British guru helps coach cabinet
KAN ANA SKIS, ALTA ,• Just like the last time Liberals gathered in the hinterlands to trade notes on governance, Michael Barber, the author of How to Run A Government, has been flown in.
Barber is in Alberta for three days to coach the cabinet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on his philosophy of “deliverology.” It is the second time he’s been brought over from Britain to meet with the Trudeau cabinet. His first trip was in January to the New Brunswick retreat.
The former adviser to then U.K. prime minister Tony Blair was dubbed a “New Labour guiding spirit” for designing a data-obsessed, flow-chart heavy vision of government during the Blair era.
Now, he is the world’s darling of government consultancy and closed-door, cabinet-minister sessions are a relatively routine event for the Brit. In Canada alone, his theories have been openly adopted as a model federally, and by the Liberal governments of Ontario and New Brunswick.
“Deliverology,” in short, is the general science of getting governments to implement their promises.
Or, as Barber puts it, the “set of processes that enables governments to deliver ambitious goals by learning effectively as they go, and refining as necessary.”
How to do this, exactly, is a bit more complex, but Barber’s 2015 book How To Run A Government does include 57 rules, including one titled: Successful markets and effective government go together.
Barber’s sessions are closed to media, but they reportedly feature an informal coaching on the Liberals’ deliverology cred.
He gave them the basics in January, and now, with a few announcements under their belt, he’s back to check on things.
Kananaskis, the site of the cabinet retreat, is most famous for being the site of the 2002 G8 summit, an event commemorated at the resort by faded wayfinding maps directing the world leaders of 14 years ago.
Overall, the cabinet retreat is structured very much like an average corporate conference, albeit with more heavily armed RCMP officers. Sessions are scheduled, coaches are flown in and the several dozen ministers and their staffs ink in their schedules.
As a rule, bringing Barber across the Atlantic does not come cheaply, and his consultancy fee has made headlines in the U.K. Although his rate is negotiable, it’s typically a minimum $8,000 per day.
Aside from a mid-Monday announcement from Trudeau regarding the death of hostage John Ridsdel, the retreat has been largely devoid of announcements. As one Liberal staffer said Sunday night, it was “surprising” that so many media had bothered to show up.