Contrarian Thinking

Of Demons and Scapegoats

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 00:47:00 +0000

"A good scapegoat is nearly as welcome as a solution to the problem."
- Author unknown

Today is Guy Fawkes Day, UK's most celebrated scapegoat! And today is also the 4th anniversary of the publication of An Inconvenient Renewal, an infamous manifesto written by an obscure public servant (!) calling for better people management in organizations.

In one of my last posts, I told the story of some of the events that unfolded behind the scenes in the months that followed the release of my paper. I also expressed my thoughts on the recent so-called "indiscretion" of a certain Canadian public servant on Twitter.

However, going through the comments left by the readers further to the CBC article, I started seeing another narrative emerging: one of demons and scapegoats.

The word scapegoat is a mistranslation of the word "Azazel". In mythology, Azazel is often portrayed as a demon. In some religions, the scapegoat, or Azazel, is even a symbol for Satan. "The word "scapegoat" has come to mean a person who is blamed and punished for the sins, crimes or sufferings of others, generally as a way of distracting attention from the real causes." (Source)

"Scapegoating is a known practice in management where a lower staff employee is blamed for the mistakes of senior executives. This is often due to lack of accountability in upper management. For example, a teacher who constantly gets blamed or accused of wrongdoing could be a scapegoat if said teacher is only guilty of doing her job so well that she makes her coworkers and supervisory administration look bad. This could result in letters being placed in permanent files, condescending remarks from co-workers and constant blame finding from administration." (Source)

The explanation for the behaviour is that "social order is restored as people are contented that they have solved the cause of their problems by removing the scapegoated individual." In other words, "scapegoating serves as a psychological relief for a group of people." (Source)

Then I came across this article which makes the case that mobbing is a form of sociological scapegoating which occurs in the workplace:

"Mobbing can be understood as the stressor to beat all stressors. It is an impassioned, collective campaign by co-workers to exclude, punish, and humiliate a targeted worker. Initiated most often by a person in a position of power or influence, mobbing is a desperate urge to crush and eliminate the target. The urge travels through the workplace like a virus, infecting one person after another. The target comes to be viewed as absolutely abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities, outside the circle of acceptance and respectability, deserving only of contempt. As the campaign proceeds, a steadily larger range of hostile ploys and communications comes to be seen as legitimate. [...]

The worker most vulnerable to being mobbed is an average or high achiever who is personally invested in a formally secure job, but who nonetheless somehow threatens or puts to shame co-workers and/or managers. Such a worker provides no legally defensible grounds for termination, yet usually fails to pick up subtle hints and leave voluntarily. An attractive solution, from the majority point of view, is to bring or wear this worker down, one way or another, however long it takes.

As the process drags on, both sides, collective and individual, dig in their heels. It is often as if the targeted worker has grabbed a hot wire and cannot let go, despite the pain and injury it inflicts. The worker’s investment of self and sense of having been deeply wronged prevent the one resolution that would satisfy the other side.

Ironically, it is in workplaces where workers’ rights are formally protected that the complex and devious incursions on human dignity that constitute mobbing most commonly occur. Union shops are one example, as in the case of the factory worker described above. University faculties are another, on account of the special protections of tenure and academic freedom professors have. It happens in police forces, too, since management rights in this setting are tempered by the oath officers swear to uphold the law. Mobbings appear to be much more frequent in the public service as a whole, as compared to private companies."

Obviously, I couldn't help but draw a parallel with the story of the public servant and his tweet, based on the reactions of some of the readers.

So last night I was relating the Twitter case to a theologian who specializes in mediation and conflict resolution. He had just attended a two day course on the work of René Girard on scapegoating (neat coincidence, I know!). I submitted to him my hypothesis that the social media was being demonized and the public servant being punished for his inoffensive tweet was the scapegoat.

The mediator replied: "I could argue that the demon is not the social media, but rather the fear of the social media."

He paused and added: "...Or fear of the communication itself."

His comment reminded me of a line spoken by the character V as William Rockwood in a key scene of the movie V for Vendetta: "But the real genius of their plan was the fear. Fear became the ultimate tool."

What's your take? Is the current attitude in your organization towards social media more conducive to spreading fear or opening up communications?

A Personal Favourite

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:24:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine pointed me to an upcoming event at the Canada School of Public Service entitled: Ethics and Social Media in the Public Service.

This combined with the recent case of a public servant who has been disciplined for tweeting something deemed "inappropriate", has had me thinking again about values and ethics in the public service.

I have reread some of my older posts, and found this one in particular to be as current as it was three years ago when I first published it: Values and Ethics in the Public Service of Canada: Tautology or Missed Opportunity?

Not only is it a good introduction for my upcoming post, it is also one of my favourite!

Do You Believe in Santa Claus?

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:10:00 +0000

I just came across this article on the CBC website. Apparently, a federal public servant tweeted the following on his personal Twitter account: “Making a spreadsheet and checking it twice, gonna find out which job to slice”.

The article claims that the tweet was meant “to poke fun at the government's strategic review process” by spoofing the famous pagan Christmas song, but some didn't see the humor in it. After removing the tweet, the employee was allegedly "punished" and "transferred to a different office in the same department".

Though the tweet could have been read in the larger context of the recession and worldwide economic uncertainty that are affecting everyone right now, some interpreted the line in the more specific context of strategic review, an expenditure management system the Government of Canada introduced a few years ago. As explained on the Treasury Board Secretariat website, “as a result of these reviews, departments are streamlining operations and realigning their activities to better deliver on the priorities of Canadians through increased effectiveness and efficiencies.” Translation for the government speak illiterate: (job) cuts.

According to a comment posted by user outragean on the CBC page, the tweet was further interpreted by some in light of the employee's position in the department, namely that he was “hired as a special advisor to the ADM” and that he had been in this position for only “a few months”. Still according to user outragean, the tweeter was “working in a cavalier manner”, however being transferred to another project was not a punishment. It's not specified if the transfer was a consequence of the now infamous tweet or something that was in the works prior to the incident.

***

From the gist of the story, I can strongly relate with the public servant who posted the tweet. Actually, I feel for him.

Four years ago I published a paper entitled An Inconvenient Renewal. Shortly after the release, a director from another agency filed a complaint to the Centre for Values, Integrity and Conflict Resolution (VICR) of my department. The basic allegations were that I had "breached the Values and Ethics Code by publicly criticizing the government of Canada’s Public Service Renewal Program". Simply put, my loyalty was called into question. Following receipt of the complaint, the Centre for VICR undertook a review to determine if the allegations were valid. It started right before Christmas 2007, and the assumption that tainted the whole process was that I had been a very naughty boy!

Before the review was concluded, and despite the absence of any evidence that I had done anything wrong - much less breached the Values and Ethics Code - two senior executives from my department who were involved in the review phoned my manager and told him that I should be suspended. Fortunately, my manager knew better than blindly following the advice of people he doesn’t even report to, although they were more senior than him in the hierarchy. Consequently, my manager didn’t act on the suspension recommendation, and instead went as far as stating to the two senior executives that if I was suspended, he himself should probably be suspended as well! (Yeah, I know: you wish this guy was your manager too!)

Meanwhile, and unbeknownst to me, a handful of people were working behind the curtains to prevent my suspension. As it was explained to me years later by consultant David Eaves during an armchair discussion at the Canada School of Public Service in Vancouver, some people were shocked that I was being investigated and on the verge of being suspended for getting involved in Public Service Renewal (as the Clerk of the Privy Council had invited public servants to do), and they brought the matter to the attention of the Big Boss himself.

A few weeks later, Big Boss (Kevin Lynch, then Clerk of the Privy Council) was in Vancouver for a town hall meeting with 1200 federal public servants. I had been asked to facilitate the Q&A period with the Clerk, but just before we launched into the questions, Mr. Lynch publicly recognized the contribution I had made through An Inconvenient Renewal, thanked me, and invited all public servants to get involved as well. The whole session was filmed and copies of the recording were distributed to every Deputy Ministers and Heads of Agencies.

Just a few days later, I received a letter from the Centre for VICR which concluded that I had not breached Values and Ethics Code because I had exercised my "democratic right of freedom of expression" (as per the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom). Was the sudden change of mind pure coincidence? Probably not...

Fast forward a year later. A new senior executive is appointed to the Centre for VICR and after meeting with me apologizes on behalf of the Department for the way I had been treated during the investigation. Aware that my ass had been saved only thanks to the intervention of some outsiders like David Eaves, a couple of very senior people and the intervention of the Clerk himself, I subsequently tried to seek clarification from the Centre for VICR, more specifically: “If tomorrow I would published An Inconvenient Renewal and no person of influence would take my defense, would I get suspended?”.

I never got an answer, but when I was appointed into a job two-and-a-half years later, the same person who had recommended my suspension initiated within two days an investigation into my appointment and for the first four or five months "stick-handled" it, all the way through Christmas time. Santa Claus cut me no slack that year, even though the investigation was allegedly prompted by an anonymous and undocumented phone call to this senior executive (how convenient!). Of course, you can rest assure that the whole investigation was carried out promptly, as well as in a fair and transparent manner.... (hint of cynicism here...)

Ten months after the start of the investigation and still awaiting a final result, I was told in no uncertain terms that the investigation was meant to "teach me a lesson". Yes, in the public service some lessons are best learned the “hard way”. (This is the reason why I have been so quiet on this blog for the last two years...)

***

This brings me back to the public servant who was tweeting Christmas carols in a brief moment of inspiration that only an Excel spreadsheet can provide...

My main worry for him is that right now he too is being taught a lesson the hard way. I’m worried that some people might have made a fuss about his tweet not because of the actual content of the tweet (after all, there’s only so much you can say in 140 characters and there is just too much room for assumptions about the context, intentions, or actual meaning of the message), but rather because of underlying issues of jealousy and resentment resulting perhaps from the enviable position of the employee in the organization, his quick rise, his portfolio, personal vendetta, you name it... (if you've worked in the public service too, you know exactly what I'm talking about.)

I’m also worried that there are probably a few people who see how they can better their own situation by making this snafu a bigger issue than it really is, and perhaps even propel their own career forward by making an example of that rogue employee. For instance, it doesn’t take much imagination to see how someone may want to show how effective are the new Codes of Conduct introduced by departments and agencies further to the requirement set out in the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. These Codes of Conduct greatly expand the latitude managers have to administer discipline (ranging from verbal or written reprimand to suspension or even dismissal). It would be quite easy for a decision-maker to administer a disciplinary measure that is disproportionate compared to the fault.

In fact, in “The Critical Failure of Workplace Ethics”, Gordon Lafer asks whether workplace ethics are “merely useless, or actually harmful?” and takes the position that ethics in organizations are in fact a disguise for power. He also talks about the imbalance of power relations in the workplace and how so-called questions of ethics can “seem like an attempt to mask the offensiveness of the state structure by focusing on marginal decisions and imbuing the bureaucrats of repression with the air of deep moral thinkers.”

Gonna find out who's naughty or nice!

***

One question that has been haunting me since I read the CBC article - and one I hope the decision-makers will consider in the current case - is the following: If the employee, rather than writing down his thoughts in a tweet, would have made the exact same comment to the exact same audience, but done so verbally around the water cooler, would he be punished and transferred?

The answer is obvious: no. The worst thing that would have happened would be his manager taking him aside and explaining him how the comment might be perceived by the audience in the absence of context and given the employee’s role within the department (assuming there is a connection, of course).

End of story. No harm done, no disciplinary measure taken, no job transfer, and most importantly a small but valuable lesson learned by an employee who is now that much wiser and whose energy and talent can now be channeled on things that matter.

***

To this employee, I would like to offer a practical tip. Next time, leave Santa out of the equation. Instead, tweet this: “Making a spreadsheet and wondering which jobs will be cut. What Would Jesus Do?”. At least this way if any complaint is filed, your Values and Ethics unit may conclude that you were exercising your “freedom of religion”.

I’m kidding of course. I mean, really: it’s a joke... A JOKE! Get it?

There is no substitute for wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:02:00 +0000

Let's start the year on the right foot with this inspiring TED talk by Barry Schwartz:

"The problem with relying on rules and incentives is that they demoralize professional activity [...] in two senses: First, they demoralize the people who are engaged in the activity [...]. Second, they demoralize the activity itself. The very practice is demoralized and the practitioners are demoralized."

I also have a related post on rules and thoughtlessness, which was also inspired by a talk by Barry Schwartz at TED.

An Inconvenient Renewal: Still Relevant?

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 16:18:00 +0000

"An Inconvenient Renewal: Are Managers Ready to Change the Way They Manage?" is three years old today!

The paper's website has received 4,492 visitors since November 5, 2007 (an imperfect measure, I acknowledge), not counting those who came across the document in some other fashion. That's about 2% of the federal public service.

But is the topic still relevant? I would like to hear your thoughts...

The Rat Pack is back!

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 04:15:00 +0000

Hello loyal readers!

I know, I know. I have been a very bad b...logger! ;-)

After a hiatus of over a year, and much hesitation, I will soon be resuming my speaking and blogging activities. I probably wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't for the fact that I was recently invited to be on a panel with my two fellow "rat packers", David Eaves and Nick Charney.

Come join us on October 8, 2010! (see poster below).

Characteristics of Contrarian Thinking

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Mon, 17 May 2010 22:29:00 +0000

"Contrarian thinking is characterized by these elements:

Conventional wisdom is not simply accepted as wisdom
Current practices are always scrutinized for better ways
The questions “why” or “why not” are frequent
Knowing what others are doing and why is constant
Multiple voices are encouraged to speak into issues
Risk taking and innovation are valued
Leveraging for maximum ministry results is the constant goal
Thinking grey is common"

- T.J. Addington

ContrarianThinking.ca makes the Top 150 Management & Leadership Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:12:00 +0000

My blog is listed on Noop's Top 150 Management & Leadership Blogs and takes spot # 115. "The ordered list was created using statistics from Google PageRank, Bing, Alexa, Technorati, Twitter Grader, PostRank and FeedBurner." Not bad given that I have pretty much been inactive on my blog since last summer!

It is quite an honour since many of my favorite management and leadership blogs are also on the list, like Management Excellence, Leadership at Work, Marshall Goldsmith, Get Me Jamie Notter, and of course Managing Leadership.

That being said, don't expect any new post from me before the completion of my mini-retirement! ;-)

How I will get my groove back

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:47:00 +0000

“The future is not a result of choices among alternatives paths offered by the present, but a place that is created - created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not someplace we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.”
- Mary Jane Ryan

This is the first day of 2010, my first post in three months, and the first time I will express any sort of opinion on my blog since July.

As one of the first non-official federal public service bloggers and a fairly outspoken contrarian on the topic of people management, staffing, and values and ethics (just to name a few), I have made myself a very easy target for the defenders of the status quo on these sensitive issues.

Still to this day, I meet opposition every time I open my mouth and express an idea that goes against "the way things have always been done", or something that begs for a change in behaviour on the part of the people in the audience. At first, I had the element of surprise playing in my favour, but with time I have noticed that my efforts to change the culture have in many cases caused those who most need to change to harden their position.

Consequently, for me, 2009 has been... hum... interesting. On one hand, I have experienced the greatest satisfaction in my entire professional life, when I received tangible proofs of the positive impact my work was having on employee engagement within my organization. On the other hand, a series of disappointments stemming from events, circumstances, as well as the actions and behaviours of certain people outside my immediate organization, have caused me to disengage from my work (ironically!), the broader renewal agenda, and my blogging activity.

On the personal front however, 2009 has been generous to me. It wasn't always easy (understatement!), but in the end I emerged a grown person. As a result, many of my priorities in life have changed, and quite frankly at the present time, blogging and my work on PS Renewal are simply not among them. The few times in the last six months when I found my passion back, I noticed it was always accompanied by an exceedingly high level of intolerance towards silly bureaucracy, poor management, and the everyday human stupidity. All in all, a very dangerous cocktail for venting frustrations in a nonconstructive way!

I have therefore decided to focus on the essential in my work life, and the part that energizes me the most and which I am most proud of: my immediate organization, Conservation and Protection in the Pacific Region. I'm blessed to have outstanding bosses, colleagues, and employees. No citizen could dream of having a more committed group of people as their public servants. Above all, I really believe I work for the single best organization in the entire federal public service!

True to my contrarian inclinations, I have also decided to take a three-months "mini-retirement" at a time that could be considered the peak of my short but fulfilling career. While the world will be converging to my city, Vancouver, to watch the 2010 Winter Olympics, I'll be escaping the frenzy to go enjoy life quietly in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I still don't know what awaits me there, but I sure will make the most of it!

I wish you all a happy and fulfilling year!

Blog Post and Article Recommendations

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:40:00 +0000

And the poll says...

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:03:00 +0000

Earlier this summer I wrote a controversial post that upsetted some of my readers. Curious to find out what the rest of my readership thought of the incident, I created a poll and asked them what I should do with the post, i.e.:

Leave it there as it is;
Edit-it, leaving traces of the changes;
Re-write it in light of the comments received;
Remove it completely and admit it was a bad call.

Here are the results, based on 20 responses:

What should I do with my post "A Not-So-Inconvenient Renewal, Episode II: Revenge of the Contrarian Thinker" ?

If you have been following my blog over the summer, you know that I have left the original post intact, and followed-up with a response a few days later in the post "1000 Managers". All in all, it was an interesting experiment and a learning experience as well.

A few months earlier, I had administered another poll seeking to know which three posts on ContrarianThinking readers had preferred the most. The percentage of votes was distributed as follows:

50% Leadership in a Culture of Compliance
40% Facing Facebook
40% Performance Management and Measurement
30% Why Work for the Public Service
30% My “Personal” PS Renewal Vision
30% Staffing in Three Weeks and Missed Opportunities
20% On Values and Ethics
20% Blogging @ Work.gc.ca
20% Values and Ethics in the Public Service of Canada: Tautology or Missed Opportunity?
0% On-the-Spot Job Offers: Real Solution or Quick Fix?

Thanks to everyone who took the polls!

Summer's Top 150: Last Installment

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:08:00 +0000

It's the last day of summer already, and there you have it: the 150+ blog posts, articles, presentations, podcasts and videos I've come across over the last 3 months. Here's the final installment:

If there's a single link from this Summer's Top 150 you need to check out, this is the one: a great slide show on company culture, and very relevant to the public service.
Forget excellence - Be outstanding!
Realigning Your Role
Owning Your Career
Behavior never lies
Execute or die
Maybe (New Michael Jordan Commercial) - I just like the implication for employees :-)
The New Employee Retention Crisis: Retaining Low Performers
What are you thinking about
Employee Engagement: You Are Not the Boss of Me.
Multitasking, marijuana, managing?
When weak management pushes top performers out the door
Behaving badly
Facebook Friending Policy
5 Ways HR Can Poise a Firm for Growth?
It takes two baby!

Summer's Top 150: Miscellaneous

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:25:00 +0000

A bit of everything today...

Henry Mintzberg, my all-time favourite management author, released his new book "Managing" this summer, and it's starting to get some attention. See here, here and here - or this video interview.

HR

Why new hires fail - here are the causes
Do not conduct Exit Interviews
How to Fix Succession Planning

Technology

Resource

Steve Cunningham has a neat website where he summarizes in a short video the key points of the management books he reads. Here's one I liked.
Self-Coaching Guides: Communication, Leadership, Motivation
10 Free Leadership Video Sites

Funny!

Summer's Top 150: Personal Development

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:35:00 +0000

It's not just up to our bosses and supervisors to change; we too have something to learn and improve:

Summer's Top 150: Supervision & Performance Management

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:52:00 +0000

I know, I know. This "dump post" includes way too many articles. But the topic is soooo important!

Summer's Top 150: Employee Engagement

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:44:00 +0000

Third installment of the summer's Top 150:

Summer's Top 150: Change Management

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:32:00 +0000

For this second "dump post" of the week, I present you my favourite resources of the summer on change management:

Summer's Top 150: Management Thought

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:54:00 +0000

It has been nearly two months since I have posted anything on my blog, and exactly three months since I have shared any article recommendation.

I'm going to make up for the lost time by doing a 6-part blitz of the 150 best articles / blog posts / podcasts / videos that I have come across over the summer. So brace yourself!!!

Gary Hamel's “moonshots for management”, part 1, 2, and 3
Essential Reading for Management Revolutionaries
More Must-Reads for Management Revolutionaries
Management MUST Be Reinvented
Just Managing
The Elitist Undertones of Leadership
Leadership Is Responsibility, Not Power
Rethinking the MBA
Managers Not MBAs: Debating the Merits of Business Education
Searching for balance (Interview with Henry Mintzberg)
Long time blogger Carmine Coyote retires from blogging

A Not-So-Inconvenient Renewal, Episode III: 1000 Managers

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:52:00 +0000

It looks like my last post has upset or turned off quite a few people. It is quite evident that to some readers, I'm coming across as a frustrated and arrogant little "Joe-know-it-all". It's not unusual for me to get that, and honestly, it is partly true(!).

What is also true is that the majority of my readership doesn't know me personally and therefore is not in the best position to fully appreciate where I'm coming from when I write some of my posts.

The discussion that followed the post (which by the way is the most interaction I've seen on my blog since I created it three and a half years ago) made me reflect on why am I the way that I am, why am I so passionate about good people management, and why I will sometime go overboard to push for my agenda.

I could trace the roots all the way back to high school, to a number of very formative experiences I've had in the numerous jobs that I have held, and to a series of specific incidents that I have been involved in since I joined the public service. To make a long story short, there's some history there, and it's only the kind of stuff that I share intimately with friends after a few glasses of wine. The take-away is that life shapes you as a person, as an employee... and as a blogger.

Don't worry, I will spare you the details before this post turns into a soap opera, but I will say that relatively few people are aware of the details of my journey in the public service. Those who are familiar with the stories are typically in disbelief when they find out about some of the situations I have experienced (and still am going through), and consequently have a different perspective when they later read my blog posts (not that they necessarily condone what I say).

Regardless, in my last post I breached to various degrees the three guidelines I had set for myself and tried my best to apply when I started blogging:

Depersonalize the issues as much as possible. It's about ideas, not people.
Be constructive rather than adversarial.
Trade cynical comments for arguments that support what a lot of people are thinking quietly.

As a blogger, this is what I can (and should) be providing: a storyline, a rationale, a logical argument that most people are unable to express or unwilling to express publicly - much less in writing or on a blog.

I still have a lot to learn, but those are the general guidelines I normally use when I submit my post. In the case of "Revenge of the Contrarian Thinker", I will admit that I have failed my own censorship.

What is done is done, and as one of my readers wrote to me: "Don't apologize for feeling the way you felt when you wrote your post." If however my post has offended you or turned you off, I want to let you know that I am sorry.

Now on to better things...

I don't pretend to have invented renewal - I haven't. In fact, I never used the word "renewal" until PS Renewal was launched, and I was actually fairly critical of the choice of words in the introduction of "An Inconvenient Renewal".

So when I joined my current organization, saw the poor state it was in, and found a director who shared similar views about how he wanted to change it, we set out not to "renew" the organization, but simply treat employees the way we would like to be treated as employees. The PSES results may not be empirical evidence of renewal, but I like to think (perhaps naively) that it is currently the best (and only?) means available to measure the link between leadership, personal ownership, action, and results, as seen by employees. This is the reason why I tend to give so much weight to the PSES as an indicator of our efforts: the measures are consistent with the approach we took to renewal in our organization.

The so-called "renewal" experienced in my organization is not a new idea, nor is it innovative. What distinguishes our organization from others is that we have actually translated the ideas into actions, relentlessly pursued them, and made sure they reached every employee in every corner of the organization. As I keep repeating in my presentations and articles, there's absolutely nothing novel, complex or complicated in what we have done; the hard part is actually doing it, because you have to do it every single day.

You must be open to new and challenging ideas. You must be willing to have difficult conversations with employees. You must practice truth-telling. You must make unpopular decisions. You must welcome criticism. And you must apologize to employees and be held accountable for your missteps. I know few people willing to do all of this, and even fewer organizations where this is commonplace.

Managers must also believe that by putting people first, they will be in a better position to address the demands and pressures of their jobs. This, however, requires a significant investment upfront before seeing and appreciating the payoff.

So if it is true that most managers care for people management, then why are the people who find out about my organization's renewal story so inspired and hopeful for the future? Rather than risking to draw more criticism upon myself, I will leave it up to you, the readers of this blog, to propose your own explanation as to what the gap or problem is. I already have my own theory.

There is hope. My organization is a fairly small one: about 200 employees. In other words, we represent less than one thousandth (1/1000) of the federal public service. This also means that if 1000 managers who are each in charge of approximately 200 employees would take a similar approach to people management as we have done, the entire public service could undergo a pretty radical change.

1000 managers. Think of it. It is really not that many. The big question is: Who will those 1000 managers be?

What should I do with my last post?

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:31:00 +0000

What should I do with my last post?

Take the poll in the side-bar, but before you do have a look at the comment section.

And feel free to leave your comments as well. (This is the most discussion there has ever been on this blog!)

A Not-So-Inconvenient Renewal, Episode II: Revenge of the Contrarian Thinker

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:26:00 +0000

Well, the last few weeks have been… hum… interesting to say the least. Indeed, I’ve met more challenges than what I expected with regards to release of the results of the Public Service Employee Survey (PSES) for my organization.

The first challenge came immediately after I circulated a preliminary analysis of the PSES where I compared the performance of my organization from 2005 to 2008. Very quickly, voices in my Department started to claim that "we can’t compare the results of the 2005 and 2008 surveys". So much in fact, that the direction provided to the managers was just short of instructing them not to compare the results. I found this most unfortunate, because the PSES provided a pretty detailed picture of the progress made by my organization and all the work that went into it, and now, some people almost seemed eager to sweep it all under the rug, as if it never happened. So much for performance management and the need to set measurable benchmarks!

The second challenge I faced was when I approached the Communications branch of my Department to find ways of sharing the story of the renewal experienced in my organization, thinking that it may be inspiring for managers to know that renewal is possible, and putting people first actually makes a big difference. Let’s just say that I didn’t exactly find the support I was hoping for, and I was literally stunned by the reasons I was given:

A link can be made with PS Renewal, and the Department is not the authority for PS Renewal and the PSES – the Clerk and the Chief HR Officer are. (Therefore the Department won’t authorize me to speak about our results on the PSES and our renewal story.)
We don’t want to draw any attention to any organization in particular. (So much for striving for excellence in the public service – instead, one should always try to reach for the lowest common denominator!)
The 2005 PSES results for my organization were so poor, that it may look bad on the Department. (But if we need to “renew”, isn’t it to change to something “better”? Because if that’s the case and if we end up with something “better”, we must at one point have started with something that was “worse” than what we have now…)

The third challenge came in the form of four requests I received to be removed from my mailing list in the days after I released “A Not-So-Inconvenient Renewal: What Happens When Managers Change the Way They Manage”. In itself, I have no problem with people asking me to be removed from my mailing list. But in this specific case, all four requests came from Executives of the public service. If anyone needs to pay a little attention to PS Renewal and the PSES, and how we can create better organization through improved people management, I would think it should be the 4000+ executives of the PS. Now I don’t have 4000 executives on my mailing list, but nevertheless, I thought four of them asking to be removed after receiving my document was four too many.

But before jumping to conclusions, I assumed for a moment that maybe their organizations were so well-run that they didn’t have anything to learn from our experience. So I tried to track down the PSES results for those four organizations and compare their numbers to ours. I could only identify one organization with certainty and get its PSES results for both 2005 and 2008, but happily it was also the organization for which the person who had written to me asking to be removed from my mailing list was the highest-ranking of the group: a CEO/President of a public service agency, who I assume is probably an EX-4, and most importantly, the person responsible for the entire organization!

The comparison is available here. Using the same methodology as I did in my previous analysis, I compiled the data in two tables:

The 2005 and 2008 PSES results for my organization and this “undisclosed” organization.
A direct comparison of the 2008 results between the two organizations.

Have a look at the numbers, and draw your own conclusions. Once again, the results speak for themselves. However, I will draw your attention to two questions in particular:

Q. 55. I believe that senior management has made progress toward resolving the issues raised in the 2005 Public Service Employee Survey.
Q. 54. I believe that senior management will try to resolve concerns raised in this survey.

It seems to me that these two all-encompassing questions provide a pretty good clue as to the kind of leadership we are likely to find in an organization, and should therefore be the first two questions managers consider if they take PS Renewal and the PSES seriously. So I invite you to do the same, and find out what are the PSES results to these two questions for your organization, and how it has progressed from 2005 to 2008.

By the way, if you happen to be the Clerk or the Chief HR Officer, and want to know who the four executives who asked to be removed from my mailing list are, feel free to give me a ring! ;-)

A Not-So-Inconvenient Renewal: What Happens When Managers Change the Way They Manage

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:40:00 +0000

If you have been following my work over the last couple of years, you may be wondering if I actually practice what I preach with regards to organization renewal, change management, and most importantly, people management.

Every three years, the federal public service of Canada administers a government-wide survey called the Public Service Employee Survey (PSES). The 2005 PSES was administered just a week before I joined my current organization. The last PSES was administered in November and December 2008, and the results were released a few weeks ago. I have done the analysis, and the results speak for themselves: renewal is possible, and yes, people management does make a difference!

I have just put together a document entitled "A Not-So-Inconvenient Renewal: What Happens When Managers Change the Way They Manage". It presents the dramatic progress made by my organization between 2005 and 2008, as measured by the PSES.

The document is an epilogue to “An Inconvenient Renewal: Are Public Service Managers Ready to Change the Way They Manage?”, a paper I released in 2007 in which I stressed the importance of good people management and argued that while top-down change has its merits, many of the things that would make the most significant and palpable difference don’t happen at the top of the organization, but rather at the field level in the everyday interactions between managers and their employees.

I hope the PSES results will convince you that when managers change the way they manage, the ripple effects can be felt throughout the organization. To learn more about the renewal efforts in my organization, you may browse through some of the links featured in the side-bar of my blog under the header "My Websites, Papers, and Other Initiatives".

Enjoy you reading, and please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any question.

Awesome Reading Recommendations

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:35:00 +0000

I've been away for the last two weeks, both for work and leisure. When I returned I had over 300 articles waiting for me in my RSS reader. I managed to process them all, and here are my top recommendations, arranged by themes:

On Staffing:

On Thinking:

On Collaboration:

On creativity and innovation:

On Leadership:

Miscellaneous:

And my favourite quote of the week:

"If you perform at your personal best, doing everything possible to make a success of the immediate situation, then doing it as a ‘leader’ or a ‘follower’ has no meaning." (Miki Saxon)

Dump Post: New Format

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 03:49:00 +0000

I'm back from a short but activity-packed vacation in Tofino with my old friend Patrick Di Fruscia who I had not seen in nearly 10 years. In addition to being a great travel companion, Patrick taught me a few photography tricks and as a result, I felt like my pictures improved in a matter of just a few days. Still, I have quite a bit of work to do before I can catch up to the level of his talent.

Speaking of photography, a new picture of the Tiananmen Square protests' "Tank Man" was published last week. I have used the photo seen across the world in one of my presentation to illustrate courage, but I find this new picture even more dramatic, as "Tank Man" can be seen walking towards the tanks, while everyone else is running in the opposite direction. I wonder what happened to him. I hope someday we will find out.

Some readers have written to me asking for a brief description of what the links I recommend are about. I'm testing the new format. Here we go:

I've never been a big fan of the "symphony conductor as leader" analogy, but this post is actually quite good: 8 Things Leaders Can Learn from Symphony Conductors.
Ann Bares asks "whether we should focus on being the best places or the best high performance places to work" in Rewards Metrics: Engagement versus the Bottom Line.
Carmine Coyote offers a very interesting perspective on motivation in Musings About Motivation and Mike Chitty responds.
Lots of interesting comments to Gary Hamel's post about "deep-seated impediments". The one left by Kausar Fahim especially rings true with me.
MBAs have been getting a pretty bad rep lately, and this podcast entitled MBA: Most Bloody Awful explains why.
Want to learn how to make a good presentation? Here are some lessons learned from TED and Change This, and Six Secrets of Top Communicators.
Art Petty offers a common sense approach to management in general and project management
Chris Brogan distinguishes between audience and community.
Mark Gould navigates the seven Cs of knowledge.
David Eaves discusses Public Service and Citizen Engagement in the Information Age.
Three ways to impress your employees
In what I found to be one of the most profound presentations ever made at TED, Liz Coleman issues a call to reinvent liberal arts education and criticizes the fact that "the expert has dethroned the educated generalist to become the sole model of intellectual accomplishment". Watching her talk, I could think of quite a few implications for change management and the federal public service.

Your feedback is always appreciated.

A Bigger One!

noreply@blogger.com (Etienne Laliberté) — Tue, 19 May 2009 08:04:00 +0000

I know some of you would like me to comment on each link I share in these "dump posts" or at least give a snippet for what the article is about, but that will have to wait (I just can't make the time for it right now)! In the meantime, enjoy the best of the last week: