Six or eight months ago, American Airlines rolled out iSolve, a tablet-based software wherein flight attendants could offer on the spot compensation (usually in award miles) for complaining passengers. Mind you, these are not complaints due to uncontrollable circumstances (force majeure, acts of God, etc.), as those are (rightfully) not due further compensation.
No, these are airline-caused, exacerbated or ignored problems, usually with the aircraft itself.
In other words, “airline screws up, airline compensates passengers.” What a unique freakin’ concept.
Except it worked. Passenger complaints were resolved by the flight attendants on the spot. Sorta like the restaurant screwing up your pork chop and giving you free dessert. Everyone wins.
“Paying more miles than anticipated.” Really? Exactly how many miles did you anticipate paying out for passenger complaints caused by the airline itself? Did you chat with flight attendants, maybe asking how many such complaints they received in a typical 90-minute flight? What data did you use to come up with the far-exceeded miles compensation quota? I’m guessing they either (a) pulled it directly outta their ass (the PDOMA method), or (b) had no clue what was going to happen, as they believed the complaints to be infrequent.
This should have opened the suits’ eyes. Do they have any idea–any idea at all–how many complaints are fielded by flight attendants during each flight? Who else can a passenger complain to? Banging on the cockpit door to speak to the Captain will likely end poorly, so there’s no one left in flight except those flight attendants. Now, you give them a tool to make their –and their passengers–lives a small bit more bearable, and you’re sayin “wait a minute, we don’t want it to be that bearable!?”
Don ‘t forget, these are problems fully and completely managed by American. The in flight power outlets. Seat back recline mechanisms, internet problems, food outages, and cabin temperature. All are 100% controllable by the airline, and are problems that passengers bring up as complaints to flight attendants, which flight attendants can no longer resolve quickly and peacefully.
I’m trying not to use the F-word, but this situation makes it damned hard.
So, I’ll say this: American execs– get your heads out of your collective asses, and act like a leader of some sort. You’re about to hit a rough patch in airline business… are you certain this is the best possible face to show right now? Did you think we wouldn’t hear about it? Are you so freakin’ tone-deaf that you simply don’t believe these are real problems that matter to travelers?
More fodder for my common refrain: cell carriers, cable companies and airlines… all view customers as fungible resources. You’ll leave one provider, go to another. I leave American, someone else joins American from United.
Just stop it. Pretend customers matter, act like a leader, and stick to decisions that make life better for both your employees and your customers.
First, that phrase for this post — “I’m just sayin’,” drives me nuts. I hate it. Now that I feel better for sharing…
A diversity consulting firm called The Novations Group, apparently surveyed a couple thousand managers, and concluded that senior managers were poor communicators. For this, they seem to want acclaim…
Survey respondents blamed senior management for (in order of survey popularity):
1. Relying too much on e-mail.
2. Assuming a single message is enough.
3. Having no feedback loop in place.
4. Messages lacking clarity.
To this, I say “hmmmm…”
Nonetheless, there is some truth here.
We all rely too much on email. Email is great for simple information/data sharing. It breaks down when we try to have conversations, include emotion, or the worst: we try to manage by email.
Walk down the hall or pick up the damned phone. Email is the worst medium on the planet for any communication requiring acknowledged understanding, purposeful dialog, or meaning other than the simple written word. There is no defined ‘subtlety’ in emails. And managers shouldn’t use it as a proxy.
Another pox on communication occurred while we were gutting mid-management from organizations. In flattening org charts, we forgot that most on-the-ground communications with employees was done with middle managers. Today, they are either extinct or a bit harried from the evolution of their jobs.
Further, much of what we as senior leaders do has at least a modicum of confidentiality. Next thing you know, we’re acting like everything we say and do is some state secret.
It ain’t.
The problem, of course, is in the absence of communication, our employees fill in all the details, blanks, and relevant information themselves. From spotty knowledge, connecting rumor dots, or simply making it up as they go. None bodes well for us while trying to lead an organization in this age.
Next week, I’ll post some tips and techniques for communications that, though maybe not necessarily “easy,” they probably won’t leave visible scars.
In this and 2 remaining blog entries, I’m expanding on the “5 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” I outlined in a recent article.
This third law is a reminder that development is essential for employee growth, and for your own well-being. In other words, it’s both selfish and generous; making someone else smarter while you do less work. This is a good thing, eh?
Law #3. If you always answer employee’s every question, you’ll forever be answering employees’ every question.
Questions are teaching moments — don’t rob employees of the opportunity.
Sounds trite, and I don’t mean it to (ok, maybe I mean it to be a little trite). If an employee is asking because they’re stupid, get rid of the employee. If they are a decent employee asking because they do not know, then teach them.
Next time, they’ll know how to do it — or at least the thought process behind it — and you won’t have to. How’s that for planned efficiency??
Now, you have time to go do something important. And to answer in advance: No, answering every employee’s every question is not something important you should be doing. If you’re doing that, you may as well just do it yourself…
Human Resources needs to get past this, “Do it for one, must do it for all” mentality. It’s just not true, and a lousy way to help a business succeed.
I regularly tell people this about precedents: “Yes, I’ll likely do the same thing, given the exact same circumstances, in the future.”
For example, if I allow an extra week of protected FMLA for a stellar employee in production with 6 years with the company, I may very well agree to do that same thing for the next “stellar employee in production with 6 years with the company.” Change a single parameter and the precedent doesn’t exist.
But even that isn’t the right answer, since decisions need to be made based on current business needs. I’m not trying to create a social system at work whereby all receive identical treatment. They won’t. I’ll do those things necessary, including making nondiscriminatory employment-related decisions, as the business needs dictate.
There’s all this talk about HR’s “seat at the table.” Want to get “kicked off the table” in a hurry? Adopt the inflexible, “Do for one, do for all” mindset. It has no place in business, in my opinion.
Barclay E. Berdan, CEO of Texas Health Resources, one of the nation’s largest faith-based, nonprofit health systems at 24K employees and $4.5B in revenue.
Normally a calm man and methodical leader, imagine his surprise when just after assuming this role he was found himself smack-dab in the middle of the first case of Ebola ever diagnosed in the U.S. Welcome aboard, Barclay. Don’t mind those 40+ television and satellite trucks in the parking lot; nothing to see here…
A brief side note: he was criticized for hiring a PR firm for the Ebola nightmare. I think it was one of the smartest things he could have done. Sorry, but I doubt (before this) that hospitals had an Ebola Contingency Plan to dust off. CEOs must be accountable, but they are not necessarily clairvoyant.
Berdan’s focus on strategy – he calls it “climbing transformation mountain” – is all about THR reinventing itself and becoming more than a sum of a suite of free-standing hospitals and ERs. And by the way, continue being a top-notch outfit all the while we’re slogging through this reinvention stuff.
Did I say top-notch? I’m not prone to hyperbole when analyzing leadership, but this guy gets it. THR has been on Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For every year since Berden’s promotion. And not just that; they have also been awarded <deeeep breath>:
Best Workplaces in Texas 2017 (ranked 1) Best Workplaces for Women 2017 (ranked 1) Best Workplaces for African Americans 2017 Best Workplaces in Health Care 2017 (ranked 1) Best Workplaces for Parents 2017 (ranked 47) Best Workplaces for Diversity 2017 (ranked 9) Human Capital 30: Companies that Put Employees Front and Center
50% of company execs are women, 11% are minorities. THR regularly has facilities ranked in the Top 100 Hospitals.
Berden’s style of leadership drives employee engagement, satisfaction, and their discretionary efforts. THR avoids that child-hood game of “telephone,” as senior leaders conduct regular “rounds” to check in with the departments implementing their plans. Face-to-face exchanges focus on work-related issues and inform how executives solve problems.
Flexible schedules, opportunities for community time off to give back, fitness and health programs etc., lots to really shows the commitment to the employees. THR does an excellent job of promoting from within. They created pipelines to develop employees for next-level roles, and actually have no-kidding tools and resources to assist those who are in leadership roles to be more effective. I only wish that wasn’t such a uniquely admirable trait.
You can read Barclay Berden’s recent holiday memo to his team. Heart-warming and sincere. Easy to see why he’s respected, and why he’s this month’s Leadership Leader.
WARNING: Colorful metaphors, including PG-13 language follows. Don’t read if easily offended since, generally, I try so very hard to never offend…!
So, I’ve got this client… (as my friends know, most of my really good stories start this way). Anyway…
I’m working with their leadership teams (multiple levels), and during a recent mid-manager session, one of the participants commented that it was great to have a “common language” for all the managers.
This, of course, is music to my consulting ears, so I ask him to elaborate.
He said well, we can discuss things now like “empowering employees,” “resolving conflict,” and “active listening,” and the term means something to us, as opposed to (in the past) not really being able to verbalize these concepts.
Now, I’m really jazzed, so I ask for specific examples. In retrospect, this could have been an error in judgment on my part… live and learn.
So, this participant then says, “Well, everyone now understands what we’re talking about — what we’re doing — even when getting “chewed out.” He says, “It’s not an “ass-ripping” anymore, it’s “feedback.”
“It’s not an ass-ripping any more, it’s feedback.” You gotta admit, that’s funny. I could hardly catch my breath I was laughing so hard.
After normal conversation resumed, however, it became clear that what he had said, though funny, was actually quite accurate. And it isn’t just a play on words.
Taken out of context, with no management or leadership process in place for continued communications and real feedback, an “ass-ripping” is just that. Used in the productive context of regular and frequent communications and clearly defined expectations, within a defined performance management process, it really is, now, “feedback.”
I learned a valuable lesson that day (well, TWO lessons if you count “don’t ask stupid questions like that” as a lesson): Words matter, because that’s how we frame situations within our environment. It’s not a simple play on words if the new frame of reference is different than the old.
This “common language” thing can really make sense.
How about in your organization?? Are you still “ass-ripping” or are you “providing feedback?”
by the airline, and are problems that passengers bring up as complaints to flight attendants, which flight attendants can no longer resolve quickly and peacefully.
funny. I could hardly catch my breath I was laughing so hard.