Sep 30, 2026 · 51 min · 9 segments
What happens when governments are too afraid to talk about failure? In this rerun of Reimagining Government, host Nick Thompson revisits a conversation about why governments need to create more space…
Adrian BrownHost
Dan VogelGuestNick ThompsonHost
My name is Adrian Brown, and I'm the Executive Director at the Centre for Public Impact.
Now, no matter what walk of life you're in, everybody on this planet has been affected by and had to deal with failure.
But what if our apprehension to talk about failures is the very thing that's preventing us from greater success? Today, we're facing our failures head on as I chat with Athena Hughes, who's Senior Associate in CPI's team in North America.
And in the spirit of failure, what we're going to try and do is record this episode in a sort of warts and all fashion and minimize the edits.
And Graham, who helps us with these podcasts, has to spend a lot of time editing.
But because this episode is about failure, we're going to try and record it as live.
And thank you, Athena, for joining us in this experiment journey as well as we bear our failures for everyone to see in this recording.
Now, we'll be covering why public servants should be open to holding their hands up to failure in order to find better solutions for the people that they serve.
What do you think the current relationship looks like between government and failure?
So I think failure in government is both unique in some ways and not in others.
Anytime you've got an institution that impacts a lot of people, that failure is gonna be magnified, excuse me, whether that's residents or customers or partners.
So governments in particular, when they fail, have a really deep impact on people's day-to-day lived experience.
And I think a lot of government failures don't just come in individual mistakes, but are also issues with the status quo when it is not actually responsive to people or doesn't meet their needs effectively.
My name is Adrian Brown, and I'm the Executive Director at the Centre for Public Impact.
Now, no matter what walk of life you're in, everybody on this planet has been affected by and had to deal with failure.
But what if our apprehension to talk about failures is the very thing that's preventing us from greater success? Today, we're facing our failures head on as I chat with Athena Hughes, who's Senior Associate in CPI's team in North America.
And in the spirit of failure, what we're going to try and do is record this episode in a sort of warts and all fashion and minimize the edits.
And Graham, who helps us with these podcasts, has to spend a lot of time editing.
But because this episode is about failure, we're going to try and record it as live.
And thank you, Athena, for joining us in this experiment journey as well as we bear our failures for everyone to see in this recording.
Now, we'll be covering why public servants should be open to holding their hands up to failure in order to find better solutions for the people that they serve.
What do you think the current relationship looks like between government and failure?
So I think failure in government is both unique in some ways and not in others.
Anytime you've got an institution that impacts a lot of people, that failure is gonna be magnified, excuse me, whether that's residents or customers or partners.
So governments in particular, when they fail, have a really deep impact on people's day-to-day lived experience.
And I think a lot of government failures don't just come in individual mistakes, but are also issues with the status quo when it is not actually responsive to people or doesn't meet their needs effectively.
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