[2023-04-03] Tapping into retirees' experience and expertise

A decade ago, I attended a senior leadership conference at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) that included a panel of four alumni of the department. It was fascinating to hear the views of people who had held senior positions in the department and who could draw on both their experience and their subsequent distance from the organization in commenting on NRCan and its management.

Rob Wright, who had retired as Deputy Minister of Finance and had spent some time at NRCan during his career, moderated the panel. It was made up of:
  • Peter Harrison (NRCan Deputy Minister from 1999 to 2002),
  • Cassie Doyle (NRCan Deputy Minister from 2006 to 2010), and
  • Brian Emmett (Assistant Deputy Minister of NRCan’s Canadian Forest Service from 2003 to 2006 and its Strategic Policy Sector from 2006 to 2007).
Here are a few highlights from the panel's comments, based on a blog post I wrote at the time.

On people management
Brian Emmett: To have results, you need to be concerned with people and management and their connection to the mandate.
Cassie Doyle: Talent follows success. I saw a lot of very talented people come back to NRCan.

On breaking down silos at NRCan
Cassie Doyle: When I arrived in 2006, the department was very strong vertically, but there didn't seem to be a compelling narrative—any narrative—that linked us together. 2006 was the time for NRCan to get its act together. I created a team to find our North Star. One of the things to come out of North Star was a recognition that it's not enough to be blessed with a natural endowment unless we have the systems, the innovation, the science and the people to ensure we can benefit from that endowment. Another thing that came out of North Star was a call for more collaboration. Particularly among young public servants, there was a desire to work across silos.

On career development
Peter Harrison: Be willing to take risks with your career. There are opportunities that come up when a group is being formed: put your hand up. Keep your eye on opportunities in other areas. That process can create people who look across the organization. People who can join the dots, who can act as interpreters, are rare, but are fundamentally important to an organization.

On science-policy integration
Brian Emmett: I don't think you want to set up a dichotomy of science and policy. A common question is "What is the value of science?" We need to situate science in a policy framework. If you have a policy story, you can connect the science to it. That's the way science and policy come together. Science people need to tell what is possible, and policy people need to knit the story together.

On legacy and regret
Cassie Doyle: If there is any legacy I would claim, it's the collaboration and horizontality of the department. On regrets, I feel we didn't go far enough with the diversity of the management team.
Peter Harrison: I think legacy is for others to decide. My regret was having to move on to another department before I would have wanted to, and not having started what Cassie did regarding collaboration.
Brian Emmett: My legacy with the department is all the stuff I learned and took with me. I over-valued policy and under-valued management. Projects I was involved in would have gone better if I and my colleagues had spent more time on relationship management.

One of the reasons this panel discussion made such an impression on me is that it was rare to have the opportunity to hear the perspective of alumni. One of the few times I did—apart from the one at NRCan—was a session featuring four former federal ministers of health that my team at Health Canada organized in 2017. That event was memorable not only for the reflections of the four ministers but also for the chemistry and banter between them, despite their having come from different political parties.

A former colleague of mine recently commented that he often thinks about how experience and expertise are lost when retirees walk out the door. He acknowledged that when he was in a senior position, he thought about how to tap into the wisdom of retirees but used the excuse of being too busy to follow up. He recalled his own father's experience as a bank executive: for years after his dad retired, he would be invited in for lunch so that the young employees coming up in the bank could talk about their work.

My colleague's idea appealed to me. For days after, I thought about a "Seniors Bureau"—akin to a Speakers Bureau but with a roster of retired executives or employees as opposed to an inventory of speakers. The "seniors" could do like my colleague's father: offer their experience and expertise, provide a historical view, and share some corporate memories.

As I look back at the advice shared by the former NRCan executives, what stands out for me is the importance of relationships and collaboration. Perhaps that's not a new idea, but it is one that bears repeating. In the case of retirees, those relationships needn't stop when employees walk out the door.