Andrea Hill > Recent Status Updates

the private sector values attach importance to profit, initiative, and enterprise, that it spends to enhance productivity and is open to inventiveness. The public sector values obedience and rules, respects hierarchy, and is inclusive.

“a key message of this book is that a survey isn’t my first choice of method when you really don’t know much about the people you want to hear from. You’ll be much better off starting with some interviews or finding a way to observe people doing whatever you are interested in, and then maybe consider doing a survey later when you know more about what you need from it”

The theory of regulatory control hinges on three requirements that are linked to one another: standard-setting, information-gathering or observation, and behaviour modification.

We have reached the point where over 60 per cent of federal public servants work in policy advisory, coordination, oversight, and back-office functions. I know of no private sector firm that would tolerate such a ratio. If it did, it would not be in business for long.

However, the best and the brightest do not join the public service to work in implementation. They want to work in central agencies; failing that, in policy units in line departments. The ambitious know full well that the road to the top is through policy, generating ideas, managing the blame game, being visible in Ottawa circles, and central agencies, not through program management.

The objective was to have government managers become increasingly accountable to performance measures and less to their superiors, procedures, or political masters.25 If for no other reason, the need to manage the blame game made this impossible.

One can only conclude that, from the perspective of the government, it is in the public interest to avoid dealing with non-performers, but that to terminate scientists who speak out publicly on health issues is a dismissible offence.

The solution for politicians: ..tell public servants to focus on management, the boiler room of government. They wanted public servants to become results-oriented in managing government operations, like their private sector counterparts. In the process they sought to redefine the role of public servants as managers and of citizens as customers, with the intent of making the providers more responsive to customers.

It takes only a moment’s reflection to appreciate the impact court decisions have had and continue to have on the machinery of government and public sector management. If nothing else, it makes it more difficult for government managers to be good at planning initiatives and managing operations.

Budgeting in government and in the private sector is different in virtually all respects. The budget in government is akin to market forces, market share, and the bottom line all rolled into one, but without the market forces, market share, and a bottom line.

The dominant culture, among senior public servants and those aspiring to the senior ranks, was to focus on policy and on defining new measures and to leave management issues to the less ambitious and the less talented.

Government should focus on putting in place the right policy framework. Government is not very good at operations, at delivering programs, and there are reasons for this.

Government is good at coming up with instruments to do good. Government is not as good at deciding that the instrument has done the job and when it should be done away with.

In business, senior executives in successful firms constantly assess their organization’s capabilities to deliver an ambitious strategy. In government, those with the power and influence – the prime minister and his courtiers – are much too busy navigating a politically volatile environment and managing the blame game to focus on the organization’s capabilities below the fault line

In business, establishing strategic direction is the responsibility of a few, but implementation is the responsibility of everyone. In government, establishing policies and shaping new initiatives is the responsibility of a few operating above the fault line, while those below the line, perceived as the less gifted, are responsible for implementation

I maintain that understanding what government is good at and conversely what it is not good at should be the basis for good public policy. Yet our political and public policy debates, for the most part, are concerned with what – if anything – governments should do about problems in our society.

public sector deals with “voice” while the private sector deals with “exit.” Unhappy citizens can express their displeasure in many ways – by voting or not voting, by participating in public demonstrations, and by voicing criticism in the media or through membership in associations. Exit, meanwhile, is associated with the private sector, where customers can move easily between competing firms.

This was written in 2012. How are these assumptions doing... >>>>> “The need to lower our expectations (by raising our retirement age) will become more evident about a decade from now, assuming our forecast of lower unemployment rates, slower growth in house prices, longer lifespans, and lower investment returns all come to fruition.”

a job can be either a problem someone is trying to solve or a goal someone is trying to achieve. In either case, jobs provide the motivation and energy a customer needs to explore potential solutions, embrace some of them, and reject others.

My one piece of advice, though, is this: Answer it from the perspective of customer jobs to be done. Don’t define your business by the products you sell, or by your business model, or by some set of customer characteristics. Define your business by the customer jobs you exist to solve, and let that be your North Star. “

But insights from data are only as good as the questions asked to generate it. If you ask the wrong questions, data will only yield misleading answers. To ask the right questions, you have to start with small data: observations about a small number of people that help you map out whatever territory you want to explore.”

Signs of strong leadership (like overconfidence and aggression) are in reality disastrous in both business and politics—not to mention the personal toll this style of leadership takes on the individuals around these leaders. These traits are broadly considered to be masculine, whereas characteristics often associated with weakness or lack of leadership (patience, accommodation, cooperation) are coded as feminine.

I’m certain that people of color would be able to deal with equal political representation and economic opportunity if they were made available today. So for whose benefit do we need to go so slowly? How can white men be our born leaders and at the same time so fragile that they cannot handle social progress?

How often have you heard the argument that we have to slowly implement gender and racial equality in order to not “shock” society? Who is the “society” that people are talking about? I can guarantee that women would be able to handle equal pay or a harassment-free work environment right now, with no ramp-up.

“As long as we make cities our number one choice for where to live, we will likely face challenges achieving optimal friendship and community within them”