The firing of Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe on May 9 was a perfect case study in why sometimes you just need to shake things up a little bit and let someone go from your operation. If only the public sector operated the same way.
This NHL playoffs season there was, as always, great hope that the Leafs would beat the odds and go the distance. But as round one against Boston went into game seven, there were, as always, broken hearts as the Leafs lost in overtime.
“Today’s decision was difficult,” said general manager Brad Treliving. “Sheldon is an excellent coach and a great man; however, we determined a new voice is needed to help the team push through to reach our ultimate goal.”
It’s a classy statement. Keefe was likewise classy in a video he posted about his departure.
“I didn’t get it done in the playoffs,” Keefe said to the fans. “I didn’t push our team over the line and deliver. I accept responsibility for that. No excuses. That’s the job, and I didn’t get it done.”
The Leafs organization clearly felt Keefe was a good guy but, as the former coach himself put it, he didn’t take home the prize, so it’s time to switch things up a bit. There are many things the Leafs could do and should do for next time around to be better positioned and replacing the coach is one of them—so they did it.
As someone who spends his time researching, discussing, and campaigning on public policy issues, I find the whole Keefe firing rather refreshing. It’s accountability in action, which we don’t have in the public sector.
It feels like every day in Canada, we learn that a city, a province, or the feds have failed to deliver on a target—either running something terribly over budget or significantly behind schedule or just allowing a mediocre program or service to continue being mediocre. And here’s the worst part about it: The public sector just shrugs it off, and nobody faces any consequences.
That needs to change. As the Keefe example shows, it’s a pretty normal thing to let a person in a leadership position go when they have failed to deliver on a key metric. Or at least it should be a normal thing.
I’ve had many conversations with business community leaders who are shocked to learn that the basic practices they employ for effective management are rarely happening in government. One of those key practices is setting measurable objectives for senior staff, reviewing whether or not they’ve hit their targets, and then adjusting their employment accordingly. This adjustment could mean giving a bonus to an outstanding employee or parting ways with one who continues to miss targets.
There are unfortunately too many examples of where better personnel management should be happening in the public sector but clearly isn’t.
The senior management team failed. This was a clear example of the “you had one job!” meme. Their job is to issue passports and they failed to issue passports. So the leadership needs to go. But it appears they didn’t.
Likewise the case of the Ontario health-care system. There are hospitals across the province that now close their emergency departments on evenings and weekends. The most basic function of a hospital is to be open to serve patients. Yet the health bureaucracy remains full of very well-paid senior managers. Where are the consequences?
Those are just two examples. Any Canadian can point to a handful more. This shouldn’t be happening. We need to do better, and public service excellence is attainable if we start placing serious expectations on those in charge.
Why does the Toronto Maple Leafs organization take itself more seriously than a government structure? It would be nice to win the Stanley Cup, but it doesn’t change our daily lives. There’s much less urgency to winning the Cup than there is to, say, making sure Canadians get timely access to health care or ensuring they can get their passports.
Yet a sports team takes its targets more seriously than our political system and public service.
