Transcript
Transcript: Jocelyne Bourgon Visiting Scholar Lecture: Focusing on Ethical Practices in a Modern Public Service
[00:00:00 Video opens with an aerial view of the Parliament Buildings. Overlaid text on screen: We would like to begin by acknowledging that this event is filmed on the traditional and unceded territory of the Anishinaabeg people. We encourage you to take a moment to reflect on the traditional Indigenous territory you occupy.
[00:00:15 Exterior view of the Canada School of Public Service building. Text on screen: Jocelyne Bourgon Visiting Scholar Lecture: Focusing on Ethical Practices in a Modern Public Service.]
[00:00:31 Ian Stedman appears full screen. Text on screen: Visiting Scholar, Ian Stedman.]
[00:00:36 Caroline Pitfield appears full screen. Text on screen: Discussion with Caroline Pitfield.]
[00:00:40 Caroline Pitfield and Ian Stedman are seated together in conversation.]
[00:00:48 Ian Stedman appears full screen.]
Ian Stedman: My name is Ian Stedman. I am the Visiting Scholar at the Canada School of Public Service, but I am also an Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration at York University in Toronto. I should say a little bit about my background. The work that I generally have done, as an academic, has been mostly focused on parliamentary ethics, so the ethics of our elected officials and the rules that apply to them. As you can imagine that topic, that area, is a little bit different than public service ethics. Obviously, parliamentarians, our elected officials, are accountable in different ways and under different rules than the public servants are.
One of the things that really does bind them together, and that has allowed me to, I think, bring some different perspective into the work I'm doing now, is that parliamentary ethics has long been a really nuanced conversation about what the right balance is between having values in place for our elected officials to strive towards, and having rules to which they must abide or comply. And what we've seen in the recent dialogue surrounding values and ethics in the federal public service is that one of the major tensions that keeps coming back in our conversations is, the balance between having values that we strive for, and having some sort of mechanism that forces us to be accountable for striving towards and meeting those values. I would say that if you've read the Deputy Minister's Task Force report so far, you'll see that that tension plays out quite a bit. To what extent is accountability the important bit here, and to what extent is guidance important?
What I want to do today is to take a couple of minutes, not to solve all the problems of public service values and ethics, or to offer some insight that will change everything, but to say, I've been here for four months. I've had a chance to talk to many of you about what you're experiencing and what you're thinking and what you're going through, and to look at the Deputy Minister's report itself. I want to maybe offer some of my own reflections on what I think is happening, what kinds of conversations we are having, and maybe a little bit about where we might need to be headed, in order to make sense of the renewed dialogue on values and ethics as we move forward.
[00:03:20 Text on screen: The Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service has been mostly values oriented. Does this matter?]
[00:03:29 Ian Stedman appears full screen.]
Ian Stedman: Yes, of course it matters that our public service ethics framework is mostly values-oriented. The intent has always been to provide us, as public servants, or yourselves, with the flexibility to strive towards particular ends. Towards these values. And values, instead of rules, allow us the opportunity to apply a standard in an evolving context. When we have rules, they can sometimes feel more rigid and more restrictive. But values are there to give us the flexibility to make decisions that might change.
What we really want from a values-driven framework is the opportunity to be reflective, to have dynamic conversations that can change. I do think that within specific context, maybe the parliamentary ethics context that I was referring to earlier, sometimes you hard and fast rules. Because who are we kidding? Some of us don't want to spend our day doing philosophical analysis about normative issues, trying to unpack how we might apply a value to get towards an end. Some of us would like to have a rule that we can apply, so that we can just get to the end of whatever decision it is that we're trying to make and make sure that we're doing it right and that we're on the right side of compliance, for example. And that's okay, and I think there's a space for that. But it, of course, is important that the public service framework is values-driven because it gives you the autonomy to take the time to come up with a reason to do your due diligence to justify why you're coming to the decisions that you're coming to, without the rigidity of imposing them upon you.
Do I think that it necessarily has to be values-driven? Well, I think one of the things we've seen is that the complexity of ethics frameworks and ethics guidance in the public service is that it's hard to decide how much value and how much rule, what's the right balance. But in a dynamic and changing workforce with complex social issues, I think we're at a moment right now where weighing to the side of more values-driven analysis is going to be helpful as the world around us continues to evolve.
[00:05:59 Text on screen: Is it important that a greater emphasis be placed on compliance?]
[00:06:08 Ian Stedman appears full screen.]
Ian Stedman: Well, that was certainly one of the takeaways from the Deputy Minister's Task Force was that some public servants who were interviewed, or who took part in the discussions, really had a negative sentiment about the level to which compliance was being enforced in the senior levels of management. So, does compliance matter? Absolutely. It's hard to tell, given that these are anecdotal conversations, the extent to which compliance is an issue. But I think that from the report, the fact that people were brave enough and willing to say that they don't think compliance is good at the senior management levels, it tells us something about what we need to focus a little bit more on.
What we don't really want, though, is, I think, to create a compliance culture. Even though it's important for us to be talking about whether compliance is effective, whether it's being overseen and enforced, whether people that we're actually abiding by, what we don't want to do is change the narrative away from that values focus that we were just talking about into a compliance focus, because then what you take away is the ability to creatively and reflexively make decisions that you are prepared to justify. And that's what I think values are good for, to give us the tools and the language to help us justify how we've worked through nuanced, complex problems.
If we only have rules and we're only striving for compliance, well, maybe we're being a little less creative in the way we think through the things in front of us. But I think one of the major takeaways from my time here has been to see what was in that report and to hear what I've heard from people as I've spoken to them, and compliance does matter. The hard part is figuring out how to strike the right balance with compliance versus having that freedom to take risks, to make mistakes, and justify decisions.
[00:08:15 Text on screen: Should the Values and Ethics Code permit departments to adapt practices to their contexts?]
[00:08:21 Ian Stedman appears full screen.]
Ian Stedman: It is incredibly important that we continue to allow that flexibility at the departmental level to make unique decisions about what will work within the culture of that department, as far as training and ongoing engagement with values and ethics. I think one of the takeaways that we should give pause to is that we do need to make sure that we're clearer about the baseline expectations across the public service.
What we don't want to hear is stories from public servants saying, my friend who works in that department didn't have to do this training, or they did this extra training, or they had this extra opportunity. I think one of the things that might emerge from this renewed dialogue on values and ethics is an enterprise-wide, baseline focus on creating these minimal spaces. What I mean by that is onboarding. There has to be some standard baseline expectation for onboarding. The question is, does it need to go further than it does now?
The Canada School of Public Service does offer resources. They're working constantly updating those resources. But to what extent is that part of the culture of the broader public service to make engagement with those resources a priority? And to what extent do managers take pause on a yearly basis to say, is now a right time to renew some of the training, or to offer some of our public servants an opportunity to engage in that training again?
I think we definitely have to leave space for the departments to be creative, to recognize when they're going through innovative cycles where they need to maybe be a little more forward-looking with their ethics training. But we also have to constantly ask ourselves if we're doing enough at the baseline across the public service, because we do have to equip public servants in a very, very dynamic world with very new challenges, with cutting-edge tools so that they can have these conversations, but more importantly, so that they can have conversations where they feel confident about justifying their decision-making. Because that's really what accountability is. It's not that we always get it right. It's that if we are getting it wrong, we've done our absolute best to be as thoughtful and as informed as possible so that we can justify our decision making. Sometimes things don't go perfectly, but if we don't have the tools to do our best, then we're always going to fail.
[00:10:54 Text on screen: How can training help people truly understand ethics beyond awareness?]
[00:11:01 Ian Stedman appears full screen.]
Ian Stedman: I think one of the things that I've learned as an academic, as a teacher, as a professor, that's important about teaching ethics, is that you can't do it with a book, and you can't do it with a piece of paper and say, here, read this, read this code, and then check the box and tell me that you're done reading it. I think what's important for us to recognize is that we do have expertise across the public service.
We have departments who are really digging deep into trying to be innovative with respect to ethics training. Really what that is, is to be more immersive, to provide public servants with opportunities to actually be engaged in simulated challenges, problems; to make decisions; to have to justify their decisions. I think one of the ways that we can make sure we internalize values is to not just make ethics training a stand-alone thing. It has to be in part for onboarding or for annual updates, but it also has to be deeply ingrained and built into the culture of a department that we have small conversations often about new challenges.
I think one of the things we have to get past, which may be harder, is we don't just talk about ethics when we're confronted with a dilemma. I think we need to start moving towards a culture where, if I've grappled with an issue and I've come out the other end of it, or if I've been challenged by it, maybe I share it. Maybe we do these lunch talks where people are asked to share something they've recently dealt with. And they're kind of like case studies, but informal. Informal. Where there's an ability to just share the challenges of dealing with values and ethics issues on an ongoing basis so that it isn't slushed off to the side, and it's more part of the culture of the workplace.
[00:12:59 Text on screen: Can ethical conduct be integrated into key leadership competencies in executive performance assets?]
[00:13:06 Ian Stedman appears full screen.]
Ian Stedman: Yes. I think one of the things that we've heard from public servants is that there's an expectation that it ought to be explicitly and meaningfully incorporated into the competency assessments for executives. I think what my takeaway was, from the surveys, the conversations, is that maybe it's not clear how ethical leadership is being treated as part of those competencies and those evaluations.
Maybe what we're hearing is not that there's a problem per se, but there's a problem of communication of how these things are taking place. I can understand that it's not often we tell a line public servant how the executive's performance is being evaluated. That doesn't seem like it's a constant priority. But if you're surveying your public service and your public service is saying, this is one of the things that's impacting our sense of satisfaction with our workplace, well, that gives you some feedback as well. That gives you a chance to say, okay, well, let's have a conversation about how the Code of Values and Ethics is integrated across the enterprise at different levels, so that you all understand how accountability works for different people.
Important, again, of course, not to talk about individuals and to talk about specific situations, which is what we all want to talk about around the water-cooler, quote, unquote. But the idea that compliance with the Code of Values and Ethics could be integrated in a meaningful way, it's essential. It's absolutely essential for the public service to see it be done, not just to think it's done, but to see in some ways that their leaders are being held accountable for the same things that they're being held accountable for.
[00:15:07 Text on screen: How can we balance risk-taking with ensuring accountability for ethical breaches?]
[00:15:14 Ian Stedman appears full screen.]
Ian Stedman: Yes, I think there's absolutely no quick fix to this. There's no one right answer. It is incredibly important within the public service that we create, maintain, and foster space for risk-taking. Absolutely. We're going to be confronted with new and dynamic challenges all the time, and if we don't have a culture that is permissive of risk-taking, we're going to lose out on providing the best possible service to Canadians.
How do we strike a balance between risk-taking and accountability? I think that's a forever moving target. I think there's going to be some times in the ebb and flow of policy-making, where you really do need to take risk, and sometimes you need to take that risk with less data than you'd like to have, imperfect information. And so, in those moments, your leaders, I think they have to be more permissive. They have to be given the space to make mistakes, because if you're going to be innovative with imperfect information, you're taking a higher risk. But there's also going to be times where we have better information, where the risk really is more a very calculated one, and it's a risk between is policy A, which is great, and policy B, which is great, times two, the right move right now. Great.
In those moments, you can actually have a greater compliance focus because you have more information upon which to take your risks. And so, you can be a little more deliberate and thoughtful and methodological about what you're doing. But what I think is important about this conversation, in terms of risk-taking versus compliance, is that we have to be flexible enough to understand that it's not always going to be the same thing. We do have to have openness to revisiting our culture, with respect to compliance, every so often.
Not every five years, but even more so, maybe even on a file-by-file basis. Maybe as a file gets put before a department, you say, well, this is one where we're kind of in the dark, so let's allow ourselves a little more flexibility, a little more space to take risk. Don't worry about this, let's talk it out, and then we'll make a decision together. And that may be how leadership helps steer the ship in these uncertain spaces.
[00:17:42 Text on screen: Final thoughts.]
[00:17:49 Ian Stedman appears full screen.]
Ian Stedman: To wrap up, I just like to offer a couple of overall reflections about some of the things I'll take away from my time as a Visiting Scholar in the Canada School of Public Service.
I think that these conversations about values and ethics, they come back in full force every 5 to 10 years. Sometimes there are significant changes, and sometimes there are very minor changes, but we have this sense that we need to continue these dialogues. I think right now we're at a point where we're recognizing the dialogue needs to constantly evolve and stay with us.
But what I think is heartening, for me, is that even though the people I've spoken to, and the report seem to demonstrate that there's a disconnect, and that people are feeling challenged by values and ethics, for me, what's heartening is that you're having this conversation. And that so many of you have reached out to me to try to express what it is that you're grappling with. And so many of you have participated in the Deputy Minister's Task Force dialogues to contribute your perspectives. So, that's a good thing. That's a good thing. Even though in the moment, in those challenging moments where you don't know what the answer is, it feels like it's a bad thing. The fact is that the modern public service is recognizing, within itself, that engaging in conversations about values and ethics is essential.
And so, I'm very pleased to have hopefully contributed a little bit to of that ongoing conversation, and I will continue to engage with it in my work and engage with you, if you'll reach out to me as you have before, to try to add value back into the ongoing conversation that's being had. Thank you very much.
[00:19:48 Caroline Pitfield and Ian Stedman are seated together in conversation. The camera alternates views of each of them being seen full screen and seated together during their conversation. Overlaid text on screen: Discussion.]
Caroline Pitfield: Thank you very much for that, Ian. What I wanted to do is ask you, first and foremost, to introduce yourself and to maybe tell us a little bit about what you've experienced as our Visiting Scholar recently. I think some people will have had the advantage of seeing your discussion with Gaveen, but others will be meeting you for the first time. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Ian.
Ian Stedman: Thank you. I'm the Visiting Scholar for the Canada School of Public Service. I've been in this role since November. I had the opportunity to attend a November event about – the Clerk had a conversation about continuing the conversation about values and ethics, and to introduce myself to those who attended in person and online. And really, it's been four months of trying to talk to public servants who've reached out about their experience, about this dialogue we're having about values and ethics. It wasn't part of the engagement with the Canada School, but I happened to be here at the same time that there's this call for action.
And so, it's been a really interesting opportunity to have conversations with people where they are thinking deeply about both the renewed dialogue, as well as the Call to Action. That's been a bit of an eye opener for me, but I've had the privilege of, in December, sitting down with Gaveen and doing a presentation. And in that presentation, maybe offering some of my reflections on what I've heard so far. There were a few, I think, major takeaways from that talk that I'm hoping to pull on a little bit in our dialogue today as well.
Caroline Pitfield: Absolutely. There's no question. It's a complex environment in Ottawa these days. There are a lot of priorities emerging, a lot of really important conversations, and I'm not surprised that you saw all of these different things merging together in your conversation with Gaveen.
Do you want to share maybe some of those key takeaways, key observations, things you've seen and heard?
Ian Stedman: I think maybe it's important to say, as a scholar, coming into the public service, you have a sense of what you think the complexity of the environment is, and then, humbly, you learn that it's much more complex of an environment and of a dialogue than you might have expected.
Caroline Pitfield: We're always happy to hear that, the acknowledgement that it's a difficult place and a difficult job.
Ian Stedman: And that's good. That's good for me because what you don't want is to be someone who's writing about an environment who doesn't take the time to try to understand and maybe simplify it too much in the work you're doing. But some of the takeaways that came from the talk with Gaveen – and she made a wonderful post on LinkedIn about it after we were done – was the first thing I wanted to convey was that conversations about ethics and values, they're hard conversations. They're not easy conversations. They're not supposed to be.
When I teach as a professor about values and ethics, the value in the dialogue, or in the seminar, or in the course, is in the conversation, is in trying to work through the nuance of a difficult problem. I think that's something that we have to make sure that we are okay with. That is part of the culture of the public service, is that we're dealing with complex social issues, and complex social issues demand complicated conversations, patient ones, nuanced ones. We need to, and another takeaway from was, make space for those conversations.
It's not possible to have a checkbox or a little algorithm you apply whenever you're confronted with a social issue, or a moral dilemma. It's not. Sometimes, maybe, if we've worked through them before, we have a sense of how to get through them the second time. But for the most part, what we're doing in the public service is cutting-edge work on new issues or new problems where we're trying to figure something out for the first time. So yes, complicated. Number two, we need to intentionally make to make space for uncomfortable and challenging discussions about how to apply our values and ethics to the work we're doing as public servants.
Then I think one of the major takeaways that I brought to that presentation, which came from hearing from public servants, was that the concepts of loyalty and neutrality and serving as a public servant in an impartial way are increasingly, for some, challenging to wrap their head around. I emphasized in that talk that impartiality doesn't mean you aren't yourself. You don't bring your full self to work. It doesn't mean you don't have your same experiences navigating the world.
It means that as we give our best advice to our managers and up the chain to the policymakers, we do that with the best data available, with methodologically rigorous data, and we don't go out of our way to fill in the gaps with the things that we believe or want to see, that we do good work that we can support with good research. And that's an important thing that we have to fundamentally keep tied to what it means to be a public servant. But that is increasingly complicated to do in social environments and on social issues where maybe we don't have all the data that we'd love to have quite yet.
Caroline Pitfield: Absolutely. As you mentioned earlier, on issues that are so nuanced, and so grey, and so complex to begin with, so figuring out exactly what data is required to unpack those issues is difficult, too.
You and I had the advantage of having a bit of a chat beforehand. You mentioned that you were, I was going to use the word deluged with perspectives and insights, really approached by public servants to share their views. What did you hear from public servants? What did they want to share with you?
Ian Stedman: Right after the original meeting with the Clerk, where we did the follow-up in November, I said in my five minutes on the podium, please reach out to me via LinkedIn, via Twitter or whatever it's called now. Send me an email. My inbox was filled, and I spent the next few weeks in conversation with public servants from all over. Public service is huge. So, I had an opportunity to speak with people who lead different caucuses of public service groups; individuals who have maybe been recently onboarded; people who've had challenges within their department.
And it was fascinating because I think, as an outsider coming in, I wanted to believe that people had space within their departments to work through some of the complexity of their day-to-day, of the things that they were dealing with. I was really startled by how many people wanted talk to me about the things that I thought were like line issues that you would deal with. That you'd have someone within your department, within your management team, who would have created space for those kinds of conversations. And yet, some reached out to me and said, there's some systemic issues. Look at this data. This data is telling us something, when are we going to do something about it?
And that was challenging for me, too, because I'm coming in looking at the Code of Values and Ethics, thinking, what is the new conversation supposed to look like? Then I'm having people approach me saying, we have a lot of data, and we still have problems. Why is no one doing anything about it? That can be a little bit overwhelming for me trying to figure out what I can contribute for them, without being an ethics executive, or being a public servant, or being someone who has control over those problems. But it was fascinating because I really got a good cross-section of perspectives.
I would say the last thing is, again, you couldn't separate the conversation from diversity and inclusivity from the conversation on values and ethics. For sure, that symposium put those two things together. And so, of course, that dialogue is going to merge. For me, that seems to set the tone for what I should be looking at, and thinking about, in my four months as a Visiting Scholar, which is, what's that connection? What's the intersection? Is it a tension that we can tease out? Or is it something that needs a little bit more attention than maybe I could give, or maybe the public service needs to start giving to figure out what to do with the tension people are feeling at that intersection.
Caroline Pitfield: Absolutely. That's where you can be extremely helpful, suggesting ways that we can resolve that tension, but sharing that outside perspective.
I was going to ask you for a little bit more in terms of, what were people sharing with you? Were there certain values and ethics, principles maybe, that were coming to the fore more than others? Did you see certain values and ethics intention more than others? What was the wisdom that you received?
Ian Stedman: I think one of the things that really stood out to me was how many people wanted to know how to apply the code. What's the algorithm? What do I apply first? What's the hierarchy of values? And so many people were told that their diversity was an asset, but then maybe they didn't see some of the things that they thought were the benefit of their diversity, reflected in policies that were going through, or programs that were going through.
Maybe they just didn't see the perfect match of what they expected with what was happening. A lot of people talked about the respect for people. That value of respect for people because it doesn't exist on its own. It's not in a silo.
It's respect for people within the context of all the other values, such as respect for democracy, and giving your best advice, and loyally implementing the policies that are legally passed. For a lot of people who have come into the public service, what does respect for people mean in this increasingly complex, increasingly diverse, increasingly nuanced, and difficult to unpack environment that we're trying to advance policy initiatives.
That one, for me, is, I think, going to get more of my attention as I move into the latter stages of being a Visiting Scholar, and also as an academic, what should I be trying to focus my energy on to help do something that can contribute meaningfully to the dialogue around values and ethics in the public service? And I think respect for people is a pretty big one.
Caroline Pitfield: It is a very big one. You're absolutely right. It's also where we intersect with some of those other really significant priorities like the Call to Action, and so on.
I like that you're pulling out that tension for us between the respect for people and then everything that falls into that, we call it the democracy values, the Westminster system, and this notion of loyal implementation. Because that respect for people piece is a lot about sharing your experiences, speaking your truth, bringing your full self to work. Sometimes that does clash with that notion of anonymity, loyalty, all of that.
Do you want to talk about that one a little bit more? Because it's an interesting one. Then we also think about excellence and how we do excellent work. We do need to resolve that tension between the two and we'll make it work effectively.
Ian Stedman: I think there were a few things that I took from the conversations. One is the Westminster system of responsible government and what those things mean. That's the kind of stuff that we teach in university. It seems more academic and more theoretical, and it's hard to breathe that language in your day-to-day when it's not so simple, it's not so cut and dried. Impartiality, what does that mean? Respect, loyalty. Those are challenging concepts.
My takeaway from the people I spoke to was, those concepts still apply. It's still a Westminster system. We still have to be true to that history, but we do need to think about what they mean in the evolving context. In order to do that, coming back to the conversation with Gaveen, we need to create space for complicated, complex, emerging conversations that are messy, and that sometimes are uncomfortable, because we're all trying to unpack, what does loyalty mean?
And you know what? Something that was very interesting to me was how many people I spoke to were new to the public service. To be personal, I'm raising three little girls in a world that's very different than the one I was raised in. They're digitally connected. They're always online. They're told that their opinion matters. And I think that's what we want for our children as we're raising them. But that's also the public service we're getting. People who have come into the public service in the last 5-10 years where they're active, they're online, they're vocal, and they come in with a specific, I want to say, worldview about social issues.
And so, navigating neutrality and impartiality with having been raised in a world that demands you have a voice about specific social issues, that's been challenging, too. That comes right back to the clash of values and needing this space to unpack and unravel, how do we have respect for individuals, with respect for democracy, and navigate that? That's been, for me, also a fascinating part of why we need more space for dialogue within the public service actively.
Caroline Pitfield: Absolutely. There's no question. We need the benefit of that diversity to put good policies in place, to develop the right programs to meet the needs of Canadians. We need to make sure that we are hearing all those voices.
I agree with you, in terms of making sure we have spaces for those voices, that we create the right workplaces, the right mechanisms. Can you speak about that a little bit more? What would you see us implementing in the public service maybe to further enhance that dialogue, or to make those voices more resonant?
Ian Stedman: I think, as an outsider who hasn't worked in the Federal Public Service, it struck me that I always thought that those spaces already existed. That it was part of the everyday work. It's important to always be saying that ethics, and the dialogue about ethics, is evolving and to not allow it to become static. Nothing that we've done in the past is good enough for the future. I think it's about building that culture at the executive level, too, so that the executive level behaves and expects behaviours that they also mirror back.
I think one of the takeaways for me was, it's easy to say, let's make space. It's super easy to say it. What's hard in the complex, dynamic, ever-evolving, quick, fast-paced, high-expectation environment that a policy position might be, for example, is to actually carve out that space. We have to be, I think, very intentional with where to do it, and how to do it. That doesn't mean doing it in an ad hoc way. It probably means having a conversation at the management level, at the executive level, saying, are there ways in which we can restructure how a file starts, or how we get people working in teams to intentionally put space in there for a conversation about values and ethics. Sometimes, those conversations will be quick – not every file demands a three-day journey into the Values and Ethics Code – but some of them are going to be important.
I also think that, from what I heard, some of the public servants don't feel, not just that they're given this space, but when they do express something, that it's being heard. I think one of the things we can do is just be a little more intentional about making sure we acknowledge and reflect back the voices of our public service who are trying to express concerns about, whether it's diversity and inclusivity or values and ethics through one of the other lenses or values that are in there. But just to make sure that they know they're being heard, even if their contribution doesn't eventually lead to the policy direction that's decided upon, to reflect it back.
We do this really well, or I think we do it well, with public consultation. We tend to put out a "what we heard" report and to try to reflect back as much as we can so that those who've contributed to the conversation feel like their contribution has at least been seen, heard, acknowledged, considered. Maybe we just need to do that a little bit more with some of the public service spaces. I think, hopefully, from the Deputy Minister's report, there's some feedback from those they spoke to about where those spaces are. Maybe even in the public sector employees report, there's probably some data that you can extract about where people are finding where these tensions emerge, and then management can probably more intentionally go into those spaces and say, Okay, let's carve out some space here and here and here for more dialogue.
Caroline Pitfield: Now, I could carve out or create, I think that notion of psychological safety and creating environments where people feel comfortable bringing their views forward and making sure, too, that they have mechanisms to come forward. Not everybody wants to speak up. For some people, it's a survey, an anonymous contribution, but really making sure that you are creating those spaces where people can come forward and share their views.
But I love, too, your comment on making sure people know that they have been heard. I think that that's very important as well. Know that they matter, know that their perspectives are being taken into account. Very important as well.
When you reflect on your time here, one of the things that we most value from our Visiting Scholars is insight, reflections, in terms of what we need to think of and do as public servants. You've talked a little bit about creating safe spaces or creating spaces for people to speak up and to talk about ethics. Anything else you think we need to be thinking about?
Ian Stedman: I think, within the context of space, one of the things that I think is important to mention, too, is that employees, or public servants, are creating space with each other, not just within the hierarchy of their day-to-day. That's super important for the public service to acknowledge as a valuable thing.
When I had people reach out to me, many of them represented different groups of public servants. It was in those groups that they found time to talk and to share and to feel like they had someone else and to not feel alone and to work through some of the issues that I think are going to be increasingly important because our workforce is working in much different ways now. We're not all in person. We're in person right now for a conversation, but the building is not full. We do have to intentionally create space for the dialogue to take place, and even in the digital world, which I can tell you that when someone asks me for a meeting on Zoom or Teams, I'm always like, does it have to be? But for many, it does, and for a big chunk of our public service, that's an important part of our future. We have to be very intentional about what that looks like.
One of the other things that I think I would want to emphasize is that the conversation that has emerged from the values and ethics dialogue has been about – a lot of it has been about the future of data in the work that we're doing in the public service. That maybe stood out to me a little bit, too, and I'll try to articulate it. But when I spoke to people, they were comfortable in who they were, but they weren't comfortable in the fact that who they were and the uniqueness of what they bring to the public service was being properly reflected back in the work product.
Coming back to the dialogue with Gaveen about what it means to impartially provide advice up the chain, I think one of the things I'd like to think a little bit more about is, do we do a good enough job of having the data we need to make the case we need for inclusivity and diversity within the different complex policy spaces? Because, if we want to only send advice up the chain that is well-supported, methodologically rigorous, that exemplifies the kinds of things that we want, we have to be able to demonstrate that diversity matters. That it creates better policy.
I think maybe that's where part of the disconnect is, is how do I demonstrate that the perspectives I offer can actually bring value to the policies that my department is putting forward? I thought maybe a more intentional conversation could be had about what data is there, what data isn't there. I think as we move towards this very digital public service that's really emerging, we're having a lot of great conversations about what data is, and what it isn't, and who's represented in it, and what we should be using it for, and what we shouldn't be using it for.
But we have to marry that conversation with, what do we want to use data for? Not just, what's there, and what can we do with it, but what data do we want in order to bring about the world, the public service, that we want to see. It may be the case that we have gaps. It may be the case that we have gaps we need to fill. I think about Dr. Rachel Zellars' report. If you went around and you asked black executives, what's she going to find? They would have told you exactly what she found. They didn't need a report for that. They knew what she was going to find. But now we have a report, and a report provides a data point. It provides, in many cases, a methodologically rigorous base upon which to have a conversation about what exists, what doesn't exist, and maybe how can we improve upon it.
I think that's where these things clash, the diversity, the Call to Action conversation, and the values and ethics, that's where I think we can take them and create something of benefit, which is recognizing where the gap is in our understanding of that intersection and starting to be more deliberate about collecting the data we need to fill that gap, to make sure that our policy efforts are reflective of what we want, and what we aspire for them to be.
Caroline Pitfield: There's so much in what you just said that I want to pull out. I mean, first, beginning with your recognition that peer-to-peer discussions are important. I think one of the things that matters a lot in this space is trust. I think there's no question that trust is harder to build when we're meeting online. It's harder to build in a stressed-out, busy world, so finding places where we can build trust between one another, I think, is a big part of creating that environment where people come forward and share their views on values, ethics, diversity, all of these important questions.
Maybe also, I just want to endorse your point, or pick up your point again on data, because I agree with you that with data, there's always that problem that louder voices get captured first, or that the expected voices are captured. And another aspect of this is just making sure that we are using, or capturing, that data in a way that allows those voices to come to the fore.
So, any ideas in terms of how we capture that data? How do we get the data we need? Maybe thinking, too, about that question of safe space.
Ian Stedman: I do some work in the healthcare space, too, and we talk a lot more in healthcare about including patients, nothing about us without us. We're doing a lot better job, as a society and as a public service, of saying, who's at the table? Who's around the table? Who's impacted by the conversations that the people at the table are having? I think that's something that we should be proud of and that we should continue to celebrate, is our ability to build more inclusive conversations and spaces where those can happen. Perfection is a hard bar to hit. It's a high bar to meet.
Caroline Pitfield: It's a fool's goal, isn't it?
Ian Stedman: But progress and open dialogue and, I think, sober self-reflection on the things that we're not yet doing well enough, is important. I think if we're going to do right by these two conversations that we're having, the Call to Action and the values and ethics one, I think we have to be a little bit brave about being uncomfortable and about sharing with one another. That's easier said than done. I understand. Some people might not feel like they can speak up. Maybe some takeaways are, I think, at the management level, you have to take seriously this idea of creating space for vulnerability and expression and sharing that might be uncomfortable.
But it's in those dialogues where you're going to learn the most about the things that really matter to the people whom you want to do well within the public service. But that's not comfortable, that's not easy. That's okay. Public service isn't easy. We just have to find, I think, the courage to keep on that path and not to put it on public servants themselves. It's not that I want them to feel like they should be speaking up despite any objection or feeling of uneasiness.
But they do need to be very deliberate and very conscious about the fact that this is a Westminster system. There are values that are important to the proper functioning of our public service and of our government. If you're going to work in the public service, you have to find space to grapple with those values. It's on both. It's not just the public servant, it's not just management. We do have to, both sides, continue to work towards creating that space for the uncomfortable, progressive, open-minded conversations so that we can continue to be progressive.
Caroline Pitfield: Absolutely. That brings us back to your first point. It's grey, it's nuanced, and the only way we unpack or deal with nuanced things is by creating those spaces and having those dialogues.
Ian Stedman: Absolutely.
Caroline Pitfield: Well, thank you very much, Ian, for that. Really a lot to think about there. I'm grateful for your contributions. On behalf of all public servants, I want to thank you for the work you're doing to help us unpack both of these complicated priorities, both values and ethics and the Clerk's Call to Action.
Thank you very much.
Ian Stedman: Thank you very much for the opportunity.
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