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Commentary

by David Zusman


Public service renewal has become a major priority of the federal government and many provincial governments. The interest in renewal is driven by a number of diverse but converging factors:
· Canadians expect increasingly higher levels of service from their governments and greater transparency. Consequently, the skills that are required to be an effective public servant have changed to respond to these new circumstances.
· To compound the renewal ch...

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ON THE COVER:

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Eliot Cohen Supreme Command: Leadership in Wartime
Book review by Richard H. Gimblett
Communities of Practice
Reviewed by Richard H. Gimblett
Eliot Cohen is professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University, and a member of the Defense Policy Board advising United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It is this latter capacity that has gained his latest book, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen and Leadership in Wartime, a measure of notoriety. As just one local example, when it first appeared last year, the Ottawa Citizen (September 5, 2002) featured a story on it under the headline, The Book that is Leading America to War. Topical then, and newly released in softcover, it retains some timeless perspectives.
18 APEX 2003: Transformations & Transition
Diane Bégin
Transformations and Transitions was the theme for this years APEX Symposium held June 3-4. Speakers covered a wide spectrum including international relations, the environment, urbanization and migration, economic and technological trends and governance structures.
Creating High Performance Teams
Dr. Carol A. Beatty
The Problem: Before Teams
The managers gathered at the table to plan a large, mandated budget cut looked more like a diverse collection of animals competing around a shrinking watering hole than a cohesive, motivated task force. The stakes were highif the downsizing wasnt done judiciously, a damaging political backlash would certainly be the consequence. Yet each delegate had his or her own staff and mandate to protect. How were they to proceed?
A Time for Transformation
General R.R. Henault, Chief of the Defence Staff
One might not expect to see the Chief of the Defence Staffs by-line
in a magazine targeting public sector executives. What priorities and interests do we share? As commander of the Canadian Forces (CF), I can tell you that the public service and the CF share many of the same priorities, especially those related to people. Alex Himelfarb, Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet, noted in the Tenth Annual Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada, (We) continued to focus on our corporate priorities of increasing diversity, building our learning capacity human resource management reform placed high on the list of priorities for our renewal in the past year. Clearly, people are also the life-source for public service at any level, including the armed forces.
Policy Renewal in Ontario
Leah Myers and Lorin Busaan
The SARS crisis reinforces how much we rely on our public systems and the people who work in them, how interconnected we all are, how common assumptions can change overnight, and how information (accurate or not) spreads with lightning speed around the world.
For governments, such events pose major public policy challenges, both urgent and longer-term, at all levels and across multiple sectorshealth and public security entwined with tourism, trade and employment.
Innovation at Acadia
Mike Kennedy
Each year, students across the country look to the Macleans University ratings to guide their choices. If its innovation, one school leads the wayranking first each year since 1996 in the primarily undergraduate category.
Tony Dean: leadership, horizontal teams, and transformation of the OPS
Paul Crookall
Head of Ontarios Public Service, on leadership, horizontal teams, and the transformational journey of the OPS.
Judy Rogers, CAO for Vancouver: challenges for the city of Vancouver
Paul Crookall
When the rest of the world sees a crisis, we must see a solution.
As chief administrative officer for Vancouver, Judy Rogers heads the public service of a city that the United Nations, Economist magazine, and corporate head-hunter firms rate as the best city in North America, and one of the best in the world. Recent honours include winning the United Nations award for innovation in government, and the right to host the Olympics. Paul Crookall recently interviewed Ms. Rogers regarding the challenges and responsibilities presented by the city of Vancouver.
Precautionary Principle: Panic Attack
Raymond Bouchard
Technology & Learning
Remember fluoridation, lacing the water supply with a known toxin to reduce tooth decay? Today, the precautionary principle, which requires proof that an innovation would cause no harm, would stop fluoridation dead in its tracks. A poll of scientists, conducted by Spiked lists automobiles, contraceptives and electricity as other innovations that likely would not have passed the precautionary test.
CoPs Thriving at MARLANT
Regine Lecocq
Conflict Management Maritime Forces Atlantic Halifax (MARLANT) is fertile ground for nurturing one of knowledge managements key applications, the community of practice.
Benefits of Mediation
Richard Moore
Risk Management
As mediation becomes increasingly well-known and accepted as a method to help resolve workplace conflict, people are asking When should I use mediation, or go another route?
Driving Performance and Innovation
Susan Englehutt
We are working in a rapidly changing business environment where intellectual capital is the number one asset of almost every organization. In the industrial age, when the workforce was approximately 10% white collar and 90% blue collar, organizations could predictably improve their performance by simply upgrading their machinery to work faster and produce more at a lower cost. Not so in the knowledge era.