Five ways leaders can foster innovation in the public sector
On February 4th and 5th 2019, ReMix took place in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The conference focussed on leading public sector innovation in the B.C. Public Service (BCPS).
The conference brought together over 400 people to discuss “Why does the public service need to rethink the way it works and how can leaders foster an innovative workplace culture?”.
I was sad to miss out on this ‘not your average’ gathering (as advertised!). It was organized by one of my favourite innovation colleagues — the B.C.Innovation Hub — and brought interesting speakers (like Alex Ryan, Moura Quayle) to Vancouver Island. But above all it’s about one of my favourite topics, leading public sector innovation!
The (small) victories and hardships when it comes to leadership are fresh on my mind. With the B.C. service design team I recently worked on a majorly complex, societal challenge: the opioid crisis in B.C.. In “Behind the Numbers” we set out to find out “why people use drugs alone in their homes, and what are people’s ideas for change?” (see my blog to read about the project approach & outcomes).
Working on “Behind the Numbers” was an honour, and hard work. Innovation can look and sound ‘glamorous’ on slideshows and speeches in boardrooms. But in practice it meant venturing into uncharted territory, and working in ways the BCPS had never worked before (for example working with a peer researcher, sharing project results on the go with a wide group of stakeholders, publishing online). At times it was painfully uncomfortable. It had to be, otherwise nothing was innovated. What did that take from our leaders?
Our leaders played an important role to make sure we accomplished what we had set out to do: talk to and work with citizens who have lived experience in using drugs alone, and advise the Minister (Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions) which services and policies could be developed. Here I will share 5 ways of how our leaders supported us — public servants ‘on the ground’ — to be innovative in our work.
1. Establish a good team — trust that team
Our leaders helped establish a multi-disciplinary core team. The team consisted of specialists in service design and innovation, and ministerial specialists on the topic at hand, in this case drugs, and drugs overdose. Having this mix from the beginning was important: the service designers knew how to move ahead in terms of innovative methodologies, while the ministerial specialists knew what to move ahead on and who to connect with in the field to get moving. All team members had one important skill in common: they know how to work with citizens on the ground and at the same time know how to translate that work to policy makers, executive leaders and politicians in board rooms. Plus they are hyperaware of how seemingly small issues could potentially backfire politically and stall the project.
Once the multi-disciplinary team was formed our leaders trusted the core team’s expertise, which translated in a healthy degree of freedom to do our work.
2. Connect to the outside — society, community and other ministries
An innovative work practice in the public sector can be organizational in nature, but eventually innovation always has to be connected to the ‘outside’ and lead to positive (socio-economic) outcomes for citizens. This is not only our due diligence as public servants, but establishing relationships in society also helps to drive change when a project stalls or after the project is officially over.
During our project we established an external task group with experts on the opioid crisis, we organized co-design sessions with citizens to discuss results, we worked with a peer researcher (a citizen who had lived experience in using drugs alone), and we held cross-ministerial stakeholder meet-ups to discuss preliminary outcomes and next steps. The ‘outsiders’ helped to move the project along, by asking questions, giving their — sometimes unsalted — opinions, and connecting us with new people. Our leaders were very open to this practice and attended meetings, built relationships and even came on the road with us to work with citizens.
3. Connect to the inside — align, align, and align again
Once informed about the latest developments in the project, our leaders went out to align with other leaders in the BCPS as much and as often as they could. For the core team the amount of alignment meetings was dazzling sometimes, as they also had to work on the actual project (as in: go out and about to be with citizens, analyze findings, prepare design material). However this practice was invaluable to the outcomes of our project.
Alignment is important because innovation involves taking risks. Most public executives are weary of taking risks. Rightly so, as they (we) are working with people’s tax dollars. Through alignment leaders could foresee, mitigate and act upon possible risks. From the outside it sometimes looked as if the project had stalled, but from the inside it was a way to keep the ball rolling.
One example was publishing our work openly. Opening up generated knowledge so that others can work with it is an important element of innovation. But how to protect people’s identities, especially on such a contentious topic? How to position the ministry? Our leaders had to go out and align, align, align, until everyone felt comfortable and confident about publishing our work.
4. Say yes-and, often
“Can we work with a peer researcher who has lived experience with using drugs in our team?”
“Can we get Visa gift cards instead of grocery store gift cards to use as stipends?”
“Can we organize our meeting in an art space, a neighbourhood house, a coffee shop ..?”
Innovative work practises are often out of the ordinary. Our leaders responded with ..
“Yes” -
.. and.. did you think of following guidelines?
…and .. did you look at the forms?
.. and .. can you look into payment rules etc’.?
…and… are you ok, do you need anything?
The ‘Yes — and’, instead of a ‘No’, or ‘Yes, but..’ works wonders. It is a positive work style that encourages teams to move mountains, especially in challenging circumstances.
5. Open [the process & knowledge] up, always
There are good reasons for leaders to keep innovative public sector projects behind closed doors and inside Government buildings. I agree that for political reasons it can be worthwhile to fly under the radar for a while, and just work hard to get to the envisioned outcomes. Sharing unpolished, unfinished projects with outsiders ‘on the go’ isn’t yet an established work practice in the BCPS. In “Behind the Numbers” our leaders actively shared questions, doubts and preliminary results with an expert task group while the project was ongoing.
After the project was over they enabled us to share the knowledge we had generated in an online publication so that other jurisdictions can look at our work and build on it. Unfortunately the opioid crisis is an ongoing societal challenge that needs all hands on deck to turn the tide.
By putting the work out there we were concerned that citizens, experts or the media would criticize us for the way we had worked, or for the generated outcomes. But this never happened. I think it’s because we actively engaged people throughout the process. Being open is an effective way to build trust and relationships. I believe that ‘open’ innovation projects stand a far better chance of creating long lasting change because people other than the Government are able to contribute their energy, ideas and work. Being open made our work better.
How will you foster innovative work practices? Have a good time at ReMix! See you on Twitter @marli_k , #remix2019
Read more about:
- How public sector leadership can support innovative work practices
- Stemming the Tide in the Opioid Crisis: How British Columbia works with citizens to design public services and policies to stop drug overdose
- The making of: journey map that explains why and how people use drugs alone (forthcoming)
- Systems mapping in service design: yay or nay? (forthcoming)
- Collecting 25 stories of people with lived experience using drugs and support providers (forthcoming)
- 44 opportunities for change (forthcoming)
- The role of a peer researcher in a service design project (forthcoming)
This blog is part of a series to shine some light on our service design work in British Columbia.
