Tap into an outsider mindset | Tim McTiernan

Tim McTiernan, guest · [04:13]I was shipped off to the Lake School for low babies and high babies, and I think it was in high babies, which would be senior kindergarten, where you realize that you are living in a different world than most of the other children, because I think it might have been Mrs. Hughes who said, well, our mummies and daddies go to mass on Sunday. And I put up my hand and bravely said, Miss, Mrs. Hughes, my mummy and daddy don't. And she said, yes, they do. Yes, they do. Shut up, put your hand down. And at that point, I learned to be careful and to watch what others do before you jump out ahead of others. And I spent pretty much all of my secondary school at boarding school. I played rugby and I did public speaking. I was called debating, but it really was public speaking. I was the, in, in debating circles, I was the rugby player who debated and rugby I was the rugby player. I, I, I was the debater who played rugby and the rugby player who debate, well, whatever. I, I was always sort of on, on, on the other side, in, in terms of context of people placing me in conversations. I, I had a good time at boarding school and it broadened my view of the world from the fairly narrow confines of Kilkenny. But, but when you go away when you're 12, you sort of get disconnected from your, family a bit. And one of the characteristics of being away is, learning to sort of live on your own, you know, with friends and stuff, but, you didn't have parents to talk to when you went home at night or whatever. So, you, you become, became very self-contained, in terms of how you manage things. But that early experience, was one that carried through what, what other people are doing and learn from other people before you step out.

Tim McTiernan, guest · [17:58]Yeah, well, I, two things prior to the meeting. One of the people who'd been on the Yukon negotiating team for the Inuvialuit final agreement, a team that had been tossed off the, table by a newly appointed The federal negotiator because they were being totally uncooperative, all uncooperative. One of the, well, one of the, territorial negotiators, who was very senior to me in the Yukon bureaucracy, figured he, he was going to be the implementation coordinator. he knew everything about what was in the Inuvialuit Final Agreement, and he knew how to deal, you know, the Inuvialuit belligerently. And, very deliberately, I think I was put in there, not because I, there was any sense that I, could be productive, but I just wasn't him. And so I went into the meeting knowing it was going to be a challenging meeting, and, my two principal, sort of thoughts about going into the meeting was sit down, be quiet, listen, and be respectful when you, are asked something or when you have to ask something. And so, and, and, and be as relaxed as you can be, even though you're sweating. In the process. So went in, meetings in the north, you know, were long days often, particularly on challenging and important stuff. And I sat there, I sat there, and I tried to figure out who was who around the room. And I sat and I watched. And there was one person who was part of the federal negotiation team who was carrying on into implementation from what was then the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. And she was careful to keep eye contact with me over the course of the meeting. And if I was asked anything, she tracked, you know, carefully how I was managing. And if I was getting myself into any trouble, she had a way of entering into the discussion in what seemed appropriate ways, steering it away from any difficulties. And she was a colleague that I really liked working with. Over the subsequent years on a variety of other things.

Tim McTiernan, guest · [20:49]I was asked to be assistant deputy minister in the executive council office responsible for the land claims secretariat, which was negotiating final agreements with an umbrella final agreement and then individual final agreements with the 14 Yukon First Nations. I ended up being chief negotiator in land claims, coordinating across government for, for land claims and land claims implementation. And at one point with the change in government, I was cabinet secretary, chief negotiator for land claims and for land claims implementation. And if ever you had a role, it's as a chief negotiator and as cabinet secretary. Because when you're chief negotiator, even though you know you can't deliver and you have to say no, there is always a, I'm not sure that this is workable, but let me take it back. And it gives you breathing time, it gives you time to work, you know, think through other possibilities and other balancing countermeasures. But when you're taking it back to yourself, you can't do that. So you're at the table, and it, it, it, it didn't matter so much on the, terms of the final agreements, the, the final treaty agreements, because the Yukon policy was set. And it was very Pro, the Yukon government was the first government in Canada to affirm the inherent right to Aboriginal self-government. It was the first government in Canada to negotiate separate self-government and stand beside self-government agreements with the treaty documents. So all of that was set in stone. The challenge was on implementation, and the federal government reneged on its implementation funding commitments. Never explicitly said that we knew what was under the Treasury Board submission, and we were going to get a sizable amount of money to meet our obligations until the cutbacks when Martin was finance minister. So we got Butkus for implementation. First Nations got Butkus for, relatively speaking, for implementation. But the fact that neither of us had any money, and the feds weren't going to give any more, put us head to head. And so a lot of, I got into a lot of trouble at the implementation. Negotiation tables because we couldn't deliver money. And the First Nations felt we were the only source of money. And I, you know, being cabinet secretary and chief negotiator, just were income, they weren't incompatible. It just meant your negotiation position at the table compromised fundamentally. And so there are times when you can end up in a role conflict, you know, by design or inadvertently, where you have to understand the circumstances and try and extricate yourself before you have somebody screaming across the table. Sorry.

Tim McTiernan, guest · [23:58]There's another aspect about role that I've, I've had the chance to experience in a number of different situations. From U of T for the nanosecond I was in from VP research, back to When I first became cabinet secretary, it was an NDP government and I was in an acting position. And so I chaired the deputy minister's group. I was essentially, you know, the orchestrator within government for the operations of government. And I had a deputy minister challenge me at deputy minister's committee once, like, who the hell are you? You're just acting. And it's a moment where you can either lose control or take control. And I was lucky enough to be able to respond in a way that affirmed my control of the room rather than lose control of it. If you're in a role, even if it's for a short period of time, or even if it's provisional, embrace the role and treat it as a real job for as long as you have it. It may not be long, but don't just preside. Treat it as you are. And I was for the years I was, cabinet secretary under the Yukon Party government. I, I was always acting minister at the, provincial ministers of, indigenous, relations table for about three years. And by the time the three years was over, I was the senior person at the table in terms of tenure, not, not in, not in terms of role responsibility, but in terms of tenure, and, and embrace the role. You can't do temporary roles tentatively.

Daniel Atlin, host · [41:31]What advice would you have for actually You know, leaders looking into a complex institution like a university or hospital or a broader government agency.

Tim McTiernan, guest · [41:40]I think one thing that's realistically important to get a handle on as quickly as possible are the current operational constraints, how flexible they are and how inflexible they are. Find areas of flexibility and look at creative solutions around the areas of flexibility. I mean, we still live in a delivery system that's built on an agrarian society and an agrarian economy. We have learned during COVID to be a bit more creative with online and digital methods of program delivery, service delivery. We've learned to deal with virtually with each other, and we've learned to deal a bit more flexibly with schedules, and I think looking for flex Possible options that minimize the pain, even if they're disruptive relative to the current patterns of doing business or delivering services. We need to be able to do that and need to be able to get back to the point you were speaking about earlier, Daniel, find the carriers of a vision and put them on pedestals where they can enable support and mentor people who can execute the visions. And that's not easy, and some of the transitions won't be easy, and some of the transitions will be hurtful to personnel and will be budgetarily challenging, but the status quo can't stand.

Tim McTiernan, guest · [43:57]I was a lifeguard for two years. I was a lifeguard for three years, actually. One on the river in Kilkenny, the River Nore, before swimming pools were invented. You actually went swimming in the river. You didn't go wild swimming, which is the term that you use now, I think. I heard that in Britain a couple of years ago. And I was like, what the hell is wild swimming? Well, that's what we used to do when we went on holidays. The beach I was on in Ballybunion, long, wide, sandy beach with a promontory in the middle, a cliff on, on the north side, promontory in the middle. With the remnants of an old Norman castle on and a sort of a rocky ledge that went out into the ocean on the south side. The beach split at high tide, and so you had to monitor both sides, and we didn't have any equipment or anything. There were four of us. So we'd have somebody on the promontory and a couple of people on the heaviest-use beach and one person on the, on the lesser-use beach, and that varied from time to time, you know, depending upon the weather. All you can do is look at patterns when you're scanning with people in the waves bouncing up and down. And when the tide is out and there are tidal pools along the cliff, and, you know, you're tracking to see whether people are, you know, sort of around the pools or whatever. And the second year I was a lifeguard, there were two near misses, and one was a guy bouncing up and down in the waves, bouncing up and down in the waves, along with Other people. And I suddenly noticed that, wait a minute, where's the guy gone? And by the time I caught him, he was being swept out on a riptide. And we got him. Later that year in September, I was doing a patrol along the beach, not many people there. And I noticed, wait a minute, there's a cluster of kids around one of the tidal pools. I got to go over there and look. And there was a young brother and sister, both younger than 10 years of age, in the pool underneath the water. And we're lucky enough to get them out. There, there was a brother and sister from a local family that would, like it would have been a tragedy under any circumstances, but invaluable in terms of each tragedy. So look at distortions and patterns as something I learned from that. And, and, and then figure out why the distortions.