Canadian Government Executive - Volume 27 - Issue 02

24 / Canadian Government Executive // March/April 2021 MIDDLE MANAGEMENT DOING THE RIGHT THINGS RIGHT BY JOHN WILKINS BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. — GEORGE ORWELL (1949): NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR B y 2015, 245 million surveillance cameras were installed world- wide. That number is growing by 15 per cent every year. In addition, smartphones capture hundreds of millions of images daily, rang- ing from birthday parties to bank robberies. Whether people applaud increased security or denounce diminished privacy, we live in a global society under close observation. There are strong bureaucratic pressures and tendencies within government for conformity, compliance, and centralized control. This is often chalked up to a risk- averse culture and no tolerance for mistakes or failure. Myriad overseers, watchdogs, and enforcers patrol the hallways of parliamen- tary, central agency, regulatory, and execu- tive offices. Oversight mandates are grounded in clear management authorities and accountability frameworks, transparent management con- trol systems, and rigorous measurement, monitoring, evaluation, and audit process- es. The job seems mainly about catching people doing something wrong. What if we tried instead to catch people doing the right things right? Serving public interests Growing up in the 1960s meant aspiring to and speaking out for higher causes. Human rights, civil rights, and social justice issues abounded, leading to public demonstra- tions, ground-breaking laws, and equitable lifestyles. People cared about what was right, sought the truth, and advocated a ‘Just Soci- ety’. It is the same today, just way more com- plex, turbulent, and fast-paced. Government is in the eye of the hurricane. Public servants are expected to manage professionally in the public interest. Merit requires them to be qualified, non-partisan, values-driven, ethical, and skilled in their chosen profession. Capable public manag- ers know how to mesh talent, resources, and results across government. They are trusted policy advisors and program managers. Public managers must be able to evaluate and recommend options when faced with tough decisions. Implementing new strate- gies requires accomplished change leader- ship. Through experience, they learn how mastering critical thinking achieves strategic change and innovation. They need to antici- pate political, corporate, and personal risks that are not necessarily congruent with the public interest. Evaluating impact is prerequisite to doing the right thing. Practitioners need to know how to design evidence-based policies and programs. Impact evaluations bring togeth- er empirical research tools, political econo- my, and context to make implementation a reality. Delivering results Despite a track record of delivering robust results, Canadian governments bought into Sir Michael Barber’s millennial public man- agement global brand. At its core, ‘Deliver- ology’ is the marriage of political priorities and public service capacity to deliver on government commitments. It seeks to do things right to accelerate and intensify the drive for results. Deliverology features four stages of change: (1) policy development; (2) relentless imple- mentation; (3) embedded change; and (4) irreversible progress. It calls for rigorous pri- oritization, challenge, problem solving, and collaboration. The difference from Results Based Management is emphasis on central delivery units and evidence-based processes. As much as 90 per cent of attention and effort is placed on implementation. New Liberal governments in Toronto in 2003 and Ottawa in 2015 subscribed and added their own twists. Canada eschewed top-down, command-and-control govern- ment in favour of bottom-up engagement, accountability, collaboration, and capacity building. Ontario institutionalized contest- ability, transparency, corporate horizon- tal reviews, and third-party validation of achievements. In the spirit of intrapreneurship, public servants were asked to drive innovation and excellence. The delivery culture was charac- terized by ambition, focus, clarity, urgency, and irreversibility. Technology and talent had to hit the ground running, with little tol- erance for mistakes. Public servants trained as leaders and project managers were en- gaged, enabled, empowered, and account- able for outcomes. “The science of delivery” is perhaps the most overstated claim. Robert Behn of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government counters that, whereas scientific knowledge is explicit, most management and leadership knowledge is tacit; that is, we can know more than we can tell. He argues that Deliverology offers no explanation of the causal connec- tion between process and results. Dr. Barber’s 57 Rules are insufficient with- out recourse to political context and situ- ational leadership. Public managers fashion strategies to deliver services, improve perfor- mance, and produce results. Behn concludes that managers know something, quite a lot in fact, much more than they can tell. John Wilkins is adjunct Faculty in Public Management at York Univer- sity. He was a career senior public servant and diplomat. (wilkins@ yorku.ca)