Inside Justin Trudeau’s ‘turbo-Zen’ army: Wells

My favourite quote from this good overview of the Liberal government’s ambitious agenda and working methods. Well worth reading in its entirety:

(Muscle memory is turning out to be a constant challenge for the Trudeau crew as they work with the federal public service to implement their stacked agenda, after Stephen Harper spent a decade trying to dampen bureaucratic enthusiasm. In meetings on refugee resettlement, the Trudeau adviser said, “It became clear early on that [bureaucrats’] overriding objective was not to get yelled at. We had to say, ‘Guys, that’s not how we’re going to work.’ ”)

And this quote on tone:

But much of the tone comes from the Prime Minister himself. In early group conversations in the Langevin Block where the government’s top political staffers and bureaucratic advisers work, Trudeau has often been the one who cuts conversations about the day’s worries short and reminds others to consider the long-term goal, people familiar with those meetings said.

“He’s got 320 campaign promises, and four years to deliver them, and he really wants to ensure they don’t get off track,” the longtime observer said. And so participants describe a peculiar characteristic of the Trudeau government in its early days: despite the rush to deliver on commitments and the early hiccups of botched plans or unforeseen catastrophe, the general atmosphere has been one of eerie calm. Turbo schedule, Zen attitude.

“Totally Zen about headlines,” the Trudeau adviser said. “How do you think we survived the last six months?”

The longtime observer confirmed the self-diagnosis. “If the nanny thing had happened to Harper, his PMO’s reaction would have been, ‘Who do we shoot?’ ”

And on implementation of the longer-term view:

But the long-range focus is not merely a matter of Trudeau’s personal style. It is baked into the design of his government. “Right from the get-go there was a keen desire to make sure we focused on results and pacing of delivery,” Peter Harder, a former deputy minister who ran Trudeau’s transition team, said in an interview. The most visible sign of this is the most important cabinet committee. Under previous governments it would have been called “priorities and planning.” Under Trudeau it’s called “agenda and results.” Its goal is to relentlessly track progress against targets to make sure the government delivers on its agenda items. “It’s never been done before,” Harder said. “Our cabinet committees [in previous governments] have always been focused on incoming events, not on stocks of results.” The agenda and results membership list includes three ministers who are often named among Trudeau’s closest personal confidants: House leader Dominic LeBlanc, Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains.

Source: Inside Justin Trudeau’s ‘turbo-Zen’ army – Macleans.ca