Our offices have changed a lot over the last ten years.In 1986, not many of us had fax machines or computers, let alone printers that
could publish illustrated documents ... store our mail ... or do our accounting for us.
All that technology not only changed our offices, but it changed what we do in our offices and how we do it.
As the technology
advances, it gives all of us a chance to do more with less, which happens to be exactly what is expected of us.
But technology doesn't have to be a room full of humming machines.
In fact, there's one unsung technology that has had almost as great an effect on our offices.
[Hold up Post-It notes.]
The Post-It note. Simple. Useful. Indispensable.
I bring up Post-It notes for two reasons.
First, the humble Post-It reminds us all that sometimes big changes come from minor developments.
But I also bring up the Post-It note because its very invention embodies
the kind of entrepreneurial spirit we're all trying to incubate in the Public Service.
The Post-It note was born when a chemist at 3M, named Spencer Silver, deliberately made some polymers the wrong way.
Silver had
been looking for a stickier adhesive for Scotch tape, but what he found was an adhesive that didn't stick very well at all.
Management at 3M didn't see much use in an adhesive that didn't stick; they must have looked
at it the same way Ford would look a car that didn't run.
But Silver was convinced that his polymer had to be useful somehow, and eventually he thought of using it for a bookmark.
But even then, managers in 3M
resisted it until they discovered that their own support staff were addicted to Silver's Post-It notes.
In the end, the visionary was proved right ... and 3M made a pile of money.
There are visionaries like Spencer
Silver in this room ... there are visionaries just like him back in our offices.
We have to create an atmosphere that lets these visionaries flourish ... we have to let them bend the rules and break the limits.
We have to go out on a limb sometimes ... that's where the fruit is.
Indeed, these days we simply have no choice.
Our offices have been changed by a lot more than fax machines and Post-It notes.
Most of us joined a very different Public Service from the one we work in now.
It used to be that the taxpayers wanted a government that aggressively defended their interests.
That kind of active government meant
that we had to assume greater responsibilities, which meant higher staffing levels, which in turn meant more funding.
That's changed now.
Given a choice between an intolerable deficit and smaller governments,
taxpayers are demanding the latter.
Less funding means lower staffing levels and fewer responsibilities.
But by the same token, taxpayers don't want less service.
They want us to provide as much service or more ... they just don't want it to cost so much.
At first blush, we might be tempted to laugh this off as impossible ... you can't get water from a stone and you certainly
can't get more water from the same stone ... unless you change the stone.
[Show pumice.]
This is pumice ... it's a porous stone.
If you soak this stone in water and wrap it up, you can extract the water later.
[If it's possible to actually demonstrate this, it would be much more effective than the last line.]
We need to do the same
thing when it comes to government ... we need to rethink the way we do things ... we need to find new stones.
Peter Drucker talked about this in relation to the American situation in an article he wrote for the
Atlantic Monthly.
He said:
"Rethinking is not primarily concerned with cutting expenses. It leads above all to a tremendous increase in performance, in quality, in service. But substantial cost savings --
sometimes as much as 40 per cent of the total -- always emerge as a byproduct."
In other words, by rethinking government we can save money and improve service.
All we have to do is question our assumptions ...
the same way Spencer Silver did when he messed up his chemistry.
[Hold up Framework for Alternative Program Delivery]
This book questions a lot of assumptions.
As the title says, it is a framework for
alternative program delivery and it includes six strategies that departments and agencies can use to reinvent government.
First, focus on the client to deliver quality services.
Our clients can be our best source of ideas for serving them better.
By meeting and going beyond their standards, we also meet and go beyond their expectations.
Second, we should emphasize those core programs and services that provide value for money.
Government can't do everything ... we have to find those areas where we can excel, and where there is a clear public policy
objectives.
Third, we have to be flexible.
In today's world we have to make sure we can jump to an ever-changing beat.
So long as we're all still in rhythm, employees and employers should be able to benefit from
flexible approaches to inflexible problems.
Fourth, we have to think more like businesses.
We have always been aware of the bottom line ... we've always been attentive to client demands ... now we have to be even
more so.
This might even mean partnering with businesses, and that partnering is our fifth strategy.
But we can also partner with the non-profit sector, or with another level of government.
Working together we can build on our mutual strengths and cut down on our mutual overlap.
And finally, our sixth strategy for alternative program delivery is privatization.
Some parts of government simply serve no public interest and belong in the private sector.
Those, in broad strokes, are the six strategies we describe in our framework for alternative program delivery.
But it's one thing to talk about strategies, and another to actually implement them.
And to implement strategies you need tools.
You need greater authority to make the decisions that improve efficiency and
effectiveness ... you're getting that from EMS.
You need new technologies, such as information technology ... our Blueprint shows you how to use some of these technologies to renew government.
You need an improved
corporate culture focussed on service to clients ... that culture is coming from the Quality Service Initiative and from bodies like the Council for Administrative Reform.
You need leading-edge management techniques ... and you're getting that from bodies like this one.
As you can see, the Treasury Board Secretariat has an important role to play in all of this.
Central agencies like
ours must be allied to the priorities of government, since we represent the corporate expression of those priorities.
It is up to us to adjust the way we govern to keep in step with a new model of government.
We do
that in part through such government-wide initiatives as Public Service Reform and Program Review ... and we do it by revising our role in EMS to reflect changing client needs
As Public Service executives, you also have an important role to play.
You are all allies in the process of Public Service reform.
You all have to encourage ideas and risk-taking.
And you all have to lead and inspire your staff.
How do you do all that?
Walk any floor back at your office and you will see Post-It notes everywhere.
You'll see them in books and hanging off computer screens.
On one of those Post-It notes might be an innovative idea ... maybe somebody might have thought of a way you can deliver twice the service at half the price ... maybe somebody has found a way to cut down on
administration.
Together, we have to create an environment that moves innovative ideas off the Post-It note and on to your own agenda.
At Treasury Board, we have to create an environment where those ideas have every
chance of success.
But as executives, you have to draw out the haphazard strokes of genius left half-scribbled on the Post-It notes in your office.
Thank you.
