Brad Ferguson - The Power of Purpose

Brad Ferguson joins Derek again to talk about the power of purpose, especially how the power of narrative can bring people together in an organization, based on Brad's work on helping the Province of Alberta consider its Quest.

Show Notes

Brad Ferguson is at Optimus SBR
Derek Hudson is at Unconstrained
See full show notes at the Essential Dynamics Wiki.

What is Essential Dynamics with Derek Hudson?

Join Derek Hudson as he explores Essential Dynamics, a framework for approaching the challenges facing people and organizations. Consider your Quest!

Derek: 00:20

Welcome to the essential dynamics podcast. I'm your host, Derek Hudson. Essential dynamics is a framework I've been working on to help us think through tricky situations. And in this podcast, we test the concepts of essential dynamics through deep conversations with interested people. Today, I've got a real interesting person with me in in, the studio.

Derek: 00:41

It's Brad Ferguson, my, my friend and and former colleague. Brad, welcome to another another episode of Central Dynamics. Brad Ferguson Well,

Brad: 00:52

thanks, Derek. Great to be here. And, I'm calling in from Toronto today. So I hope that's okay. It's a little bit across the country kind of experience today, and I've I think I've worked in, like, three provinces today, and I it's nice to be back, talking to you from here.

Derek: 01:08

Good good to have you back in Alberta where the sun sets at 10:30PM. So and, we're recording this in in June, and the days are long, and, it's it's it's wonderful to be together. So, Brad, thanks for coming back. I wasn't sure you were going to after, after our first session, but, it's it's just been fantastic to consider, in particular, the power of, of purpose in accomplishing things in organizations. And, you had just started in our last conversation talking about your work with the environmental, social and governance ESG Secretariat at the province of Alberta.

Derek: 01:51

Is that where you're working? Is that correct?

Brad: 01:53

That's true. That's right. I spent almost a year there to help set up the what they call the ESG Secretariat, which, really provided a lens through which, the provinces is looked upon and judged. But also a lens through which the province should be communicating performance. And, and that's everything from its environmental, scoreboard or performance and report card to from a social point of view, in terms of equity, inclusion, belonging, you know, opportunities for females, youth, whatever it happens to be, and governance in terms of how well its institutions run, how its financial performance, etcetera.

Brad: 02:39

And, those, that broad range of lens provides a very broad approach to how, you know, really how government should be, in my mind should be viewed as is it well performing or underperformance. And Alberta was the first province, actually one of the first jurisdictions in the world to really take that on. And I had the opportunity to try to figure it out. So it was a pleasure.

Derek: 03:05

You're a brave man. And I know you like challenges. Do you know how that idea, came about?

Brad: 03:17

So first of all, it it was through foresight of Premier Kenny. Whether you, you know, you love him or not, it's, he he had the foresight to realize that this was a lens through which Alberta was being judged. And, off the start, I believe that it was, it was in defense of divestment from the province. So the risk of money falling out of the province because of a negative brand associated with the oil sands that was then starting to trickle into other industries. So you saw a crowding out of investment, from the province.

Brad: 03:49

So I think it started as a defensive strategy in in my original mandate. And then very quickly, we were able to broaden the discussion to say this has to go beyond energy, and it has to go through the entire spectrum of ESG. And if we do this properly, it can be not just a lens through which we communicate all the good things about the province, but an alignment mechanism for all the institutions and agencies and, and departments inside government to be aligned to one single scoreboard. And that could become a very powerful organizing mechanism inside government.

Derek: 04:25

So that, that surprises me a little bit. Or at least it would have surprised me when I first heard about your new responsibilities back when that happened. Because my perception would have been or was that it was about the public communications aspect. And so if I'm hearing you right, that was initially the, I guess, the reason to get started. But at some point, it became, internal operating, or source of improved operations through that idea of getting an alignment.

Brad: 05:01

I think, yeah, not so much operations, but alignment. And so what was interesting is we were we were structured in executive council, which basically, what that means is amongst all the different ministries, every ministry has a minister who's an elected official. Our minister was the premier. So it was it was nice to start there because it gave you direct access to all the 21 ministries and to all the people doing some like, honestly, in my life, I I met some of the smartest, hardest working people I've ever come across, were those working in government on some, you know, incredible, challenging projects, that, you know, we're often had to balance science, economics, and social impacts. And, what what was interesting is, you know, I had the opportunity to learn their stories and what they were working on.

Brad: 05:51

And they were working on incredible things, but nobody had weaved it together into a single narrative. And I think, you know, one of the, I don't know if it was luck or sure happenstance, or I had a little bit of foresight. But, you know, the opportunity to start to tell their story as part of a bigger story of what government was trying to do, allowed them to not only see themselves in a bigger picture, but start to see themselves as part of that journey. And, you know, you talk about a quest. You know, this is a province that's on a quest to become better at a whole bunch of different things.

Brad: 06:24

And those individual, you know, the 26,000 employees that are in government started to, maybe not all of them, but you know, a few a number of them that I got the chance to work with, started to see what they were working on and how it mattered. And, so it didn't matter who you were, if you knew what you were working on and how it contributed to a single scoreboard for the province in terms of the brand and the image and the reputation of the province. It's amazing how I just saw people get very excited about the work they were doing and how it was contributing. And, the power of narrative brought that together. I think that was you talked about, it started as a communications exercise externally, but it became very strong communications exercise internally.

Brad: 07:08

And that's where I call it a very strong alignment mechanism inside the province. And I honestly thought we were just getting started of what the power of that actually was once you realized you had it as an organization.

Derek: 07:22

So there's a bunch in there. So one is the power of story. And, and then that does that does connect with, you know, thinking we have an essential dynamics to frame everything as an epic quest. But there's more to it than that because the story is not marketing jargon. The story is, is the journey that people take and the things that they accomplish that mean something.

Derek: 07:50

And, you know, it's easy for us to criticize government. But on the other hand, what government is, is it's people coming together to do things that you can't do on your own. And I am, I've always been thrilled that I have a dentist, and in particular for me an optometrist. And I don't have to get good at that. I can get good at other things, and I can benefit from that.

Derek: 08:17

And I'm, you know, I'm, I enjoy driving on paved highways and heavy bridges and healthcare. Our tendency is to take systems and break them down into components until we get a level below where you can optimize. And then we optimize this little pocket. And so if you think of what's government for, government is for combining the services that are best done for everyone on a cost shared basis. And then when you we when we accept the fact that we gotta pay for that with taxes, then there's, there's potentially a zero sum game about if this ministry gets it that doesn't.

Derek: 09:03

But if you, are able to say to people, do you want this basket of services? It will improve your life. And the people in government feel that way, and see the, implications of another ministry contributing to the, you know, the work that they're trying to do. That's, there's a potential for alignment that externally, I don't know that I've seen yet, but I don't know that the citizens are even looking for it or asking for it. Our, our tendency is more to pick apart those single experience we had that we didn't like.

Brad: 09:34

John Well, that's, that's the easy reaction, you know, to an experience or, you you know, a circumstance that maybe someone's living in today. And as a result, government gets painted with a negative picture very often. I think that's one of the reasons I really wanted to spend some time inside government was to see it from a different, through a different lens and get a different experience. When we used ESG as a lens through which we could look at, you know, what is the policy environment across all the different, all the different measures of which the province is judged. We can look at what the performance is, and then what the ambition is.

Brad: 10:14

Once you have a performance and ambition, you have a trajectory for each thing, from everything from CO2 emissions, to water usage, to, you know, equal pay, you know, diversity on boards, whatever it happens to be, whatever your your framework is involved, or involves. Once you have a performance and a trajectory and an ambitions, you can also then reallocate capital to the priorities, in terms of where you're deficient. So it actually gets away from, you know, in a perfect world, Dirk, it gets away from one ministry stealing from another, which is a zero sum to gain kind of approach and more of, no, wait a minute. You know, these are the areas that we're high performing in, and these are the areas that we still have growth to do. Let's reallocate resources to go in those areas that need, to, to fundamentally change either the trajectory or, you know, what our performance is today.

Brad: 11:13

And I I think it it was interesting in budget 2022, '20 '3, this last one back in February or March, I can't remember. They used an ESG scorecard in there in order to start talking about what are the priorities, where what where is our performance to date. And, you know, I think that's where you can really build a narrative around it. And to the public, the public starts to realize, and they start to realize that it makes sense of why we're not over investing in one area and under investing in another. It actually starts to build a narrative of what the whole of government is trying to accomplish for the betterment of people, of Alberta, Alberta's brand, and also the people that live there.

Brad: 11:55

And, you know, don't underestimate the power of that narrative. What's interesting, though, and through the process, what we uncovered that is Alberta had that, a lot of the narrative in Alberta was around, they called it overcoming the monster or David versus Goliath. You know, it was Alberta fighting back on Ottawa, Alberta fighting back on everything. And what Albertans really wanted is to show, a journey or a quest story, which everybody is genetically engineered to understand. You know, it's, Harry Potter, it's, Lord of the Rings.

Brad: 12:31

It's all you know, those those are quests. And It's the

Derek: 12:33

hero's journey. Yeah.

Brad: 12:35

And if if Alberta is going to improve its brand and change its brand, in the country and across the country, once people across the country start to understand the quest Alberta's on to be, you know, the most environmentally, responsible producers of a mix of energy products or whatever that quest is. Once they understand the quest Alberta's on, then they can give time to the problems to show results and to show progress, versus just judging it for this moment in time. So, you know, by using a power of a narrative, I think we have an opportunity to really bring the country into, believing in the trajectory that Alberta wants to be on, and then really get their support. And then I think that can eventually influence policy and funding environments down the way.

Derek: 13:25

Brad, that's really powerful. Because, you talk about the trajectory and the ambition. And if you're starting from zero momentum, any goal seems like impossible. Like, we're here, we're there. How would we how do we get there?

Derek: 13:44

But if you're moving, then you can say, well, let's just pick up the pace or go a little bit further, you know, don't give up. Then it seems attainable. In fact, it is attainable. One of the things that's crazy if you think about it, and I'm sure you've thought about a lot is, in the world today, If you didn't understand some of the issues that we've been facing, and you had to put a pin in a map and start somewhere. I think it would be like, why not Alberta?

Derek: 14:19

And, so here we have all these natural advantages. We have, you know, great people who are well educated. We have great new people coming from all over the world who want a piece of this. And why? Because we're on a trajectory and we're ambitious, and we can make just one of the greatest societies in the world.

Derek: 14:42

And instead, yeah, we're fighting a monster and we're, you know, wasting our time on a lot of stuff that, that doesn't even give us credit for the for the trajectory you've developed to this point.

Brad: 14:55

I remember hearing a story of, Sandy Mactaggart and Mr. De La Breuer, who was, they were both coming out of Harvard University, and they took a map of the globe. And they said, you know, we're going to come out, we want to be entrepreneurs, we want to be in the real estate business. This is in the 1950s. And or maybe early for 1950s.

Brad: 15:15

And they said, you know, out of all the places where they put the pin right in Edmonton, like, they put the pin right there and said, we think based on all these different factors, this could be one of the greatest opportunities of our lifetime. And they were absolutely right. Right. When you look at from 1950 to today, the Alberta economy has outperformed pretty much every other jurisdiction in North America regardless of the price of oil. Yeah.

Brad: 15:36

On a consistent basis, it's been a phenomenal, run. And I would suggest two kids coming out of a harbor today should take a look at the map of the world. And I bet that pin ends up right back in Alberta. When you look at, not just the, you know, the, our post secondary institutions and the talent that's being commercialized every day with 10,000 kids walking across that stage commercialized into stage to the to the market today, to the geological formations underneath, to the science and engineering power of solving some of the most complex problems the world has today. What we have in Alberta, I believe represents the same type of opportunity for the next fifty years as we have in the last.

Brad: 16:19

And, I I get goosebumps, actually, when I think about the potential in front of our kids coming out of the university today, and what what what opportunities rest in front of them.

Derek: 16:32

Okay. So I'm gonna pick up on that and say, you know, we've got this polarized political landscape. I'm talking about, there's an earlier podcast episode where I said we gotta get purpose y, purpose x and purpose y on the same team in the same room. It sounds like that's kind of the ESG initiative with the government is, we want all the good things. And is there a way to have all those voices?

Derek: 17:04

Not one in power and the other picketing on the streets and then trading places every four years. But how do we get all the voices in the same room and line them up? Because there's, there there are trade offs, but there's also complementarity. There's also synergy and these multiple objectives. And I'm sure you've looked at that.

Brad: 17:27

I, first of all, I I try to stay away from the political discussion and focus more on how do we unite, whether it be in the province or across the country. And what's interesting is most most parties have a set of values. And they talk about, you know, one set of one party might have, we want, you know, small government, we want entrepreneurism, we want, you know, low unemployment, access to capital, etcetera. And one party might want a lot of compassion and a lot of, empathy and a lot of, public support or whatever. And it doesn't really matter what those words are.

Brad: 18:04

But what happens is they form two lists in isolation, when actually, I think there needs to be a principle and a limitation that comes with that. So we want entrepreneurship, but with proper rules and oversight, right? We want a world of compassion and empathy. But yet not everybody can be, you know, on, on welfare, you know, for example, like, you know, we, so those principles, or those values need to be met with a moment of a limitation to them. And if we can talk about things within ranges, I think somehow that starts to form a basis for a healthy dialogue, to realize that we're gonna have people at all ends of that spectrum, but this is what we're trying to become as a province or as a country.

Brad: 18:53

And I think that might be a unifying approach to, you know, values and what actually, some people say tries to differentiate each other.

Derek: 19:01

Well, and and I think that if your platform is based on methods or means, you're gonna be limited. But if your platform is based on values and outcomes, then you can ask yourself, well, how would we accomplish that? And then the whole array, you know, array of possibilities are out there. So, I'm with you on that. We're coming up on time, but I just want to explore for a minute, this idea that when you have those sort of clear purposes, that you see changes in behavior.

Derek: 19:34

So you alluded to it in, in the government setting. Wouldn't it be the same case for all kinds of other stale organizations or struggling mid market companies, that if they can get clear on purpose, that there's potential for increased performance as people just kind of line themselves up with what the organization is trying to do? I think I go back to where you said if people can just see where they fit, and how they can contribute. And I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't actually know what the plan is and how they contribute, whether that's government, big industry, or not for profits.

Brad: 20:09

I think you're on to something profound, which I probably haven't thought enough about over the years. But, you know, when most people want to come to work, they want to contribute, they don't, they don't choose to come to work, to sit in a cubicle and not be productive. You know, people want to be challenged, they want to be stretched, muscles need to be used, they need to be stretched, hopefully not torn, but stretched in order to strengthen, right? People's minds, same thing, we all have, you know, brains with hippocampus that need to be activated, otherwise, it deteriorates and shrinks. And the next thing you know, we we have challenges later in life.

Brad: 20:49

So let's, you know, start with a premise that people want to be productive, and they want to contribute. The next level of that then is clarity as to what are we contributing to? And how are we working together? And why does the person next to us exist, and I exist, and the person on the right of me exists, such that we know how we all work in unison or have our individual parts of what we're doing to form this journey, and to to, to contribute to the organization or to your whatever your cause is. And then the third level that I think, you know, is often foggy for many is, consistency of message from the top of, you know, what it is that we're solving, what is it the world wants, why do we exist now, what is, you know, what is our moment that the world is waiting for us and for us to unlock, in terms of, you know, adding in the positive contribution or positive value?

Brad: 21:57

And if that message can be consistent and clear and purposeful, people know how they work together, and they find meaning in what they do. And they can see the results. When you get alignment in that, I've never seen an organization, you use the word tired, tired or new, or anyone. I've never seen an organization that can't refresh. In all my years of either, you know, working as a CEO or an interim CEO doing turnarounds, or in my world in consulting, I've never come across any organization that's not ready.

Brad: 22:31

It's just that you just have to unlock those three different levels.

Derek: 22:35

Absolutely.

Brad: 22:35

And that's a challenge.

Derek: 22:38

So, so I like to kind of come down to, one takeaway, and I think I just heard it from you. So I'm not gonna make you repeat it. But lining people up to a purpose that's clear, that gets repeated as consistent, and that the leadership acts consistent with, unlocks the potential. And, the other thing you said is that any tired organization can be refreshed, and I'm gonna venture that that would be around a purpose, a revitalization of a purpose.

Brad: 23:13

You, you hit it out of the park. And I would say it's easy to do with a small organization, but it's it would be even it's it's even possible with as big as an organization as the government of Canada. Right. That that size, it can still be done. The the maple leaf, the Canadian flag is one of the top 10 most powerful brands in the world.

Brad: 23:36

People get goosebumps when they think about it. If you work for it, you're you're actually dying to show how you can contribute to it. And we have to get back to trying to figure out how do we unlock that.

Derek: 23:48

Absolutely. Well, that's a fantastic place to end as, as we anticipate, the opportunities before us everywhere to take these things and make a difference in small places or big places, including the whole whole country. Thanks. So thanks very much. So Brad, we should do this again.

Derek: 24:09

I'm not sure, where we can take this topic, but let's think about it. And then let's conspire. Because this is this has been fantastic. Brad, if people are interested in your current work, where can they find you?

Brad: 24:20

So I currently work with a organization called Optimus SBR. It's, the largest independent management consulting firm in the country. And, they can find me at brad. FergusonoptimusSBR dot com. And I will, I will answer any email any emails from anyone that comes in.

Derek: 24:41

Awesome. Thanks very much. Well, the Essential Dynamics podcast is brought to you by Unconstrained my consultancy that helps leaders work through their trickiest opportunities. And you can go to getunconstrained.com to learn more about that. If, this podcast has made you think, please like, subscribe, share, and follow the link to the show notes and join the conversation on essential dynamics.

Derek: 25:06

So Brad, thanks very much. Brynn Griffiths, thanks for, powering the whole thing. And, I'm Derek Hudson. Until next time, consider your quest.