Toronto, Thursday, February 13, 2014

Thank you for your warm welcome. I am indeed delighted to be here among so many people who share the same fundamental goal: to strengthen this country’s charitable sector and help those who need it most.

As you know, a more caring, generous nation is also among my biggest hopes for Canada, and over the past few years I have had occasion to meet and work with many volunteers and charitable sector professionals—including some of you in this room.

If you take nothing else away from my remarks today, please remember this: I believe Canada has benefitted richly from the contributions of the many professionals, volunteers and philanthropists who dedicate themselves to helping others.

Therefore, let me begin by saying thank you for what you do, on behalf of all Canadians.

Let me also show my respect by keeping my remarks brief, to allow time for questions. In this I also have in mind the wisdom of my grandmother, who used to tell me:

“Stand up to be seen, speak up to be heard, and sit down to be appreciated!”

Some advice is timeless!

In fact, that may be a good place to begin my remarks on leadership, which I’ll follow by sharing with you some of what we’ve been up to at Rideau Hall of late. And I’ll end by looking ahead, to 2017, when we will celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday—a wonderful opportunity to invigorate the climate of giving in this country.   

But I would like to lead with leadership.

In my view, leadership and high-performance management means recognizing your total dependence on the people around you. This is both smart and caring—it is the only truly effective and legitimate means of leading people in the 21st century.

Quite simply, command-and-control methods of management are now passé.

In fact, this shift has been taking place since at least the First World War, when the top-down approach to leadership was so thoroughly discredited by the appalling loss of human life on the Western Front—an occasion we have the solemn duty of remembering this year, the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of war.

Continuing with this theme let me share a notable example of enlightened leadership from the very same conflict: the famous battle of Vimy Ridge.

Many books have been written about Vimy and the reasons for the success of Canadian troops there, but I will focus on just one important difference between that battle and those that preceded it: for the first time, maps were given to all troops, rather than solely to the senior officers. This allowed soldiers to better understand the terrain, to imagine their goal, and to improvise when necessary.

In modern management terms, we think of this as placing trust in employees to use their intuition in adjusting to circumstances and achieving goals.

Now let me extend this collaboration metaphor beyond those who work within your own organizations, outward to your communities, to the country and to the world at large.

In my time as governor general and in my previous experience as a university administrator—about which I’ll be happy to answer questions later—one of the constant prerequisites of success has been the willingness to reach out and form partnerships.

Whatever the goal, working with others has always been important to success, but the necessity of collaboration is particularly urgent in today’s rapidly changing, interconnected world.

It is interesting to note how globalization and the ongoing information and communications revolution both enable us and require us to work together and to forge partnerships. It is almost as if because we can communicate and collaborate with one another, we must.

This is particularly important when we share the same goals: for example, to inspire a smarter, more caring Canada.

The challenges and complexity of the task at hand are such that we are far better off when we pool our efforts and our ingenuity.

Also: time and again in my life and work, I have found that collaboration builds social capital and fosters innovation.

Let me share with you an experiment in collaboration and innovation that we are presently undertaking at Rideau Hall.

It’s called the Rideau Hall Foundation, which we created last year as an independent, non-political “meeting place” where Canadians can work together in common cause.

The Foundation will help to amplify the scope and reach of the office of the governor general, enabling us to cultivate initiatives that foster Canadians’ sense of values and identity, increase Canada’s potential for excellence, and strengthen our efforts to build a better country.

Remember, a basic purpose of the office of the governor general is to connect, honour and inspire Canadians and to reinforce the most fundamental, positive values of being Canadian.

You may have heard of the Foundation’s initial two projects. One is called It’s An Honour!, a mobile exhibit on the Canadian system of honours that is currently travelling to schools, community centres and small towns across the country.

The idea is to encourage and motivate Canadians by sharing stories of extraordinary achievement, bravery, service and compassion. One of the wonderful things about this exhibit is that it is literally extending the reach of our office, bringing our message to people in their own communities right across Canada.

Another project currently being undertaken by the Rideau Hall Foundation is called My Giving Moment, a campaign that invites all Canadians to join in building a better country through giving.

Now, let me be very clear about the campaign’s goal. My Giving Moment is not intended to solicit contributions from Canadians for the Foundation or in any way tell people what to do with their time, talent or money. Rather, the purpose is to encourage Canadians to find their “giving moment,” to give to good and worthy causes in whatever way is right and available to them.

The campaign is based upon the notion that, in a democratic society such as ours, we all have something to offer for the well-being of our communities and of our country—and each of us wants to do so, to improve the lives of other citizens. It is about raising awareness of the importance of giving, and improving the climate for generosity in Canada.

As such, My Giving Moment is intended to complement and reinforce your efforts in the social profit sector, which in the end will make our country better.

I believe that the Rideau Hall Foundation is a good example of both institutional innovation and collaboration among various sectors: public, private and social profit. Already, it has helped to bring into being new ideas and initiatives that would not otherwise have occurred or been possible.

So this is an example of what I mean when I say that collaboration leads to innovation. Once we started working together to create the Rideau Hall Foundation, new and unexpected things began to happen.

As leaders within Canada’s charitable sector, I know you are constantly thinking about and working on these kinds of collaborations, and I know you are innovating.

My message to you today is: keep going. Continue to search out ways to form the creative connections and partnerships necessary for success in today’s challenging, changing times.

I would also like to stress the importance of defining success for your respective organizations, and measuring results to track your progress. Improved measurement can enhance giving in two key respects: (1) by improving the effectiveness of donations and gifts; and (2) by reassuring those who give that their donation will be used to good effect.

Better measurement will lead to greater effectiveness for recipients and thus more confidence among donors—indeed, the two outcomes go hand in hand.

And of course, the above applies to the overall goal of creating a more generous, caring Canada, now and for the future.

Let me close by offering two challenges for your consideration before we continue our conversation on leadership in the Q&A:

1. Can we define success and measure our progress towards strengthening the climate of giving in this country? And
   
   
2. Can we seize the opportunity provided by Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017 to encourage every Canadian to make their own gift to Canada?

As leaders in Canada’s social profit sector, each of you can make a real difference in shaping the future well-being of people in your communities and in this country.

I wish you the very best in your important work.