Week 8 — The Importance of Active Listening

How active listening, an often under practiced skill, has been invaluable for me

Before I jump into the main subject of the weeknotes, I wanted to share a few other thoughts.

What’s the difference between a network and a community? A Twitter thread sparked some interesting perspectives. I won’t dive deep into the bigger issue (there are people who have more to offer than me). However, a network is easy. It’s filled with connections many of which are weak in nature. It represents a broad section of people you know but do not really know. A community forms through deeper connections, empathy, shared experiences and common goals. It breeds a sense of collective success or failure and the mentality that I have your back if you have mine.

And another mini rant: the employee performance management process. Another great Twitter thread to read where Amy Richardson provides a POV that I feel many share about the employee performance management process. We can argue day and night about the merits of the current system, whether managers believe in rewarding effort and any number of other issues. Is the current performance management process designed to help the employee or is it designed so we can say we have a system? Those are two very different outcomes. Whether it was intentional or not, the system and the experiences of those using it leans towards a system designed to check a box rather than offer genuine and honest feedback on an employees performance and afford an opportunity for career growth and professional development.

Why active listening matters

For week 8 of my weeknotes, I’ve decided to put a focus on active listening which I admit is ironic for a blog post on Medium where I am doing all the writing. We know active listening is an important skill. We know it is important to practice active listening. I will be the first to admit that I don’t listen as well as I could. Sometimes, I will be busy thinking of what I want to say next and as a result not listening to what the current speaker is saying. Other times, I’ve had a long night thanks to my 8 month old so I’m finding it hard to focus and concentrate. Whatever the excuse, I am not the best listener and have made a personal commitment to be a better active listener.

Active listening shows respect, allows you to absorb more information and allows you to build empathy with the speaker. It puts the speaker at ease allowing for a more open, transparent and honest conversation. On top of these benefits, it is estimated humans absorb between 25–50% of what is verbally communicated. By practicing active listening, we can retain more information.

What does active listening have to do with my weeknotes? I spent much of the past week setting up calls with key contacts throughout the various regulatory Departments and Agencies to talk about the two Regulatory AI projects I am leading. While we have regular meetings as a group to share project status updates and provide feedback, I wanted to hear how people were feeling and flex the active listening muscle at the same time.

So I setup calls with every single member. I won’t go into the details of what was said during the calls, after all these calls were done in confidence, but I will say it was eye opening to hear the different points of views, questions, concerns and feedback provided. I went in with a lot of assumptions and left feeling humbled (in a good way) and understanding where my strengths and weaknesses were in terms of both projects and their overall governance/management.

By making a deliberate decision to call every single member and flex that active listening muscle, I was able to improve my own management of these two AI projects. The cost: a few hours of my time actively listening to what others had to say.

So remember active listening for your own work. Where are there opportunities for you to really listen to what is being said and how would that impact whatever it is you are working on? No matter what you are working on, you can’t do it alone. You have to rely on others and you need to work with others so active listening becomes an important skill.

Other Work — Rules as Code, AI Center of Excellence

Work in the Rules as Code space continues. I have started to introducing the concept of Rules as Code to several Departments and Agencies across the Government of Canada. Socialization is an important first step to build support around the concept of Rules as Code. It’s hard to avocate for a radical paradigm shift if no one has heard of what you are talking about. There is interest but many rule makers remain skeptical, partly because it is hard to imagine what the output is (many are not familiar with code) and partly because it goes so radically against the traditional rule making process.

While I can’t share details right now, I am working on a partnership with a Department to get work started as soon as next month. This would represent the most mature Rules as Code work in the Government of Canada. From a Canada School of Public Service point of view, there is an opportunity to support an early adopter while building out the processes, models, team composition and other critical factors that will allow Rules as Code to succeed in the federal public service. The role of the Canada School of Public Service is to spread this knowledge and enable other Departments and Agencies to replicate Rules as Code for themselves.

Another conversation led to thoughts around de-mystifying AI in government and building an infrastructure to support early adopters. While I hate the term “Centre of Excellence” I don’t have a better way to describe the idea yet. In the conversation, two observations were made: 1) there is a lot of hype and mystery about AI and 2) early adopters do not have experts (outside of external vendors) to ask questions or get help.

To address the first problem, an event could be held where AI is made real and relatable through the presentation of existing AI work in the Government of Canada but with a spin of highlighting the parts that made a good fit with AI (e.g. repeatable and repetitive task). The event would end with a call to action for people to find their own AI use cases. Where this event differs would be the amount of “after-care” provided where AI experts would be available to evaluate AI use cases, assess data, support navigation through procurement etc. Essentially, there would be an AI infrastructure built around helping early adopters get off the ground through advice and support. In status quo, expertise comes from vendors who have a bias to sell their product. It’s an interesting concept but one that needs to be explored further. If this kind of idea sparks your interest reach out: scott.mcnaughton@canada.ca

What’s on my mind?

What’s on my mind? Get in touch if you want to chat or have an insight to share.

• Can the public service solve “moonshot” problems? Don’t get hung up on the specifics (e.g. partnerships, is government the one who has to solve the problem). Let’s pretend it’s a moonshot problem (e.g. complex and complicated) that the government has to solve. Can it do it?
• What do you say to people who tell you they don’t have the time to innovate?
• What is the difference between a network and a community? Is the public service making networks but not communities?

And week 8 of the weeknotes is done. Overall a rewarding and enriching week but I am 100% sure it won’t be the last.