OTTAWA - He's called Michael by his friends, Iggy by irreverent pundits, Iffy by his critics.
But to those who work most closely with him every day, the federal Liberal leader now goes by yet another moniker: Mr. Ignatieff.
And, by the way, they have to wear professional office garb while they're at it.
It wasn't always that way.
Until his new chief of staff, Peter Donolo, arrived on the scene last month and shook up Ignatieff's inner circle, the leader's office was a more laid back workplace.
Ignatieff's closest aides were friends who'd recruited him to politics from academe and helped run his leadership campaigns. They addressed him informally by his first name and tended to dress casually.
Donolo, an outsider to the Ignatieff team but an old pro from Jean Chretien's days as prime minister, is said to have realized there was a problem the first time he walked into the office and found staff addressing him as "Mr. Donolo" and the leader as "Michael."
The manner of address, he told others at the time, was indicative of a larger problem: a team without structure or discipline, a workplace of buddies where everyone felt equally in charge but no one was responsible for actually delivering on goals and objectives. In short, a "frat house" kind of atmosphere.
It was, in many respects, the same kind of loose, horizontal structure employed by Chretien's successor, Paul Martin. Martin similarly surrounded himself with the close friends who'd helped him capture the party crown -- a group that referred to itself as "the board" and which has been blamed by some Liberals for Martin's brief, chaotic, indecisive stint as prime minister.
Donolo, who'd seen first hand the success of the more structured approach preferred by Chretien, told Liberals the leader's office needed to establish some defined lines of authority.
"When you're cas(ual) and unstructured, you get cas(ual) and unstructured results," says an insider.
"There needs to be structure, there needs to be authority . . . and there's accountability that comes from that so that if something doesn't get done, it's somebody's fault, not everybody's fault, just as it's somebody's responsibility to make sure it gets done, not everybody's responsibility."
Donolo set about creating a more traditional, heirarchical organization chart and a more professional atmosphere, starting with the more formal work wear and manner of referring to the leader.
"It's about raising the level of professionalism, raising the game, creating expectations," says the insider.
"It's really about changing the culture of the leader's office . . . and to create a kind of atmosphere of competence and confidence too."
The new atmosphere is also a reflection of Pat Sorbara, the no-nonsense operations director recruited by Donolo to run the administrative side of the office and ride herd on staff.
Whether Canadian voters will find Mr. Ignatieff any more appealing than Michael remains to be seen.
But the more disciplined inner circle, combined with reviving poll numbers and last week's successful leader's tour of university campuses, has at least given Liberals cause to hope.
