A Personal Favourite

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine pointed me to an upcoming event at the Canada School of Public Service entitled: Ethics and Social Media in the Public Service.

This combined with the recent case of a public servant who has been disciplined for tweeting something deemed "inappropriate", has had me thinking again about values and ethics in the public service.

I have reread some of my older posts, and found this one in particular to be as current as it was three years ago when I first published it: Values and Ethics in the Public Service of Canada: Tautology or Missed Opportunity?

Not only is it a good introduction for my upcoming post, it is also one of my favourite!

Do You Believe in Santa Claus?

I just came across this article on the CBC website. Apparently, a federal public servant tweeted the following on his personal Twitter account: “Making a spreadsheet and checking it twice, gonna find out which job to slice”.

The article claims that the tweet was meant “to poke fun at the government's strategic review process” by spoofing the famous pagan Christmas song, but some didn't see the humor in it. After removing the tweet, the employee was allegedly "punished" and "transferred to a different office in the same department".

Though the tweet could have been read in the larger context of the recession and worldwide economic uncertainty that are affecting everyone right now, some interpreted the line in the more specific context of strategic review, an expenditure management system the Government of Canada introduced a few years ago. As explained on the Treasury Board Secretariat website, “as a result of these reviews, departments are streamlining operations and realigning their activities to better deliver on the priorities of Canadians through increased effectiveness and efficiencies.” Translation for the government speak illiterate: (job) cuts.

According to a comment posted by user outragean on the CBC page, the tweet was further interpreted by some in light of the employee's position in the department, namely that he was “hired as a special advisor to the ADM” and that he had been in this position for only “a few months”. Still according to user outragean, the tweeter was “working in a cavalier manner”, however being transferred to another project was not a punishment. It's not specified if the transfer was a consequence of the now infamous tweet or something that was in the works prior to the incident.

***

From the gist of the story, I can strongly relate with the public servant who posted the tweet. Actually, I feel for him.

Four years ago I published a paper entitled An Inconvenient Renewal. Shortly after the release, a director from another agency filed a complaint to the Centre for Values, Integrity and Conflict Resolution (VICR) of my department. The basic allegations were that I had "breached the Values and Ethics Code by publicly criticizing the government of Canada’s Public Service Renewal Program". Simply put, my loyalty was called into question. Following receipt of the complaint, the Centre for VICR undertook a review to determine if the allegations were valid. It started right before Christmas 2007, and the assumption that tainted the whole process was that I had been a very naughty boy!

Before the review was concluded, and despite the absence of any evidence that I had done anything wrong - much less breached the Values and Ethics Code - two senior executives from my department who were involved in the review phoned my manager and told him that I should be suspended. Fortunately, my manager knew better than blindly following the advice of people he doesn’t even report to, although they were more senior than him in the hierarchy. Consequently, my manager didn’t act on the suspension recommendation, and instead went as far as stating to the two senior executives that if I was suspended, he himself should probably be suspended as well! (Yeah, I know: you wish this guy was your manager too!)

Meanwhile, and unbeknownst to me, a handful of people were working behind the curtains to prevent my suspension. As it was explained to me years later by consultant David Eaves during an armchair discussion at the Canada School of Public Service in Vancouver, some people were shocked that I was being investigated and on the verge of being suspended for getting involved in Public Service Renewal (as the Clerk of the Privy Council had invited public servants to do), and they brought the matter to the attention of the Big Boss himself.

A few weeks later, Big Boss (Kevin Lynch, then Clerk of the Privy Council) was in Vancouver for a town hall meeting with 1200 federal public servants. I had been asked to facilitate the Q&A period with the Clerk, but just before we launched into the questions, Mr. Lynch publicly recognized the contribution I had made through An Inconvenient Renewal, thanked me, and invited all public servants to get involved as well. The whole session was filmed and copies of the recording were distributed to every Deputy Ministers and Heads of Agencies.

Just a few days later, I received a letter from the Centre for VICR which concluded that I had not breached Values and Ethics Code because I had exercised my "democratic right of freedom of expression" (as per the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom). Was the sudden change of mind pure coincidence? Probably not...

Fast forward a year later. A new senior executive is appointed to the Centre for VICR and after meeting with me apologizes on behalf of the Department for the way I had been treated during the investigation. Aware that my ass had been saved only thanks to the intervention of some outsiders like David Eaves, a couple of very senior people and the intervention of the Clerk himself, I subsequently tried to seek clarification from the Centre for VICR, more specifically: “If tomorrow I would published An Inconvenient Renewal and no person of influence would take my defense, would I get suspended?”.

I never got an answer, but when I was appointed into a job two-and-a-half years later, the same person who had recommended my suspension initiated within two days an investigation into my appointment and for the first four or five months "stick-handled" it, all the way through Christmas time. Santa Claus cut me no slack that year, even though the investigation was allegedly prompted by an anonymous and undocumented phone call to this senior executive (how convenient!). Of course, you can rest assure that the whole investigation was carried out promptly, as well as in a fair and transparent manner.... (hint of cynicism here...)

Ten months after the start of the investigation and still awaiting a final result, I was told in no uncertain terms that the investigation was meant to "teach me a lesson". Yes, in the public service some lessons are best learned the “hard way”. (This is the reason why I have been so quiet on this blog for the last two years...)

***

This brings me back to the public servant who was tweeting Christmas carols in a brief moment of inspiration that only an Excel spreadsheet can provide...

My main worry for him is that right now he too is being taught a lesson the hard way. I’m worried that some people might have made a fuss about his tweet not because of the actual content of the tweet (after all, there’s only so much you can say in 140 characters and there is just too much room for assumptions about the context, intentions, or actual meaning of the message), but rather because of underlying issues of jealousy and resentment resulting perhaps from the enviable position of the employee in the organization, his quick rise, his portfolio, personal vendetta, you name it... (if you've worked in the public service too, you know exactly what I'm talking about.)

I’m also worried that there are probably a few people who see how they can better their own situation by making this snafu a bigger issue than it really is, and perhaps even propel their own career forward by making an example of that rogue employee. For instance, it doesn’t take much imagination to see how someone may want to show how effective are the new Codes of Conduct introduced by departments and agencies further to the requirement set out in the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. These Codes of Conduct greatly expand the latitude managers have to administer discipline (ranging from verbal or written reprimand to suspension or even dismissal). It would be quite easy for a decision-maker to administer a disciplinary measure that is disproportionate compared to the fault.

In fact, in “The Critical Failure of Workplace Ethics”, Gordon Lafer asks whether workplace ethics are “merely useless, or actually harmful?” and takes the position that ethics in organizations are in fact a disguise for power. He also talks about the imbalance of power relations in the workplace and how so-called questions of ethics can “seem like an attempt to mask the offensiveness of the state structure by focusing on marginal decisions and imbuing the bureaucrats of repression with the air of deep moral thinkers.”

Gonna find out who's naughty or nice!

***

One question that has been haunting me since I read the CBC article - and one I hope the decision-makers will consider in the current case - is the following: If the employee, rather than writing down his thoughts in a tweet, would have made the exact same comment to the exact same audience, but done so verbally around the water cooler, would he be punished and transferred?

The answer is obvious: no. The worst thing that would have happened would be his manager taking him aside and explaining him how the comment might be perceived by the audience in the absence of context and given the employee’s role within the department (assuming there is a connection, of course).

End of story. No harm done, no disciplinary measure taken, no job transfer, and most importantly a small but valuable lesson learned by an employee who is now that much wiser and whose energy and talent can now be channeled on things that matter.

***

To this employee, I would like to offer a practical tip. Next time, leave Santa out of the equation. Instead, tweet this: “Making a spreadsheet and wondering which jobs will be cut. What Would Jesus Do?”. At least this way if any complaint is filed, your Values and Ethics unit may conclude that you were exercising your “freedom of religion”.

I’m kidding of course. I mean, really: it’s a joke... A JOKE! Get it?

Values and Ethics in the Public Service of Canada: Tautology or Missed Opportunity?

“The most difficult challenges facing leaders present themselves as dilemmas, paradoxes or tensions. These tensions are usually people centred and involve contestation of values.”
- Patrick Duignan, “Leading in an age of paradox and dilemma”


This constitutes the third posting I make on the topic of values and ethics in the federal public service.

In my first posting entitled simply “On Values and Ethics” published back in June, I made the following points:

• What we call “values and ethics” in the federal public service currently boils down to wrongdoing. Drawing on my own experience, I argued that values and ethics investigations are more concerned with what may have been done wrong than what may have been done right. I stated that values and ethics will remain synonymous with wrongdoing unless champions of values and ethics are willing to equally consider “right-doing” and balance the equation.
• Ethical dilemmas are matters of right vs. right, not right vs. wrong. Failing to consider right vs. right matters in values and ethics investigations, or worse, intentionally reducing them to matters of right vs. wrong, are a gross oversimplification of what should be recognized as complex conflicts between competing values.
• I urged for a clear interpretation of the following statement taken from the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service: “In the Public Service, how ends are achieved should be as important as the achievements themselves.” I further suggested that if the means and the end are equally important, then the decision should not be guided by the means or the end themselves, but rather by their underlying values. This implies looking at the values the end supports and weighing them against the values the means call into question and let the values that have the highest priority guide the final decisions. I concluded by stating that most values and ethics advisors and senior leaders will likely be resistant to this approach and I explained why.

In a subsequent posting in September entitled “Blogging @ Work.gc.ca”, I went a step further:

• I attempted to show that when it comes to questions of values and ethics, it is just as easy for someone to prove that an employee did something wrong than prove that what he did was right.
• Using my own involvement in PS Renewal as a case study, I demonstrated that my Department's expectations of what makes me a “good” employee given my official duties can somewhat be at odds with the Clerk's expectations of public servants with regards to PS Renewal, and pointed to the values and ethics implications.
• I illustrated with some personal examples the sort of contradictory advice this might lead to when employees try to stay on the “safe side” of values and ethics.

If you haven't read these two postings, I recommend you do as I will try to avoid the duplication of arguments with this third installment. In this posting, I will expand on some of the ideas I introduced in my earlier postings, and I will further my critique of how values and ethics are currently being applied in the federal public service.

Before I proceed, it is worth clarifying where my interest in values and ethics comes from:

• Although I am not an HR specialist in the formal sense of the word, much of my work is HR-related: staffing, recruitment, learning, training, change management, organization development, labour relations, conflict prevention, employees relations, people management, etc. By virtue of my responsibilities, I have been exposed to some fairly challenging situations where I felt I was facing an impossible dilemma, where no course of action was entirely right, nor entirely wrong. In these situations, I had to resort to my personal values and ethics in order to find a solution. I won't go into the specifics of the cases I had to deal with, but I will refer you to some fairly similar examples drawn from the world of education (see this document, pp. 10-11). You will see that the examples provided by the author are not unlike what public service managers and HR advisors have to deal with on a regular basis.
• On a few occasions, I have sought formal advice from our departmental values and ethics advisors. In some other cases, I was asked to provide information in values and ethics investigations involving employees of my organization.
• Finally, as you may know, I had the privilege of being investigated for allegedly breaching the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service.

As a result of all these experiences, I have noticed some trends in the way values and ethics are currently applied in the federal public service. That being said, I am not an expert on the topic, and I often find it difficult to put words on what I am observing. In such cases, it is not unusual for me to turn to unlikely sources of wisdom to make sense of the world around me. As it turned out, last week I found a great source of insight in an episode of the NBC hit series "The Office". Not surprisingly, the title of the episode was "Business Ethics". The scene that enlightened me involved Holly, the new HR advisor, who had to deliver a workshop on ethics, and the staff of Dunder-Mifflin:

Holly: Ok. [to everyone] Michael makes a really good point so, uh, let's just open this up a little bit. Say my name is Lauren and here I am shopping in a supermarket and I steal a pencil. That's not right.
Michael: [coughs to hide his words] Lauren, [coughs] enough with the pencils.
Holly: No, I have to go over pencils and office supplies. It's part of the ethics thing.
Oscar: That isn't ethics. Ethics is a real discussion of the competing conceptions of the good. This is just the corporate anti-shoplifting rules.
Andy: I'll drop an ethics bomb on you. Would you steal bread to feed your family? ... Boom!
Oscar: Exactly, Andy.
Andy: Yeah, I took intro to philosophy, twice. No big deal.

I found the scene insightful (and hilarious!) for a number of reasons expressed in Oscar’s definition of “ethics”:

1. He correctly points out that wrongdoing – such as stealing office supplies - is not ethics.
2. He invokes the need for a “real discussion”.
3. He defines ethics as “competing conceptions of the good”.

Oscar's point is then illustrated with Andy’s “ethics bomb”, which he remembered from his “intro to philosophy” class. I found the scene brilliant as the goofy cast of characters were in fact putting the finger on what I feel is an important shortfall of values and ethics in the federal public service, which translates in an extremely narrow understanding and application of ethics. Hence, the title of this posting: “Values and Ethics in the Public Service of Canada: Tautology or Missed Opportunity?”.

The Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service begins with a definition of the role of the Public Service of Canada: “The role of the Public Service is to assist the Government of Canada to provide for peace, order and good government. The Constitution of Canada and the principles of responsible government provide the foundation for Public Service roles, responsibilities and values. The democratic mission of the Public Service is to assist Ministers, under law, to serve the public interest.”

The statement couldn’t be clearer. The rest of the code expands on what it actually means to “assist Ministers, under law, and to serve the public interest”, in other words, how to be a “good” public servant. For this reason, I personally find the notion of values and ethics a little redundant or pointless, depending on how it is framed. It is redundant because the role of public service is clear enough and therefore an explanation of what it means to be a “good public” such as what we find in the Code is somewhat repetitive. It just sounds like it's re-stating the obvious (and already well defined) role of the public service. In other words, the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service seems like a tautology.

It is also pointless because when it comes to issues of values and ethics, the guidance we may need as public servants seldom involves cases where the right course of action is obvious, but rather cases where what seems like the better course of action is in conflict to various degrees with what should be expected of a “good” public servant.

In that sense, the current focus on wrongdoing in values and ethics investigations adds nothing to our understanding of values and ethics in the federal public service. Blatant examples of wrongdoing are self-evident. We don't need a Code of Values and Ethics to understand them; the Code merely provides a legal justification to deal appropriately with the wrongdoers. As Oscar from The Office pointed out earlier, stealing is not a matter of ethics.

Instead, ethics is about “competing conceptions of the good”. The Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service does describe many “conceptions of the good” that may be competing against each other in the work of public servants. In order to talk about ethics, we must first acknowledge that the action under scrutiny actually involves competing conceptions of the good – not simply wrongdoing. This is where things tend to go sideways.

Values and ethics advisors, investigators, managers, and senior executives must recognize that the moment a matter is brought to their attention, it is very likely it will involve some kind of conflict with the role of public servants to assist ministers and/or serve the public interest. The conflict may fall in one of two categories:
a) the blatant case of wrongdoing; or,
b) the “Catch 22” type of situation where any course of action seems to fall in a “grey area”.

I don't work in Values and Ethics, but from the work I do on HR stuff, I would have to guess that 99% of the cases fall in the second category. I will also add that the 1% of cases blatant wrongdoing rarely (if ever) needs to go to values and ethics, precisely because it involves wrongdoing – and it's usually that obvious!

But when you have a situation that falls into the “grey area” – as I assume it is the case for most matters going to Values and Ethics – whoever simply concludes that there is a breach of the Code is not only failing to grasp the complexity of the dilemma at hands, he or she is also totally missing the point of values and ethics: to find the better course of action in a situation where it is not possible to uphold all the public service values at once.

The whole purpose of ethics is then to contrast the behaviours that are in line with what should be expected of a good public servant with those behaviours that are not, which can only be achieved by bringing values into the equation. Failure to do this means failure of the values and ethics process. This is the first major shortcoming of how values and ethics are currently applied in the federal public service. Instead, the exercise of contrasting the conflicting behaviours based on values (i.e. conceptions of the “good”) seems to cede to a bleak quest for wrongdoing. But simply nailing the employee for what he did wrong contributes to nothing, as it doesn't provide public servants any tool address the dilemma or make the better decision next time. The way I see it, it goes against the whole idea of having a Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service in the first place.

Next, contrasting the conflicting behaviours based on values (i.e. conceptions of the good) can only happen through a "real discussion", as Oscar explained. This appears to be the second major shortcoming of how values and ethics are currently applied in the federal public service. Again, I'm only talking from my personal experience, but when I was investigated for allegedly breaching the Code, I was never asked a single question, never had an opportunity to give my side of the story, never got a chance to explain what “values” guided my actions. In short, no discussion ever took place. Values were a non-issue; the investigation was not about ethics (competing conceptions of the good) but rather proving wrongdoing. Perhaps we need a structured process (such as this one) to force these “real discussions” to take place...

Despite the rhetoric to the effect that the Code of Values and Ethics is intended to provide ethical guidance, it seems to me that public servants, in fact, are not free to make ethical choices. Instead, the organization imposes its ethics on the employee. Not only is this approach disconnected from the reality of how public servant operate on a day-to-day basis, and not only does it provide a disincentive for public servants to exercise any kind of judgment in the course of their duties, it also suggests that ethics is in fact “a disguise for power”, as Gordon Lafer expressed in his article entitled “The Critical Failure of Workplace Ethics”.

So let's go back to the original question that served as a basis for this posting: “Values and Ethics in the Public Service of Canada: Tautology or Missed Opportunity?” In this posting, I have tried to articulate that:

• The Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service describes in greater detail what we already know to be the role of the Public Service of Canada.
• Wrongdoing is not “ethics”. Instead, ethics involves competing conceptions of the good. Failure to recognize these competing conceptions of the good therefore leads directly to a failure of the ethical process. If values and ethics investigations only seek to determine the existence of wrongdoing, there is no point in having a Code, other than using it as a legal basis for punishing the wrongdoer.
• Ethics must involve a real discussion in order to fully understand the ethical choice made by the public servant. The absence of such a discussion is the equivalent of denying the public servant the freedom to make ethical choices based on the Code. This, in turn, defies the purpose of having a Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service.

As it stands right now, I would have to conclude that values and ethics in the federal public service are a missed opportunity more than a tautology. But with the right people and the right minds, it's still not too late to make the most of the opportunity. In a future posting, I intend to recommend some readings, models and frameworks that offer solutions to the current values and ethics dead-end.

Blogging @ Work.gc.ca

“What is it like to be a federal public servant and blog about work?” It all depends on who you ask! My friends at CPSRenewal.ca and I have decided to simultaneously post a column on our respective blogs and answer the question. To make the exercise more fun, we haven’t discussed at all what each other would write. So check out Nick and Mike’s column, check mine (below), and post your comments on either blog!

***

“Tempered radicals are people who operate on a fault line. They are organizational insiders who contribute and succeed in their jobs. At the same time, they are treated as outsiders because they represent ideals or agendas that are somehow at odds with the dominant culture.”

- Debra E. Meyerson

Why do I blog? Essentially I blog for three reasons:

1. To help me vent my frustrations (the act of venting actually helps me get over my frustrations);

2. To turn the negative into a positive by actually doing something about the things that bother me;

3. To effect change freely and readily as I want, while minimizing the barriers to change so often encountered in large bureaucratic organizations (i.e. political correctness, red tape, etc.).

There is also a fourth reason that is more contextual than intentional: in the absence of a similar mechanism within the public service that would provide me the same degree of freedom and influence, I am compelled to resort to external means, such as blogging.

In a way, I am a public-service activist (although management and organization development specialists may call it “agent of change”). I operate on the fringe of what is considered “official”. The greater freedom this provides me, however, comes with a price. As if using a novel (by government standards!) communication tool such as blogs wasn’t enough, what I communicate falls into a grey area. On one hand, most of what I blog about does not relate to my official duties as a public servant, which puts me on the safe side of values and ethics. On the hand, I am quite critical of the environment and the organizational culture I work in, which puts me on the risky side of values and ethics. It is a fine line to walk, because in the public service breaking new grounds can make many people quite uncomfortable.

This grey area in which I operate as a public servant blogger is paradoxical, because the things that are the most rewarding (i.e. the positive feedback I receive from readers about something I wrote) can also be the ones that test the spirit the most (i.e. the harsh criticism generated by something I wrote). Actually, I have found that the more a negative criticism tests my spirit, the more the positive feedback I’ll get will be rewarding, and vice-versa.

***

What I have found the most difficult as a public servant blogger who blogs about PS Renewal-related topics, is navigating through the seemingly inconsistent and / or contradictory advice I have been getting, and making sense of it. Consider the following.

If there's one thing that has been made extremely clear to me since I have been under investigation by values and ethics, it is that I should absolutely under no circumstance name my department, my organization, or use my work email address on my blog. That’s easily understandable. It is also absolutely futile, since you need only to google my name to quickly figure out which department I work for. Type "Etienne Laliberté staffing” and you'll get a page full of results of official government website that clearly identify me, my department, and what I do for work. Some sites even feature my picture!

This absurdity aside, the fact that I should under no circumstance name my department or use my work email address on my blog has some deeper implications. For one, it reinforces the idea that my interest and involvement in PS Renewal is in no way part of my work. It also implies that whatever I do with regards to PS Renewal, should be done on my own personal time, not my work time. In a way, this provides me and my department with a safety net when applying values and ethics guidelines – especially those relating to conflict of interest – since there is a clear separation between my official duties as an employee of department “X”, and everything that falls outside of those parameters. But it also presents a problem.

Indeed the clerk himself has sent a public invitation to all public servants to “get involved, speak up, make suggestions, become part of renewal, be proud and make a difference”. This invitation implicitly suggests that my responsibility as a public servant goes beyond my official duties as an employee of department “X”, and that my involvement in PS Renewal is not entirely disconnected from my regular work – quite the contrary.

Hence comes the first set of contradiction: If I get involved in PS renewal shouldn’t I be expected to do it on my work time? If I'm allowed to do it on my work time shouldn’t I be allowed to use my work email address? If I do it on my own time and use my personal email address, which set of values and ethics guidelines should monitor my activities: my departmental values and ethics guidelines, or another set of guidelines? Notwithstanding of which guidelines apply, on what basis would we evaluate a real, apparent or potential conflict of interest: my work as an employee of department “X”, or my work as an employee of the broader federal public service?

I recently launched a few “personal” initiatives (i.e. not part of my official duties as an employee of department “X”) relating to PS Renewal: An Inconvenient Renewal version 3.0 and Bottom-Up Renewal. I developed these initiatives entirely on my own personal time, and I was specifically instructed not to use my work email to promote them. So I used my personal email account and sent an announcement to a few hundred public servants. But here’s the catch: I got most of their email address from the Government Electronic Directory Services (GEDS) and federal government Intranet sites. Strictly speaking, I therefore breached the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service because “I knowingly took advantage of, or benefit from, information that is obtained in the course of my official duties and that is not generally available to the public.” Had I been permitted to do it as part of my work, this wouldn’t be an issue. But complying with the advice I was given put me in a tough spot where I had to choose between sending an announcement about two “personal” initiatives to virtually nobody and therefore guarantee they will fail, and breaching the Code and promoting these initiatives so they can have a decent chance of succeeding. What would you do?

I understand why my department is really cautious about any association with my “personal” initiatives. If I say something really stupid or controversial, what manager would want to deal with yet another crisis? But if my “personal” initiatives draws a lot of positive attention and gets praised by the most senior people in the public-service, who wouldn’t want to be associated with the success? Hence comes another contradiction: Is it right for a department which initially didn’t want to be associated in any way with the “personal” initiative to piggyback on the success of the initiative once it has received widespread approval?

Conflict of interest, as defined in the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service, is a one-sided concept. There is real, apparent or potential conflict of interest when a public servant does something as part of his official duties that might benefit him personally. However, the opposite, i.e. if he does something personally that might benefit the public service, is called volunteerism!

***

My experience as a public servant blogger has been very exciting, yet at the same time somewhat stressful. Every time I post a new article, I wonder if it will get me suspended or fired. I wouldn’t be the first corporate blogger to face that faith, but the prospect of being the first federal public servant of Canada to set an example doesn’t exactly appeal to me either ;-)

I think one of the greatest challenge of values and ethics in the public service is that people can spin things which ever way they want. If someone, let’s say my manager, wants to make the case that what I did was right, worthwhile and supports PS Renewal, he would be able to make his point quite strongly. By the same token, if someone would set out to prove that I did something wrong, he could just as easily build a solid case. That’s the inherent difficulty of operating in the grey area. Consider the following example, which happened to me in 2003.

I had attended a free seminar in Ottawa with a colleague. At the end of the session, the company that delivered the seminar did a draw and gave away a $500 certificate applicable towards one of their product (i.e. training courses). My colleague won the gift certificate. When we got back to the office we made a few phone calls to verify whether she could accept the gift certificate or not. We spoke with two different advisors in values and ethics. Here’s their interpretation and advice:

Advisor # 1	Advisor # 2
The invitation you received at work made it clear that the event was free and was open to public servants and private sector employees alike. Therefore you can accept the gift certificate.	Since you received the invitation by email at your work address, it can be assumed that you got it as a public servant. Therefore you should not accept it.
You can accept the gift certificates because only 80% of the people in the room were public servants. You therefore won the prize as a participant who simply happened to be a public servant.	You can't accept a gift certificate because 80% of the participants were public servants, which suggest there was a pre-selection of participants based on the fact they worked for public service.
It's okay to accept the gift certificate because you attended the session during the day as part of your work and the prize will be used for your work.	It's not okay because you attended this is part of your work and therefore you won the prize as a public servant, not as an ordinary worker or citizen.
Had you attended the seminar after work, it would be subject to scrutiny and you would be better off not accepting the gift certificate.	You would have been better off attending the seminar after work, as it probably would not be subject to scrutiny.
Since the training will be relevant to your job and make you a better public servant, and since it will save taxpayers $500 you could accept it.	If the gift certificate was for a dance class, it would be easier to accept because it bears no relation to your job as a public servant.

Again, what would you do?

***

How can I challenge established norms and at the same time uphold them?

This is the question that is always in the back of my mind when I blog. The answer never comes easily, because I feel a responsibility to do both, but challenging and upholding the norms are sometimes mutually exclusive choices.

I would much rather blog on a government-sponsored site than do what I do now, provided I could retain the same freedom of expression. I like to think that in doing so, I would get a bit more credibility from my readership, who might consider me as some sort of authority rather than a “maverick” as some people picture me. Just this week, after I sent from my personal email address the announcement for my two initiatives, I got this email: "Good morning Etienne. I am [an employee from your department] in St. John's, NL, who has received the following email. I would just like to verify the validity of the email as it refers to a Gmail account, i.e. rather than a gc.ca email address. It kind of threw me off so I [don’t] want to click on any of the links without checking first." This email came from someone who knew me. I wonder what the people who don’t know me did with my email…

I have the luxury of having a tremendous supervisor who understands what I'm trying to achieve when I speak up my mind through my blog. If I can give one advice to future public servant bloggers, it is to get the support of your supervisor. If it wasn't for the support of my supervisor, I don't know if I would still be in the public service…

On a final note, one of the great joy of blogging, is connecting with other fellow bloggers. First because we share a common interest. Second the postings of other bloggers, for instance on the topic of PS Renewal, stimulate my own thinking. Their postings make me want to write and post more articles on my blog. It's a very neat dynamic where we feed on each other’s energy and ideas.

On Values and Ethics

(UPDATED, July 3, 2008)

My favourite source of information on PS Renewal is the blog CPSRenewal.ca. I even subscribe to the RSS feed so that every day I have instant, up-to-date information about matters relating to PS Renewal. Recently, the authors of the blog have started to write weekly columns. The topic of their very first column was values and ethics. This was a pleasant surprise, since I have been thinking for a few months about writing an article on values and ethics in the federal public service.

Chris Baker, Deputy Minister with the province of New Brunswick, explains in an interview with the magazine Canadian Government Executive:

“The debate is about whether the actions of public servants ought to be defined by rules, or defined by values and ethics. […] Given that you have highly skilled, highly trained people employed in the public service, doesn’t it make sense to involve them in the process of creating ideas, testing ideas and implementing them? Don’t you want more than compliance? You want them to be active, proactive and thoughtful. […] It’s really exciting to hear from public servants themselves on this issue. It’s giving us a chance to know what ideas and values people bring to work with them that you might not pick out of a textbook.”

I agree 100% with the thinking. However, there is a significant gap between the rhetoric and the reality. Here's why...

I have had the chance to experience public service values and ethics firsthand. Shortly after I released my now infamous paper “An Inconvenient Renewal: Are Public Service Managers Ready to Change the Way They Manage?”, someone, somewhere, filed a complaint to the values and ethics branch of my department. An investigation followed and ultimately concluded that I had not breached the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service. However, the way the whole investigation was carried out confirmed some impressions I entertained about how values and ethics are currently applied in the federal public service.

Before I share my impressions on values and ethics, I should explain how I felt during the investigation. It was a very difficult experience that caused me undue stress. I felt my character and integrity were called into question when I was labeled as being “disloyal” and when it was suggested that I was criticizing a government program. While I used PS Renewal and the federal public service as a backdrop, the problems I discussed in my paper can be observed in many organizations - public, private and not-for-profit alike. If you've worked in a large private organization, chances are you've probably witnessed or experienced much of what I describe in “An Inconvenient Renewal”. Nothing I wrote was a secret. I merely said out loud what most people think quietly and know to be true. Anyone who took the time to read my paper for what it was meant to be understood that the real criticism was not against PS Renewal or the federal public service, but rather against bad managers and poor people management. But I digress…

The point I want to make today is that what we call “values and ethics” in the federal public service currently boils down to wrongdoing. The main focus of the investigation I was subject to was to prove that I had done something wrong… anything really! Although the breach to the Code was labeled a conflict of interest, the exact nature of my offense was unclear. In fact, it was fascinating to see how many different avenues the investigators explored and how far they went to demonstrate – without success – that I had done something wrong. It was as if I was guilty until proven otherwise. It had all the characteristics of a witch hunt, only it was done under the cover of “values and ethics”.

The investigation was only concerned by what I may have done wrong, and it never considered for a moment what I had done right (in short, blamability at its very best!). I was never asked what were the underlying values of my paper, what was my intention in writing it, and what I hoped to achieve by releasing it. If I would have been asked these questions, the investigators would have found out: how deeply I value respect for people and their dignity; how strongly I feel about good management and the importance of the role of managers; and how I hoped that my paper would be the starting point to a conversation on what needs to change in the public service so that we can improve it.

In a way, my paper directly supported and reinforced a number of values described in the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service, such as:

Professional Values: Serving with competence, excellence, efficiency, objectivity and impartiality.

• Public servants should constantly renew their commitment to serve Canadians by continually improving the quality of service, by adapting to changing needs through innovation, and by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government programs and services.

People Values: Demonstrating respect, fairness and courtesy in their dealings with both citizens and fellow public servants.

• Respect for human dignity and the value of every person should always inspire the exercise of authority and responsibility.

As Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. explains in his book “Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right”, matters of values and ethics can not always be boiled down to right versus wrong. “Difficult questions like these are often matters of right versus right, not right versus wrong. Sometimes, a [person] faces a difficult problem and must choose between two ways of resolving it. Each alternative is the right thing to do, but there is no way to do both.”

By over-simplifying the investigation to a matter of right versus wrong, the Values and Ethics investigators surely made their job easier and probably thought they were fulfilling their responsibility to the government. But in doing so, the investigators’ inability to elevate the dilemma to a matter of right versus right resulted in a failure to answer a more difficult question, i.e. holding two equally right values conflicting with one another and assessing which right value has the greatest importance.

Had the Values and Ethics investigators held values such as “loyalty” against the professional values and people values I quoted above and made an effort to determine which elements had the highest importance, the investigation could have shifted from a bleak quest for wrongdoing to a unique opportunity to make a powerful statement about the public service values, i.e. people management matters! The investigation could also have used my case as a reminder that “Public Service organizations should be led through participation, openness and communication and with respect for diversity.”

But none of this happened. (Instead, the investigation turned into a technical analysis of my paper, my blog, my peripheral activities at work and even some of my professional relationships – I kid you not! Oh! And the icing on the cake? I didn't breach the Code because I was "exercising my right of freedom of expression"!)

Badaracco argues that:

“Right-versus-right choices are best understood as dealing moments. These are decisions with three basic characteristics: they reveal, they test, and they shape. In other words, a right-versus-right decision can reveal an organization’s basic values. At the same time, the decision tests the strength of the commitments that an organization has made. Finally, the decision casts a shadow forward. […] Defining moments shape an organization because they cut through all of the finely crafted pronouncements about what the company aspires to and reveal instead what it actually does. These episodes set precedents and create expectations that shape a company for years even longer. They define the purpose of the organization and at the same time how the organization will pursue its purpose. […] Defining moments also indelibly color the image that employees others have of an organization and its leaders. Clearly, defining moments are high-stakes episodes.”

My experience with being investigated for allegedly breaching the Code of Values and Ethics has taught me a few lessons which I hope will make their way to Senior Leaders who champion Values and Ethics in the federal public service. On the top of my list, I would suggest the need for a clear and urgent interpretation of the following statement taken from the Code of Values and Ethics: “In the Public Service, how ends are achieved should be as important as the achievements themselves.” This statement can indeed be interpreted in many ways.

One interpretation is that in order to comply with the Code, both the means and the end must be “right”, and the Code is breached if one uses the wrong means to achieve the right end, and vice-versa.

However, another interpretation assumes that if the means and the end are equally important, then the decision is not guided by the means or the end themselves, but rather by their underlying values. This implies looking at the values the end supports and weighing them against the values the means call into question, and let the values that have the highest priority guide the final decisions. If the values called into question by the means are more important than the values supported by the end, there may be a breach of the Code. But if the values supported by the end are more important than the values called into question by the means, then there may be compliance with the Code because the values with the highest priority are not only respected but reinforced.

Based on my experience, the gatekeepers of Values and Ethics in the public service are no yet equipped to deal with that kind of thinking, for a number of reasons.

First, if we elevate a values and ethics investigation to a matter of right versus right instead of an over-simplified matter of right versus wrong, we have to accept that the situation we are looking at is not entirely wrong but not entirely right, neither black or white. To most people, this is difficult and discomforting, and that is why they would rather find something wrong and close the case.

Second, it implies that the decision resulting from the investigation will be imperfect, conflicting, and most likely fallible if subject to the Globe and Mail test (and therefore open to challenge, criticism and public scrutiny).

Third, it means there will be no one-size fits all, each situation requiring to be studied on a case by case basis. Consequently, Values and Ethics advisors and Deputy Heads alike will have to rely on their own personal values and make very hard choices which will undoubtedly shape the Public Service of Canada and, in turn, its values. No question about it: it’s a tough call that requires a lot of courage! But courage is the difference between having principles and living by these principles. Courage can make or break a leader.

Fortunately, I received outstanding support from my managers during the investigation. Moreover, a number of public servants – including many senior officials – saw great value in my paper and took some risks in circulating it and increasing its visibility and accessibility. They were able to look beyond “right versus wrong” and they took actions that affirmed what they personally valued and how they wanted to live the Public Service values.

Another thing I hope to see in a near future would be a check and balance system to:

a) Protect public servants against prejudice caused by false / unfounded accusations of breach to the Values and Ethics Code (similar to what many suggest is required to protect employees against false / unfounded accusations of harassment, which can permanently hurt the accused's reputation and career); and

b) Protect public servants against excessive zeal (or downright abuse of power) in the application of the Code (a sort of equivalent to the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act - but reversed!)

As long as values and ethics are synonym with wrongdoing, a real risk will exist... Unless, of course, values and ethics leaders are willing to consider "right-doing" and balance the equation.