Quote of the week
“If you are comfortable with what you are doing, you are leading in the past.”
— Louise Levonian
Editor’s Corner
The second annual CGE Leadership Summit was held yesterday in Ottawa. The session focused on public sector change and leadership, so of course there was discussion related to Blueprint 2020.
Awards were given out to recipients who had demonstrated leadership in driving change.
The conference included leading practitioners from government and the private sector. Louise Levonian, Associate Deputy Minister at Finance, and Andrew Treusch, the head of the Canada Revenue Agency, reminded us about both the scope of the Blueprint 2020 exercise and our responsibilities as leaders to respond.
One challenge will be managing expectations: with 3,000 ideas from 40 percent of the public service workforce sent in through various social media, it will be important to demonstrate that the process will make a difference.
Leaders will need to find new ways of managing work and leading people: Levonian suggested the use of tiger teams and innovation labs, focused on new technologies and adapting to social media.
Outside experts from IBM and the Project Management Institute had good advice for leaders: focus on strategic outcomes; remember that leadership is not an exercise in power; remain agile; embrace new tools such as business analytics.
David Ulrich from the University of Michigan reminded us that leadership is about collective and shared processes that direct people and organizations. Vince Molinaro of Knightsbridge led a panel and suggested that before taking on a new responsibility, leaders should make a “contract” with themselves so that they are clear about their tasks and obligations…and their willingness to take them on.
Back on the Blueprint 2020 front: the next report, called Destination 2020, will come out in May and will set the stage for ongoing federal public service change.
