GATEKEEPING AND SILOS EXPLORING MANAGERS' DISCRETION AND THE ACTIONS TAKEN TO AVOID GATEKEEPING IN BLUEPRINT 2020
By
DANIEL L. DICKIN
Integrated Studies Project
submitted to Dr. Angela Specht in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts – Integrated Studies
Athabasca, Alberta
October, 2014 2
Abstract This thesis defines and explores gatekeeping within the Canadian public service in the context of the Blueprint 2020 public service renewal initiative. Daniel Dickin defines gatekeeping as “the personal decision of an employee in deciding what information and work goes up and down the hierarchy and what does not” and uses this definition to explore the role managers play in dividing and suppressing information (gatekeeping) that should flow through the manager, both to lower- level employees and higher-ranking executives.
The prevalence of gatekeeping in organizations has been studied in settings such as law and medical schools, but not in Canada’s public service. With reforms initiated in 2013 to bring Canada’s federal public service into the year 2020 (hence “Destination 2020” and “Blueprint 2020”), now is an opportune time to observe the changes. This thesis compares the faults of the Public Service 2000 initiatives with Blueprint 2020 and demonstrates that there were a number of gatekeeping elements in Public Service 2000 that were corrected for in designing Blueprint 2020. For example, access to social media and internet-based discussion platforms were designed to give public servants the freedom to voice how they really felt without having to go through a filter (their supervisors and managers) to have those voices heard. However, this thesis also explores the elements of gatekeeping that remain in Blueprint 2020, and suggests how they may impact a valuable and meaningful public service reform initiative. 3
Table of Contents Table of Contents...... 2
Part One: Defining Gatekeeping in Previous Public Service Reforms...... 3 Introduction...... 3 The Failure of an Imposed Value-Shift...... 4 Lack of Consultation Resulted in a Minimal Buy-In...... 6 Unclear Hierarchies and Competing Organizations...... 6 Gatekeeping in Public Service 2000...... 9 The Effects of Gatekeeping...... 9
Part Two: Efforts to Address Gatekeeping in Blueprint 2020 and Elements of Gatekeeping that Remain...... 12 Moving Forward: A New Vision for Renewal...... 12 The Creation of Blueprint 2020...... 13 Defining the Gatekeepers...... 16 The Ancient Versus the Modern Gatekeeper...... 20 The Federal Environment...... 21 How Does Gatekeeping Start?...... 24 The Gatekeeping Paradox: An Educated Work Force...... 27 The Tall Climb to the Top...... 27 The Top: Ministerial and Prime Ministerial Leadership...... 30 Reasons for Gatekeeping...... 32 Forms of Gatekeeping...... 33 Combating Gatekeeping...... 39 GC Connex...... 39 Use of Social Media...... 40 Employee Empowerment...... 42 Conclusion...... 42 References...... 45 Figures...... 49 4
Part One: Defining Gatekeeping in Previous Public Service Reforms Introduction The bureaucracies of Canada's governments have faced constant calls for growth and change through the past several decades. Public service reform has been espoused from both left- and right-wing governments as an effective electoral campaign platform.1 Federally, this has included the 1984 Nielson Task Force, Public Service 2000 (PS2000), the 1995 Program
Review, and the currently in progress, Blueprint 2020. The common thread of all of these reviews has been modernizing, reforming, and updating the public service to provide better outcomes, better customer service, and better value for taxpayer money. The largest of these reviews prior to Blueprint 2020 was Public Service 2000, in which the public service was envisioned as leading the way into the 21st century with a modern, lean, highly-qualified workforce. Unfortunately it failed, and the current federal government's Blueprint 2020 has been established specifically to avoid the shortfalls of Public Service 2000.
While there were numerous minor and major errors in the Public Service 2000 initiative, they generally fell into three broad categories. In part one, I examine some of the errors of the
Public Service 2000 initiative and conclude that many of the real and perceived failures of this initiative are connected to gatekeeping, a term not used in either the Public Service 2000 or current Blueprint 2020 renewal processes. First, I discuss how an executive-level imposed value system resulted in a lack of buy-in from employees in defining their workplace. Second, I illustrate how a lack of consultations with employees meant employees felt left out and excluded
1Mohamed Charih and Arthur Daniels, New Public Management and Public Administration in Canada (Ottawa: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1997), p. 18. 5
from shaping the priorities of the renewal process, again resulting in a subsequent lack of buy-in to reforms. Third, I examine the unclear hierarchies and unclear divisions of responsibility that resulted in confusion and duplication of work effort. Finally, I conclude with an introduction to gatekeeping, which connects these errors but has not been identified as a potential constraint in
Public Service 2000 or as a potential barrier for meaningful reform through the Blueprint 2020 process. Given that gatekeeping has significant implications for achieving meaningful public sector reform, it is import to bring issues that arise from it to the foreground.
The Failure of an Imposed Value-Shift Public Service 2000 “set out to significantly streamline systems and processes and modernize management practices, including those that governed how public service employees were managed.”2 According to the Auditor General, senior managers and department executives were frustrated with centrally-organized and controlled administrative and human resources departments, that were seen as rigidly applying rules and policies while remaining disconnected from a department's actual front line services. Managers sought to better define their vision of a public service, which they hoped would then help create a culture shift that would see the favouring of front line employees and end results that culminated in better service provision, more efficient and effective use of public resources, and employee empowerment through authority devolved to lower levels.
The Clerk of the Privy Council said the reforms would require “10 percent legislative change, 20 percent change in systems, and 70 percent change in attitudes and practices.”3
Unfortunately, Public Service 2000 failed in this regard because its largest component –
2Office of the Auditor General of Canada, Public Service Management Reform: Progress, Setbacks, and Challenges, online:
changing attitudes and practices - relied exclusively on the ideas and changes as decided by those same senior managers and executives. The front line employees whom senior managers and executives were purportedly representing were not involved in the actual reform or shaping of their public service processes or practices. For example, “traditional” public service values included accountability, excellence, neutrality, loyalty, leadership, effectiveness, and innovation among a list of values that were expressed as equally important within the public service.
However, Public Service 2000 reforms created a ranked hierarchy of values, starting with integrity and ethics and ending with leadership and creativity. The new list of values prioritized ethical values over democratic values; and at the same time, loyalty and neutrality were removed from the new list of public service values.4
Lower-level employees saw several issues with the values that were eventually implemented: 1) they were “not thought through carefully enough,” resulting in a contradiction between stated values; 2) senior managers and executives were caught “not walking their talk;”
3) there was a lack of recognition that competing values may require that a public servant to enforce one set of values while simultaneously breaking another set that were deemed equally as important; and 4) there was scepticism amongst the civil service ranks that talks of
“organizational renewal” was actually diversion from resolving “real difficulties and tensions.”5
While it is of course often popularly accepted that integrity, ethics, and accountability are important public service values, the fact is that these values statements were generated in the
Public Service 2000 reforms without consultation with employees. Who decided that excellence was more important than honesty? Why was trust a lower value than teamwork? Or why were 4Kenneth Kernaghan, Shaking the Foundation: New versus Traditional Public-Service Values in Mohamed Charih and Arthur Daniels, New Public Management and Public Administration in Canada (Ottawa: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1997), p. 54. 5Ibid, p. 56. 7
democratic principles missing from public service processes and objectives? Given that Public
Service 2000 was meant to productively shape and clarify public service values and processes, the lack of meaningful input effectively helped to alienate the very employees it sought to empower.
Lack of Consultation Resulted in a Minimal Buy-In Secondly, failing to hold consultations with employees meant a lack of buy-in or acceptance of the values that were forced on them without their respective input. As with the executive-imposed value system, keeping consultations between a small executive member group meant employees did not feel they could take ownership of the Public Service 2000 renewal process. Furthermore, keeping consultations between senior managers and executives left these senior officials vulnerable to groupthink and created the conditions for an echo chamber effect where changes may have resonated with top-level managers but were completely dissonant according to frontline employees’ knowledge and needs. This is not to say that managers should have completely delegated their decision-making power to a group consensus or democratic method, but there was nothing preventing managers from at least asking their respective employees how they felt about the proposed changes, or how they would go about implementing the changes that the organization sought.
Unclear Hierarchies and Competing Organizations A third issue with the Public Service 2000 initiative had to do with unclear hierarchies and divisions of responsibilities between multiple organizations. At the top of the public service hierarchy the Treasury Board of Canada is responsible for monitoring the federal government's spending on public programs committed to through announcements such as annual budgets. The 8
Public Service Commission’s mission is to build a public service focused on “excellence.”6 The
Clerk of the Privy Council Office serves as the highest-ranking bureaucrat as the Deputy
Minister to the Prime Minister and Clerk to the cabinet.7 The Blueprint 2020 initiative and the annual reports on the status of the public service have been led by the Clerk of the Privy Council rather than the Public Service Commission, and this is important to note because it utilizes the highest-ranking public servant, who serves the Prime Minister and Cabinet, rather than the
Commission, which may have been better positioned to facilitate long-term changes as a result of its arms-length mandate. This division between functional authority, financial authority, and an auditing role forms part of the checks and balances of Canada’s governmental organization but it can and often does create competing interests at the highest levels of governmental bureaucracy, and often leaves low-level employees with challenges for navigating these competing interests and unclear reporting lines.
While the Public Service 2000 reforms affirmed that “accountability” was important, its application was unclear. “Will senior officials be accountable merely for the implementation of the various specific projects and actions set out in the departmental plans, or for achieving the broader results targeted by those projects or actions?” asked one Parliamentary study of the reforms.8 The picture only becomes less clear when one considers that in a Westminster
Parliament like Canada's, ministers of the Crown also hold ultimate accountability for their departments' actions, even if they were not personally responsible for an error. As the Auditor
General concluded in 2000, “unclear and overlapping roles and responsibilities lead to
6 Public Service Commission of Canada, Mission, Vision, and Values Statement, online:
duplication and wasted effort as well as inaction.”9 Ultimately, Public Service 2000 failed to clearly define organizational champions who were responsible for leading change, which resulted in the failed initiative.
This notion of consultation between different levels and ranks is especially important when considering that Canada's bureaucrats are highly educated and work in positions requiring a high knowledge base. According to Statistics Canada, federal employees' education and experience in “knowledge-based occupations” has become increasingly important.10 These are employees whose skills and experiences are not only measured in formal education, but also in on-the-job experience in handling multiple files, decisions, topics, and issues over a long period of time. The growth in the number of employees in this category would suggest that their advice should have become more valuable and relevant in determining the direction of the public service's renewal efforts.
Building a “consultative culture” means not just internally consulting between senior managers and executives. It should also mean consulting with the public and a department's own employees.11 Part of the Public Service 2000 initiative was to create a culture that used consultations as a regular part of carrying out the department's mandate and objectives. One of the issues with Public Service 2000 was that it was not consultative; it started at the top, with the
Prime Minister's declaration that the public service would reform itself to improve service standards.12 However, there was clearly a gap between the Prime Minister's declaration and
9Office of the Auditor General of Canada, supra note 3. 10Statistics Canada, Employment Trends in the Federal Public Service (2009), online:
what the public service executives interpreted as his direction. At some point, the reform ceased to be pushed to lower levels and decisions were made without involving lower-level employees, leaving employees disconnected from their work, even as the initiative was defined and created at higher levels.
Gatekeeping in Public Service 2000 On closer inspection, it is easy to see how gatekeeping played a major role in the Public
Service 2000 initiative, although further clarification of gatekeeping is required. The ability of organizations and individuals to “gatekeep” is not a new topic. Gatekeeping is the personal decision of an employee in deciding what information and work goes up and down the hierarchy and what does not. It requires the strict control over who is allowed to access a field or network of power within an organization. In other words, the topic of gatekeeping is about both who controls the entry point and who controls movement, communication, and information once on the inside. It is also about why they are engaging in this behaviour: what the purpose is, what gatekeeping protects, and what is limited when gatekeeping exists. For example, law and medical schools have long been associated with a gatekeeping mentality that sees their professional associations apply strict control over who is allowed to access those fields and how one accesses those fields (in other words, who controls the entry point or “gate”).13 However, there is very little written about the prevalence of this same process and control in Canada’s federal public service. For the purposes of this thesis, I define gatekeeping as the personal decision of an employee in deciding what information and work goes up and/or down the hierarchy and what does not. The use of gatekeeping is situated within a political interpretation
13 Dawna Tong, Gatekeeping in Canadian Law Schools: A History of Exclusion, the Rule of “Merit,” and a Challenge to Contemporary Practices, (University of British Columbia, 1999), online:
of the public service, meaning that each level of supervision or management has a political stake in controlling the information that goes to higher managers and lower employees.
The Effects of Gatekeeping The effects of gatekeeping cannot be understated because it has many potential implications. Gatekeeping structures behaviour; it can prioritize (determine what things are or are not deemed important for) work; control direction of an organization; control contact and interactions between different levels of employees; shape the openness or closed nature of the organization’s work culture; and, it can impact the how much innovation or risk an individual employee may take or a unit might tolerate. For example, since an employee's immediate supervisor is commonly the one responsible for giving performance assessments; granting or recommending vacation time or time off work; and monitoring work performance; an employee may be reluctant to advocate for change or different processes if the advocacy challenges or threatens the superior’s station or legitimacy. Similarly, a superior might want or try to vet any advocacies or innovations before they go to a level above as a way to maintain order, prioritize change, or limit what he or she may consider problematic material. These checks and limits (this gatekeeping) that an organizations’ membership impose do have real implications for the organization and how effectively it operates and changes.
Gatekeeping in the Public Service 2000 reforms occurred by keeping public service reform within executive ranks, the Public Service 2000 initiative resulted in consultations with a homogenous group of generally like-minded managers. As a comparatively small group of individuals, seeking agreement may have been an easier process to facilitate, but it came at the consequence of deliberately shutting out lower-level employees and/or from assuming that the 12
executive rank knew what was best for the vast civil service as a whole. In other words, keeping reforms at the highest executive levels was an example of gatekeeping as it kept the ideas and authority to enact changes with the highest-ranking civil servants; it failed to devolve authority to lower levels with important front line experience or empower employees to have some control over their respective and varied organizations' visions and mandates. While the executive members' feedback and expertise may have been helpful in setting some broad objectives and guiding discussions, there was no valid reason why all employees could not be called upon for their views and ideas in the process of reforming the civil service.
In part one, I have laid the groundwork for defining gatekeeping in Canada's federal bureaucracy by observing its proliferation throughout the Public Service 2000initiative. While not directly defined throughout many of the post-mortems of why Public Service 2000 failed, the common thread through each of the three large issues addressed above had to do with a managers' discretion to politically gatekeep and control communications to higher and from lower employees. The common thread in each of the three issues I have highlighted with Public
Service 2000 is a form of gatekeeping, although it was not explicitly referred to by name. I first discussed how gatekeeping operates as an executive-level imposed value system that resulted in a lack of buy-in from employees in defining their workplace. I second showed gatekeeping as a lack of consultations with employees that subsequently meant employees felt left out and excluded from the renewal process, while again resulting in a lack of buy-in. I third examined gatekeeping via poor design of Public Service 2000, the unclear hierarchies and unclear divisions of responsibility, which resulted in confusion and a duplication of work effort. In each of these cases, gatekeeping played a role in keeping the ability to make decisions and have those 13
decisions implemented with a small group of executive members. It failed to empower lower- level employees or devolve authority to individuals who may have had specific expertise. Public
Service 2000 utilized existing hierarchies to supposedly “renew” itself without gaining employees' perspectives or buy-ins.
Canada's federal bureaucracy has been in a state of constant growth, contraction, renewal, and change for the past several decades. The pressures of federal government’s constantly exhibiting these pressures has resulted in several public service initiatives that seek to revitalize the public service and bring it into the future as a lean, highly-qualified, and effective organization. These initiatives have all seen different levels of success or failure due to gatekeeping, but they have never identified nor sought to define gatekeeping or examine the role managers' discretion plays in the producing an effective reform process. I have defined the broad expressions of gatekeeping in the failed Public Service 2000 initiative. Next I examine how these failures have been accommodated for in the Blueprint 2020 initiative, as well as further define examples of gatekeeping in the public service.
Part Two: Efforts to Address Gatekeeping in Blueprint 2020 and Elements of Gatekeeping that Remain Moving Forward: A New Vision for Renewal In the section above, I spoke to three broad errors experienced with Public Service 2000.
In this section, I explore how the federal public service attempted to address the issue of widespread employee participation in creating its latest initiative, Blueprint 2020. The focus of
Blueprint 2020 has been on getting federal employees into hundreds of online discussion forums, focus groups, and open microphone sessions with senior departmental leaders who have 14
decision-making authority. However, what neither Public Service 2000 nor Blueprint 2020 touched upon was the prevalence of gatekeeping. Public Service 2000 was an executive-driven and -imposed value statements and working groups left lower-level employees wanting more when it came to shaping their workplace. One of its main faults was the imposition of gatekeeping to keep important decisions at the highest level of the bureaucracy without any consultations or input from other employees. While gatekeeping was not referred to by name, its effects have begun to be recognized and corrected in Blueprint 2020, although gatekeeping is still possible. In this initiative, the federal public service has been much more careful to avoid the possibility of gatekeeping by keeping the consultation process more open, collaborative, and accountable.
In this section, I further develop the topic of gatekeeping by examining the circumstances within the federal public service that have both caused and prevented gatekeeping. First, I define gatekeepers, not in their actions, but in their personal attributes and potential motives for contributing to gatekeeping processes. Second, I examine the genesis of gatekeeping, meaning how it starts, how it is created, and how it continues or is abolished. Third, I introduce a list of actions that can be considered gatekeeping, with some suggestions on why they may take place.
Fourth, I discuss how gatekeeping can be combated, especially how it has been combated through various initiatives in the Blueprint 2020 initiative. I conclude with recommendations for further studies on gatekeeping. While Blueprint 2020 process has excelled at breaking down silos and avoiding gatekeeping, gatekeeping is still a force in the federal public service that must be acknowledged as informing working conditions and processes within the federal public service. 15
The Creation of Blueprint 2020 Blueprint 2020 was initiated in 2012 by the Clerk of the Privy Council, at the time
Wayne Wouters, when he called for “a clear and shared vision of what Canada’s Public Service should become in the decades ahead.”14 Three months later the Clerk officially kicked off the initiative with a visionary statement.15 That vision was crafted through consultations with public servants, who were in the early stages of defining the desired end results that would shape the public service reforms to take place. It invoked “enduring values,” such as being professional and non-partisan; working in the public interest; ensuring sound stewardship; and delivering results, as have been seen in previous reforms.16 The driving force behind these changes, the
Clerk said, was to ensure “excellence” in a public service that was being pushed by globalization; increasingly complex work duties; accelerating technological changes; changing demographics; a growing demand for accountability and the achievement of results as efficiently as possible; and shifting workforce expectations.17 Although all Canadians are invited to give their feedback and ideas to the Clerk,18 he notes that it is primarily an exercise by public servants, for public servants.
The Clerk also simultaneously struck the Deputy Minister Board of Management and
Public Service Renewal as a way of coordinating reforms across several departments through their senior management. However, unlike Public Service 2000, this committee was to serve in a
“shared stewardship” role to ensure coordination between departments rather than unilateral
14 Clerk of the Privy Council of Canada, Twentieth Annual Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada, online:
reforms without involving anyone below the rank of deputy minister.19 The Clerk called on the deputies to “broaden the conversation so that public servants across the country [could] join in.”20 In this hierarchy, the Clerk created the overall vision for the public service and the Board collaborates and facilitates ideas that will change their departments in accordance with the vision.
While Blueprint 2020 was intended to be a blueprint for the future of the public service,
Destination 2020 focused on the envisioned “destination” that would be reached upon implementing the Blueprint.21 The Clerk identified five “priority areas for action” that would need to be addressed in order to reform the public service to be able to meet the challenges of
Blueprint and Destination 2020: innovative practices and networking; processes and empowerment; technology; people management; and the fundamentals of public service. By
November 2013, the Clerk provided an interim progress report that demonstrated what he called the broad support of public servants to reform and shape their departments: over 3000 of roughly
262,000 employees had registered for GC Connex, the government's internal web-based forum for discussions; those employees had created over 120 discussion threads; and the Blueprint
2020 vision had received over 125,000 views on the Clerk's website.22 However, with only 1.1 percent of the workforce participating, questions should be raised as to why more employees are not participating. At best, low engagement may indicate that the broader workforce is not in fact interested in participating because they may believe civil service reform is unnecessary, at worst low engagement rates may be a result of disenchantment with Blueprint 2020 being a meaningful
19Clerk of the Privy Council of Canada, supra note 1. 20Ibid. 21Clerk of the Privy Council of Canada, Destination 2020, online:
civil service reform process. Similarly, participation at best may indicate that there are those who believe their respective input will make valuable contributions to public sector reform. At worst, the employees who are participating could be doing so in a way that appears to be more of a rubber stamp of pre-selected policy changes. It is difficult to interpret why there is such low participation in the Blueprint 2020 process.
With the vision and guiding principles defined, employee engagement and the ideas put forth are left relatively unguided, a risk of which the Clerk must have been aware. Most discussion topics are a combination of manager- and employee-initiated questions, such as
“What does the vision mean to you?” and what tools are needed to make the vision a reality.
Eventually, online discussions are supposed to translate into in-person meetings, where worthy ideas are put to the test and, if suitable, are implemented; the main attraction to Blueprint 2020 is that it is supposed to cultivate ideas based on their merit rather than the rank or status of the person presenting them, whether that person is a deputy minister or entry-level employee.
However, there is still an element of gatekeeping in this process, as it still relies on self- censorship and group agreement in order for ideas to move forward. For example, employees would be unlikely to suggest an idea that would be unpopular amongst the group, even if that idea would help the organization as a whole. Likewise, the group would not put forward ideas that would sacrifice themselves in order to better the organization.
Defining the Gatekeepers This thesis is framed in the terms of Gareth Morgan’s Images of Organization.23 Morgan develops a number of “images,” or metaphors, that describe and explain how organizations operate, why they organize the way they do, and the advantages and disadvantages to viewing an 23 Gareth Morgan, Images of Organization, (London: SAGE Publications, 2006), p. 149. 18
organization through each lens. The images Morgan develops are: organizations as machines; organizations as organisms; organizations as brains; organizations as cultures; organizations as political systems; organizations as psychic prisons; organizations as flux and transformation; and organizations as instruments of domination. Morgan notes that each metaphor has its own strengths and weaknesses, and that one image is not necessarily more or less correct or wrong than another: each can be viewed and determined on its own merits, and the actions of many organizations can be viewed in more than one light. However, for the purposes of this thesis, the metaphor being used to examine gatekeeping and silo-building in Canada’s public service is the organization as political systems metaphor.
There are several advantages to interpreting gatekeeping and silo-building through the political systems metaphor. First, it is a productive metaphor for taking into account what may be referred to as the “human factor” in organizations. By this, I mean that each person comes into the workplace with a specific set of attitudes, perspectives, and ideas about how their work should be completed and how the organization should be run. These characteristics cannot be accounted for by looking at the organization through a “brain” or “machine” lens; but they can be considered within Morgan’s definition of a political system, which focuses on people and human behaviour, particularly with how these different people and their respective positions, values and goals influence the organization and its goals. Morgan gives several examples of political dynamics in the workplace: a “union versus management” mentality; managers micro- managing and acting like “dictators;” and various “forms of wheeling and dealing” are just a few of the actions in the workplace that can be viewed through a political lens.24 These different examples illustrate that organizations are far from being homogenous entities are political
24Ibid, pp. 149-50. 19
creatures that are driven by different stakeholders, values, and objectives in the respective organization. I situate gatekeeping within these examples.
However, Morgan also notes that there are limitations to the political systems metaphor.
For example, framing the questions that must be answered will often lead to an organizational metaphor being put forward: “think structure and you’ll see structure. Think culture and you’ll see all kinds of cultural dimensions. Think politics and you’ll find politics. Think in terms of patterns and loops, and you’ll find a whole range of them.”25 Morgan cautions that “creating ways of seeing” also tends to create “ways of not seeing.”26 Therefore, the political metaphor needs to be relatively considered to ensure the metaphor does not consume every single action or inaction as being politically motivated.
The key to effectively utilizing Morgan’s images is to remember that a metaphor can be developed through a specific lens, but that is not necessarily the only lens through which it can be viewed. As Morgan reminds us, “any metaphor can be incredibly persuasive, but it can also be blinding and block our ability to gain an overall view.”27 In other words, the metaphorical image being developed must be developed from the information that is gathered; the information should not be gathered with the intent of proving a specific metaphor to the detriment of another.
Gatekeepers exist in every workplace, regardless of the type of workplace or the form of work being completed. They may not be referred to as such, but their job responsibilities and position within the organization makes them a gatekeeper of some form. As I explain below, gatekeepers are not inherently bad or negative, either for employees or the organization; they are necessary, especially in organizations with a large workforce and high degree of breadth and
25 Ibid, p. 339. 26 Ibid, p. 338. 27 Ibid, p. 337. 20
specificity. For the purposes of this thesis, I focus on the gatekeeping role of supervisors and managers in Canada's federal public service between the Public Service 2000 and Blueprint 2020 initiatives. I follow the public service's hierarchy in referring to employees: an lower-ranking or
“entry-level employee” refers to an ordinarily-ranked employee with minimal job duties; a
“supervisor” is any person who supervises at least one other employee; a “manager” is a person who supervises at least two supervisors; and an “executive” employee or Director shall be an executive-level employee. Gatekeepers, within the context of this thesis, may be supervisors or higher-ranking employees.
In the introduction, I defined gatekeeping as “the personal decision of an employee in deciding what information and work goes up and down the hierarchy and what does not.” I will now attempt to highlight what a gatekeeper is, that is, who the person is and what causes them to behave in the way they do. The delegation of authority to lower ranks can actually be helpful in preventing gatekeeping, as long as it allows for those lower-ranking employees to make decisions and have those decisions respected by the director who delegated his or her authority.
The delegation of authority would be pointless if it were met with gatekeeping behaviour, or if it were given with strings attached.
Gatekeepers exist within managerial or supervisory roles, for there would be no “gate” to
“keep” if they were not given the authority to do so. In other words, they are given a position of authority within the organization to create or maintain a silo structure that requires their input and control. The motives for doing so cannot be fully understood or examined without speaking directly with supervisors and managers who acknowledge doing so, and are thus beyond the scope of this thesis. As an example, journalism saw the proliferation of gatekeeping with the 21
introduction of mass media, creating ambiguity between what was “news,” how it should be reported, and how it could be used in some circumstances as a way to threaten and coerce governments and corporations.28 Members of the media sought to define their use of information along ethical standards and the public's right to know, but their use of information led to governments and corporations creating their own markets for information without having to go through the media to have it reported. As with gatekeeping in the federal public service, journalism sees element of personal discretion and control over what information is shared and what is not.
Gatekeeping may not only be utilized for personal motives. A broader view of gatekeeping is that it includes structural elements – that the organization’s work must be divided and organized in order to keep things manageable – and the individual’s interpretation of the organizational structure. In the latter example, this means an employee’s beliefs in the workplace culture, the environment in which work is completed, and the existing processes through which policies are developed and implemented. At the executive level, what a Director believes is good for the long-term growth or even long term sustainability of the organization may be in competition with what an employee believes would be good for their section. Both of these examples as elements of gatekeeping are examined below.
As of March 2012, the Canadian public service employed 278,092 employees.29 They were led by 6,923 executive members, 45 percent of them being women, a number that has tripled since 1983. Since 2012 the federal government has reduced the size of the public service,
28Kendyl Salcito, Online Journalism Ethics, (School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison), online:
although figures on the ratio of managers and executives to employees are not yet available. The average executive employee was 50 years old and spoke English as his or her primary language, although English as a primary language has been declining while French as a primary language has been increasing. While not a perfect comparison, learning about the executive level of many public service organizations can enable us to learn more about who are the gatekeepers. Since these demographics apply to executive members as a financial category, the definition of gatekeeper is not limited to these individuals, although it certainly includes them.
The Ancient Versus the Modern Gatekeeper A historical examination at the literal “gatekeepers” is illustrative in defining what modern-day gatekeepers do. When early civilizations began to settle in communities or cities, they erected enormous stone walls to protect the community. Access to the city was only through one gate, manned by a gatekeeper, who was usually appointed directly by the community’s leader or mayor. Failure as a gatekeeper, for example, opening the gates to hostile military forces, meant that the entire community was put at risk. The term “gatekeeping” is thus a telling one when applied to the public service: it implies the existence of a gate, or barrier, and the establishment of a person to actively manage that gate in order to protect or maintain the structures and organizational values and flows of the institutional community. In many cases, the modern gatekeeper is the barrier, performing activities that manage the flow of work and information to higher and lower levels of employees. Gatekeeping can be productive and enabling, in that it can maintain the flow of information and organizational values, but increasingly in organizational theory, gatekeeping can also be unproductive by stifling needed organizational change, innovation, and maintaining unproductive silos. 23
The Federal Environment In order to understand gatekeeping and potential motives for those who engage in it, we must understand the overall picture of the federal public service and the federal government leadership. Canada's public service has consistently grown in size, from 263,000 in 2008 to
283,000 in 2010. With the economic recession hitting many western countries in 2008 and 2009, public spending budgets were threatened and many agencies and departments received stimulus spending in order to weather the storm and avoiding as many layoffs as possible. Starting in
2011, the size of the public service was reduced to 282,352. The 2012 federal budget announced that 19,200 positions would become “surplus” or redundant over three years: they would be vacated through a combination of attrition (employees dying, retiring, or leaving for other employment) and layoffs.30 By April 2014 the number of employees was reduced to 257,138.31
These figures are important to keep in mind when examining gatekeeping. Although the workforce reductions amounted to a reduction of 6.9 percent of the federal public service, the rhetoric surrounding the reduction called it “cruel” and “inhumane.”32 The workforce reductions caused several public service unions to organize rallies and protests and wear partisan “Stephen
Harper hates me” buttons while performing their non-partisan public service duties.33 The reductions sent a new round of “survivors' syndrome” through the federal workforce, wherein employees who were retained developed feelings of pity, envy, and jealousy over employees
30Kim MacKrael, Tory Budget Axes 19,200 Public Service Jobs, Globe and Mail, online: < http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tory-budget-axes-19200-public-service- jobs/article4096640/>. 31Treasury Board of Canada, Population of the Federal Public Service, online:
who were deemed surplus.34 The unions viewed the government’s unilateral downsizing without consulting with them as the avoidance of a long-standing agreement between the government and unions. When employees face workforce reductions and downsizing, they turn their focus away from what is best for the organization or the customer and instead focus on self- preservation.35 The workforce reduction may also be imposed by senior executives who do not understand the front line processes, or who are perhaps acting out of a specific percentage decrease of personnel without questioning the rationale for that percentage or whether it can be sustained.
It is plausible that individuals chose to gatekeep as a form of work justification: a way of showing that one’s position and what one is doing has value within the unit’s organizational structure. No person would willingly admit to their job being redundant or useless, especially if they were not guaranteed further employment elsewhere for making such a declaration. It would be contradictory for a manager to suggest that his supervision of eight employees would be better handled by a lower-ranking supervisor who could supervise 12 employees; or for a mail clerk who works in a team of four to suggest that only two were needed to do the work.
The Conservative government’s philosophical beliefs about the role of the federal government and its public servants are also worth noting. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has stated that he believes the public service is Liberal, rather than non-partisan, as the result of
Liberal policies and appointments before the Conservatives took office in 2006. His government has consistently affirmed its belief in communicating directly with public servants, thereby
34Steven Berglas, Dealing with Survivor Syndrome, Forbes, online:
avoiding managers and union representatives. As noted above, they have avoided traditional consultation roles, again reflecting differing ideologies when it comes to the role of the public service. However, this disconnect between the political and bureaucratic elements can have gatekeeping elements. As an independent Officer of Parliament, former Parliamentary Budget
Officer Kevin Page criticized the Harper Conservatives about the ability for public servants to speak truth to power even when it means potentially embarrassing comments for the government.36 Or, as will be explained below, the suppression of scientific findings and studies that do not match with the federal government economic development policy has led to gatekeeping at the highest levels, with strict policies dictated from the political level onto both caucus and civil servants as to who can speak to media on the behalf of the Canadian government and what answers they are expected to give. Differing views on the role of the public service can create a culture where opinions and ideas for change are not valued and thus lead to gatekeeping, even if the official policy is in favour of creating public sector change.
How Does Gatekeeping Start? The existence of silos and gatekeepers is not inherently bad: they are a necessary check on how work is delegated, managed, and completed. But how is that work delegated, managed, and completed? Now that we understand a bit about who gatekeepers are and their potential motives, we can begin to understand how gatekeeping starts. Silos are robust vertical structures that establish and enforce a rigid hierarchy while discouraging or outright banning horizontal structures. They may also be referred to as “stovepipes,” which is an especially appropriate metaphor because the fire burns only at the bottom level, and the smoke only rises up, never
36 CBC News, Budget Watchdog Kevin Page won’t leave quietly, online:
down. Silos require gatekeepers who will enforce that only selected ideas make it to higher levels of the public service. Vertical organization silos exist in almost every organization, from a small company with 15 employees to enormous multi-national corporations.37
By definition, “horizontal structures” are the opposite of vertical structures: they include initiatives such as direct consultations or collaborating with departments or groups that have similar goals or mandates. For example, two departments’ respective human resources (HR) teams meeting to discuss HR practices and find efficiencies that may be mutually beneficial is a horizontal exercise. Vertical structures work best where a rigid chain of command is required for work to be completed effectively and efficiently, while, horizontal structures allow for group- based work, sometimes even consensus, where the group's leadership is less pronounced and more focused on end goals and results.38 It is precisely because of the vertical structure's rigidity and strict adherence to the chain of command that some employees can feel that their voices are not heard or respected. Too many silos and gatekeepers can leave lower-level employees feeling devalued and like their respective suggestions have never made it to the people who have the authority to enact changes. However, horizontal structures too can have limitations: for example, they can serve to legitimize already-made decisions introduced by a member of the group, treating the group as a rubber stamp to have the idea “approved” as if it were an organic or grassroots-level decision. Horizontal structures require buy-in and discussion of the ideas being proposed in order for them to function properly, although the merit of horizontal networking is regularly in tension with other organizational priorities.39
37Kotter International, Breaking Down Silos, Forbes, online:
The problems with silos cannot be understated. Three major problems that silos create are that they destroy trust, cut off communication, and foster complacency.40 Gatekeeping thrives in this environment, since gatekeepers derive their power from silos. Reflecting upon senior managers, many employees already cynically remark about gatekeepers and do not even realize it. When one speaks of managers “in their ivory towers” or “on their white horses” while preaching “armchair policies,” the employee is recognizing the existing silos that are being maintained by gatekeepers. They are positing the powerful image of the executive on the top floor of the office looking down upon the mere average employees on the office floor. Powerful imagery, since it also demonstrates the distance felt between senior managers and ground-level employees. The latter group simply do not feel connected to or represented by the senior managers.
A gatekeeper can come in many roles in the public service. They may be officially styled as advisors, senior managers, directors, subject matter experts (SMEs), or executive assistants.
But their purpose is clear: one does not get to speak to the gatekeeper’s boss without going through the gatekeeper. Gatekeeping works in tandem with the creation and maintenance of silos. One’s immediate supervisor has the most impact over one’s day-to-day life at work, as this supervisor is often the person who sets the employee's work hours, approves or denies vacation leave, assigns work tasks, and writes the employee's performance reviews. This makes gatekeeping especially problematic and political, considering a manager's ability to grant vacation leave could be leveraged to make an employee comply with a manager's requests or a supervisor’s refusal to move an employee idea further up the silo.
Service Values and Ethics, (1996: Canadian Centre for Management Development), online:
Another cause of gatekeeping is geographic. The sheer size of Canada's land mass means that while the federal government is centrally headquartered in Ottawa, it requires regional representatives in locations far away from Ottawa. Approximately 42 percent of the federal workforce and 72 percent of federal executives work in the National Capital Region (Ottawa-
Gatineau).41 Regional offices thus form their own chains of command and senior leadership from employees working in the same geographic area. Obviously, this is not a fault of any government, although its embrace or refusal to use technology to close this vast geographical gap as best as possible could contribute to gatekeeping and whether it flourishes or withers away.
While both public and private organizations have the responsibility of locating their headquarters where it makes practical sense, public departments have the added responsibility of ensuring regional distribution, making regional headquarters more difficult to move or shutdown.
The Gatekeeping Paradox: An Educated Work Force One of the reasons problematic forms of gatekeeping can be limited is largely thanks to
Canada’s highly educated workforce. There may have once been a time when Canada’s public service was more sharply divided between the management class and the personal assistant and secretary class, but that time has since passed. In 2013, the Treasury Board noted that there had been significant growth in more “knowledge-intensive” work, comprising “an ever-increasing share of the employee population.”42 Employees working in fields that included administrative sciences, computer systems, and program administration saw their workload continually increase, requiring a “highly skilled” combination of education and experience. If gatekeeping
41Public Policy Forum, Canada's Public Service in the 21st Century, 2007, online:
was once required because the managers were more educated and thus more competent employees, that trend has changed in that today’s entry level civil service employees often have significant post-secondary and technical training. Given this highly educated workforce, contemporary employees do have legitimate educational and professional experience to offer up.
The Tall Climb to the Top Silos require gatekeepers out of necessity for the size, complexity, and organization of the department or agency. Gatekeeping and the creation of silos begin as a necessary division of work responsibilities. Public service hierarchies all look relatively similar, but what may be different is the number of levels between ground-level employees and executives. A few examples that illustrate the complexity are included at the end of this thesis (Figures 1 through
3). These three charts represent the size and complexity of three different large Canadian government units. The charts illustrate the hierarchy of structure, but also the realty that these are large administrative units with large numbers of employees, and multiple public sector functions.
So, one can see the hierarchy but not the reality of the large numbers of employees who do not necessarily have access to organizational structures or influence above or below their respective positions. The lack of a clearly defined and organized workforce is one of the contributing factors to gatekeeping because: a) it keeps managers from knowing other managers' mandates, leading to empire- and silo-building; and b) it keeps employees from knowing their supervisors' and section mandates, leading to employees keeping work at their level when it should actually be pushed higher or lower.
This is where gatekeeping begins: at the highest levels of bureaucracy, at the Minister and Deputy Minister level. It starts as a simple logistical fact: with approximately 262,902 30
public servants43 but only 39 federal cabinet ministers (including the Prime Minister)44 and 28 deputy ministers (not every cabinet minister is responsible for a department),45 not every Deputy
Minister wants to hear (or is capable of hearing) from 9,389 public servants under him or her; he or she necessarily needs to delegate some of his or her authority to junior-ranking directors. The minister, in his or her role as the head of a department, does not necessarily have the expertise, knowledge, or time to be managing the minute details of running a department such as human resources, financial planning, legal affairs, policy compliance, and communications. He entrusts the Deputy Minister to advise him on the relevant points and special cases that require the minister's personal attention or approval. But even the Deputy Minister, as the department's highest-ranking civil servant, does not necessarily have experience in those same operational areas; most often, civil servants are identified for a specific “path” of expertise, for example, one may work in human resources, and remain within that path for the duration of one’s career, serving in progressively more senior roles. A Deputy Minister may be well-versed in legal affairs from her time as another department's chief legal officer, but may not have experience in communications, for example. The result is that senior executives at the top of a pyramid or hierarchy rely on lower-ranking employees to provide them with advice and guidance, and provide them with the delegated authority to fulfill their mandate. This trait continues throughout the hierarchy.
43 Clerk of the Privy Council of Canada, supra note 1.
44 Parliament of Canada, The 28th Ministry (Cabinet), online:
45 Parliament of Canada, Deputy Ministers, online:
In a political interpretation, gatekeeping is also proliferated as an exercise in power and control, especially at the minister and Deputy Minister levels. Senior managers who organize fiefdoms and create personal empires to wage personal agendas or career ambitions are also responsible for gatekeeping. They create a culture of exclusivity, wrapping themselves in a bubble of yes-people who are all but invited to create their own personal hierarchies under the authority of being one of the few with access to that first, senior manager. Because the Deputy
Minister can only speak to so many people in a day, their authority is delegated to so many junior-ranking executives. In the public service, these are usually Associate or Assistant Deputy
Ministers. The conditions are ripe for gatekeeping based simply on the enormous numbers of civil servants and the diversity of ministries, departments, and programs for which the federal government is responsible. Given the complexity of the civil service, it there for is reasonable that a senior-level executive is only directly supervising only so many subordinates. This continues through the hierarchy. The result is that senior managers and executives are called upon for only unique or special circumstances, with most managers making the personal decision to retain information and cases at their level rather than pushing it higher. This is where gatekeeping begins: in the conscious choice of an individual to hold information or work at a specific level when it should actually be communicated or dealt with at a higher or lower level.
This is not to say that all gatekeeping is bad. The broadest definition of gatekeeping would encompass every manager and every executive employee. Inherent in their actions is some form of decision making on whether a person at their level can deal with a file or whether it requires a decision from a more senior employee. What I am concerned with is not every day productive gatekeeping that enables the organization to function effectively, but the gatekeeping 32
that can be interpreted through a political lens to suppress information, divide the workforce, or maintain silos when they should actually be torn down.
The Top: Ministerial and Prime Ministerial Leadership For as long as we are discussing the highest ranks in the federal public service, we should also take the time to examine its political leadership. Since 2006, Conservative Prime Minister
Stephen Harper has led the Canadian government. His government won minority governments resulting from the 2006 and 2008 federal elections, and won a majority government in the 2011 election. Prime Minster Harper and his Conservative government have been polarizing figures in the public service. Right-wing political parties have been typically typecast as being in favour of large corporations and managers, while left-wing parties have been typecast as the parties of the unions and workers. Since being elected there has been no shortage of rhetoric that fits these stereotypes; of the Conservative government's purported “hidden agenda” to fire federal workers and cripple unions. As of 2012, 71 percent of Canada's public servants were unionized, and while unions are increasingly representing employees, the density of unionized versus non- unionized employees is dropping, especially in the private sector.46 Unionized employees typically favour left-wing parties such as the New Democratic Party (NDP), as illustrated by their unions' sponsorship of NDP conferences.47
It was this government that introduced the Blueprint 2020 initiative in the first place.
From a union's perspective, by introducing a vision behind intended to align the public sector with the private sector, the government is imposing a top-down vision that should have been
46CBC News, Unions on Decline in Private Sector, online:
vetted through different (union) hierarchies.48 They cynically view the public service's “renewal” as a way of centralizing decision-making, which is the exact opposite of the Blueprint’s stated objectives. Broadly, the entire Blueprint 2020 exercise could be interpreted as a way of bypassing hundreds of union gatekeepers, who would filter employees' concerns before collaborating and making demands of their own. However, this is also balanced against bypassing hundreds of managers and executives in the process as well. The government is demonstrating a preference for going directly to employees to consult and gain their feedback, utilizing technology to usurp union and management leaders who were previously called upon to fulfill that role. This behaviour risks re-opening the fundamental mistrust and divide between political leaders and the bureaucracy; a divide that the Privy Council Clerk insists does not exist49 but that others claim has been growing since the Conservatives took office.50
The political leadership, being at the top of the hierarchy, has an important role to play in creating a culture of innovation, creativity, and business process innovation that seeks to avoid gatekeeping. One of the failures of Public Service 2000 was that it was exclusively decided at the executive level, below the politicians but above the majority of employees who could have given their input. Political leaders have the responsibility to ensure gatekeeping does not happen, and that changes are made at the grassroots level wherever possible.
48Kathryn May, Public Servants Waiting to see Which Vision for the Bureaucracy will Prevail in 2014, online:
Reasons for Gatekeeping Gatekeeping in today’s public service is focused on protectionist measures to preserve one’s job. Gatekeeping begins very close to home for many public servants, because they feel any work they do will need to justify their continued importance with the department. This is only amplified as suggestions and advice go higher within the department’s bureaucracy. A suggestion to modernize processes or develop a new program at the bottom level of the civil service may very well be an excellent suggestion, one that is desperately needed. Yet, the suggestion only gets so high in the ladder before political questions start being asked. Questions like: “why didn’t I think of that;” “is this program giving my authority to someone else;” “does this idea make it seem like I missed something;” “do I still have a place here if this service is adopted;” “will my boss look down on me if my subordinate outshines me;” and so on. What could be the best, most revolutionary idea in the world has no chance of success if it is vetted at every level by workers selfishly watching out for their own respective jobs, rather than making decisions based on what is best for the organization, which could include workforce reductions and restructuring.
There are other considerations beyond the preservation of jobs. If one does not trust the stated objectives of the renewal process, questions could emerge about whether the reforms are actually intended to reform the public service for better services, or simply to keep everyone busy while ignoring more important, systemic issues. Through its objectives, vision, and mandate, the renewal process is also inherently contributing to gatekeeping by filtering ideas for change into those that match the vision and mandate. The vision establishes the values of the renewal exercise and demonstrates certain priorities over other objectives. It is possible that incremental, minor fixes may be favoured over large, more expensive reforms, even if the larger 35
reform could provide better services. Thus, gatekeeping is embedded in the very system of reform as a way of filtering out ideas or potentially effective organizational change.
Forms of Gatekeeping There are several forms of gatekeeping that take place in the federal public service.
Some of these are by legislative requirements, while others are due to individual managers taking on gatekeeping roles. While it is difficult to prove an individuals' motivation for gatekeeping, it is possible to evaluate and recognize gatekeeping behaviours in action. Here I will limit the examples to specific outcomes rather than potential motivations. This is not an exhaustive list, but a few illustrative examples.
Limited passage of information and requests up and down: In the first example of gatekeeping, the supervisor literally acts as a gatekeeper. Here, the person asserts himself or herself in their role, acting as a middleman between an employee and a higher level employee.
Sometimes this is required as a valid requirement of the position: for example, to ensure the employee’s work is accurate before it goes to someone of a higher rank with delegated authority.
Other times, however, it is a method of controlling the employees’ work by requiring that they go through a middle-filter process before reaching a higher-level manager for political purposes.
Perhaps the middle manager was once a valid check within the hierarchy, or perhaps the position is still valid for some responsibilities but the middle manager may succumb to mission-creep to justify new, broader powers and position justification. This example could still exist in Blueprint
2020: managers could give direction to employees to not participate in the reform exercise, thereby circumventing the intent of the reform process, even though higher-ranking managers could be supportive of the employees’ engagement. 36
Refusal to delegate duties and responsibilities downward: In a second example of gatekeeping, a manager removes as much discretion from the employees as possible, holding work duties at the managerial level and only selectively giving it to other employees. Some work may legitimately require a supervisor's discreet attention, or may require a specific skill that only the supervisor has. Another reason could be to retain the information until it can be selectively handed out, and supervised very closely by the manager to ensure its completeness and accuracy (micromanagement). This is an example of gatekeeping because it places the managers' importance and position against subordinate employees' potential growth and development. The manager has self-imposed that the work stay at his or her level as a way of justifying his or her own workload to the detriment of their subordinates. Blueprint 2020 may exacerbate this form of gatekeeping due to internal workload reviews. For example, managers who feel threatened or challenged in their positions may keep more work at their level as a way of justifying their employment and position. They may argue that they have a special skill or expertise required to handle the position’s workload that may not be held by lower-ranking employees.
The Meeting Before the Meeting: In an attempt to break down silos and avoid gatekeeping, senior managers may create opportunities to receive feedback directly from ground- level employees. These may be billed as face-to-face town hall meetings, boss’ hour, coffee hour, feedback cards/emails, anonymous surveys, or a number of other initiatives. Regardless of the title, the meeting’s purpose is to avoid the problem of gatekeeping and silo building: sometimes ground-level employees see and hear things in their line of work that are important to executives, but for the reasons laid out in this paper and potentially one’s not spoken too, these 37
ideas do not make it to the executive's level. However, these opportunities for meeting between executive and lower level employees, may be preceded by “the meeting before the meeting.” In this example, employees who are being asked for their feedback are “briefed,” warned, or reminded by their supervisors about the “appropriate” way that a complaint or issue should be brought up to the senior manager calling the meeting. The preamble may differ, but the intent is the same: to ensure employees know that raising inappropriate concerns to high-ranking department members may have consequences.
This is an example of gatekeeping because it does not resolve an issue or complaint; it merely suppresses it from public view. Senior managers are also partly to blame for facilitating and allowing such a culture to persist: announcing these meetings weeks and months in advance gives supervisors ample time to develop rules that will define what is appropriate and what is not to discuss with the senior manager. If senior managers held unannounced meetings, simply saying, “let’s have a meeting now,” it may go a long way in defeating gatekeeping. However, this approach may be limited if individuals feel rushed or pressured to conform to organizational norms at an ad-hoc meeting. It may not work for organizing broad change in large organizations, where organization may be needed to facilitate input. However, it would also help if complaints against individual gatekeepers could be discussed without gatekeeping persons being physically present in the room. In Blueprint 2020, this may still occur if managers are not giving employees an appropriate amount of time to attend focus groups and meetings, again, despite higher-ranking managers’ stated support for such meetings. Managers may also attempt to influence what employees discuss or ideas that are brought to that meeting through some of the other mechanisms previously introduced. 38
The Meeting After the Meeting: many employees leave a town hall meeting or coffee hour with an executive member feeling proud, hopeful, and empowered. In instances where problems have been brought up to the chagrin of the gatekeepers, the executive is usually quick to promise changes, or at least that the issue will be considered and further studied. Following the end of the meeting, this is where the gatekeeper re-asserts his or her role, after the senior manager has left, perhaps by casting doubt on the “review” process. In the case of employees who did not pay attention to the meeting before the meeting, it may also come in the form of formal or informal disciplinary actions. Once again the result is the same: the gatekeeper is asserting his or her position as one of power between subordinates and superiors, and is suppressing concerns and potential for productive change. The potential for meetings after meetings remains in Blueprint 2020, as managers may wish to follow up on what was discussed during meetings or consultation settings, or quash any potential ideas that may have been discussed before they are fully matured and formed. In this example, the gatekeeper is also serving as a check on the policy implementation process, refusing to push a policy forward until certain conditions to the manager’s satisfaction are met.
Improper use of town hall meetings and merit-based idea systems: the advantage to holding town hall meetings is that they allow for employees' feedback based on its merit and honesty rather than justification and protection of the status quo. As mentioned earlier, a town hall meeting could be used for the purposes of appearing to be a grassroots consensus, when in reality its purpose was to provide the appearance of a democratic, consensus-based decision that had already been decided before the meeting. Indeed, so-called “policy-making by Dragon’s
Den” allows for ideas to be placed directly in front of decision-makers, who either do or do not 39
buy into the proposed idea on the merits of the idea’s sponsor. This utilizes the merit of the raw idea, although the Dragon’s Den itself still has a gatekeeping element built in, since ideas are not instantly implemented, but rather promises are made to further study or evaluate the idea.
Dragon’s Den-style events eliminate gatekeeping by flattening the organization: the person with the idea is given direct access to the gatekeeper who presumably has the authority to implement the idea if he or she likes it; there is no other input from advisors or gatekeepers.51
Townhall meetings may impose gatekeeping by limiting what is appropriate and allowable to be discussed at that meeting, which can stifle potentially embarrassing (but helpful) criticisms from being discussed at the meeting. This relies on the individual’s desire to conform to what the organization deems as acceptable and normal, even if the individual feels he or she has an idea worth sharing with the group. Blueprint 2020 relies on group settings to discuss and promote policy reforms, which can suppress what employees would actually say in another forum. Therefore, town hall meetings should be used in conjunction with smaller, more personal meetings.
Report Suppression: In a final example of gatekeeping, government reports or statistics are suppressed and not released as public information. One of the most obvious examples that comes to light is the federal government's purported “suppression” of environmental scientists' studies and reports that are not consistent with the federal government's political and economic positions. The scientists’ claim they are being “muzzled” by not having their reports publicly published.52 The government's position is that the scientists are not being muzzled; that the work
51 Jason Fekete, Federal Government Turning to Dragon’s Den to Shake up Policymaking, Ottawa Citizen, online:
and reports the scientists produce belong to the federal government, and its use and publication is subject to the various departments' wishes. Others complain that they are prevented from even speaking about their research to the media.53 In both cases there are two forms of gatekeeping: firstly, the researchers' supervisors, executives, and political leaders are restricting what could be considered a normal part of their job duties. Secondly, the involvement of public relations officials and the dogmatic reliance on government-approved talking points means a second layer of gatekeeping is added between the actual report and its publicity. The risk of Blueprint 2020 reports being suppressed on a larger scale would mean that the input given at the employees’ level could be disregarded if the suggestions did not fit with broader governmental reforms and beliefs. The result, similar to Public Service 2000, would be that employees were consulted but that their ideas were summarily dismissed at higher levels.
These are just a few examples of gatekeeping. This is not an exhaustive list, but rather what I hope will be the beginning of the creation of a much larger list that further defines gatekeeping and expands upon its potential causes and uses. Of course, there are numerous variables in what creates gatekeeping and what allows it to persist. This list does not include potential factors such as a managers' intimidation of another employee, since there is limited public information available on this happening and its effects. Intimidation and bullying are known workplace problems, often publicly condemned but often either ignored or dealt with quietly and behind closed doors in actuality. However, this would most certainly qualify as an act of gatekeeping, especially when used in conjunction with another example noted above.
53Jonathon Gatehouse, When Science Goes Silent, Macleans Magazine, online: http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/when-science-goes-silent/>. 41
Combating Gatekeeping The Blueprint 2020 process was created in attempts to address gatekeeping concerns: it promotes an “open, networked environment that engages citizens and partners for the public good,” and “a modern workplace that makes smart use of new technologies to improve networking, access to data, and customer service.” Behind these statements is the desire to eliminate unions, managers, and mid-level gatekeepers and allow for the open flow of ideas based on their merit. Even if gatekeeping was not explicitly mentioned, a number of descriptors about the initiative made it clear that it would be results-based and not processed through organizational silos. Indeed, some senior department managers are some of the strongest stated advocates in favour of breaking down gatekeeping. They recognize that with an educated and connected workforce they need to engage employees directly without having to go through numerous filtered protectionist layers. Thus, in learning from Public Service 2000 lessons,
Blueprint 2020 was specifically engineered to avoid gatekeepers and engage with employees directly.
GC Connex As mentioned earlier, GC Connex was launched as an online collaboration tool for all federal public servants in which to give their respective feedback for the Blueprint 2020 initiative. Gathering in groups based on topic, department, section, or any other number of divisions, civil servants are invited to share ideas and give feedback regardless of their position or rank through an internal internet-based set of forums. This internet-based approach is helpful as it allows for public servants to provide their respective feedback in a centrally-located forum, meaning it can be done at any time, from anywhere with a government computer. It takes away 42
some of the logistics of planning a large in-person meeting, and enables employees who may be intimidated by making in-person statements to make those statements by typing them out and reviewing them before they are posted. It also allows employees to horizontally network in ways that would otherwise be difficult to coordinate. For example, all communications employees from government departments could create their own group to discuss issues and best practices.
However, employees are still required to register with their real names and department work email addresses, meaning the feedback will not be anonymous. This means that written suggestions are recorded; that employees' suggestions are permanently recorded could make some employees reluctant to participate if they fear that a supervisor could be using the written suggestions against the person making them.
Use of Social Media Perhaps the best potential for breaking down gatekeeping and silos is the proliferation of social media and electronic means of communicating with others. The use of publicly- and instantly-viewable social media is an enormous risk to gatekeepers. In fact, while the Privy
Council Clerk does not define what specific risks existed by using social media to solicit feedback, he does acknowledge that “the risk was well worth it.”54 The risk of using social media is that employees can communicate from anywhere, about anything, to anyone. It means they can express themselves without a filter, which, while certainly raising the risk associated with doing so, also means that the gatekeeping filter will not be applied to an employee’s comments before being received. Blueprint 2020 encourages employees to utilize social media in the discussion of their ideas, but in doing so also requires that employees self-regulate.
54Clerk of the Privy Council of Canada, supra note 9. 43
Those risks encompass the “unorthodox” approach that the Privy Council Clerk took by suggesting that all public servants contact him directly via Facebook, Twitter
(@BlueprintGC2020), GC Connex, internal Wikipedia pages, email or a phone call. In utilizing this unorthodox approach, the Clerk is bypassing hundreds of gatekeepers and receiving feedback directly from public servants. There is no longer a filter at each level that manipulates the feedback from the ground level into something that is less critical and more neutral sounding.
Wouters is disempowering gatekeepers by going directly to those best able to give their feedback, but in pushing the discussions into the public light could be forcing individuals to self- censor what is publicly written, or potentially expose the employee to meeting after the meeting censure. Indeed, a cursory search of the social media platforms reveals very little negative feedback regarding the process; most of the mentions relate to the process itself (i.e. stating deadlines, meetings) or summaries of relevant studies and articles.
It is unknown whether Wouters actually received and read or listened to every tweet, email, or phone call. It is likely the case that Wouters' office team had individuals assigned to receiving and categorizing communications with the Clerk's office, and then reporting the suggestions to the Clerk, typical of most public offices using social media. However, some public figures, such as Conservative Members of Parliament Eve Adams and Royal Galipeau and
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, have been singled out as unique for giving out their direct, personal contact information and directly responding to constituents, so it is possible that Wouters personally used and responded to social media comments.
In August 2014, Wayne Wouters announced his retirement. He had a 37-year career in the public service, five of which were served as the Clerk of the Privy Council. Wouters’ 44
retirement and the appointment of his replacement – Janice Charette – will allow for studies into the personal impact Wouters had in implementing and facilitating Blueprint 2020. If Wouters succeeded in creating a culture of change, innovation, and growth, then we could expect that legacy to live on regardless of who is in charge.
Employee Empowerment One of the end goals of the Blueprint 2020 process is employee empowerment. The
Clerk notes, “employees are looking for greater empowerment at the individual level and reduced hierarchy.”55 In other words, they are seeking fewer levels of approval between employees and decision makers; they are seeking authority that has been delegated to the lowest- possible level. They are acknowledging gatekeepers and saying they should be avoided in favour of faster processes. “Empowerment” and “employee discretion” are not new buzzwords to Blueprint 2020, but they need to be considered in the context of gatekeeping. Will pushing the decision-making authority to lower levels get rid of gatekeeping, or simply concentrate power in a lower-ranking manager?
Conclusion In this thesis I have introduced the topic of gatekeeping in the federal public service by examining the circumstances within the federal public service that have caused and prevented gatekeeping. I first defined gatekeepers by examining their personal attributes and potential motives for contributing to gatekeeping. I second examined the genesis of gatekeeping: how it started, how it is created, and how it continues or is abolished. I third introduced a list of actions that can be considered gatekeeping, with some suggestions on why they may take place. I fourth
55Clerk of the Privy Council of Canada, supra note 25. 45
discussed how gatekeeping can be combated, especially how it has been combated through various initiatives in the Blueprint 2020 initiative. I will finally conclude with some remarks on potential future studies of this topic.
While Blueprint 2020 has excelled at breaking down silos and avoiding gatekeeping, gatekeeping is still a force in the federal public service that must be recognized as an active force within the federal workforce. My hope is that this thesis on gatekeeping, its characteristics, and its effects on the federal government workforce is the start of a larger body of studies on management discretion and empowering employees on the basis of their ideas rather than their rank or seniority.
Gatekeeping in the federal public service has emerged as a topic in some media, but before this thesis, has not been given the academic attention it deserves. For example, a recent article decried “communications gatekeepers:” communications and public affairs advisors who liaise with media officials about their departments.56 In that article, the advisors are criticized for being gatekeepers who control and limit communications with the actual subject matter experts, acting as a filter between decision makers and reporters. The existence of gatekeeping between the government and the media is a ripe topic for further exploration.
This thesis has focused on gatekeeping and silo-building in the federal public service as just one example, as a way of beginning the discussion. There are without a doubt countless other examples of gatekeeping in other government departments and agencies, in every private company, and in every charity or non-profit organization. Future studies should examine whether gatekeeping is more prolific, for example, in public organizations over private or non-
56 Jessica Hume, Canadian Taxpayers Federation Attacks Pay of “Unelected Federal Spin Doctors,” Cochrane Times, online:
profit ones; whether one sector is closer to abolishing or at least acknowledging gatekeeping; and whether the driving forces behind gatekeeping can be accommodated through employee collaboration and engagement. Future studies should also seek to further define the gatekeeper in terms of their demographics, work approach, sex, race, and background in order to best define who a gatekeeper is and their potential motives.
In its worst form, gatekeeping creates a toxic work environment where political decisions are made with regards to how work is approached and completed. There is no room for such political decisions during a time of fiscal restraint and workforce reductions. However, those very realities have driven employees to look inwards, to justify their own positions as a means of survival rather than performing in the best interests of the taxpayers and the department. When this culture shift happens, individuals, organizations, taxpayers, and the government as a whole suffers. Public administration is a constant process, a never-ending cycle of new ideas and programs, evaluations of those programs, and the amendment or cancellation of those programs.
To this end, gatekeeping may never be abolished, but it should be consciously considered and accommodated as a reality of any workplace environment. 47
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