EP 53: The practice and challenges of Enterprise Performance Management
In this episode of CGE Radio, J. Richard Jones talks with Suzanne Nickerson, National Lead for Defence Sector at KPMG in Canada; Partner, Management Consulting and Linda Lizotte-MacPherson, who held a number of deputy minister positions in the federal government from 2005 to 2016. These included President of the Canada Border Services Agency, President of the...
In the 5th century BC, Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. The governor’s transitional problem was how to maintain what had been gained. At the threshold of a renewed covenant, the people of Israel needed different leadership ideas and skills. Being of service, value, and impactful meant transitioning from the leader as catalyst-designer-motivator-entrepreneur to the...
The Phoenix pay system debacle
In the spring of 2018, the Auditor General of Canada, Michael Ferguson, released a hard-hitting report on the Phoenix pay system. The overarching question was whether Public Services and Procurement Canada “effectively and efficiently managed and oversaw” the implementation of the new pay system. The report confirms that tens of thousands of public servants have...
A few years back, consultants with ghSMART told us the biggest question we face is “who”: Picking staff is our most important decision, even more critical than “what” – the strategy we will employ. These days, in an era in which purpose is prized, “why” can often be the biggest question. But recently, best-selling author...
Northern Leadership Perspectives: An interview with Dr. Joe Dragon
Wildlife Biologist, professional hockey player and public servant, born and raised in a small First Nations Community in the Northwest Territories, Joe Dragon has returned home as the NWTs Deputy Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. He joins CGE Editor-in-Chief George Ross to share his leadership perspectives. Dr. Joe Dragon was appointed in December 2016 as Deputy Minister...
Bookshelf: The Four Tendencies
At work, we are often trying to satisfy a bundle of expectations, which can be boiled down to those expectations we place upon ourselves and those placed by others. In government, of course, those outer expectations can be powerful, handed down from the public, the minister, and our immediate boss. But we all react differently,...
Large-scale change occurs when a sizeable body of people gets behind an opportunity and acts on critical initiatives linked to a shared strategy. Kotter International estimates that companies with highly-engaged employees average 147 per cent higher earnings per share. Dr. John Kotter states that, “… history has demonstrated that it is possible to find many...
We all ask why governments fail, often spectacularly, to carry out their policy goals through bad implementation. When something goes wrong, we watch the arch of public attention rise, demands for accountability, and then governments move in to fix the problem. Then, we move on. We seldom go back and do a post-mortem on failure....
Five ways to improve strategic planning
Why is strategic planning so dreaded? How often do we actually deliver what the plan outlined? Why is buy-in so low? How many retreats are show-and-tell sessions instead of true strategic discussions? Why do we find ourselves at year-end, engaged in creative writing to provide the impression that we met our goals? A handful of...
Better accountability through combining RBM with project management tools
As the resettlement of Syrian Refugees exemplifies, government programs, currently running on RBM, can be made more accountable if they were managed using PM principles, as well. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has outlined five accountability criteria for evaluating projects: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, and impact. Setting the latter two aside, for...
