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Still learning after all these years
Dr Peter Shergold, Secretary,
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
Launch of Australian Public Service Commission Publications at the Mural Hall, Parliament House
Canberra , 22 June 2006
I’ve just been reading the biography of Arthur Tange described by the author, Peter Edwards, as the “last of the mandarins”. It’s an excellent account of the life of one of Australia’s most significant public servants who, serving Prime Ministers from Ben Chifley to Malcolm Fraser, exerted a legendary influence on the nation’s foreign and defence policies.
Tange, it is clear, was on occasions significantly engaged with matters of administration, not least when in 1973 he took the lead in reorganising the civilian and military structure of Defence organisation. He also fought, unsuccessfully in the end, too close an embrace with open government, fearful of the impact of freedom of information legislation upon good public administration. He warned, and I believe that he was at least half right, that there was a danger that the proposed legislation had the potential to undermine the necessary confidentiality between Ministers and senior public servants that was central to the traditional Westminster system.
But it is clear that while Tange periodically turned his insightful mind to the big issues of administrative reform, the day-to-day oversight of corporate services was not high on his agenda – nor, I would hazard an informed guess, that of his Secretarial colleagues. His, and their, focus was on the development of policy advice: there were central agencies (including the Public Service Board) and specialist units within departments to look after the management of employees, finances, communications technology and industrial relations.
The progressive devolution of managerial authority to the agency level has changed all that. As the Public Service Act of 1999 makes clear, Secretaries are for most intents and purposes the chief executives of their agencies, wielding authority (and shouldering responsibility) in the same manner as their private sector counterparts. When I meet with my colleagues on the Portfolio Secretaries’ Group or the Management Advisory Committee there can be no doubt from our discussions that we now spend a great deal of time, under the authority of our Minister, administering our departments.
We are all too well aware that through Senate committees, the Ombudsman, the Auditor-General and institutions of administrative review, the quality of our managerial leadership will be carefully scrutinised. Parliament and the press gallery will expose our mistakes. It’s for that reason that I worry about aspects of my departmental oversight that would, I surmise, scarcely have been on the radar of my predecessors a generation ago.
I run a largely graduate department, predominantly women, whose average age is less then 40 years. I worry about how to keep them engaged, provide career and life opportunities and direct their enthusiasm in ways that improve and sustain the Australian Public Service. I am concerned about how the demands of the job can be balanced appropriately against family responsibilities. I am focused on how to build a strongly performing workforce able to serve the Prime Minister to a high standard.
I survey my people regularly to ascertain their views on what’s working, what’s not and what we can do about it. Only by doing so can we reduce staff turnover (from 26% to 21% a year since 2004), bring down unplanned absenteeism (from 10 days to less than 7 days annually per staff member since 2003) and improve the operation of our performance management system. These, and a multitude of similar concerns, are now the staple diet of senior executives. How, for example, can results be better achieved, service standards improved, records appropriately created and maintained and management skills honed? How, most importantly, can the workplace be made more rewarding?
I’m not an expert on all these aspects of corporate leadership. That’s why I welcome help. It’s ill-informed nonsense to suggest that a Secretary is appointed as a full-formed model of perfection who knows what to do in any eventuality. In a changing environment, in which the direction and organisation of government activities continues to develop, leadership is an on-going learning process.
That’s why a number of Secretaries, myself included, benefit from executive coaches. We, like our private sector counterparts, know the value of talking through complex issues of organisational structure and culture with someone who can bring to our consideration the widest range of practical and academic expertise in a confidential setting. It’s a strength, not a weakness, to be aware that there’s always room for self-improvement and to seek ways to achieve it. The day a leader feels there’s nothing more to learn from anybody else is the day to head for inactive retirement.
I use coaching to lift and sustain my professional skills and, by doing so, to help me overcome new challenges. It’s not a sign of inadequacy but a sensible recognition that I need continual development. It’s not that I think I can’t cope. Rather I’m wary of becoming rigid, too set in my ways and inflexible in my management style – characteristics that are unsuited to a dynamic work environment. CEO leadership, both in the public and private sectors, can be a lonely and isolated position: to have an outside expert support and challenge my thinking in a confidential environment enhances my continued effectiveness. Coaching provides individual learning tailored to the limited time I have available.
I talk things through with my coach. I read widely. I discuss administrative issues with my colleagues, at the Commonwealth and State levels, both in Australia and overseas. Unless I keep thinking performance, and how it can be improved, I cannot provide the leadership direction that the APS needs. To re-work a favourite metaphor of the Prime Minister, the improvement of the Australian Public Service is a long race to an ever-receding finishing line. Reform is never done. Leadership capabilities are never fully developed.
That’s why help from the Australian Public Service Commission is always gratefully received. Whether the goal is maximising staff attendance, managing employee performance or building workplace capability, I’m always on the look out for ideas that I can consider, take up, and apply or adapt to my own department.
I don’t, unless it’s absolutely necessary, want the Public Service Commissioner to hand down rules or regulations even when they are cloaked as guidelines. I don’t want prescription. I do want suggestions on how organisational processes can be improved. This most recent set of publications – on attendance culture, business capability and performance management - meets that requirement admirably. The booklets offer succinct practical assistance to agency leadership on better practice.
I thank the Australian Public Service Commission for their work. Its guidance, and the training it provides, helps to ensure that the Australian Public Service continues to evolve in a manner that is greater than the sum of its constituent parts. I commend this set of publications # to my colleagues.
# APSC, Sharpening the focus: Managing performance in the APS; Fostering an attendance culture: A guide for APS agencies; Turned Up and Tuned In: A manager’s guide to maximising staff attendance; and Building business capability through workforce planning.
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