I prepared this op-ed as both a match assessment (betting line?) for observers and as a perspective specifically for the players involved in this intended, one-in-a-lifetime transformation of the federal government.

Parliament sits with a new cabinet and lofty ambitions to get things done. It is, once again, a time of hope.

Let’s temper those hopes—perhaps with the wisdom of Yes, Minister, the BBC series (1980–84) that pitted the hapless Minister (Jim Hacker) against his Permanent Secretary—i.e., a Deputy Minister—(Sir Humphrey Appleby) in pantomime of parliamentary government “working” at the top.

Structure-based prediction for what’s ahead in Ottawa

Some find it cynically misrepresentative (ministers and deputies, primarily) while others are resign to its distressingly comic reality (the rest of us). Either way, its structural truth suggests what to expect in the seasons ahead.

Ministers

Let’s start with the ministers, granting that some are reappointments with job experience. More are unproven or dealing with their first substantive portfolio, or carry a transformational mandate. Focus on these.

Whatever their other qualities and however strong their pre-politics resume, they are in a new world: one of working through the public service. Government tends to operate on its own logic—unlikely a simple extension of what allowed them to succeed before.

That realization is likely to take a while. These are high-achievers who recently won a very big, very public popularity contest. Besides, many were love-bombed by party or leader just to get them in the race. That kind of thing can go to one’s head.

Filled with the warm airs of party and constituent adulation, a cabinet posting, and accoutrement of office, wings of ego will carry them high enough to readily overlook the unfamiliar terrain and its natural residents, which are at the very least more familiar and comfortable with the environment. Self-certainty is especially dangerous when it blinds one to what enemies lurk, where, how they behave, or even how they look.

Typically, ministers build up to meaningful positions. So many critical portfolios and so many new faces make such training unaffordable today. For more ministers than we should care to see this way, it will be baptism by fire. With luck, they will be quick studies. Godspeed to them.

Deputy Ministers

At least they have help. Deputy Ministers are there to be partners helping achieve the goals and ambitions represented by the new ministers. That’s the theory; maybe even the intent. But let’s consider the deputy minister and why tension is more likely to derail than not.

Deputies are star executives in their own right. That they are less renowned than their ministerial partners is due more to toiling in the obscurity of government. But government is their environment. They are the native culture; the tenured experts. They know how things run in this milieu.

They know because they have made careers climbing the greasy pole of government hierarchy. That means careers well-managed and success in more than a few bloody tangles with other ambitious men and women. There is no way around the fact that these are the “A players” in the federal government.

Now put yourself in their shoes: you know both how things should operate and how they really get done, and, most importantly, you have years of hard won experience to know what will or won’t successfully change in the federal government—certainly this department. As an ambitious and successful executive in the back half of your career, why would you pursue a dangerously Quixotic transformation as ordered by a minister… even the prime minister… when obviously they don’t yet know anything about anything in this world?

The psychology and structure at play

This psychology and galvanized self-confidence are shared by minister and deputy, it not being possible to become an elected official or senior executive without borderline-narcissistic self-confidence. That is the ante to enter the game.

It should be obviously that the lynchpin of government transformation—willingly or over strenuous objection—is the deputy minister not the minister. And, in the circumstance, only job description suggests the deputy is working in the minister’s interest… to Cabinet’s vision. The deputy may partner, but certainly not as a lesser one.

O tempora, o mores

In eventful periods, even recession, the stability a government needs to protect and project is best achieved by the permanent public service. Deferring to its leaders makes sense: faith they can and will use the system as best as it can be used to implement mandates is likely to be rewarded.

In transformation—when stable ground is shaky and the structures/conduct of government are to be challenged and materially revised, however, the typical deputy is unsuited to the task. That’s not to diminish his/her executive acumen. But any machine fine-tuned to one purpose will almost assuredly perform unsuccessfully for a wholly different one.

In the tension between these two gravitational poles, history (and art) suggests advantage deputy—like it or not.

A little advice

So, to serve the government, the prime minister, and citizens best, it is in many a new ministers’ interest to take counsel from others more suited to transformation then collectively work with the deputy to implement those changes. The deputy and the public service, in transformation, are the means to effect needed changes not to determine them.

The same advice goes to the deputies. To genuinely help it’s probably time to call in someone built for transformation as your own partner, and listen to him/her. Together you will very probably be successful in the collective goal.

As a high achievers, you are both undoubtedly up to the task.

Institute X is a transformation leadership consultancy and leader coaching firm. More thoughts and guidance for making change happen are available on this, the Transforminator blog. And, of course, I’m here to help if you’re ready.