10 Management Tips from US Airways' Hub

by Ted Reed - Originally found on TheStreet

In a down economy, the US Airways(LCC_) hub in Charlotte has been an oasis of growth as well as a model of efficiency. For that, many credit a station manager who knows how to get the most from her employees.

Terri Pope, Charlotte station manager since 2000 and US Airways vice president for airport customer service, "knows how to get people to buy in," said Cinde Monsam, senior manager for station administration and one of Pope's four direct reports.

"What I learned from her and what she does better than anyone else is that she reads the needs of people, not just her employees but also her managers," said Monsam. "She knows when to push for an idea and when to back off, because she listens to people's voices. The loyalty she inspires by doing that is incredible."

Terri Pope

Recent growth has pushed US Airways' Charlotte departures to about 640 from about 400 in 2004, making Charlotte/Douglas the country's 11th biggest airport as well as the carrier's most profitable hub. US Airways employs 6,500 in Charlotte: Pope directly oversees 2,000 who work in the airport. Additionally, as the airline's highest ranking Charlotte official, she is the face of US Airways in Charlotte.

At a recent meeting, where US Airways Charlotte managers reviewed their 2010 performance, Pope concluded by saying that that a few years ago, she was not so proud of that role. The carrier underwent two bankruptcies and often ranked badly in on-time performance and other operational metrics. "We were looked upon perhaps not as highly as we should have been," Pope said.

But now, "When I walk into chamber meetings or corporate headquarters or any meeting, I just glow when someone asks me what I do," she said. And quickly, she credited her staff. "I can't tell you how much I respect you, for what you bring to this wonderful hub of ours." That's one insight into what makes Terri Pope a unique leader: she puts employees first. Here are her ten guidelines:

1. Listen. "The biggest thing is that you can be honest with her, without feeling that she will be mad, even when she disagrees," said Mike Bryant, director of operations and planning. "She has her vision, she lays it out. I might not agree, but she makes me feel comfortable enough to say it.

Said Pope: "I don't think there's an intimidating bone in my body. Why would you need to intimidate anyone to get what you want?" Pope has fired dozens of people, she acknowledges, for violations including stealing, lack of attendance and disciplinary failings. Each one, she said, "is a failure on my part."

2. Don't Micro-Manage."She has expectations, but she doesn't tell you how to get there," Bryant said. "As long as you meet the goal, you don't have to go Terri's way." As an example, Bryant has had to allocate gate usage in a way that favors gates US Airways leases long-term over gates controlled by the airport, which cost more to use.

Pope "allows us to run our departments like we are running our own businesses," said Rich Ashlin, director of customer service. "She stands at a distance, but she is there as a resource. Said Pope: "It's up to them to sell their ideas to me. If they do that successfully, we go with it."

3. Remember, You Run Into Everybody Again. James McDonald, director of ramp operations, interviewed with Pope four times for four jobs before she finally offered him one. The first time was in West Palm Beach, the second at Washington National, the last two in Charlotte. "Terri and I go back a long way," he said. At each interview, "She was cordial and nice and made me feel comfortable," he said. After the DCA interview, Pope called to explain that he needed more experience. "She made it personal," he said. "She made it seem like it mattered. She is all about results and performance, but she does it with calm, with guidance and support."

4. Take Pleasure in Employees' Achievements. "I'm 53," Pope said. "I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life. I think it's because, when you first start out, and for many years, you think it's about you. As you get older and wiser, you realize it's not about you at all. It's about how you can help people achieve their goals. "I've got so many leaders here -- I hope I've had a little to do with them achieving their goals. I have extremely high expectations and I'm hard to please, but I'm also very forgiving."

5. Sense of Humor. On Sept. 27, 2005, the day US Airways and America West completed their merger, Rich Ashlin flew from Phoenix to Charlotte to start work as director of customer service. "I got off the plane and there was a cavalcade of baggage carts through the airport," she said. "Terri was in one of them, dressed as Queen Charlotte. It was hysterical."

6. Make Each Person Feel Special. Charlotte spokeswoman Michelle Mohr recalls the day in 2007 when she began work in Charlotte after moving from Phoenix. She barely knew a soul and did not know what to expect. When she arrived at work, Pope had put a vase full of flowers on her desk. "It was one of the nicest, warmest things ever," Mohr said. "It was so unexpected." Said Pope: "I know what it is to be new. "

7. Admit Your Mistakes. In April 2010 US Airways decided to suspend Charlotte-Honolulu service just four months after it began. "I hoped it was going to work," Pope said. "We had an extra aircraft, a 767 - why not utilize it? Besides, if we're successful, it benefits a lot of people. Heart-wise, I wanted to do it, even though brain-wise, I didn't know. So we gave it a shot. But if something is not working, we are not afraid to make a change."

8. Embrace Technology. Airports have benefited immensely and visibly from technology improvements. Since November 2008, US Airways has scanned bags as they are loaded onto planes and as they come off, so the carrier always knows where the bags are. "Before, we made an educated guess," Pope said. US Airways has also redesigned airport kiosks to have more functions and be easier to use, and it has developed, gate readers enabling a single person to board an entire aircraft. "We used to be a manual airline," Pope said. "Now, we have so many great technologies."

9. Learn From Employees. As West Palm Beach station manager in the 1990s, Pope was intimidated by an older man who was a lead ramp agent. "He thought he knew everything, he was crotchety, and he challenged me every step of the way," she said. "He though females had no right to be in this business, much less young females -- I was 35. We had heated discussions. But many times, he was right. I was inexperienced." Today, she said, the now-retired employee sends a Christmas card each year.

10. Be Approachable. "You have to be someone employees can talk to," Pope said. "That's why (CEO Doug Parker) is successful. If employees can't talk to you, then you don't know what's going on." Parker meets regularly with employees, including half a dozen times a year in Charlotte.

Beyond Performance - Leaders Get Results!

I really encourage everyone in a leadership role to read, "Beyond Performance: How Great Organizations Build Ultimate Competitive Advantage" by Colin Price, Scott Keller. Their book focuses on organizational health, which they define as the ability of any organization to align, execute, and renew itself faster than your competitors can. According to the authors, as we work more and socialize less, our sense of meaning and identity is increasingly derived from the workplace. More and more people are looking for that sense of “belonging, which was originally defined by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need.

Job satisfaction in the US has dropped from 61% in 1987 to less than 45% in 2009. Productivity during the same period has increased more slowly than in any fifteen year period since 1950.

As our economies emerge from the recession, the ability to lead and manage organizations in a way that motivates employees to be more productive than ever is extremely important. In other words, the health of any organization must encompass all the human elements required to achieve sustainable success.

The process for organizational health is defined by the authors as the Five A’s;
• Aspire – Where do we want to go?
• Assess – How ready are we to go there?
• Architect – What do we need to do to get there?
• Act – How do we manage the journey?
• Advance – How do we keep moving forward?

These five stages should be translated into a specific challenge for performance and organizational health. The authors continue to break down the process into nine key elements that must be implemented to achieve sustained growth and success. The integration of a strong vision and a well-defined business strategy that is meaningful to the employee and supported by the culture and climate of the organization is a must. To be able to execute this process, the organization must have high capabilities, effective management processes, and high employee motivation. The organization’s ability to be adaptable to both situation and the external environment will also fortify the relationship with the customer, vendor and community.

The real key to organizational health appears to be the alignment of personal goals with those of the organization. This alignment produces a highly self-motivated workforce that will demonstrate engagement and productivity improvement. We build this alignment by shifting an employee’s mindset – their attitude. It is well documented that leaders are the catalysts for performance and leadership must be present at every organizational level and not just at the top.

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Our Leadership and Management Development Programs are all based on the philosophy or belief that to improve the health of your organization, you must start improving the health of your workforce, one employee at a time. I believe that the “real” performance model starts with attitude and ends with the desired results

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We teach employees and managers to be better leaders and to get results. Please call 609.390.2830 or contact us here to find out more about the Total Leadership Model®, the only development plan designed for today’s leaders and the development of future leaders.

How to Plan for the Future of Your Business with the Help of Employees

The opportunity to change the structure of the company toward a more versatile or bureaucratic structure can now be determined by your management team. The importance of the way your employees perceive your company and the way they think it should be, cannot be denied. These gaps between the actual and the ideal should be given special attention, and can provide your management team with ideas that can be developed and expanded in strategic planning sessions. Assessments can provide a most valuable tool that puts the management team on notice and causes them to consider change within the organization. These changes may never be apparent without this assessment, because it is unbiased, confidential, and provides a comprehensive diagnosis of an organization.

This is certainly needed in our highly competitive environment. Isn't it about time you got your camera out and took a snapshot of your company?

Organizational Assessment Tools are one of the instruments available to provide any management team with a real photograph of their company today, and it also allows them to let the employees paint the picture of the company that they would like to see in the future. These assessment tools are relatively inexpensive compared to the cost of employee turnover, especially on the management level.

The Organizational Needs Inventory (ONI) is an example of such an assessment tool that provides a comprehensive analysis of an organization from the perspective of its employees with regard to the three areas which management experts regard as critical: Predominant Leadership Style, Organizational Culture, and Structure. These assessments provide a comprehensive diagnosis of the organization today through the eyes and ears of the employees. Any management team worth its salt will welcome a snapshot of their company today so they can properly determine the appropriately plan for the future with a clearer sense of direction and purpose.

This assessment tool will allow the management team to establish training and development programs that will not only produce the skills required, but the attitudes and work habits needed to move the company in the direction they desire relative to its mission and vision. It is not an easy task to change an organization and its people swiftly so please commit your organization to a time investment. The most important factor to remember is that this change is being planned, rather than just randomly happening.

It is also very important to learn the dominant leadership style present within your company. Once your predominant leadership style is acknowledged, the velocity of change will be proportionate to the support and direction offered by the management team of the company. The first step is to establish goal - setting measures with appropriate target dates to insure the proper direction of this change and to increase motivation internally.

The determination of your organization's culture should provide management with a better picture of the organization's effectiveness and allow them to develop an implementation plan that can be achieved in a reasonable time frame, while promoting teamwork at the same time.

The organization's culture today may reflect a low trust level. The results of this assessment will help you work on the cause and develop methods and plans to improve results, enabling the company to succeed in its overall goals and objectives.To see a free sample of an assessment your company would be using please contact us

(Painting by Jennifer Sandquist)

How to Properly Use Performance Appraisals

I was reading an article titled, “Bias Found in Employee Appraisals” on hreonline.com. It elaborated on the fact that new research shows vast discrepancies in employee appraisals by workers who report to two bosses.

Performance Appraisals have always shown bias from one manager to another. Many consulting firms even recommend that companies not spend money on the training and development of their managers regarding the delivery of an employee appraisal by a manager. If we don’t train to develop consistency in delivery, then how can we ever have a Performance Appraisal System without bias?

Small business owners and managers, listen up, it’s time to realize that the Performance Appraisal Process is the best means to communicate workplace expectations with the employee and that employee engagement is key to retention moving forward.

• Managers must utilize a system for monitoring performance on a day to day, month to month basis and not just wait for the annual performance appraisal process for the data to appear. A Performance Log or file must be maintained throughout the year to note successes, learning opportunities, behavioral tendencies, etc. The Performance Appraisal Process must be more objective than subjective and certainly results-oriented. It must be based on the job description or role assigned to the employee as the role is defined today, not five years ago. It must reflect technical skills as well as performance skills that demonstrate an above average performance in that position.

• Clear expectations must be defined. Clarity and good communication are key management skills for this to succeed. We must communicate workplace expectations in a clear, decisive, and definitive manner with the creation of a development plan for the employee. All managers must be willing to coach and mentor the employee to high performance through the use of a solid Developmental Plan of Action. I have always believed that the formulation of a developmental plan for a high achiever is one of the most difficult tasks a manager can undertake. And it certainly shouldn’t be….it should be the opposite.

Both bias and the dreaded “Performance Appraisal” mentality must be eliminated from the equation…discuss expectations, monitor performance daily, and make employee engagement a priority. If you do that, the bias and subjectivity will be removed.

We need to tell people that we are interested in their performance and career direction. We must focus on their performance in respect to the competencies needed to do an above average job in their current role but help them develop a plan of action that will enhance their performance skills to reflect the achievement of a higher position in the future. What competencies will we need from our employees five years from now? That is what we should be focusing on with our people development processes. Isn’t it time to put the “whip” away and start moving people forward by providing the opportunity to succeed with their career objectives…all through the proper use of the Performance Appraisal Process. Don’t make it an event…it is a process.

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Coaching - The Most Overlooked Employee Benefit

Companies are saying that executive coaching has become their secret weapon when it comes to acquiring talent. BMW of Canada recently introduced a program that included the hiring of coaches to incorporate training into a leadership – development program.

Coaching can certainly compliment leadership training in any organization and it can be a needed incentive to elevate performance and provide a competitive edge by providing another perk or reason to join. In my experience, I have found Coaching to be a key component to retaining a good to great manager or leader. Coaches can be the link between personal direction and work/life balance while expanding the communication link between the business strategy and the employee by promoting good leadership skills.

Coaching is one of the most cost effective measures for improving productivity, enhancing performance, elevating morale, and supporting human resources with the hiring and selection process and their retention objectives. Turnover costs amount to approximately 1/3 of the salary for the position that needs to be replaced and goes up to about half when you loose a key employee.

The cost of coaching rarely exceeds 10% of the loss associated with employee turnover. You decide; would you rather expense $5000 to support an above average employee or spend $50,000 on replacing them? Coaching is much more than cost-savings for a company or organization. It is a process that supports the people development portion of any business while improving the organization’s effectiveness. Those are
two major components of any company striving to go as Jim Collins says, from “Good to Great”.

A Coach with Leadership Training experience is an unbeatable combination. Helping people reach their potential is the key ingredient for business success.

Most human resource managers that I have talked to state that they do not have any of the following:
1) Succession Plan
2) Mentor Program
3) an External Coaching Program (Executive or otherwise).

Leadership Training and Coaching are two components that can really change the fhnancial situation of a company but are often put aside because it may draw attention to the real costs of turnover and how reducing such can dramatically affect the bottom line. I just can’t image in this time of economic downturn that most companies aren’t willing to look at innovative ways to attract employees and most importantly, retain good employees. I think most companies should use
the term “talent maintenance” instead of “talent management”. There are very few companies that focus on people potential and their development. Which plan do you have in place, “maintenance or management”? It’s time for YOUR secret weapon. . .
A coach with Leadership Training in his background.

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Our Coaching Services are designed to push you or the team to the next level by engaging in conversations that will provide inspiration and commitment resulting in goal achievement. Learn More

Employee Engagement is Performance and Productivity

Managers have more impact on engagement then their companies.

In Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to be the Best…and Learn from the Worst by Robert Sutton, the author noted that about 75% of today's workforce reports that their immediate supervisor is the most stressful part of their job. It has also noted by several surveys including the initial work by Gallup that immediate supervisors have far more impact on engagement and productivity than whether their companies are rates as great or lousy places to work.


We believe that the immediate supervisor is an integral component to productivity and performance. We also believe that the value of the immediate supervisor is under estimated and their level of competence is over estimated. In a recent survey, we have concluded that the majority of supervisors and/or managers in mid-size and small companies have no formal leadership or management training. Image how a well trained boss can enhance the success of your company.

Our Leadership and Management Development Courses teach people the practical application for the skills and competencies that make great managers. As stated in his book, Robert Sutton says that the two “acid test” for great bosses is 1) whether people want to work for the boss and would they enthusiastically choose to do so again, and 2) is the boss hypersensitive to how others feel about them and the work their people do. They are compassionate, competent, and empathetic.

Leadership is learned and we teach people how to be “Good Bosses” while allowing them to apply the learned material immediately in the workplace using our “adult action-leaning” process. We also measure results with a defined ROI and guarantee. For the development of your future leaders, call 609.390.2830 for more information or click here on our Leadership Courses and Workshops.