A New Executive Director

Jeffrey Gandz and Elaine Todres

Professor Jeffrey Gandz and Dr. Elaine Todres wrote this case solely to provide material for class discussion. The authors do not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have dis-guised certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality.

Amanda Chiu, recently appointed assistant deputy minister (ADM) of Business and Trade in the provincial government, was thinking about which of two candidates for her former role as executive director (Business and Consumer Regulation) she should recommend for promotion. The promotion to ADM was a big one for Chiu, one that would place her firmly on the next step of her career path and could well lead to a deputy's job within the next five years. But she also knew it was an opportunity that would require continued and, indeed, accelerated performance on her part. There was a lot of competition for top jobs within the provincial civil service at a time when budgets were tight; many departments and agencies were downsizing as government was using more and more technology to provide even higher levels of custom service within financially constrained budgets. Chiu would be expected to play a major role in the drive to rationalize and streamline the delivery of services in the future. At the same time, the economic turbulence of the 2007-2010 period had created major trade tensions, and businesses were demanding more and more government intervention to create "a level playing field" in both interprovincial and international trade while deregulating business and making it easier for businesses to operate in the province. well-organized consumer groups were pushing for stronger consumer protection legislation; workers and their trade unions were demanding more intervention by the government in safety and workplace issues; the "economic" departments of the government were trying to overhaul everything from mini-mum-wage laws to pension regulation; and even the social welfare agencies were trying to force businesses to provide everything from child care to protection for work-life balance. The Business and consumer had to balance a number of competing pressures: three old business regulation statutes that were clearly not synchronized with current government thinking and needed an overhaul but that were sensitive in nature; the public's deepening concern about safety regulation, given a number of highly publicized safety accidents that were directly linked to regulatory agencies that fell within the purview of the division; and a growing sensitivity at the political level about the need to modernize and streamline business regulation without threatening the public inter-est. The political appointees on the boards of the regulatory agencies also knew how to "end run" any concerns they had and could go right to the top. The provincial premier had announced that his jurisdiction would be "open for business" and was placing a lot of responsibility on the ministry and the executive director to deliver results. In her previous role as executive director, mainly when she had meetings with the assistant deputy ministers (ADMs) or deputy ministers (DMs) of other departments, Chiu felt that she was the only spokesperson for the concerns of business. There were others around the table who measured their success by the number of pieces of legislation and regulation they had worked on and were taking to the various legislative committees. She often had to bite her tongue to refrain from reminding them that it was business that paid taxes, created jobs and drove the economy of the province. It was the job of Chiu's department to advocate for the needs of businesses, large and small, but also to lead legislative and regulatory initiatives that would ensure that businesses were appropriately "controlled" in the public interest. Chiu had needed to know when to contact the political arm of government and how to interact effectively with the chairpersons and board members of the regulatory bodies. This frequently brought her and her staff into positions of potential conflict with many stakeholder groups and with other branches of government. Chiu's personal skill in handling these conflicts had earned her high praise and rapid promotion. A natural mediator and skillful conflict manager, she had earned the respect of her peers and the confidence of more senior people in the public service. Chiu clearly recognized that much of her success had come from having a strong management team working for her. She was not a "micro-manager" but generally gave good, clear directions about what needed to be done, and she was always there to help her people perform to the maximum of their potential. While Chiu's staff liked her, they thought she was too much of a compromiser or appeaser, not taking strong enough positions or pushing her staff's recommendations hard enough with other branches of government. Chiu knew that, behind her back, many of her own people wanted her to take a much stronger "pro-business" stance on issues. "That's the difference between being a lower-level staff member and being a senior civil servant," she said. "At the lower levels you see what needs to be done; at the senior levels you work on the art of the possible:' there were, in Chiu's view, two candidates to fill her former job as executive director, but they were as different as any two people could be.

Joanne Fernandez

Joanne Fernandez, 37, was currently the director of Business Field Services in the ministry. A professional engineer by training, she had subsequently graduated from a top-tier MBA program and had been recruited into the government's "high-potentials" pool 12 years ago, having been rapidly promoted to her present position, never staying longer than two years in any one position and always receiving "excel-lent" or "outstanding" performance assessments. At a recent all-deputies meeting with the deputy minister of the Human Resources Secretariatin effect, the chief talent officer for the provinceFernandez had been identified as one of "the top 40 under 40" civil servants, those who would likely make up the senior leadership in the civil service in the next decade.

After graduating from her engineering studies, Fernandez joined one of the large civil engineering contractors in their project management division. She soon became bored with the "backroom work"and requested and received a transfer to a major defense project that was underway in the Arctic. She loved the work there, so much so that when she was promoted to a head office role, she decided to leave the company and go back to university to take her MBA. The head office role was, she said, "too political: One of the people that Fernandez met during her time in the engineering firm was an economic development officer with the provincial government. He often talked about the work that he did and, in particular, the enjoyment he got from helping companies with some of the real challenges they had in their relationships with government. Fernandez gave this man a call when she was close to finishing her MBA and, armed with an introduction from him, landed an interview with Amanda Chiu for a job with the provincial government. After several more interviews with department officers, Fernandez was hired as an economic development officer. She realized the irony: "I'd left the engineering firm because it was too political, and here I end up working for the government!" Over the next eight years, in three different, progressively more senior roles, Fernandez built a reputation as a hard-working, successful advocate for the interests of the businesses and business sectors with whom she worked. She developed very strongsome said too strongrelationships with industrial stakeholder and interest groups, and she was often seen in attendance at their meetings. Part of her success was the way she saw her role, which can be seen in this recent address to a group of new recruits: I regard any time spent in head office as a waste of time. Your task is to get out there, get close to the clients we serve, get to know how they think about their businesses, their language, their views about us- When you do that, you'll be able to define their legitimate interests with respect to government and differentiate between those and their other attempts to get something for nothing or just get government to line the pockets without any public interest benefits. Once you've done that, then the real issues that you need to push in government circles will be fewer and more supportable. The more time you spend with your clients, the less time you need to spend with bureaucrats because your cases will be better. Such talk was appealing to new recruits in the department, and when Fernandez talked this way during recruitment sessions in universities and colleges, she made a great impression and attracted talent to the department. The director of human resources often referred to Fernandez as "our talent magnet" and was delighted that she found time for these recruiting sessions. Clients were equally impressed with Fernandez. One chief executive officer of a company in the hospitality industry said:

Usually there's no love lost between businessespecially small businessesand government people. But when Joanne says "we're from government and we're here to help you: she means it. Don't misunderstand: she's no pushover. If she thinks we have a poor case she'll say so. And you try to pull the wool over her eyes only onceshe's got a built-in radar detector that can spot a phony case a mile away. She is not your typical, anonymous civil servant. She is entrepreneurial and represents our interests brilliantly.

Fernandez's reputation inside the department was mixed. Many felt that she was a breath of fresh air, the kind of manager that could really make a difference. Otherssome of whom Amanda Chiu respectedwere less enthusiastic. One of her colleagues had expressed it this way.

The problem with Joanne is that she's so good that she's usually right. But she knows it and she shows it. It's hard to argue with her, and this creates some resentment. When someone knows they are right, they sometimes steamroller over others who have some legitimate points to make. As one of my people said just the other day, "I wish I were as certain about anything as Joanne is about everything:' Joanne has "sharp elbows"even if you know she's right, you don't like the way she proves it.

The last two years had been a difficult one for Fernandez. Her elderly mother, already in the early stages of dementia, had been admitted to hospital after a stroke and had tried to return to her own apartment to lead an independent life. Eventually, Fernandez had persuaded her to go into a nursing home. She had taken quite a lot of time off work during this time and had even considered taking an extended leave of absence to look after her mother personally. However, she had not done so, and it appeared, through all the usual metrics, that her work had not suffered at all. Except for one project. Two years previously, Chiu had asked Fernandez to undertake a study of using technology to reduce the number of field officers that the department deployed. There were 36 in total, reporting through three district supervisors to Fernandez as the department director. Chiu had suggested to Fernandez that, with the right blend of people and new technology, staff numbers might be trimmed by at least one-third. With a more sophisticated website, greater use of teleconferencing and video conferencing and perhaps even some limited kiosk presence in key centers, Chiu sensed that service could be maintained or even enhanced with fewer people.

The study had not been done. Fernandez had contacted the IT department to get briefed on technology possibilities, but then the pressure of both work and the personal distractions with her family got in the way of moving it for-ward. At the mid-point of the year, Chiu suggested that Fernandez give the task to one of her district supervisors. Fernandez had resisted doing this since she felt that it would be bad for morale to have one of the field supervisors undertake a study that could lead to the redundancy of some of their own field agents. She had assured Chiu that she would be able to complete the study during the second half of the year. But still it was not done. In the end, Chiu got an external consultant to prepare a study, and he concluded that there would be a very marginal payback to greater use of technology and some significant risks in disrupting excellent client-government relationships by even attempting it. Chiu had suspected that Fernandez would have felt that way all along, which was perhaps why she had not pushed to complete the study herself.

Roger Earnshaw:

"When it comes to personality," Chiu observed, "you couldn't have a greater difference than between Joanne Fernandez and Roger Earnshaw. Nor, for that matter, could you have people with more different backgrounds." Roger Earnshaw, 42, was the son of a small-town college professor and a homemaker in Central Canada. He had been educated at a local high school where he was active in military cadets. After high school, he attended military college, where he earned a degree in economics and political science. He ranked in the top third of his class, was commissioned as a second lieutenant and served five years in the army, with one tour in Bosnia and a second in Afghanistan where he was wounded twice, recovered from his injuries, and was eventually honorably discharged with the rank of captain.

Earnshaw spoke little about his military service. In fact, he spoke little about himself at all. His personnel file showed that he was married with two children and had been recruited into the government about three months after his discharge from active service. He had served in four different roles since entering government service. His military experience as a logistics officer had been put to use immediately in a key co-ordination role in the agency responsible for infrastructure build, and there he had set up and run a bidding process for public-private partnerships. Recognized as a high potential and given credit for his prior military service, Earnshaw had been rapidly promoted into a management role in the department of health. In that role, he had been given responsibility for the amalgamation of several regional health boards and had developed a reputation as an excellent mediator, able to handle the sometimes-over-sized egos of trustees and hospital presidents, as well as the many special interest groups that got involved in these issues. Earnshaw's annual performance reviews singled out his thoughtful, disciplined approach to all the tasks he undertook. He took direction extremely well and, when left on his own, he demonstrated reasonable initiative and resourcefulness. He blended in well with any team on which he was placed, pulled his weight on the team and was thought of as a good colleague by those who worked with him. As one of his peers said:

Roger has the ability to say "No" with-out anyone taking offence. You can be told, quietly but firmly, that the initiative you've been working on for the last year is not going to make it onto the legislative agenda in the foreseeable future but, somehow, because it's Roger that tells you, you don't get mad.

Earnshaw had applied for his current role, director of legislative co-ordination, in an open completion. Interestingly, he had been the only person short-listed for the job who was not a lawyer. When questioned about the suitability of his background for the role, he pointed out that his experience is logistics his work as a mediator and his record in working diplomatically with lots of special interests had prepared him well for this new role. "Besides which:' he had said, "when you've spent time in the military, you've been exposed to more rules and regulations than you'd find in most governments. In his new role, Earnshaw was responsible for proposing the legislative and regulatory changes that would be required for the department to achieve its goal of promoting provincial business development and trade. There were, of course, limits to what could be included in any government's legislative agenda, but since business and trade meant jobs, and jobs meant votes, he was able to manoeuvre through all the central agencies and see to it that his items were given high priority. The lawyers in the department at first resented Earnshaw's lack of formal legal training, but after a few months, those sentiments disappeared.

In a way, it's not bad to have a non-lawyer running this department. He doesn't get caught up in the details of draftinghe leaves that to us. He trusts us to do our jobs. What he's great at is spotting where some proposed legislation affecting one area contradicts or complements an initiative coming from elsewhere. And he forces us to use plain languagenot a bad thing for us to be forced to do occasionally!

Earnshaw and Fernandez had frequent interactions, and these were nearly always interesting. Fernandez would usually be pushing for changes in laws or regulations for businesses. Earnshaw would invariably listen care-fully, ask a few questions, question some assumptionsalways respectfullyand would then thank Fernandez for her initiative and say that he needed to give the matter some thought. He would then consult widely with his col-leagues, seek external expert opinion, talk with people in other departments and agencies, speak with the political aides to various government ministers. "In due-time after not-too-long a delay but never quickly, Fernandez would get his very reasoned assessment about the likelihood and timing of getting her initiatives on the legislative agenda and what his recommendation would be should he be asked for his viewwhich he usually was. Fernandez could, of course, appeal to higher authority, i.e., Amanda Chiu or even to the deputy minister. Occasionally one of these officers would overturn Earnshaw's judgment, but not very oftenjust often enough for Fernandez to keep on trying, however. Chiu had met several times with both Earnshaw and Fernandez over the last two years to discuss their career aspirations. Fernandez had always been quite clear about her ambitions: she wanted to stay in the department, succeed Chiu and eventually become the deputy minister. Her timetable? Five to seven years to become deputy! And if it was not going to happen, she'd move elsewhere. The discussion had usually ended with Chiu encouraging Fernandez but pointing out that she would need to develop her diplomatic skills to a greater degree if she aspired to the deputy's role. Fernandez's usual counter was that her role called for her to be assertive and that, if the situation called for it, she was as able to be as diplomatic as she needed to be. Earnshaw had seldom asked about promotion or what it took to get ahead. On one occasion, Chiu even suggested that he lacked ambition. His response, when questioned about his aspirations, had been characteristically cool: I suppose that I get that from having been in the military. You get used to having to put time in working on lower level jobs, some of which aren't all that exciting. I guess you get used to just doing a good job and hoping and expecting that someone will notice and give you an opportunity to take on bigger challenges and responsibilities. I think the same thing happens in business or governmentnot much point in putting myself forward if the job performance is not there. . . . I just let the performance speak for itself. While the people that Earnshaw managed always spoke well of him and believed they had benefited from his teaching and coaching, he didn't seem to have the same magnetism as Fernandez. When she went on campus recruiting trips and made presentations, there were crowds of students who came up to her asking questions and trying to impress her; when Earnshaw did recruiting trips, the responses were less enthusiasticpeople listened politely but did not seem as eager to engage him in discussion. People who worked for Earnshaw found him to be a good bossconsiderate, caring, and willing to spend time with them. Sometimes Chiu wondered whether they had it a little too good- she remembered always feeling stretched and on the edge of having too much to do in too short a time when she had been a supervisor or manager. Maybe Earnshaw's superior organizing skills meant that his people had an easier time of it. Or maybe he just did not stretch his people far enough. Amanda Chiu summarized: The executive director's job is a big step up from being a director of a branch. Apart from a Regulatory Liaison Group, a Policy Unit and Legislative Co-ordination Unit, there is a substantial Research department, an Issues Response Unit with direct access to the minister's office to deal with crises and other serious matters emanating from the ministry or the numerous regulatory agencies, and a Financial Analysis group. Altogether, there are about 200 people. Not huge as departments go, but a very high proportion of specialized professionals.

The choice that Chiu had to make: Fernandez or Earnshaw? There were no other internal candidates, and the deputy had the authority to make the appointment without going to external candidates from outside the department. Chiu wondered which candidate to recommended would be just thata recommendation. But she was that it would carry weight with the promotion panel.

After reading the case, address the primary question at the end of the case: "The choice that Chiu had to make: Fernandez or Earnshaw? After making your decision, what, if anything do you do next?