Elie Kochman on Business and Networking

If you pay attention to news from Toronto, you are likely to know about the various publicity problems that have been plaguing the Toronto Transit Commission, a.k.a. the TTC. A favored target of negative criticism for many years, their recent cost overrun with a street car line coupled with a fare increase, followed by major service disruptions, all paled to the recent images and videos of various employees not working when they should be – sleeping, grabbing coffee, or just plain being rude. Capping this is the fact that Adam Giambrone, the current chair of the TTC, is running for mayor in the 2010 elections.

The picture that triggered the controversy

In reality, not every employee of the TTC is rude or incompetent. In fact, most are pleasant and do their jobs well. Having been a rider for many years, however, I can relate to all the incidents reported in the news, and can think of my own stories of gross incompetence by a TTC employee. As a result, hearing about recorded incidents of such incompetence strikes a chord with me and other riders, who immediately sympathize with the rider who took the picture.

There are, as a result, many lessons to be learned from what is happening now with the TTC, which is the point of this article.

First Response

When an incident affecting the public perception of a company occurs, it is necessary to provide a response to the public in order to limit the potential harm that can occur as a result of the incident. Here’s what the TTC had to say about the sleeping collector agent:

ATU 113 Statement on picture of TTC Collector

TORONTO, Jan. 22 /CNW/ – The following statement is issued by Bob Kinnear, President of ATU Local 113, which represents Operating and Maintenance employees of the Toronto Transit Commission:

There have been many media enquires about a picture taken at 10:00 p.m. on January 9 of a TTC Collector described as “sleeping” in the booth. The TTC is conducting an enquiry on this and until this is completed the union will have no comment on the matter except this:

Whatever the outcome of the enquiry, it is very discouraging that the picture taker and, apparently, other customers, made no attempt to determine if there was anything wrong with this TTC employee. A simple knock on the glass might have determined if the Collector was, in fact, asleep, or whether he was unconscious as a result of some medical problem. The reports that passengers were laughing at him as they passed by the booth makes this even more disturbing.

The union will comment further at an appropriate time.

This response is problematic for several reasons – it places blame on the public for the actions of its own employees, and makes assumptions that no one did, in fact, try to wake the sleeping agent. I don’t know whether or not anyone did, but the first statement released should have started with something more along the lines of:

Sleeping on the job is not considered to be acceptable by the TTC except in extenuating circumstances. We are investigating the incident, and will keep the public notified of our progress.

What this statement does is not accept fault for what happened, but explain that if the story is in fact as described by the rider, action will be taken accordingly. This is the first part of response to an incident – making assurances about the internal policies regarding the behavior triggering the incident, and indicate that the incident is being investigated. Placing blame before the investigation is complete is unacceptable (in either direction).

Second Response

Within a little while, perhaps as a result of the bungled handling of the first incident, a video of a driver taking a 7 minute break during his bus route for use of the washroom and to get a coffee was posted on YouTube. This was quickly followed by several more videos and pictures of similar incidents.

This time, the response from the TTC was better:

A TTC bus operator has been suspended pending an investigation into the circumstances surrounding a video purportedly recording the operator taking a seven-minute washroom break and buying a coffee at a doughnut shop at 3:00 a.m. last Friday. As the matter is under investigation, Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union will not be commenting on this incident or on any other matters that may bear on it.

Here, the action is directed against the employee. Granted, in this case, the driver in question was reported to have been verbally abusive to the rider, as well as allegedly making statements that the union would protect him. However, the union was learning from the first incident to not comment at length until more information is available.

Had this been the response to the first incident, perhaps there would not have been the level of public outrage, and perhaps the second incident would never have gained the level of attention that it saw.

Chain Reactions

The problem currently facing the TTC is actually quite difficult. While understanding what led to the current scenario is simple (a bungled first response followed by a second incident before the tumult over the first had died down), figuring out what to do now is much more difficult. This is the problem with chain reactions – once it has been started, breaking the chain is quite difficult.

This is the age of information freedom and social media. You need to act, not react, and you need to relate to the masses, not inform them. People expect interaction, not information. When something gets out of hand like this, you need to rein in control and start working to resolve the problem without letting it get worse in the process.

In the specific example covered in this article, the first thing to do is to make a very public announcement about a zero tolerance policy – if future incidents are reported, they will be dealt with immediately and severely. While this isn’t to mean that it’s blanket approval for a witch hunt, it needs to tell the employees that while discipline may have been lax in the past, it will no longer continue that way, and the union will not be able to protect them any longer from the result of gross misconduct.

Next, they need to look to the reactions to determine the root causes of the negative publicity. Fare hikes during the worst recession in decades is obviously an unpopular move, but if the result was better service, it might have been overlooked (not likely, but it’s possible there would have been less negative feedback). As such, they need to listen to the feedback and try to find some ways of visibly improving services.

The Lesson

What can be taken from all this is that when the public is against you, it’s more important to look at the source cause of the problem, rather than deal with the various symptoms as they appear. Failure to do so can result in the appearance of additional symptoms faster than you can deal with them, and get the public completely against anything you have to say, whether justified or not.

I was reading a post by Jeremy Lichtman about Website Development where he raised an interesting point – he mentions the concept stage of development, where the initial idea is evaluated, and says:

It isn’t easy to tell a potential customer that their ideas are terrible, or to try and make them modify their concepts in order to allow them to work better online.
Part of that is that developers and designers are by nature creative people, and we don’t like raining on somebody’s parade.
Part of it is also the risk of losing a possible customer.

This triggered a brief discussion in the comments about how to learn the skills required for dealing with [potential] clients. It’s not something covered as part of a standard degree in Computer Science or the like. It’s not part of a certification in web development for most colleges. As a result, many would-be web developers working for themselves fall into one of the following two categories:

Customer Management Chart

1. They treat the client’s opinions and ideas like gold, and implement them regardless of whether or not it’s a good idea. While this is good for getting work, it’s not good for developing a business, as you end up spending too much time dealing with the whims of ill-informed clients. This prevents you from developing your business of building quality websites that fill real needs. In the end, your clients are not happy because the site doesn’t live up to their expectations (regardless of whether those expectations were reasonable) and you end up losing the client.
2. You build what you like building, or what you think is a good idea, and if the client likes it, that’s great, and if not, they can go bother someone else. I don’t think this method needs much explanation as to why it’s a bad idea.

What’s needed here is to find a good balance between the two extremes, a sprinkle of tact, and some of your business experience.

Evaluate what your [potential] client is proposing, and try to figure out what the client is trying to achieve. Then confirm your guess with the client. For example, the client talks about creating a blog where every web developer in the world will spend all their time (not going to happen). But what the client really wants is a way to market their new product for web developers.

Now, rather than putting down the idea completely, gather some facts about what the client is trying to do, and what they’re trying to achieve. For example, you might collect some articles about how many web developers have A.D.D. or the fact that there are thousands of sites out there for developers, and the largest such site only has 200K members. Get some examples of how similar products are marketed (e.g. show Eclipse vs. Rational Application Developer for a Java IDE) and what their numbers look like. Try to gather as many quantifiable facts as you are able.

Next, present an alternative to the client, from the perspective of someone who understands what they are trying to achieve. “In order to market your software using various social media platforms, how about we run through some options, and what some companies which are similar to yours are doing.”

There, you’ve said it – what you’re trying to do (market software), there will be choices (some options), and where they came from (other companies). Now, outline the ideas clearly, and demonstrate the breadth and depth of your knowledge by having answers ready for common questions to each option. Don’t show off, just be knowledgeable, and if you don’t know, ask: “Can I get back to you on that?”

Knowledge is Precious

Not every client is reasonable, but then again, not every client is yours. The key here is not to attack their ideas, but to understand where they are coming from. Why did they choose you for the project? It’s because you know more than they do about how to do it. Share your expertise, use your special knowledge. Make sure your opinions are clearly delineated from the facts.

At the end of the day, you may be able to reason with your [potential] client and land a project that is a good idea, that’s well structured, and balanced.

Some [potential] clients will still insist on a bad idea, despite your feedback. However, you’ve already told them it’s a bad idea, just not in those words. You’ve outlined what they’re trying to do, and you got that right. You’ve outlined some real options that would reach that goal, and they’ve been turned down. What now?

Now you need to look at your business, and the impact accepting this client, and their bad idea, will have on the rest of your business. Will it help improve cash flow because it’s a short project (i.e. high profit margin for minimal resources)? Will this client refer you future business, thus making this a strategic move? Is this a client who has other projects with you, thereby putting pressure of losing other contracts?

Or will this project keep you busy, stressed out, and prevent you from pursuing better clients who will help your business reach its goals?

The answer to these questions will help you determine if you should be accepting or rejecting the bad idea. (Note that while you may refuse the project, treat the client with respect, and you may end up with a valuable connection as a result.)

I’ve been exchanging e-mails with a few people about some ideas for new websites. Currently, there are 4 of these ideas that I would categorize as active – several exchanges of information per week on average. When looking at each idea, and how they differ from one another, I realized that there are some people who don’t understand the difference between conceptualize and create.

A successful site will begin its existence as a concept. The designer, or creator of the site has an idea – wouldn’t it be great if there was a site that could provide this service or maybe something along the lines of I can’t stand using this website, but I need the service they offer, and there isn’t a good alternative. Many ideas reach this stage, and a few make it further.

During the next stage, the concept becomes more solid. For example, details of the service could be outlined, or the creator lists out the specific issues they have with a particular site. This part of the process can take minutes, hours, days, or years. The end result, however, is a description of a need, and how it will be filled. (Note that this is not specific to a website, it is the same rule that applies to any business.)

Finally, list in hand, general specifications outlined, the creator approaches the people who can turn the idea into something more concrete, and the work commences. Creation has been reached.

The reason I outline this is because some people do not understand the difference between the first stage (I hate using site qrt.com) and the stage where development can begin. Going to a developer and saying build me a site like qrt.com, but better will not become a success unless you can also specify what it is about qrt.com that you don’t like, and what special features you will offer as an improvement over the competition.

Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all of the unhappy people.

Once again, I have been reading questions on Linked In, and came across an interesting corporate culture. The end result of such a culture is well-reflected in the poster shown (courtesy of Despair Inc.).

The question asked how to motivate employees to pursue courses on their own time for use at the workplace when there was no money for training (but the courses were free) and no obvious means of encouraging employees to pursue the training. The author of the question wanted to know of alternatives to giving negative performance reviews at the end of each year.

To me, the fact that the author even considered using negative performance reviews as a means of encouraging behaviour shows a major problem with the corporate culture. First, this is essentially blackmailing your employees to do something. Rather than encourage them to do what is right, you are discouraging them from doing something which they may or may not want to do. The likely outcome from such a means of “encouragement” is either mass rebellion, with all employees refusing to take the training (and now on principle of defying management), or a mass exodus as employees leave to find greener pastures.

Second, performance reviews are held annually, which is not frequent enough to cause anyone to modify their behaviour. Some employees will attend a course the day before their review to avoid the negative repercussions of not attending, and then stop.

To motivate employees to do something, you need to use positive reinforcement (much like trying to encourage children to behave well). Additionally, you need to work as a team, with everyone on the team working toward a common goal (working for the paycheck does not count). Explain to the team why these courses are important. Get them to offer suggestions on how to integrate the content of the courses into the workplace. You need to make the employees WANT to take the courses.

It’s been a little while since I’ve written. Today’s article is on two more quotes from Despair Inc.

Consistency: It’s only a virtue if you’re not a screwup. (link here)

Incompetence: When you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there’s no end to what you can’t do. (link here)

Unfortunately, in many businesses, these two concepts go hand-in-hand. The basic problem that causes a vicious cycle of incompetence followed by consistency, followed by yet more incompetence, is the inability to acknowledge a problem. If a company cannot recognize where their strengths and weaknesses are, then they will inevitably fall into this trap.

The solution is simple to describe, although it can be quite difficult to implement. Businesses must face the sometimes hardh reality of their successes and failures, and look to improve. The only way this can happen is to recognize what the cause of the failure was, regardless of how contrary it may seem to the fundamental aspects of the business. Only when it has been determined that the true cause of failure was a lack of effort, but not a lack of quality or skill, should a company resort to doubling their efforts.

If you, as the owner of a business, can evaluate your successes and failures objectively, and change what needs to be changed regardless of the nature of that change, then you can avoid falling into the trap of incompetence and consistency.