Let's talk for a minute about eating your own dog food. Do you or don't you?
Here are two contrasting examples of organizations for which I worked, Trailways, then Swanson Foods. Let's start by being too busy to sample what we produce.
American Bus Lines, Omaha, Nebraska / AKA Trailways Bus Lines
I was Lead Transportation Supervisor for some months in 1978/79. I replaced Frank Hard, a guy who had a pretty great name and worked for an ex-WWII Marine named Chet. When we needed a second section to go east or west at Christmas, I called the next extra board operator, in order and was told they wouldn't come in until they had waited at least an hour. Either they didn't have to work if they didn't want to (unavailable) or they would delay their arrival by at least an hour over the travel time from home. We had customers standing out in the snow. That was union policy and the company was okay with it. I talked about it with Chet and he told me it wasn't his decision, it came from Kansas City, our regional HQ. I asked to speak with his manager and was offered a raise to go back to work and just mark up the pay claims and expect grievances and watch people freeze. We had a couple buses daily, back and forth to Kansas City from Omaha. When I said I wanted to at least talk about it, I was told to drive a supervisor's car to KC. Whenever we traveled we drove or flew. Nobody from management rode the bus. The excuse was it was too slow and our valuable time precluded us from riding an over the road coach. Here's the thing. It wasn't too slow to go to Kansas City. It was too slow to go to LA, I'll give you that but not Kansas City.
Do I have a point? Yes. Nobody from Trailways was invested enough in the service we provided to continuously sample it personally. What was worse, nobody rode anywhere, ever. We were too good to ride our own buses and I didn't have enough investment in Trailways to bust a gut to see to it that we did. I quit to clean sewer digesters. We actually climbed into the sewer digesters prior to cleaning them. Individual investment. Trailways failed within the next few years. Was it lack of manager investment in the product or service? Perhaps not. I don't really know. But I do know I didn't want to work there. Now let's move on to see what it's like to crunch some kibbles, almost literally.
Swanson Frozen Foods, Omaha, Nebraska
While in Omaha, I also worked at the Swanson frozen food, (which at that time was a division of Campbell Soup), production plant in Omaha. I trained as a line supervisor. Each day food was prepared, shoved through holes in the ceiling to fall into tin pans on the floor below on a conveyor line. Depending on the schedule, we made turkey, chicken, ground beef, or pork frozen dinners with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Once the tins came off the conveyor, they were flash frozen. The line never stopped. When it did, a punishing klaxon sounding with 90 db of noise with flashing blue lights went off. You'd pretty much do anything to get it going again to stop the noise. Anyway I left because I was shown that after I worked for a few months, I would get laid off and have to stay laid off for a few weeks to a few months and then go back to work and that cycle would repeat a few times until I had adequate seniority to avoid the next lay off. I wasn't married to the idea of a career in the frozen food business to put up with being a yo-yo, so I went to Trailways. But here's the thing about Swanson Foods. Each and every morning, without fail, every supervisor and team leader and manager, would randomly select from the freezer, a handful of frozen dinners. They would then thaw and cook every selection of frozen meal we'd made the day before. You didn't have to eat it all but you had to eat a decent portion for taste, consistency, flavor, color, aroma, etc. That, ladies and gentlemen, is investment in your product. Swanson Foods survived, where Trailways failed.
Let's move on from these two examples. Let's go to a situation I inherited while still thinking about what happened to me in Omaha. I went to work for Louisiana Transit Company, Inc, in 1975. I was hired as safety director but was trained as a bus operator for a couple weeks until I knew and could operate each of our bus lines as a revenue operator. In the process, I got to know some of our better operators. When I assumed my position in the office I was taken outside by some operators who asked for my help. I have not forgotten what they asked for. Here it is:
Get out of the office a few times a week as time allows and go out and observe the operation of our buses. Hide in the bushes and time the departures. Board and ride different bus lines as much as you can. Be visible on the road.
So now, if we want to, we can have our lightbulb moment. What did I learn at Trailways? We were in the bus business. Nobody rode the bus. The organization was sick. Trailways died. Each morning Swanson supervisors arrived in time to eat/sample the prior day's production meals. Swanson thrives. Nothing's that simple, right? But should it be ignored?
No.
Listen to your employees. They will speak to you while they are on duty, one to one, more than they will speak to you in the break room with other employees around. Be invested in your service enough to sample it as often as you can. The excuse that you do not have enough time to do it is specious.
Listen to customers. Ask their opinion. Hire people to ride/test/eat and sample your product or service and feed back what they see.
Remember, this is what I was asked to do by BUS OPERATORS, at least the good ones. They want to be recognized as competent and they want the incompetent to be recognized too. You will need to find ways to feed that back and reward the good ones. It's the cost of seeing them in action. You will also see (sometimes) dirty buses (speaking allegorically here, buses can represent any product or service) and missing bus stop signs and broken benches and you will not be able to hide from making the attempt to fix it. When I was out driving and riding I saw a lot of missing signs and failing anybody to do it, I went with our shop man and replaced them. We then had to have a program to maintain them.
Is this specific to transit? Of course not. If you deliver a product or service, you must be invested in that product or service enough to routinely sample it or expect to fail. We watch "Restaurant Impossible." The first thing Chef Robert does is have the restaurant cook a selection of their food, have it served and then eat it. It is amazing that the owners do not sample what they are serving for quality. They don't know what the food they are serving tastes like. They often don't know what their expenses are either but that's another topic.
When I was an unforgiving supervisor, I had a sign posted in my office:
Not very positive? Do you know who read that sign more than anybody else? I did. I didn't know it at the time but it was for me as much as anybody who came in to talk. You might want to make yourself a sign to go along with your proper motivational posters, even if it's only for you to see. Get out of your office and start to sample what you produce. Stop making excuses.
If you would succeed, become personally invested in what you do, where you do it. Become your own customer. Sample it, yourself, routinely, without fail. That's what eating your own dog food is all about. Working to produce uniform quality, that is properly controlled. Some days that quality will be questionable but you will know it immediately. Your employees will also welcome you. Encourage you. Give you individual feedback. You will be able to make changes and refinements before your customers react by going someplace else. Even if you are a government monopoly and the pubic has no choice but to use your service, you should still sample it, refine it and make it better. As good as you can make it. The satisfaction of your workers and customers is the reward and it's heady stuff. Try it. Once you invest, it's hard to go back to ignoring who you are and what you do for a living.
BTW: In 1990 and 1991, Louisiana Transit Co., Inc. was named the best small transit bus operation in the United States by the North American Transit Research Group. I became President and General Manager in 1998. Is anything that simple? No. But being invested in what you do can't hurt.
Investment is life for an organization. Make yours live.
Here are two contrasting examples of organizations for which I worked, Trailways, then Swanson Foods. Let's start by being too busy to sample what we produce.
American Bus Lines, Omaha, Nebraska / AKA Trailways Bus Lines
I was Lead Transportation Supervisor for some months in 1978/79. I replaced Frank Hard, a guy who had a pretty great name and worked for an ex-WWII Marine named Chet. When we needed a second section to go east or west at Christmas, I called the next extra board operator, in order and was told they wouldn't come in until they had waited at least an hour. Either they didn't have to work if they didn't want to (unavailable) or they would delay their arrival by at least an hour over the travel time from home. We had customers standing out in the snow. That was union policy and the company was okay with it. I talked about it with Chet and he told me it wasn't his decision, it came from Kansas City, our regional HQ. I asked to speak with his manager and was offered a raise to go back to work and just mark up the pay claims and expect grievances and watch people freeze. We had a couple buses daily, back and forth to Kansas City from Omaha. When I said I wanted to at least talk about it, I was told to drive a supervisor's car to KC. Whenever we traveled we drove or flew. Nobody from management rode the bus. The excuse was it was too slow and our valuable time precluded us from riding an over the road coach. Here's the thing. It wasn't too slow to go to Kansas City. It was too slow to go to LA, I'll give you that but not Kansas City.
Do I have a point? Yes. Nobody from Trailways was invested enough in the service we provided to continuously sample it personally. What was worse, nobody rode anywhere, ever. We were too good to ride our own buses and I didn't have enough investment in Trailways to bust a gut to see to it that we did. I quit to clean sewer digesters. We actually climbed into the sewer digesters prior to cleaning them. Individual investment. Trailways failed within the next few years. Was it lack of manager investment in the product or service? Perhaps not. I don't really know. But I do know I didn't want to work there. Now let's move on to see what it's like to crunch some kibbles, almost literally.
Swanson Frozen Foods, Omaha, Nebraska
While in Omaha, I also worked at the Swanson frozen food, (which at that time was a division of Campbell Soup), production plant in Omaha. I trained as a line supervisor. Each day food was prepared, shoved through holes in the ceiling to fall into tin pans on the floor below on a conveyor line. Depending on the schedule, we made turkey, chicken, ground beef, or pork frozen dinners with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Once the tins came off the conveyor, they were flash frozen. The line never stopped. When it did, a punishing klaxon sounding with 90 db of noise with flashing blue lights went off. You'd pretty much do anything to get it going again to stop the noise. Anyway I left because I was shown that after I worked for a few months, I would get laid off and have to stay laid off for a few weeks to a few months and then go back to work and that cycle would repeat a few times until I had adequate seniority to avoid the next lay off. I wasn't married to the idea of a career in the frozen food business to put up with being a yo-yo, so I went to Trailways. But here's the thing about Swanson Foods. Each and every morning, without fail, every supervisor and team leader and manager, would randomly select from the freezer, a handful of frozen dinners. They would then thaw and cook every selection of frozen meal we'd made the day before. You didn't have to eat it all but you had to eat a decent portion for taste, consistency, flavor, color, aroma, etc. That, ladies and gentlemen, is investment in your product. Swanson Foods survived, where Trailways failed.
Let's move on from these two examples. Let's go to a situation I inherited while still thinking about what happened to me in Omaha. I went to work for Louisiana Transit Company, Inc, in 1975. I was hired as safety director but was trained as a bus operator for a couple weeks until I knew and could operate each of our bus lines as a revenue operator. In the process, I got to know some of our better operators. When I assumed my position in the office I was taken outside by some operators who asked for my help. I have not forgotten what they asked for. Here it is:
Get out of the office a few times a week as time allows and go out and observe the operation of our buses. Hide in the bushes and time the departures. Board and ride different bus lines as much as you can. Be visible on the road.
So now, if we want to, we can have our lightbulb moment. What did I learn at Trailways? We were in the bus business. Nobody rode the bus. The organization was sick. Trailways died. Each morning Swanson supervisors arrived in time to eat/sample the prior day's production meals. Swanson thrives. Nothing's that simple, right? But should it be ignored?
No.
Listen to your employees. They will speak to you while they are on duty, one to one, more than they will speak to you in the break room with other employees around. Be invested in your service enough to sample it as often as you can. The excuse that you do not have enough time to do it is specious.
Listen to customers. Ask their opinion. Hire people to ride/test/eat and sample your product or service and feed back what they see.
Remember, this is what I was asked to do by BUS OPERATORS, at least the good ones. They want to be recognized as competent and they want the incompetent to be recognized too. You will need to find ways to feed that back and reward the good ones. It's the cost of seeing them in action. You will also see (sometimes) dirty buses (speaking allegorically here, buses can represent any product or service) and missing bus stop signs and broken benches and you will not be able to hide from making the attempt to fix it. When I was out driving and riding I saw a lot of missing signs and failing anybody to do it, I went with our shop man and replaced them. We then had to have a program to maintain them.
Is this specific to transit? Of course not. If you deliver a product or service, you must be invested in that product or service enough to routinely sample it or expect to fail. We watch "Restaurant Impossible." The first thing Chef Robert does is have the restaurant cook a selection of their food, have it served and then eat it. It is amazing that the owners do not sample what they are serving for quality. They don't know what the food they are serving tastes like. They often don't know what their expenses are either but that's another topic.
When I was an unforgiving supervisor, I had a sign posted in my office:
What's your excuse for not doing your job today?
Excuses are for losers.
Not very positive? Do you know who read that sign more than anybody else? I did. I didn't know it at the time but it was for me as much as anybody who came in to talk. You might want to make yourself a sign to go along with your proper motivational posters, even if it's only for you to see. Get out of your office and start to sample what you produce. Stop making excuses.
If you would succeed, become personally invested in what you do, where you do it. Become your own customer. Sample it, yourself, routinely, without fail. That's what eating your own dog food is all about. Working to produce uniform quality, that is properly controlled. Some days that quality will be questionable but you will know it immediately. Your employees will also welcome you. Encourage you. Give you individual feedback. You will be able to make changes and refinements before your customers react by going someplace else. Even if you are a government monopoly and the pubic has no choice but to use your service, you should still sample it, refine it and make it better. As good as you can make it. The satisfaction of your workers and customers is the reward and it's heady stuff. Try it. Once you invest, it's hard to go back to ignoring who you are and what you do for a living.
BTW: In 1990 and 1991, Louisiana Transit Co., Inc. was named the best small transit bus operation in the United States by the North American Transit Research Group. I became President and General Manager in 1998. Is anything that simple? No. But being invested in what you do can't hurt.
Investment is life for an organization. Make yours live.
