Transcript: ISED's Manager's Community Forum on Meeting the Challenge of Innovation Management
(Video opens with Michael Wernick, Clerk of the Privy Council, at a podium addressing audience.)
Michael Wernick, Clerk of the Privy Council:
So it's actually a very exciting time to be a public servant, right?
Now how do we bring innovation to a public sector organization and environment?
It's all about smart risk taking. It's about taking risks but in a smart way.
There's stupid risk and there's smarter risk, and knowing which is which is what makes you a good leader.
You have to push the envelope, but to do so in a Westminster environment where you're accountable for every dollar and every activity.
(Video cuts to a female audience member asking the Clerk a question. Onscreen text identifies her as Kirsti Schellenberger, an employee of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.)
Kirsti Schellenberger, ISED manager:
How do we create conditions that allow for risk taking, that allow for failure, when we've got all of these forces that seem to be working together in concert to create a culture of risk aversion.
(Video cuts back to the Clerk but in a wider angle shot than previously, which reveals John Knubley, Deputy Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, standing to the Clerk's right.)
Michael Wernick, Clerk of the Privy Council:
I think part of the answer is just clarity and transparency.
If you are honest with Canadians and parliamentarians and you put out there, "This is what we're trying to achieve, these are the service standards or the expected results statements we're measuring, and there's a real feedback loop, and we made this part and we didn't make that part," and you're really clear with them, I've actually found parliamentarians to be pretty forgiving.
There's a Nelson Mandela quote which I will garble: "It's not about the falling, it's about the picking yourself up and walking forward."
End of transcript