Does your company resemble the TSA?

Lots has said in the news about the TSA backlog at the major airports. Living in Chicago and when I fly it’s out of O’Hare – long TSA lines are the norm. The long lines have never caused us to miss a flight although it’s happening to many people right now. Where did it take a turn for the worse and what can you learn from it? The cause according to one whistle blower – low morale, poor leadership, lack of accountability, and lack of trust. How many of you just cringed at that list. While you business may not be as visible as the TSA (or having your issues all over the news)- it could resemble the TSA and it could be affecting your customers.

How do make sure your company isn’t like the TSA? Well, if you look at the list given by the whistleblower, it starts with you and your leadership team.

Leadership. You have heard the saying about the bad stuff rolling down hills.  A company is no different.  If the top of the company/organization is not providing the vision, culture and direction ~ the people will do what’s right for them or what keeps them out of trouble. How the leader behaves and shows up is how the team behaves and shows up. It sounds simple however we can be so focused on what we need to do, we forget we are setting the example for the team around us.

Morale. Are the people around you discouraged and negative or empowered and positive? If they are the first one, imagine how they are treating your customers and each other.  For example the TSA has such bad morale and fear of causing a major disaster, they have slowed the process to a crawl causing people to wait in long lines and miss flights. While your employees are not looking for terrorist, are they so down in the dumps and concerned about making mistakes they are dragging out processes which cause you and your clients to suffer. Find out what happened.

Accountability. Lack of accountability and the feeling of only following orders creates a company where people don’t look for solutions. Looking at the TSA, if the agents felt they were accountable and could create solutions they may have come up with ways to speed up the lines on their own. Do you employees share ideas they can implement, learn from and be responsible for?

Trust. This may be the last one on the list but it is the most important, without trust all the other items won’t matter. People need to know that you will keep your word, you will do what you say and you are interested in them.  Trust when broken takes a long time to repair. Takes this one step at a time and do things to develop and maintain trust. If you have this, the rest will fall into place.

Don’t let your company become the TSA be the leader, boost morale, create accountability and earn their trust.

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