time you asked yourself the tough question?

"Why am I here?" may not be a question you need to ask yourself every day, but you sure as hell better know the answer to it every minute of every day. Regardless of what it is, if it motivates you – if it drives you – it should be the on the tip of your tongue in everything you do. I want to you to tap into it, show it to and celebrate it with others, and make it contagious.

So, what motivates you? What better time to find out than National Public Service Week? After all, It starts with you!

PS - If you didn't read the post I put up on Saturday, you should, pretty cool stuff. Scroll down, or click here.

PPS - I photoshop'd the care bear myself =)