Category Archives: Business

Effectiveness vs. Efficiency

austin-distel-WtXcbWXK_ww-unsplash.jpgThese two “E-F-F” words are what drives a lot of what happens in society today. If you want to run a successful business or a successful organization, you’ve gotta find a way to increase your efficiency, while maximizing your effectiveness. But which one is more important? As is often the case in life, it depends on the context.

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For me, I’ve often defaulted to trying to be as efficient as I can (mostly). In the last few months, I’ve come to realize that my worshipping at the feet of efficiency might actually be costing me in effectiveness. Huh? Yeah, if you’re too efficient, it might mean that you’re lowering your effectiveness. In my head, I’m imagining one of those graphs where efficiency is plotted on the x-axis and effectiveness on the y-axis. As efficiency goes up, so does effectiveness. However, there’s a point towards the right of the graph where an increase in efficiency leads to a decrease in effectiveness. Becoming more efficient is no longer in yours (or the company’s best interest).

That’s a lot of words — how about an example. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. A recent episode of The Next Big Idea illustrated how you can have a wholly efficient system in AI/ML, but this increase in efficiency is lowering the system’s effectiveness. For example, let’s say you’ve got an algorithm that’s screening out candidates for specific qualities in your hiring process. Using AI/ML can accelerate the efficiency — it can read 1,000’s of applications in the time it would take a human to read a handful of applications. However, the system probably won’t be well-calibrated for racial bias (as has often been showing on numerous occasions). Increase in efficiency, decrease in effectiveness.

I liked the way that Prof. Eberhardt framed her suggestion: “add more friction to the system.” This will lower the efficiency of it, but it will increase the effectiveness. By adding friction, you’ll slow down the processing speed, but the slow down in time will build-in an opportunity to correct misgivings before they become official.

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This also reminds me of a Farnam Street article about the difference between speed and velocity:

Velocity and speed are different things. Speed is the distance traveled over time. I can run around in circles with a lot of speed and cover several miles that way, but I’m not getting anywhere. Velocity measures displacement. It’s direction-aware.

A lot of people think in terms of one dimension (speed). Almost all of those people are passed by people who think in multiple dimensions (velocity).

Square Peg for a Square Hole Inside of a Square

jehyun-sung-6U5AEmQIajg-unsplash.jpgEvery couple of weeks or so, Ben Thompson from Stratechery and James Allworth from Harvard Business Review sit down to talk tech and society. On their most recent episode, I couldn’t help but think of some of the parallel applications to the public service. At around the 30-minute mark of the podcast, the two start talking about the different kinds of organizations (functional and divisional) and how certain leaders are better suited to lead from the different structures.

For instance, they use the example of Steve Jobs — who, most regard as a very successful leader. At the time that he was in charge of Apple, the organization operated, mostly, in a functional structure. The two referred to Jobs as the ultimate “product manager” — all decisions ran through him. As organizations grow, it’s natural for them to shed the functional structure for a divisional structure.

In listening to Ben and James talk about this, the thing that got me excited was that we could almost draw up a 2×2:

  • Functional Leader
  • Divisional Leader
  • Functional Org Structure
  • Divisional Org Structure

Naturally, you’ll want a functional leader operating within a functional org structure and a divisional leader within a divisional org structure. So, it could be that the person who looked like they had potential to be a good leader might be mismatched in the type of role they’ve found themselves in.

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This episode also made me wonder if there needs to be more intentionality around, not only finding the right kind of leader suited for the org structure, but also being clearer about what kind org structure is best for the work being done in the organization. For instance, let’s say we’re in an area of a department that’s highly segmented for projects. OK — maybe that area should be setup in a ‘functional’ way. Or, maybe let’s say that we have a department where there are some clear delineations from one group to the next delivering on big programs. OK — maybe that area should be setup in a ‘divisional’ way.

Essentially, we want to make sure we put the square pegs in the square holes inside of squares and that we put the circular pegs in the circular holes inside of the circles.

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same… Wait What?

Change management is the cornerstone of shepherding an organization through and to change. And since change is the only constant in life [side note: how many articles are there out there about change management where you think Heraclitus is not mentioned?], it seems pretty important that we understand the best ways to go about doing that.

When I think about the times that I’ve aided in an organization undergoing large-scale change, I think about the principles used to help bring that to fruition. Some lean on approaches like Kotter’s 8-step change model while others lean on approaches like ADKAR. For as long as I’ve been part of making change happen more smoothly (or teaching it to university students!), I don’t remember coming across this approach –

Emphasize What Will Stay the Same

Wait, what? We’re changing things here, why do we want to talk about what’s staying the same? We need to sell our people on this new vision and way of doing things. Won’t this torpedo our efforts?

Well, as it happens, no, it won’t. An excerpt [Emphasis Added]:

A root cause of resistance to change is that employees identify with and care for their organizations. People fear that after the change, the organization will no longer be the organization they value and identify with — and the higher the uncertainty surrounding the change, the more they anticipate such threats to the organizational identity they hold dear. Change leadership that emphasizes what is good about the envisioned change and bad about the current state of affairs typically fuels these fears because it signals that changes will be fundamental and far-reaching.

We announce that a change is coming and then people begin to fear the ramifications of losing what it is that they know. We then think that by emphasizing how things are going to be better (read: different) that this will then onboard people to this new vision, when instead, we’re giving them even more reason to dig in their heels against the change. Wow. It reminds me of those times in parenting when, as the parent, you want things not to go a certain way and by espousing that wish, you unintentionally expedite its occurrence.

What should we do, then? Well, how about:

In overcoming resistance to change and building support for change, leaders need to communicate an appealing vision of change in combination with a vision of continuity.

Let’s see if we can apply this knowledge:

  • We’re going to centralize all IT within the federal government. While this change will help us realize efficiencies upon efficiencies, our main goal is – and always will be – to continue to deliver exemplary service to Canadians.
  • We’re going to fundamentally improve the way that public servants apply for positions within the federal government. This change will allow us to better track the knowledge and experience of public servants and of the kinds of skills required of hiring managers across the government. While the interface for jobs.gc.ca will appear different, you’ll still be able to offer hiring managers the same information you did previously (more efficiently to boot!).
  • We’re going to Make America Kind Again increase the level of respect within the federal public service. You’ll still come to work and work on all the same cool things that you get to work today, but now we want to emphasize actions and behaviours that end harassment, curb negative behaviours, and multiply positive behaviours.

Can you think of other examples where you can apply this approach in your upcoming (ongoing) change management efforts?

This was cross-posted to GCconnex/GCcollab.

The Inevitability of Change Forces Faith in the Flexibility of the Flow

You awake on Monday morning ready to meet the day. You’re excited about work today because your new manager is finally ready to join the team. You feel pretty happy to prepare to change your signature from A/Manager back to Senior Analyst/Officer/etc. You get yourself ready to go and make your favourite breakfast because – why not – today’s a great day!

You catch the earlier bus into town because you wanted to make sure that you’ve crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s before the new manager arrives. The clock strikes 9 and it’s time for the weekly management meeting. You grab your notebook and head for the elevators – happy that this will be the last time you attend one of these meetings as the manager.

You exit the elevator and head to the boardroom. The DG and the Directors are already there. You take your seat as the remaining managers file into the room. The DG begins the meeting and you can hardly contain yourself. You’re already looking forward to this afternoon when you can begin working on that side-of-the-desk project you’ve been eyeing for weeks. Your reverie is cut short because you notice your Director is now speaking and they start talking about one of the files from your team. (Ha! Soon to be something that your new manager will be concerned with, not you, you think to yourself.) Your Director takes a beat and looks at you, so you add a bit more colour to what they were saying before the conversation changes gears.
The Director begins to speak again and you hear something, or at least you thought you heard something. The Director begins speaking about the new manager status except they’re not doing it in a jovial tone. And then you can feel the blood draining from your face as you quickly realize what the Director has just said. “The new manager we’d hired to fill the vacancy won’t be able to join us. So, you’re going to be filling in as the A/Manager… indefinitely.”

How could this happen?! The Director told me that it would be for just a short period of time. Just a stop-gap to fill-in, until they could bring in someone more permanent. I just want to be the person who does the stuff, I don’t want to be the person who manages the stuff. How could my Director do this to me?!

All kinds of thoughts rush through your head, all sorts of scenarios cascade in your head from the potential avenues you could take. Instead, you steel yourself in your chair, feign a smile and say, “Happy to help the team however I can.” The Director gives you a nod and moves onto other business.

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There’s a lot to unpack in the above narrative, but I want to draw your attention to the change management aspects (naturally).

Clearly, the “you” in this have lots of feelings about what’s happening (and not happening) in your work environment. You probably feel rather miffed to find out you’ll be continuing on in the manager’s role at the management meeting. Why didn’t the Director tell you before – that seems pretty disrespectful, doesn’t it?

Well, what if I told you that the incoming manager’s mother just had a heart attack and so your manager-to-be had to the cancel their plans for the assignment as your new manager from another government department because all their energy is now spent either at the hospital with their mom or at home with their kids? And what if I told you that the heart attack happened early this morning, so your Director only just found out about it and only just had time to tell the DG and the other Directors, but wasn’t able to squeeze in five minutes to warn you. And, what if I told you that the Director has also been dealing with a messy divorce, so they haven’t been in their usual tip-top shape, when it comes to being on top of some of the “human” elements to managing.

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We’re supposed to spend 37.5 hours a week working. Some spend more, some spend less. That’s only 33% of our waking hours (assuming that we each get 8 hours of sleep, which is probably laughable, given the statistics). That leaves 67% of our waking hours for non-work things. That is a lot of time to get into other kinds of activities. Some have hobbies like playing guitar or learning how to cook. Others volunteer at the local YMCA and others still, have all sorts of things going on in their lives from sick kids to sick parents to relationships beginning and relationships ending. The varieties of experience for the 250,000+ public servants are endless. The point I’m trying to make is that when we come to work – home office or shared office – we bring our whole selves.

In a perfect world, senior management would draw up an ideal change management strategy that fits into the broader departmental strategy. In an ideal world, you’re given plenty of notice about changes to the files you’re working on and the role you’ll play for the team. In an ideal world, people wouldn’t let that angry conversation they had with their spouse or stranger that morning interfere with how they interact with their colleagues the rest of the day. In an ideal world… an ideal world wouldn’t exist. The world is chaotic. Full stop.

Now, just because the world is chaotic doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still have expectations or goals. But, when it comes to those goals, we need to be more flexible and fluid. For those that prefer metaphors – think of yourselves as Niagara Falls, rather than the pond at the end of the lane. Niagara Falls almost never freezes, whereas the pond down the way freezes whenever the temperature drops below -10°C for a few days. Flexible vs. rigid.

So, how do you know if your goal is too rigid? Well, here’s two ideas (hat tip to Jon Acuff):

  1. You become angry when someone interrupts it.
  2. You beat yourself up if you miss it.

Think back to the narrative above. You were rather upset when you found out you wouldn’t be able to go back to “doing” stuff. Was your goal too rigid? Maybe. How do you think the Director felt when they found out that the manager-to-be’s mother was preventing the manager from coming in? I’d like to think the Director was sad to hear that, but maybe the Director was beating themselves up because they weren’t able to meet the goal. Was the goal too rigid? Maybe.

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Change management initiatives are happening all the time and they’re happening all-around us. What if, instead of thinking, wishing, and hoping that these initiatives were 100% successful based on the plan as written on the page, what if we recognized the rigidity in that and cut each other some slack. What if we, instead, expected some degree of rockiness. What if we built into our expectations that there is going to be some many things that occur unexpectedly and what if we made it our goal to respond to those happy accidents with grace and humility. I wonder what change management in the Government of Canada would look like if we all became ambassadors for flowing with the river.

This post originally appeared on GCconnex/GCcollab.

Silence Isn’t Golden: Everyone Thinks You Should Speak

matthias-wagner-QrqeusbpFMM-unsplash.jpgYou’re sitting in the weekly management meeting and the senior person at the table is running through the agenda at a fevered pace. Decisions are being made, left, right, and center, and you can barely keep up with what’s going on. Wondering if you’re alone, you look around the table and it seems that most of your colleagues are following along splendidly. All of their body language indicates that they know what’s going on and are in agreement. As you didn’t have time to read the accompanying materials, you think that it’s probably just you.

How many times have you found yourself here? Watching something happen and assuming that you’re the only one that disagrees with the way things are going.

Hopefully, not too often, but my guess is that 100% of the people reading this have, either: a) found themselves in this scenario, or b) know someone who’s found themselves in this scenario. OK, OK – 99% of you.

As it happens, there’s a name for this – pluralistic ignorance. Huh? Yeah, it’s a bit heavy on the jargon – both in its name and often times, its description. In fact, there’s even disagreement from academics about how to describe it. That’s why it’s often best to explain the phenomenon through examples. There’s the one I shared in the opening, but let’s be honest, that was only a few sentences and you probably spaced out reading it [are you back?].

OK. Here’s a quick video example of one I’ve come across that usually helps crystalize the concept for folks.

https://vimeo.com/63062967

The video shows a few minutes of Prof. Dan Ariely’s class at Duke. It’s only about 4 minutes, so go ahead and give it a quick watch (I’ll wait).

Seriously, g’head and watch it. [Note: it’s a Vimeo link, so many apologies to any of you unable to watch it because of a firewall/blocked IT.]

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Pretty cool, eh? Now, I bet some of you might be saying to yourself, “Yeah, but I would have spoken up and asked the professor what the heck he was talking about.” Sure, maybe you think you would have or maybe you actually would have. The point here is that most people don’t or won’t. This post is supposed to be about change management, after all, so let’s bring it home with something a bit more on-point for all of you.

If you’re reading this, you probably have some experience in change management. Whether you’re a seasoned executive who’s led through countless mergers and acquisitions or a student who’s recently joined the team and are finding yourself super-bored (i.e. you’re on GCconnex/GCcollab reading whatever you can get your hands on), you’ve come into contact with change management. Yes, you have. Depending upon where you are in your career, your examples might be more personal (hello Generation Z!) or professional (hello seasoned executives).

So how does this relate to pluralistic ignorance? Remember that example I shared in the beginning where you found yourself at the decision-making table, but you weren’t quite sure what the heck was going on? That’s exactly the kind of meeting that might happen before a major change. Everyone appears to be in agreement with what’s being said. However, what’s really happening is that most people aren’t in agreement with what’s going on, but think that everyone else is in agreement with what’s going on, so they bite their tongue. Then what happens? Well, then, your group becomes a statistic. And not a good one.

Do you want to become a statistic? Do you want to continue to perpetuate the terrible idea that any change in an organization is doomed to fail more than half the time? I sure as heck don’t. So what can we do? Well, we can speak up. We can       prove ‘pluralistic ignorance’ wrong by raising our hand in the management meeting. We can speak up when we don’t understand what’s happening or don’t believe we’re headed in the right direction or think that our decisions aren’t based on foundational data.

This post originally appeared on GCconnex/GCcollab.

Ohh, You Betta Recognize!

mark-adriane-muS2RraYRuQ-unsplash.jpgThe other day I was feeling particularly spry. There was a jump in my step and I went about my day with great jubilance. You could argue for any number of things that contributed to this feeling, but in reflecting back on it, I’d argue strongly that there was a direct link to my being recognized. Recognized you say? Yes, recognized.

What does it mean to be recognized. Well, for one, it means that you’re doing good work (which is always a good thing). Two, it means that someone saw you doing the good work. And most importantly, three, that someone saw fit to tell you (or someone else) about the good work that they saw you doing.

It sounds so simple when I lay it out like that, but I know it won’t surprise any of you when I saw that following through on recognition is a lot harder than it seems. Reviewing the proverbial ‘tape’ shows that, according to public servants, there’s still a lot left to be desired when it comes to recognition for a job well done (since 2011, 2 out of every 5 public servants feel like they don’t receive meaningful recognition for a job well done).

So – what can we do to fix this (aside from the obvious, i.e. recognize them!)?

Well, it turns out that recognition isn’t as simple as all that. There’s more to it than simply “going through the motions.” I expect you probably already knew that, so let’s get right to it.

Frequency. How often do you think recognition should happen? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Yearly? How about… bi-weekly! It might sound trite, but you might find it useful to keep a ‘scorecard’ of recognition (say, within an Excel file?), so that you can be sure that you’re making the proverbial rounds.

Organizational values. So, if you’re praising folks bi-weekly, what are you praising them for, exactly? Well, one school of thought would have the praise be directly tied into the organization’s values (i.e. culture). This is the perfect way to perpetuate the behaviours within the organization that one wants to see.

Matching. This is one of my pet peeves. Many years ago when I was a resident assistant, it was common for my resident director to hand out ‘recognition’ in the form of gift cards to a local restaurant – no matter what it was that we were doing in our jobs. We might have prevented one of our residents from committing dying by suicide or we could have made sure all of our residents had passed their “clean room check” – we still got that gift card. Ironically, this recognition sometimes had the opposite effect – it was demotivating. If you’re doling out recognition, make sure the recognition matches what’s being recognized.

Personalize. Maybe more importantly than matching is ensuring that recognition is personalized to the individual. Meaning, maybe some folks would eat up the gift cards for the local eatery (pun intended!). Maybe other folks just want to have a simple “thank you.” Other folks might thrive on being lauded for their achievements in a public setting. The point is that it’s incumbent upon you to figure out what it is your employees want when it comes to recognition, so that when it comes time to recognize them, you do so in a way that encourages them to continue doing things worthy of recognition.

EDIT: Big thank you to @Darlene.Marion for catching the language slip up re: “dying by suicide.”

This post originally appeared on GCconnex/GCcollab.

Top-Down, Bottom-Up, Over Sideways and Under

In case you hadn’t noticed, culture change is top of mind seemingly everywhere. The Auditor General of Canada had some, oh, shall we say harsh (?), words last week [Emphasis Added]:

“…little has been said about the culture that fosters incomprehensible failures.”

There were rather hearty discussions on GCconnex and on Twitter and those were just the bits I came across online. I’m sure there are many others I missed, not to mention the discussions around the proverbial water coolers and I’d be surprised if it didn’t make its way onto a couple of agendas for meetings in the last few days. The proverbial “what’s” and “so what’s” appear to have been answered. The question that remains, however – now what?

Well, now, presumably, we change the culture, right? Easy peasy. I’ll just plug in “culture change” to the old Google machine and… *gasps* 1.5 billion results. So, culture change is a big deal, eh? Yes, yes it is.

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If you know anything about culture change you know that there’s more than one way to do it and even if you didn’t know before reading this sentence, we can all be pretty sure of that fact based (in part) on the 1.5 billion results from Google. Some think you should adhere to strict principles. Some think that it requires a movement (rather than a mandate). And others still, think you shouldn’t even mention culture change when trying to do just that.

Given the amorphous nature of culture, my experience teaching management for the last several years, and reading a lot (!) about the anecdotal successes and failures of change initiatives, I’m inclined to think that there isn’t one way to do it. Rather, a kitchen-sink approach can be most successful. What do I mean by that? Top-down, bottom-up, over sideways and under!

Some folks advocate that culture change has to cascade down from the top of an organization. Yes, that’s true. But it’s also false. If we just have the C-suite (er, DM and ADMs) trying to push the culture change, it’s likely to fall flat. So, what about the bottom-up approach. Sure, that’s a wonderful idea. Except, the decision-makers still “hold the power,” so if we can’t get them onboard the culture train, the change is doomed to fail. I’ve also seem some folks advocate for the middle-out approach, which, admittedly, is somewhat new to me – I haven’t seen much research in this domain.

I almost feel sheepish falling back on my management consulting laurels, but the change initiatives that I’ve seen be the most successful contain elements of the “four building blocks of change” (from McKinsey):

The key here is that it’s not just a top-down or bottom-up approach. Instead, the system – the incentives! – are changing. Of course, it’s not just the system. There still needs to be a showcase element (i.e. demonstrating to folks how we’re meant to behave) and an educational component (i.e. explaining to folks what the new culture looks like and how we’re meant to behave). Naturally, both of these fall to the wayside if folks don’t understand what’s being asked of them and more importantly, if congruence is absent. There needs to be a clear line of sight and understanding of the “why” we’re doing things a certain way. This inspirational piece can, theoretically, even help people to inspire themselves!

This whole discussion reminds me of what should be the northern star in all our actions as public servants – serving Canadians. Can you say that what you’ve done so far today has been in the service of Canadians?

PS: Yes, like my last post, there’s a hat tip in the title of the post. Anyone catch the subtle aspiration there? wink

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This post originally appeared on GCconnex/GCcollab.

Have You Had Your Culture Change Today?

In 2008, the “neighbourhood coffee shop” closed its doors across the US at precisely 5:30p for three hours to retrain its employees on everything from the sound the milk should make when it’s being heated to the particulars of the colour of espresso shots. Fast-forward ten years and the “neighbourhood coffee shop” is at it again, but for much different reasons this time. While there is lots to be said about what happened earlier this year that motivated Starbucks to take action (and what should/could happen next), I’m more interested in the approach employed by Starbucks of closing its doors, in an effort to get all of its employees to ‘swim in the same direction.’

The cynic in me screams that this is more likely a PR stunt than it is an effort to shift the culture, especially when considering that Starbucks stands to lose approximately $20 million in sales by closing its doors for the afternoon (out of $14 billion in sales annually). But, when was the last time Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, or Tim Hortons closed its doors for the same purpose? I think we can all agree that Starbucks has done pretty well since it first employed this tactic of closing its doors for training in the winter of 2008 (FYI – stock price in February 2008, approximately $8, stock price in February 2012; approximately $22; stock price in February 2016, approximately $56).

While we, as public servants, don’t measure value in the same way as a publicly traded corporation like Starbucks, the question still remains: is there a takeaway in there for the Public Service?

Every year, each of us attend all-staffs at varying levels – branch, directorate, division, etc. Depending upon the size of the department/agency, some may even be lucky (?) enough to attend an event for which the intended purpose is to gather the entire department/agency. [Side note: can you imagine trying to get all the folks who work at the CRA, DND, or ESDC, each with greater than 20,000 employees across Canada, in the same place at the same time? I don’t advise attempting to calculate the cost of those meetings via @Sean.Boots‘ meeting cost calculator.] These all-staff meetings are supposed to (emphasis on supposed to) bring the various parts of the organization together to realign and refocus itself on a shared purpose. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work.

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I wonder… if you suspend your disbelief for a moment, can you imagine what it would be like if the Public Service were to “close its doors” for a few hours from coast-to-coast-to-coast in a similar fashion to what Starbucks has done (and is about to do again)? What if the Public Service were, proverbially, “shutdown” for two or three hours in the afternoon (Eastern Time, to accommodate the west coast folks, too!)? What would it be like to be part of something so clearly bigger than ourselves? What do you think the message of the Clerk might be to shift the culture within the Public Service? Would that message filter on down through the DM’s (etc.) and have an impact on the way you operate on a day-to-day basis? Maybe more importantly, can you imagine a world where this serves as enough of a jolt to arrest the machinery from moving forward in a way that continues to leave 35% (!) of public servants wondering what the vision, mission, or goals of its department/agency are… annually since 2011!?

PS: For those with a keen eye, yes, the title of this post was meant to be an ode to the McDonald’s ad from the 1990’s – “have you had your break today?”

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This post originally appeared on GCconnex/GCcollab.

How Might We… Stimulate Information Sharing?

you-x-ventures-NYMJYXfZG-g-unsplashBefore I went on an extended hiatus, I used to try and string together a few posts into a series. In that same vein, I thought I’d start another one of those, but I won’t specifically string them together by appending “Part 1, 2, etc.” on the end, nor will I necessarily link to previous posts in the series. It’ll be more like an anthology series, in that each post would be able to standalone. This series, the “How Might We…” series is a way to inspire us to think broader. To think blue sky-y. Imagine the possibilities.

OK. With that aside, let’s move onto a bit of pedantry. I spent far too much time hemming and hawing over using the subtitle “Incent Information Sharing” or “Incentivize Information Sharing.” Incentivize is one of those words that’s been unnecessarily created (the verb from incentive is incent, there’s no need to go on and add an -ize). I very nearly stuck with “incent” because its very definition (i.e. rewarded for doing something) is what I meant to be discussing. In the end, it felt more important to use accessible language (i.e. incent is a tad jargon-y). Alright, so let’s dig in.

I saw a tweet from Scott Galloway (see below) the other day that made me want to reflect on the idea of “information hoarders.”

Scott’s keying in on managers and it’s certainly important for managers to be more forthcoming with information, but there are far more non-managers than there are managers. Couldn’t it subvert the problem if there were incentives for employees to be sharing information within their teams? How about… within their divisions? What about… across silos?

From a private sector standpoint, one could argue that the information-sharing might stop at the company’s edge, but for folks who work in government, as long as you’re not divulging any secret/protected information, is there any reason why we can’t be more openly sharing information between departments? That’s not a rhetorical question, I’m actually asking.

To my mind, I think the frame we have is all wrong. Everything starts as being close to the vest and then we decide what we’ll share after-the-fact. I can understand why things would have begun this way, but I don’t necessarily think that it’s in our (both the government and the Canadians we serve) if we continue this way. What if we flipped the switch and everything were open tomorrow (gasp!). OK, that’s a bit off-the-ledge, so let’s frame it this way. What if, starting tomorrow, everything we did started from a frame of being open? Meaning, if something were meant to not be shared, then we’d have to specifically identify it as such (a little bit of behavioural economics, eh?).

I have no doubt that there’d probably be accidental goofs, but would the tremendous amount of openness allow the government to better realize efficiencies within itself? I bet that there are things that some folks might now in one corner of some department that would be helpful to some other corner of a completely different department, but that there’s no obvious way for the information to get from A to B. Simply opening things up won’t necessarily mean that there’ll be a connection, but there’s a far greater chance that it would, than if there weren’t openness.

Sure, maybe it’s easier for me to propose an idea like this because I don’t currently have any vested authority to implement this kind of an idea and that’s why I want to key in on that first pedantry discussion — incentives. While it’s possible that an executive might, out of sheer principle, decide to swing open the doors and ask everyone to share openly, I don’t expect that that will be the prevailing opinion. Instead, we’ve got to find a way to make it halfway required — incentives. Incorporating this into a performance management agreement might be a good place. If one will be evaluated on one’s openness, then one is probably far more likely to be open (at least, that’s how the theory goes).

So, what might this look like in practice? Well, let’s start with a simple, relatable example — Outlook Calendars. Have you ever added peeked at someone’s calendar to try and plan a meeting with them? Of course — I’m sure nearly everyone has. My guess is that when you were doing this, you noticed that their calendar only showed you busy/free times, unless you happened to have been given special access to ‘view’ the subjects/locations of the meetings. And, if you’re super-lucky, you might even be able to OPEN those meetings and see the agenda/content. What if, hmm, what if, the default was that our calendars were open? (Gasp!) Would that be scary at first, sure! Maybe you don’t want people to know that you have a bi-weekly meeting with your podiatrist? OK, so what can you do? Well, fortunately, Outlook has a way to make those meetings “private,” so even someone with “access” to view your calendar wouldn’t be able to see it.

And I know, this idea isn’t new. I’m sure that others have proposed it and even tried to implement it within their teams or with the executives in their reporting line. The difference here in what I’m suggesting is that there’s an element of ‘requirement’ by way of a performance agreement.

I don’t expect this to change overnight, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if you take a new job in a new department and when you get there, you’re able to view meetings on your Director’s and your Director-General’s calendar!? Wouldn’t it be so cool to know that one of your executives is meeting with an executive from a different department on a subject that you know about because of your time in a completely different department, so you tell your manager, who tells the executive and then you find yourself in the meeting, too, because your perspective is invaluable?

Would You Go to the Gym, If It Would Save a Life?

That’s what Jen-Hsien Chiu thinks.

Chiu, a graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, developed Phabit – a “smart pot” that will nurture a plant, depending on whether or not you stick to your habit.

There’s actually some nuance to it. Users of the app complete a personality quiz that puts them into one of four buckets: obliger, questioner, rebel, and upholder. The idea being that the app will challenge each group of people differently.

On its face, it certainly seems like an innovative way to help us form better habits. However, I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of “holding something hostage,” especially another lifeform. I realize that to some, it’s just a plant, but there’s a growing body of evidence substantiating the sentience of plants.

Plant sentience aside (for the moment), let’s look at it purely from a habit forming perspective. Recall from Charles Duhigg’s excellent book, The Power of Habit:

Studies have shown that if you can diagnose your habits, you can change them in whichever way you want.

As I said previously:

That’s really important because this thinking wasn’t always the case. Sometimes, folks will tell you that you need to focus on the cue, while others will say you need to focus on the reward. As Duhigg suggests, you can focus on whichever aspect you want, so long as you’ve diagnosed the habit.

Now returning to Phabit – do you think seeing a wilted plant on your desk would raise your level of awareness, with regard to your shirking your goals? If I had to say, I’m probably going to guess the answer is yes. So, purely from a “science of habits”-perspective, Phabit certainly seems like it’s a great way to get people thinking about their habits.

Let’s revisit the plant sentience aspect.

If we presume that plants are sentient (and the evidence certainly points in that direction), then we must consider the ramifications of literally holding another life hostage to our actions. There are two possible outcomes I want to mention: empathy and PTSD.

Empathy. One might argue that by subjecting one’s self to this could foster a sense of empathy (i.e. I feel bad because *I’m* hurting the plant). One might also argue that the “continued killing of plants” (through not completing one’s daily goals) could potentially promote emotional numbing and maybe begin to strip someone of their empathy.

PTSD. Dovetailing with the point on empathy above, I suppose it’s possible that someone might begin to exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress from “killing” a plant (or multiple plants, depending on how things go). I realize that this might sound absurd in the abstract, but if we presume plant sentience, killing a plant would fall on the same continuum as killing another being. Granted, the ramifications to one’s psychological wellbeing might not be as severe as if one were to kill an animal or another human being, but when we invent things, it’s incumbent upon us to consider the possible ramifications from as many sides as possible.