April 13, 2024
February 10, 2024
HERE'S MY TAKE
The people who go through the daily grind of grunt work often don’t get the credit they deserve. Yet, a healthy society requires literally thousands of men and women—a significant proportion of this newsletter’s readership among them—who just get stuff done in their vocational lives and volunteer contributions among a wide array of institutions. They often do the tough slogging of getting big ideas translated into concrete reality. Yes, it takes a certain mix of skills. Equally, though, grunt work requires discipline and virtue. And leaders should recognise the importance of just getting “ordinary things” done.
I was thinking about “the ordinary things” of organisational life after the Cardus executive team met this week with the Cardus board of directors. One director described this meeting’s agenda as “pretty routine, no real big stuff.” The previous few meetings dealt with new executive hires, new facilities, and new programs. This meeting’s agenda only had financial reports on the year just completed along with proposed strategic objectives and a budget for the year to come. The necessary committee business of executive performance, nomination, governance and audit continues. With an update of the medium-term plan comes a new set of performance benchmarks and performance targets. All good and important stuff but nothing that stands out. We are in a season of execution in our organisational life. It’s “grunt work” time.
Cardus—and every organisation to a greater or lesser degree—is a microcosm of a larger society. There are seasons in our shared life together as citizens where we debate, decide, and plan. And then there are times when we simply need to “do it.”
So, as I was reminded while working with our board through our materials this week, we can’t only deal with the visionary and exciting big-picture stuff that we put into our brochures. It’s the combination of vision and capacity, good decisions, and effective implementation that actually concocts the secret sauce for any organisation.
Doing things well requires as much intentionality and focus as getting the big decisions right. During our conversations, one board member used an international resource comparison to highlight the importance of execution. He observed that over recent decades, many resource-rich governments resolved to save some of the resource dividends that came their way and not simply spend them as general revenue came in. “But the Norwegians actually did it.” Most other governments (including the Alberta government with its Heritage Fund) implemented a “rainy day” strategy, but it is only the Norwegians who today are discussing what might be done with the $1.5 trillion in assets that accumulated in their oil fund.
Many governments had similar strategies. Where they differed was in their discipline and execution. A healthy organisation needs a good mission (answering why we exist) and vision (what we might look like when we are mature and healthy), supplemented by good strategy (how) and tactics (when and where). But ultimately it is only effective if the day-to-day virtues, discipline, and willingness to do the grunt work are also in place.
To use Britannica’s explanation of the seven Christian virtues as a starting point (and there are other legitimate ways to categorise virtues, but being precise on that is beside the point here): prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice are foundational. Faith, hope and love make the work distinctive.
It was striking to reflect on how these questions of execution were as much value-laden as the questions of mission and vision were. Ordinarily, both in organisational life or in political society, we think of the “big questions” as ones of mission and vision, the ballot questions on which elections get decided. Competence and implementation are often just assumed as secondary, “functional” questions. But that’s a mistake.
Most of us spend most of our days doing “grunt work–the tough, long slog of implementing ideas that can be described in a page or two of proposals that are adopted by a single-sentence motion but take months or years to create and make real.” Most of the work that boards do in their meetings don’t meet the bar of “big decisions.” But “routine” does not mean “unimportant.”
The work of every organisation, including the one I work for, is carried out by skilled staff whose gifts match their job responsibilities. There are governance structures to align the resources with the mission for desired outcomes. And once that is in place, there is a lot of grunt work that has to be done.
I don’t know enough about what distinguished the Norwegian plans to build a reserve from resource revenues from the similar plans of other jurisdictions that did not succeed. “But the Norwegians did it.” Not just through a series of big decisions but also through grunt work and discipline. The specifics will look quite different in various organisations, but these are part of the secret sauce of success. And so this week’s take is simply to pause and praise the importance of grunt work.
And this, in the end, is why I embrace the grind.
WHAT I’M READING
A 2025 Global Shakeup?
Historian J.L. Granatstein mused in the Hub about how a Trump win in the US presidential election in November could affect global affairs. He concludes that Trump is more pro-Putin than pro-Europe meaning that Ukraine will likely end up as part of Russia, NATO will be effectively dissolved, and Canada’s “sole option…[will be] to seek shelter under the eagle’s wings on whatever terms it could secure.”
Anti-Semitism North and South
Joe Roberts describes himself as an American Jew “steeped in progressive politics” who left the United States for Canada in 2018 due to his experiences with American anti-Semitism from the right. Four years later, he is musing about whether it is safe for him and his family in Canada due to anti-Semitism from the left. His observations make helpful distinctions between the political culture north and south of the border while providing a clear-eyed view of how “the scourge of anti-Semitism” is a “forfeiture of everything that Canada promises.”
Who Said What Where?
It’s not extraordinary that a Toronto Star piece warns Prime Minister Trudeau that his tactic of trying to link Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to Donald Trump is risky. However, when the primary voice is former Trudeau campaign director David MacNaughton, a trusted Liberal insider who was subsequently appointed by Trudeau as the Canadian ambassador to the United States, one stops and takes notice. I wonder if the real story is the fact that Mr. MacNaughton, after sharing his view with senior Liberals,” is at a loss to explain why Trudeau thinks the attacks will work.” Loyalty is the currency of politics and when friends start publicly taking each other on through the media, we are entering into a new phase of the game.
Whose Business is It?
The Supreme Court of Canada ruffled some media feathers when it determined last week that the mandate letters given by Premier Ford to his cabinet ministers did not have to be made public. Although freedom of information and disclosure by governments is a widespread problem, I am with the court on this one. Cabinet government in our Westminster model requires the first minister to be able to correspond with other ministers without every process matter becoming public. This encourages candid and direct conversation, so the government is held to account for its decisions and not for its internal deliberations.
Teaching Activist Journalism
Speaking of feather-ruffling, many media types were offended by veteran broadcaster Steve Paikin’s critique of journalism schools that produce graduates believing “not only is it their job to figure out which is the best party that ought to govern, but then [to] tailor their coverage accordingly.” The Hub’s Harrison Lowman explores the fallout, helpfully describing some of the fault lines between “old” and “new” journalism.
MEANINGFUL METRICS
The MacDonald-Laurier Institute released its third annual justice system audit last week. There’s lots of nuance, of course, but the top line results are that violent crime rates are at their highest point while confidence in the justice system remains at an alarmingly low level. Policing, measured on a per capita basis, has declined. The average length of time per court case increased, although the number of those unlawfully at large has decreased. All of this data measures 2018-2022 rates, the five years that have elapsed since MLI’s previous report.
TAKE IT TO-GO
Avoiding Holiday Potholes
Last Saturday was “pothole blitz” day in Toronto. Mayor Chow joined city crews for a photo-op that involved repairing “as many potholes as possible” over a 12-hour period. I suppose it worked—it got my attention in a way that the fixing of 22,000 potholes so far this year in Toronto didn’t. Some wags wondered if the timing had anything to do with Groundhog Day, musing whether the desire for the good feelings that come with an early spring might distract from the city’s other problems. Isn’t it good politics to ensure there is a surface rather than a pothole for the groundhog to see his shadow?
Following last week’s Pothole and Groundhog Days will be Valentine's Day, Pancake Tuesday, and Ash Wednesday this week. The week after that, we get a day off in celebration of Family Day (at least in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and New Brunswick, though folks in Manitoba, P.E.I., and Nova Scotia also get a day off in commemoration of other things or people). Cynics suggest that Family Day was invented to break up the long stretch between New Year’s Day and Good Friday without a day off. I’m of a more generous school, ready to drive down the road of good intentions and accept the argument that a steady filling of holes in the calendar with friendly special days is like filling potholes and ultimately leads to a smoother drive through time.
Whether you see in these holidays shadows or sunshine, the potholes on the road were being fixed. Next weekend is a long weekend and in keeping with tradition, Insights will take a week off. So look for us again in your inbox on Saturday, February 24th. It just so happens that Saturday will be National Tortilla Chip Day. There’s something to chew on.
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