Clerk’s remarks at the ADM forum  

Check against delivery
April 27, 2017

Hello everyone.

Let me start with congratulating the new ADMs or ADM-equivalents in the room.  I signed 68 certificates and letters the other day.  It’s an impressive number, almost a quarter of the community, and it is a remarkable personal achievement for each and every one of you. Please join me in congratulating them.

You should be proud. You are a very special part of the public service.  There are 260,000 women and men who come in every day, serving Canadians and one-eighth of one per cent of them are Assistant Deputy Ministers.  You really are the elite of the public service, and I mean that in the best and most positive sense.  You are small in numbers, but huge in impact and influence.  Being part of the ADM community is something special.  I hope you feel that.  It has always been a significant community, and it always will be.

This year the country is celebrating two important anniversaries.  It’s been 100 years since Vimy and 150 years since the coming together of the political structure in Canada—that unique gene-splicing experiment: a Westminster Parliament with a federation, which has held up so well.

Milestones like this make us think about our history.  They also make us look back, and think about the path that we have been on, and where we are going.  My message today is that we are not just looking back on history, we are living it and we are shaping it.  We are in one of the most important periods that our country has ever gone through.

What a difference a year has made.  I was in front of you last time on February 8, 2016.  A year later, it is very clear that we are witnessing and experiencing profound tectonic shifts in the world; shifts that call into question very basic assumptions about how society should work and how it should be governed.  With those shifts and shakes come tremors, and occasionally the real earthquakes.

I believe fervently that we are going through a profound struggle between forces of openness and inclusion and those that would retreat behind walls and divide us.  As you look around the world and you see the headlines, it is well beyond North America and Europe.  Sometimes the forces of openness and inclusion survive and prevail but sometimes they lose.  What is abundantly clear is that these outcomes cannot be taken for granted nor can they be predicted with any certainty. 

Canada is not immune; and Canada is not isolated.  We are not a unicorn country.  We are going through a time that will stress-test the very fabric, the unity, the prosperity and the future of this country.  It is a time where what happens in Canada has particular resonance, not just for Canadians, but for people around the world.  As they say: “the world is watching.”  The world is also counting on us.  They need Canada to get it right and to give examples, lessons and hope to those forces of inclusion and openness.

What we have built here in Canada over the last 150 years is not by accident, and it was not entirely by luck.  It has been generation after generation of acts of political will, of courage, of leadership, and yes, of good public policy, good administration, sound governance, and the willingness to reform, change and move forward.

There are ugly realities in our present, but we have always been willing to face up to them.  We have been through turbulent times before.  Some of us are old enough to remember being in the public service in positions of some responsibility, or maybe just starting out or being in school in the late 80s and early 90s.  This feels very similar to me.  When we went through that period of seven or eight years, there was so much change in the air and so much anxiety.  Certainties of the Cold War in which people had operated for a long time were falling apart and the walls were literally coming down -   the first clue, that this Internet thing, might be more than just a fad or a gadget, and might have social and cultural impacts and change the economy.

The leap of ambition by this country to abandon generations of protectionist policies, or at least most of them, and take the leap of faith to free trade on a North American scale with the United States, the divisive national election fought on that future, national unity crises, constitutional referenda, these were difficult times, and it was a heady time to be in the Public Service of Canada.

I guess my point is this: we got through it.  Not only did we get through it but the country came out stronger, more united, dynamic, and prosperous than ever before.  We have always found a way forward and we have achieved something very special here.

One of the reasons for this, I think, is the passion we’ve had in this country over the past 150 years, which has led to a public service that is non-partisan, professional, excellent, and guided by our values. The values of service to our elected government and to Canadians. We try to do the best we can for our country every day.

This is a unique community and you are the leaders of it.  We are the ones Canadians can count on to be stewards of public assets and managers of public funds for future generations, and pursue a public national interest looking to the future of this country.

As we struggle with great issues of our time, the men and women in this room will be called on to lead. You will be called upon to: put together teams; grow people; teach; mentor; champion; take decisions; make the call; give direction; set work plans; be clear on expectations; share; collaborate; and partner with each other and with people outside of government.  Collectively and individually we must continue to be humble. We do not have all the knowledge nor do we have all the solutions. We are going to have to constantly learn and strive to be better. Thirty-six million Canadians and people around the world watching us deserve nothing less.

There are many things we can   In a few weeks, you can read my report to the Prime Minister.  If you read the one I wrote last year and the speeches I have given over the last year, you will see where I am coming from.

The public service that we need in the future is going to have to be more nimble and agile. We will have to be shape shifters.  We will have to put teams and structures together for particular tasks and projects, and be willing to tear them down and disperse them when the project is over.  That means flatter organizations, more nimble tools and people management—the ability to shift people, talent, and resources together in multi-talented, multidisciplinary, and multi-departmental teams to accomplish tasks. 

It also means much more contingent structures and, yes, contingent jobs.  Not everybody is going to have a traditional job.  We will need leaders who are comfortable with this and with career paths that move around from those kinds of temporary purpose-built jobs to the more traditional core jobs that often exist in organizations.

I do not want to be misunderstood.  I believe we have too many layers.  We have too many executive layers and we have too many layers in general.  I came in a long time ago and I am very proud that I have risen 16 layers in the public service to the job that I have, but I am dismayed that I had to climb 16 layers in the public service. We are going to have flatter structures, broader bands of classification and more ability to move people around at level.  That is not going to be an easy transition and we will be calling on you, the ADMs, to lead your organizations through that.

This is a very open government that focuses on transparency. It’s a government that wants to be direct and honest with Canadians. What is working and what is not working?  We have all become more willing, I hope, to admit mistakes and to learn from them. We also have to become more willing to face the consequences of our decisions and our actions.

We have to reflect the society we come from, and the Canadians we serve.  That is part of your discussion today.  This means moving well beyond old notions of employment equity, which served us well in their day, and even beyond newer notions of diversity to something better captured in the language of inclusion.  As a colleague of mine once said: “diversity in this country is a fact; inclusion is a choice; and it requires engagement, effort, and action.” 

Expectations on us as public servants will continue to rise.  We do not have the luxury of leaving large parts of the public service or large parts of the country out of the conversations on shaping solutions and solving problems.  It is now clear, tested, and proven that organizations and teams that strive for inclusion in their workforce outperform those that do not.

The more inclusive we are, we will develop better advice, laws, policies, and we will secure higher levels of confidence, trust and legitimacy from those we serve.

As Assistant Deputy Ministers you are the leaders of your organizations. You have a tremendous influence on public servants. I am counting on you to set the tone, to be attentive to workplace well-being, mental health, resilience, and inclusion.

I am also counting on you to bring all of the talents of your organization—those who are in it now, and those who aspire to be in it in the future—to bear on whatever task it is that Canadians have given you.

I am counting on you, who have reached the one-eighth of one per cent in the public service to: pay back and pay forward; coach; teach; mentor; and champion other public servants.  Be the ADM you wished you had, and to grow the ADMs of the future. 

That is a challenge because the work just keeps coming.  You are going to have to pay attention to your own health and resilience.

One of my messages today, and always, is to take care of yourselves.  Reinvest in yourself.  You are at the part of your career, the part of your life most likely, where you are most at risk of physical and mental stress and breakdown.  Take one per cent of your salary and reinvest it in yourself, recapitalize, renew.  Get a gym membership.  Buy some piece of equipment.  My favourite trick, because I am lazy, is to sign up at my community centre with a personal trainer and pre-pay for the whole year so that I feel guilty if I do not show up.

Look after yourself and look after each other.  It is really important. I have seen brilliant careers flame out because of burn-out over the past years. 

Value your own people.  Get out there.  Engage.  If you are the ADM in the corner that people are scared to talk to in the elevator, you will have an organization in trouble before very long.  Try every trick that you can think of.  The ‘ask me anything’ sessions popularized by some of our private sector friends.  Stand up staff meetings.  Video conferences.  It is not just talking to them and explaining – it is listening and being attentive to the feedback you’re getting. 

Pay attention to your employees.  They are looking at you.  They watch you.  They follow you.  If you set a negative, cynical tone, in six months you will have a negative, cynical workforce.  It is that simple.  You have to have that cheery optimism and confidence and resilience that you want your teams to have.

That means you are in tough jobs. You are in tough positions.  These are not easy positions to exercise, but they are rewarding. You make such a difference.  The public service makes a difference. Our country makes such a difference.  What you do matters.  You have the whole burden of history weighing on your shoulders this year: to help guide and shape this country, and bring it through a period of enormous political, social, economic and technological upheaval, and to make sure we emerge from it stronger, more prosperous, more united and more confident.

The good news is that I know you are up to the task.

Thank you very much.