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PAFSO Awards
Andrew Smith
Andrew Smith - 06/09/05
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Ni hao!
I want to begin by thanking Yvonne Chin who led in nominating me for this award, for her thoughtfulness and trust in me as a manager. I also want to thank my wife Marnie and my children Mica and Noa who have tolerated my desire to remain in the Asia orbit.
First, I have had what I consider good fortune in having worked in some very rewarding positions, being managed by some of the department’s leaders and along side some very motivated colleagues. Each individual has contributed in some way to my presence here tonight and to my development as a manager. I hope that they too feel that they can share in this award tonight, as it was my staff in Beijing who had first put my name forward for this award, in part on the strength of the January trade mission that we hosted in Beijing.
And secondly, as a trade commissioner proud of the work we do in contributing to Canada’s prosperity, I am particularly honoured to represent the Foreign Service’s trade stream here tonight at the annual PAFSO awards.
In my 9 years at the department, I have served with Denis Comeau and Pat Cronin in the Japan division; Len Edwards and Deborah Lyons in Tokyo; John Morrison and David Mulroney in the China division, and now with Michael Martin and Joseph Caron in Beijing...I couldn’t have planned for a more interesting, challenging and rewarding string of assignments and colleagues to have worked with. It is for them, and their life long career dedication to the department, as much as it is for the new FS officers that have recently joined the department, included among them my wife as one of our newly minted FS over at CIC, that I thought it appropriate to take this occasion to focus my remarks on us - our foreign service family.
Not many would know that I competed three times in the annual FS recruitment campaign over the span of about 8 years. Since a high school exchange took me to Moscow in 1980 and a chance meeting with a Canadian foreign service officer, I knew that it was this type of career that I would eventually come to do. I just needed to convince a 4 member FS recruitment panel of that fact. It took some doing, but I was determined to be a member of this family of foreign service officers.
Through my successive assignments, I saw in each of my managers an understanding of what it meant to lead a team, to galvanize spirit, and the powerful effect it could bring to our work. Each did it slightly differently and with their own style, but the result was always the same. Each of them fostered an environment of trust, of mutual support, of respect and of creativity. In doing so, this allowed our teams to meet our objectives, focus on our clients, and utilize the strength of the whole. We were able to accomplish so much more in this atmosphere, in so many more interesting ways, moving ourselves well ‘outside-the-box’ in creating initiatives, but most importantly to each of us, it never felt like work. We were having fun. We were a team in every sense. And I truly hope that each of my FS colleagues here tonight hold similar experiences.
In Japan in 2001 we launched Think Canada and the High Tech Road Show. While Deputy Director of Trade in the China division we created the China Training course for the Provinces; and so far in Beijing we delivered on the recent MINT-led Canada Trade Mission. Collectively we understood our sense of purpose; we had trust in each other with our ‘raison d’etre’ clearly articulated.
These are the lessons which I have come away with from my managers and in turn, have tried to harness that same spirit with my team. Perhaps the award tonight speaks to that.
Colleagues, the evolution of ITCan and FAC does not present a significant challenge to us, rather I believe the most important aspect which we need to address is how we intend to conduct ourselves as a family of professional foreign service officers and where do we want it to go from here. A lot has changed in the years since I became a member of the department and I can say the most striking change for me has been this loss of an ‘esprit de corps’ among our members. Our vocation has become work. Our work is in danger of losing its focus.
Increasingly I have reflected on the impact our department must face with the impending retirement of our ‘bubble’ of career FS officers, some of my former managers among them. Consider also the morale malaise among the junior officers where the oft-heard comment has been "get a posting, get a language and get out". Are we satisfied those are the trends that will serve us well into the future? Also required, is an open debate on the impact of secondments and one-off assignments on the FS family; and whether the department is adequately preparing the steady stream of new recruits for the responsibilities they must take on. Have these trends moved us to be a closer team of FS officers?
So sitting in Beijing, why do I think this has resonance today? For starters, surveys have shown that we have been unable to reverse the growing trend of employees who will leave the department over the coming years. I think it evident when one looks around to witness FS morale and the general effect it carries on our motivation, desire and commitment. But perhaps most significantly and of lasting impact, what has this dispassion meant to our relations with our locally-engaged staff at missions? These trends are inwardly cyclical, and what can be anticipated is a decreasing relevance to our clients, but after all, shouldn’t they be at the core of what we do?
Today’s officers are joining a department without the benefit of the esprit de corps that existed when I came into the fold. It has been the decade of the disenfranchised. I have gone out to schools to talk about the department and recruit for future campaigns - and I will continue to do so as I believe in us and in how we have defined our purpose. But I want our new recruits to be afforded the rewarding work experiences that I have had in the department so they too, will consider making the department their life-long vocation. This will only come by working alongside motivated FS colleagues and managers in a positive environment and through personal development in enriching assignments as I have had at HQs and missions. Is it time for our PMAs to tie us more closely to our employees rather than our managers?
As managers we need to foster an environment where employees want to come to the office each day, confident that it would be an environment where they feel the more effort they have expended, the more they have gained and developed on a personal level. As managers we have to ensure a work climate where our officers take up their duties each day thinking that they can truly make a difference in serving the country we love.
As a department, we need to be able to maintain an environment where we remain ahead of our clients if we truly want to be of value and of long-term relevance to them.
I would like to express again my appreciation to the awards committee for their selection and, to close on a personal note to my friend Josee who we recently lost, to make each day the best you can.
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