Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 02

March/April 2018 // Canadian Government Executive / 25 Smart Cities Prior to joining the City of Toronto as its first-ever Chief Transformation Officer last year, I worked as a consultant man- aging large-scale and high-stakes trans- formations in both the private and public sector. My main takeaway from these ex- periences was the importance of having a holistic view on transformation and rec- ognizing how organizational culture must be aligned with wider goals in order to achieve them. In all areas, the City is transforming to continuously improve and modernize the delivery of public services. Peter Wallace, Toronto’s City Manager at the time and now Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, championed the creation of my role to set the conditions to bring these am- bitions to life. I took stock of how we were working as an organization and identi- fied seven pillars that are key to a cultural transformation that will set a path to our goals, as well as give voice and engage our people in the process. The City’s cultural transformation is hinged on modern gov- ernance, continuous improvement, build- ing a data culture, strategic partnerships, effectively managing change, embedding innovation, and experimentation. Bold and modern governance Organizations are filled with great minds. However, decisions often tend to be made by the same executives on various internal committees. In order to bring new ideas to the decision making table and enhance engagement, the City is changing our in- ternal committee governance structure to include different levels of staff from dif- ferent areas of the organization. This pro- vides diverse thoughts in decision making as well as a development opportunity for staff to contribute to higher level strate- gies and decisions. Framework for continuous improvement The City has engaged in Excellence Can- ada’s “Excellence, Innovation and Well- ness” framework as a way to formalize our mission for continuous improvement and organizational excellence. In 2017, the City was successful in achieving the first level of accreditation and is working to- wards the second. This framework is an integral guide for the City to continuously assess and seek opportunities to further improve how we work and deliver ser- vices. Building a data culture Building a data culture is a key aspect to enabling wider transformations. Data cul- ture isn’t exclusive to data-based decision making, it is about how organizations ap- proach, manage and use data, and make open data available for the public and other stakeholders to use. With the collec- tion and use of data comes great responsi- bility from a privacy standpoint. Building a strong data culture in organizations like the City will help to spur digital and smart city transformations and more widely in- fluence how we work to deliver services in evidence-based ways. Collaboration through partnerships Partnerships come in all different shapes and sizes. Rather than reinvent the wheel when it comes to executing on new areas outside our expertise, fostering a culture of collaborative partnerships is critical to improve how we serve Toronto’s residents, businesses and visitors. It also helps us to learn as an organization and leverage col- lective strengths across Toronto’s public, private and non-profit sectors. Successfully managing change Adopting change is at the heart of all trans- formations. In order to build a culture of transformation, organizations must focus on how to successfully manage the people side of change. This is an area on which the City has been focusing and has invested in developing a change management centre of excellence to bring methodology and standards and build capability and capac- ity to help drive big projects that win the support of all stakeholders and deliver sig- nificant results, on time and on budget. Embedded innovation Everyone can innovate. Developing a mind- set where staff across an organization can approach challenges from different angles is really valuable to improve how we work and deliver public services. The City is ex- ploring how we can incorporate design thinking into our day-to-day processes and also use it to tackle ambitious civic chal- lenges that impact Toronto residents. The City’s Civic Innovation Office, funded by the Bloomberg Philanthropies i-teams pro- gram, is beginning to address this work, and the City is committed to developing ways to embed innovation more widely. Experimentation Projects that impact public service are, by nature, complex and nuanced. While pub- lic servants thoroughly conduct research, plan an approach, and execute the plan, sometimes the outcome is a roaring success or conversely doesn’t turn out as predicted. Creating a cultural transformation around experimentation allows organizations to test ideas and learn from those outcomes to determine the best route forward, all the while managing risk. Like the old adage “nothing ventured, nothing gained”, we’re looking to build a culture where ventures can be tested carefully and dealt with ap- propriately depending on how they go. I believe these seven cultural transforma- tion pillars are key to moving the City’s cur- rent state in a direction to achieve our wider transformation goals that aim to improve Toronto for all those who live, work and play here. People are at the heart of the City and ultimately at the heart of our business: serving the public. While organizations can implement new operations and adopt new technology to achieve a transformation, it is the cultural piece that is crucial to sustain and allow those transformations to thrive and realize desired outcomes. M ichael K olm is Chief Transformation Officer, City of Toronto “While public servants thoroughly conduct research, plan an approach, and execute the plan, sometimes the outcome is a roaring success or conversely doesn’t turn out as predicted. ”