In thinking about how to ask the right questions, one answer is to make the matter personal. Who is capable of asking the right questions: an individual working in the public sector, or the public sector system at large? Does the driver or the vehicle make the turn?
If we trust in personal questioning and change, who will achieve it? The obvious answer is the young, new public servants, the technologically savvy, and the outsider, can most easily innovate. This is one reason for the reliance on consultants, who can provide a fresh perspective. However, there is a practical problem here. New workers are often eager to integrate into the workforce, lest inexperience be taken for incompetence; consultants are, by nature, transient employees. Seasoned workers, on the other hand, might be used to older models of thinking and more resistant to change, even though they have the experience and leverage to effect it.
This call to arms, then, goes out to all experience levels. At all stages, question your assumptions. And, if you are in a position to draw the best out of your colleagues or employees, regardless of age or experience, do it. Innovation will come from personal questioning and from accessing those around you, but only if the culture of change is encouraged by authority and fostered by the individual. This, after all, was what the February 5th Conference was about: celebrating excellence in remarkable public servants, and encouraging them to continue to think outside the box.
