Ottawa, December 3, 2003
Shaping Canada's Future
Speaking notes for the National Capital Region Managers' Forum
Dr. Dyane Adam - Commissioner of Official Languages
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Good day,
I am very pleased to be speaking to you at this forum on the theme of influence. It is a subject that interests me enormously and one that is key to my role as Commissioner of Official Languages.
As an agent of Parliament, my business is to oversee the actions of others in matters of official languages and recommend corrective measures, if necessary. I cannot impose or force behavioural or organizational change. My business is to influence and persuade others to act in ways that respect both the spirit and the letter of the Official Languages Act.
I want to begin by telling you an anecdote to show how you can exert influence on decision-makers, sometimes without even realizing it.
When I first took office, I decided to invite the President of the National Capital Commission (NCC) to lunch. He was intrigued. It was the first time he had received such an invitation from the Commissioner of Official Languages. So he arrived at the restaurant a little early and asked for the menu. He noticed that it was not bilingual. Given that the owner of the restaurant rented the space from the NCC, it meant that he had to comply with a policy on bilingual signage.
At that moment, the President of the NCC thought he understood the purpose of my invitation. When I arrived, he apologized for this official languages breach and swore it would not happen again. I in turn was surprised.
My guest thought, mistakenly, that I had chosen this restaurant expressly to demonstrate the lack of bilingual menus in a building belonging to the National Capital Commission.
In fact, OCOL employees had simply recommended the restaurant to me! And, as a newcomer on the job, I did not even know that such obligations existed for the NCC.
My first on-the-job lesson: never underestimate the influence you can exert …quite unwittingly in this case.
So, how do you have the desired influence on decision-makers? How do you influence a seemingly irreversible decision? What are the strategies that lead to influence? How can you be an agent of change? Is there a recipe to get there?
I can't give you a magic formula that works for everyone. Why? Because the influence that you exercise in society, in a group or in a relationship, is based on various factors: the strength of your personal convictions, the reputation that you have established, your past experiences, how prepared you are to face adversity and the real knowledge you have of the issues that you want to advance.
There are two more ingredients to add to the mix: luck and your intuition… masculine or feminine!
I won't be giving you a magic formula, but I will tell you this up front: our influence is intimately linked to our personal convictions. We can convince others when we are convinced ourselves.
We can't influence others if we have the reputation of being influenced by everybody. On the other hand, we can't influence others if we have the reputation of listening to no one, consulting no one and always going our own way.
So you see, there must be a balance between the strength of our convictions and listening attentively to those around us.
So, how do we bring about change? To answer that question, I would like to discuss the role of an agent of change, based on my experience as Commissioner of Official Languages. First, I will show that you can all be agents of change. I will then talk to you about the methods of influence that I use and describe five major strategies for implementing change.
Who can be an agent of change?
First of all, we can all exercise influence and become agents of change. In fact, change begins with us and our own convictions. It begins in our heads. You need to have faith in yourself and your ability to shape the future!
We often think that only an authority figure can initiate changes or make decisions that affect society. It is not the case. Whatever your status in the hierarchy, you can make a difference. Decision-makers often need other people to show them the path to change and provide them with innovative and motivational ideas. The agent of change is the one who helps those in power to consider avenues for change through persuasion.
It is not necessary to have formal authority over others to make the people around us grow, bring a project to maturity, or see something through to the end. You must be motivated and have a winning strategy. As well, real authority is not the authority that allows you to give orders, but the authority that allows you to influence others positively so that they complete a project together, which brings them success.
As Commissioner of Official Languages, I myself do not have the power to formulate policies or to enforce the Canadian language regime. I can only try to influence decision-makers and the public. But I use that power at every opportunity to help advance our national ideal of linguistic equality in Canada, to bring about changes in mentality and urge decision-makers to show leadership in acting for the well-being of official language communities.
Everyone can play a role in a given situation, knowing that small actions, small changes, can be the seeds of great achievements! The important thing is to transform your ideas into actions, keeping your objectives in mind and remaining convinced you will succeed, because doubt is the enemy of success.
As managers, you are close to the public because you provide services and you supervise staff. You are also in a position of authority and that power will decidedly colour your communications with your colleagues and staff. This means that you are well placed to be agents of change who can have a major impact on real people.
Tools to become agents of change in the workplace
Many strategies and tools can be used to become agents of change in your workplace. I would like to propose five of them. I want to highlight however that the bedrock of an effective agent of change is relentless work and constant planning.
1. Listening and observing intensely
First, it is a matter of observing what is happening around you and doing your homework. You have to know your audience intimately in order to sell your convictions and bring about change. The ability to observe also allows us to intervene at the right time to influence a decision or situation. Instead of being carried along by the course of events, you have to know how to intervene at the right time in order to influence the action.
Shortly after I took office in 1999, I decided to organize meetings with key players in the area of official languages to get the lay of the land and orient my future action. I already had a few ideas, but I didn't have an in-depth knowledge of all the issues relating to official languages. Let's just say that the OCOL annual report wasn't my bedtime reading! So I wanted to begin by listening to what citizens had to say before deciding on my major priorities for action.
So, I organized meetings with the leaders of the Francophone and Anglophone communities across the country, representatives from the various orders of government, federal decision-makers and even journalists who regularly covered language issues on Parliament Hill.
We never act in a vacuum. And it is essential to know how to choose objectives based on the context and current issues. This will make the objective relevant, attainable and timely.
For example, during discussions on the Immigration and Refugee Protection Bill C-18, I intervened with federal parliamentarians to ensure that this legislation took Canada's linguistic duality, and particularly the needs of the minority communities, into account.
At the time, the government had never thought of using immigration as a tool to energize the country's Francophone communities, which are faced with a low birth rate and, in some cases, a disturbing rate of assimilation. It was simply not one of the Act's objectives.
With a few exceptions, the issue had not even been raised within the country's Francophone communities. Which is to say that we had a long way to go.
Following Canada-wide consultations, I made Francophone immigration one of my priorities, but it was an uphill battle initially. At first I came up against a certain indifference and a lack of understanding from some senior officials within the department.
But my team had prepared very well our strategy of influence and intervention. We did our homework by publishing at critical moments two different studies on the issue. We had a good knowledge of the ins and outs of the situation. Our intentions were clearly expressed in our recommendations. And above all, I had a number of one-on-one meetings with ministers, deputy ministers, parliamentarians and key advisors to gain sufficient understanding of my "target group." Understanding the target audience is the cornerstone of any effective strategy to influence. "Persuasion is lubricated with the oil of common bonds,"1 according to Daniel Melchers, a Canadian expert in communications. In order to influence, it is necessary to be "in the land of common knowledge."
We had to argue, demonstrate, convince, plead and insist, again and again. And above all, we kept in mind that communication is most powerful and most likely to produce the desired effect when it is geared to the target audience's point of view.
Most of all, we couldn't let this unique opportunity pass by. The timing was great. It is not everyday that the government rewrites an act. We couldn't wait until after its adoption to react. We had to act before the fact, not after.
I finally managed to convince the minister at the time to specify the federal government's responsibilities with respect to official language communities within the Immigration Act.
This political leadership continued with the current minister. As a result, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which came into effect in June 2002, reflects a number of my recommendations. It stipulates that from now on immigration must promote the development of both language groups, including communities living in a minority situation. In fact, the federal government has just adopted a strategic framework to that end.
Sometimes, you must also not hesitate to step beyond your mandate when your objectives require it. For example, while the Official Languages Act concerns only the federal government, I have written to certain companies to inform them of their customers' complaints and suggest they make a change to their language policies. As a result, management have written to thank me for informing them and to explain the measures they have introduced to rectify the situation.
2. Collaborating toward sustainable solutions
Secondly, you must find sustainable solutions.
In many ways, my work as an agent of change resembles my old profession as a psychologist: based on the symptoms, you make a diagnosis, and then develop an appropriate therapy. In society and in government, therapy often consists of abandoning harmful or inappropriate practices to adopt better ones. Rather than attacking solely the symptoms of a problem or dysfunction, you must get to the root causes that create these symptoms. You need to get to the bottom of things and not be afraid to confront disconcerting realities. Easy or superficial solutions are not enough. In other words, an agent of change shakes things up.
You also have to realize that you can't produce or implement a lasting solution without obtaining the cooperation of others. Your plan for change must become a collective priority that everyone buys and that together you decide to work toward.
This perspective of change through positive influence reflects the fact that an agent of change, even a very proactive one, cannot hope to attain their objectives alone. An agent of change leads others to adopt new approaches and to take new actions, recognizing that any change is based on shared responsibility. In that sense, the agent is often more facilitator than actor.
It follows that an agent of change or leader can do nothing alone. Great changes in mentality have already been introduced in our country, with respect to improving the status of women or expanding social programs, and I'm sure you will all agree that they were not produced simply by legislation, a single authority or leader. In reality, everyone contributed, in their own sector, and according to their own responsibilities and skills, to making Canada a country that is today a little closer to its ideals of democracy, equality and social justice.
Moreover, change often affects several connected areas of activity and concerns an entire administration. Let's take for example the federal objective of sustaining the growth and vitality of official language communities in our country. This objective is based on a number of factors - including education, immigration, municipal services, health services and telecommunications - it follows that any change towards our ideal necessarily proceeds from a concerted approach.
For example, the Department of Canadian Heritage oversees a vast program designed to encourage the development of official language minority communities - Francophones outside Quebec and Anglophones in Quebec. All federal departments and agencies participate in this program and support activities in the arts and culture, economic development and tourism, human resources development, new technologies and health services and education. This interdepartmental cooperation is also supported by intergovernmental cooperation and concerted action with the communities.
Each new program, in a department, is essentially a tool for concentrating the initiatives of many agents of change, pooling their individual skills to serve a collective objective.
3. Knowing how to sell a vision
Once we have observed and know our public well and once we have identified desirable changes, the key to influencing is to communicate and know how to sell our vision or objective for change. By attaching our objective to values that our audience can understand and share, we can get things moving.
So you must identify and take advantage of opportunities to spread your message. The message must be simple, compelling and relevant. As Commissioner of Official Languages, I use communications as my main tool of influence, in particular by producing an annual report to Parliament with conclusions that receive wide media coverage, by producing studies on subjects of interest, by writing articles or press releases, or by talking to groups such as you today.
Of course, bringing about change is a long and uncertain undertaking; that is why you must remain centred on your objectives and repeat frequently. Sometimes, you become doubtful and wonder if your actions really have an influence, if all your efforts are really worth it. You don't lose courage, however, if you constantly keep your desired result in mind. When you are driving a car and make a turn, you don't look over the front of the car; you try to see the other side of the turn, as far as you can see. Knowing where you are going is the best way to avoid an accident.
4. Flexibility
As a fourth strategy, I would tell you that in order to influence, you must demonstrate flexibility in your approach and be ready to make adjustments whenever necessary. The unforeseen is part of change. We must constantly adapt our strategy to the situation.
As an agent of change, I have often had to adapt my game plan to take advantage of particular circumstances. When Air Canada merged with Canadian and the government adopted an act specifying the obligations of the new national airline, it was a good opportunity to point out that the regional airlines affiliated with Air Canada also had an obligation to serve the travelling public in both official languages.
Once again, I had to be persuasive. I had to convince the Minister of Transport and his entourage to extend Air Canada's linguistic obligations, which already existed under a previous act, to the regional subsidiaries. Remember, everything was on the table. The future of two airlines was already at stake. It was an unforeseen, unexpected situation. Change was in the air. So we had to take advantage of it. For us, it was the opportunity to settle once and for all an issue that had been dragging on for years and that had been the subject of numerous complaints.
By knowing how to adapt and take advantage of the circumstances in this situation, we managed to make progress on an old issue … however, these gains were short lived. As you know, the current financial crisis at Air Canada has put this issue back on the table.
5. Ongoing improvement
Finally, we must constantly improve and refine our strategies. The situations, people, and issues at play evolve. To influence successfully, we must ourselves evolve and adapt to the reality we face.
You have come to this professional development activity specifically to stimulate your thinking on the subjects that interest you, stimulate your mind and expand your knowledge.
For me, the arrival of a new Prime Minister and a new team of ministers necessarily imply a new approach and new government priorities.
I have no choice but to be attentive and to follow the news closely in order to decode the intentions of those who will soon be making policy decisions. I could not exert any influence on the new actors on the Canadian political scene without doing this. To gain or maintain influence, we must know what is going through the heads of those we want to influence. This can involve a change in strategy, or even a reversal of our priorities.
Conclusion: your challenge
To conclude, I invite you to apply these strategies to your workplace, to identify influential approaches and to encourage your colleagues to work with you to blaze trails of change that will improve the lives of our fellow citizens. With such a challenge, you will not only feel you are contributing to the development of your country, you will also have the pleasure of adding an enriching and forward-looking dimension to your daily work. So go on, forge ahead and never forget that you can all help shape Canada's future!
Thank you.
Notes
1 Daniel Melchers, La communication intelligente. Écouter, observer, persuader. GGC, 2002.
