TRANSIT SAFETY CULTURE: BEYOND THE MOBIUS STRIP
TRANSIT SAFETY CULTURE: BEYOND THE MOBIUS STRIP
BY
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LEVERN MCELVEEN
Introduction
On a particular evening, while enjoying a Russian spy movie titled MOBIUS, on Prime, I was intrigued by the storyline and the multiple twists. In one specific scene, late into the film, one character asked another character, have you ever heard of the “Mobius Strip”? The second character stated no. The first character pulled a strip of paper from his desk and placed it in a rectangular circle connecting the two ends, with a half twist. The first character then explained that the Mobius strip is one-sided; it has no beginning and has no ending; it is a continuous loop that takes a rectangular shape.
I was intrigued by this movie and the concept of the Mobius strip that I did research. I found this information on the Mobius Strip. “The M?bius strip, a one-sided surface that can be constructed by affixing the ends of a rectangular strip after first having given one of the ends a one-half twist. This space exhibits exciting properties, such as having only one side and remaining in one piece when split down the middle. The strip properties were discovered independently and almost simultaneously by two German mathematicians, August Ferdinand M?bius and Johann Benedict Listing, in 1858.
My research further discovered that David K. Hurst developed a Mobius strip business model known as the Ecolcycle. The Ecolcycle is a mental model designed to understand the behaviors of complex systems, which transit systems are both complex and technological. In David K. Hurst’s Mobius strip model, “the front loop is the familiar long, slow life cycle; organizations are born in the context of trust, grow through the application of logic, and mature in power. Here their strengths (competencies) eventually become weaknesses in change circumstances. If they do not respond adaptively, they will get caught in a spiral "success" trap. The spiral success trap leads to crisis and eventually if they still cannot adapt, to destruction".
To shed light on his Mobius strip mental business model, David K. Hurst cites the following example, “General Motors spun around in a success/competency trap for forty years, unable to forsake the strengths of muscle and scale and the structures and processes that had made it so successful. It could not escape until it had been through the fires of bankruptcy. Even the intellectual understanding that you are in a success trap does not guarantee that you will escape it. Kodak understood very well that digital photography was rendering its film business obsolete. Despite this knowledge, it could not change itself fast enough to escape bankruptcy and avoid further reductions in scale as well as in its liabilities”.
In David K. Hurst's Mobius strip model, one side is the failure trap, and the opposite side is the success trap. Competencies, such as innovation, managers & leaders, administrators, sustainable future, trust, logic, power, strategic management, and creativity, run through both the failure and the success traps in the Mobius strip continuously. The secret is that leaders must determine whether competencies are actual failures versus true successes and adapt promptly. If successes are misinterpreted, a crisis or destruction will occur.
David K. Hurst further cites, “Crisis or destruction clears away the “deadwood” and opens spaces for new growth opportunity. This process is shown in the less familiar “back” loop of the ecocycle. It is a short, fast cycle of destruction and renewal that every ecosystem goes through. Destruction not only clears away the debris: it creates. Here there is equal access to sun and rain and room for small-scale experimentation to take place. For example, the city of Rochester has many young ventures that have been spun off from Kodak over the years that have prevented it from being devastated by Kodak's collapse”.
According to David K. Hurst, “Much of the Mobius strip experimentation will fail, hence the presence of the "failure" trap on the left-hand side. This is the entrepreneurial trap, which will be familiar to almost everyone. This is where we try many things, but nothing seems to take off. One can spin in this trap for years. Of course, every successful organization must escape the failure trap at least once, but after that, it should aim to dwell for as long as possible in the "sweet zone" between the two traps."
Finally, David K. Hurst defines the sweet zone as the zone of sustainability, which lies between the failure and success traps of competencies and is traversed by twin "logics" – systems of cause-and-effect. The first is the logic of large systems, labeled "Strategic Management" in the Mobius strip. This is the logic that allows young growing organizations to be rationalized to handle colossal scale. It is concerned with finding and implementing effective means to given ends. It is the most prolonged, smoothest phase in the ecocycle and the one that the American economy passed through from the early 1900s to the mid-1970s”.
Having read the mental business model multiple times, I intend to examine the transit industry competencies using the Mobius strip model and understanding that during periods of uncertainty on all fronts--the transit industry must have clarity of purpose and core value to guide its path to value creation and relevance to demonstrate resilience. Transit leaders must be clear and grounded about who they are as an industry. Transit leaders need to be clear about the reason for transit being—purpose and values—to guide how they will uniquely create value in ways that engage others in their ecosystems and is relevant into the 21st century. In each example below, I have attempted to apply my 45 years of experience in the industry to reflect on these competencies before, during, and post-pandemic eras.
Transit Industry Mobius Strip
Let us place the transit industry in David K. Hurst’s Mobius strip. Where do we begin? Do we address the failure trap or the success trap of the transit industry? Well, let us start with the transit industry failures in the Mobius strip. Like the Mobius strip, the transit industry has no real beginning and no real ending. Instead, the transit industry has spun in a success/failure competency trap for over 50 years, depending totally on taxpayers reliant on keeping them turning while failing to provide community service level competency based on proper objective metrics.
After 9/11, when taxpayers' dollars went to fund a war, the transit industry found itself without substantial taxpayers' support to keep them afloat and no real exit strategy to invest in themselves. So, to survive as an industry and provide some service levels to the communities, the transit industry sacrificed maintenance to support operations. Over the years, the transit industry was never able to recover financially; therefore, maintenance issues became critical.
Today, the transit industry has approximately $100 billion State of Good Repair (SGR) needs across the industry. The transit industry wants and expects taxpayers to bail them out, like the case of General Motors cited above. Taxpayers bailed General Motors out of financial ruins approximately 2008-2009 with an agreement to repay the taxpayers. The transit industry has requested taxpayers to bail them out of their infrastructure needs with no repayment agreement and no real strategy to improve the service to the community that they are making the request.
While the current administration has proposed a $2.2 trillion infrastructure bill, of which $621 billion will go to transportation, this bill may or may not get passed by a divided Congress. Although, the Biden Administration is pushing extremely hard to be successful with this bill. For example, On April 4, 2021, in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet The Press," Buttigieg said President Joe Biden “really believes in a bipartisan approach.”
"It's one of the reasons I'm constantly having conversations with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle gathering ideas," he said. "The President has a clear vision. As he said, this must get done. He is asking for Congress to make major progress on this by Memorial Day. The bottom line is that we must deliver for the American people. We can't let politics slow this down to where it doesn't happen."
Buttigieg batted back criticism that the infrastructure plan is coming in two parts — the "bricks and mortar" portion, and in a few weeks, a program addressing a social safety net — because the former can attract bipartisan support and the latter cannot.
The infrastructure plan involves money for roads and bridge repair, Amtrak repairs, public housing improvements, and repairs for lead pipes, airports, public school improvements, and research and development. The administration is also planning to announce a second plan related to the social safety net in the coming weeks.
What will happen if the bill is not passed? What will happen if the Democrats are not successful in 2024? What is the transit strategy to survive these setbacks if they occurred? Instead, transit leaders are so complacent that the bill will pass, or transit leaders will further reduce service levels to communities that have had to live with insufficient service levels for years.
Transit Industry Leadership
In the Mobius strip, the transit industry is in the failure trap of leadership competency. Why? For decades, leadership has been defined by top-down, hierarchical approaches to drive "successful" outcomes. Twentieth-century and twentieth-first century transit leaders often embrace authoritarian leadership approaches. But the workplace is changing—from the nature of work and how we accomplish it to the people doing the work itself. Profit-driven organizations, which the transit industry is not, focus on the "what," and productivity evolves into purpose-driven cultures that concentrate on "why" and their people (Smith, Johnson, Stromberg, 2021).
Twentieth-century transit leaders were homogenous, predominantly white male, and primarily consisted of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, but today the talent pool is increasingly diverse, dominated by Millennials and rising Gen Zers. Their preference for work includes collaboration, transparency, healthy work-life integration, a celebration of diversity and inclusion, and purpose-driven employment, which demands a new kind of leadership. This new leadership is defined as inclusive leadership (Smith, Johnson, Stromberg, 2021).
To survive the post-pandemic era, transit leaders must become more inclusive. The transit industry needs visionary and transformational leaders who continually think about what their system should and could become, anticipating how employees and riders will react and change. Transformations are often, but not always, initiated and led from the “center” (the transit board and the CEO and their direct reports and supporting functions). However, the post-pandemic leadership must lead from the edge.
Transit leaders must have the humility to know that there is much they do not know about their systems and employees' experiences. Getting comfortable with discomfort and embracing risk is essential to successful inclusive leadership in the transit industry. Transit leaders must have the courage to ask difficult questions about their leadership style is an important place to begin the journey to being an ally with employees at all levels. Transit leaders must become more inclusive and reach out to middle-level managers and frontline workers for input and directions. Leading from the edge is the wave of future leaders (Smith, Johnson, Stromberg, 2021).
Transit leaders’ practice has been to reach out to employees on the edge to understand their needs, frustrations, and the problem to work out what needs to be addressed only in a crisis. Once they complete their diagnosis, transit leaders retreat to the center, stay there until the next problem, or want input again. It may sound like a caricature, but it is an all-too-familiar picture in many transit systems. It is no wonder that transit leaders do not have their finger on the pulse, and those at the "edge" do not feel listened to (Lancefield and Rangen, 2021).
Is transit leadership inclusive? Transit leaders must reach out to workers in surveys and other tools to determine their authentic experiences. Inclusive leadership must come from the heart. Messages about purpose, vision, mission, core value, diversity, equity, and inclusion must be personal and authentic. If managers and frontline employees do not see transit leaders owing and fully engaging in programs and initiatives to drive these Mobius competencies in the workplace, they will turn to other priorities. Transit leaders must be visible.
Being visible requires transit leaders to show up during a crisis, at events, conferences, and other initiatives promoting purpose, narrative, performance, equity, and all other requirements to balance sustainability in the sweet zone on the Mobius strip. When transit leaders fully participate, they demonstrate support, develop empathy, diversify their networks, and identify high potential talent. Transit leaders must become those leaders who not only attend but stay the entire time, engages fully, takes notes, and ask great questions (Smith, Johnson, Stromberg, 2021).
Finally, I leave this question for transit leaders in this post-pandemic era, how much of your authentic self are you bring to the workplace? How do you share your "authentic" self in a professional setting, and how can you do it smartly and sustainably? I would suggest that transit leaders try and see everyone you come across as human beings, rather than a frontline worker, manager, or senior manager. Once you shift your mindset, you will start building deeper relationships. Transit leaders should nurture relations—even when you need something from the other person. The best tool you have here is listening, paying attention to other employees' interests and passions, and following up when you come across things that remind you of them. Lastly, set boundaries. Bringing your true self to work means being vulnerable, own your vulnerabilities (McPherson, 2021).
Transit Industry Purpose
In the Mobius strip, transit industry purpose competency is in the failure trap. The transit industry's purpose is a failure because, as a 45-year veteran, I am not clear how the transit industry has ever defined its purpose. I honestly believe that if transit leaders conducted a survey today of employees and customers, a considerable percentage would not be able to define transit purpose. If transit purpose is not specified, then the growth strategies are limited because these two competencies are not mutually exclusive. Customer outcomes should define transit purpose. What experiences do transit leaders want their customers to have, whether riders, employees, or contractors?
The author defines transit purpose in this manner. Transit is at the forefront of sustainable communities. The transit network drives economies, economic development, and quality of life for the communities served. Safety is at the forefront of transit service delivery, and training is at the Forefront of Safety. This purpose statement tells customers who we are, what we will provide, and how we will provide the service—making safety a core value, not a top priority.
This broad definition requires solid objectives at the micro-levels to achieve the macro-levers success in the transit industry. The sum of many micro-changes brings about the more extensive change, creating a cumulative effect that delivers nonlinear improvements. Transit leaders must begin to think about the micro-levels--ask why changes are required, whether its value is incremental or exponential, and what changes in behavior are needed from both the customers and the employees at all levels to achieve macro levers success.
Purpose statements are promises made by the transit industry or leaders. So, if the transit industry does not change how it operates to align with its stated purpose, it leaves itself vulnerable to accusations of virtue-signaling, green-washing, or generally being full of --it if the transit actions do not live up to their words (Cornfield, 2021). So, what is the transit industry's purpose? What is the transit industry purpose statement? What is the transit industry narrative? Do all employees know these answers? Do transit riders and customers know these answers?
The transit industry narrative is tied directly to the transit industry statement and purpose. According to John Hagel III, a narrative should be about the customer, not the corporation or the transit system. For example, John Hagel III cites Apple's narrative, "Think Different." He also noted Nike’s narrative, "Just Do It," and Airbnb, "Belong Anywhere." Building a successful narrative requires a deep understanding of all customers. How are their needs evolving? What are the transit gaps in fulfilling those needs?
We live in a technological world where customers are becoming more and more powerful and demanding. Customers can access more options, gain more information about choices, and switch from one vendor to another easily if their needs are unmet (Hagel, 2021). Unfortunately, the transit industry is not meeting the needs of their customers, and customers are walking away from the systems (declining ridership). The transit industry must be conscientious that the industry will reach a point of no return, like the giant Kodak cited by David K. Hurst.
Finally, transit performance is tied directly to the transit narrative, purpose statement, and purpose. These competencies are not mutually exclusive. Transit purpose and transit narrative are both tied to transit performance. I find it amazing that there are over 4,000 transit providers in the U.S. Yet, there is no national performance standard. Let me say this differently: no national performance standard, no transit narrative, no purpose statement, and no transit purpose. Do you get the message?
Transit Industry Safety Culture
In the Mobius strip, the transit industry safety culture competency is in the failure trap. The transit industry has failed to develop and implement a sustainable transit safety culture competency. Even though transit systems are an unforgiven environment where multiple risks abound--one critical mistake, one misstep, one failure can result in death, injuries, or infrastructure damage. Employees face danger every day in the transit environment. Yet, the transit industry leaders have failed to develop and implement a sustainable safety culture. One must ask the question, why? My answer is simply a lack of accountability and responsibility.
Risk and Danger (hazards) are inevitable in a transit environment. They lurk and manifest 24-7 continuously. Risk and danger always exist when humans are transported from point A to point B. Whatever database is cited, there are far too many transit accidents, incidents, injuries, and deaths in America. The attainment of a zero-based accident/incident rate in the transit industry is not out of reach, or impossibility, if transit leaders draw on their courage-the quality to maintain-the dedication to press on and complete the goal-to help the industry tap the potential of a new safety model and institutionalize safety. Adopting a new safety model makes patently clear that the implementation of a safety culture, that is, instituting safety as a core value, is crucial to the development and implementation of a sustainable transit safety culture.
Transit system leaders must understand that today’s workforce roster and demographics have changed drastically. Many of the veteran workers in the rank and file of operations have and are retiring, which create a huge workforce development gap in filling key positions such as Maintenance of Way, Overhead Catenary Workers, and bus and rail operators, which creates multiple safety hazards not being corrected with effective training and development. By making intelligent changes to transit safety culture, the transit industry will magnetically draw top-notch individuals to its service and be better able to help transport people to work and enrich their experiences and lives in neighboring communities. Under this new safety model, a core competency for tomorrow’s transit workers will feature an exceptional employee with expertise to make effective decisions in any safety circumstance.
Establishing a safety culture must continue to be a severe topic of discussion today and well into the future of the transit industry to improve both the quality of life for transit riders and the social mobility for millions of citizens that depend on transit daily. Therefore, reducing accidents and incidents and improving employee engagement through caring, trust, mutual respect, value creation, enterprising spirit, open communication, and employee engagement becomes vital requirements to develop and implement a sustainable transit industry safety culture.
Transit Industry Equity
In the Mobius strip, the transit industry equity competency is in the failure trap. There is an adage, “No equity, no empathy.” When leaders fail to place themselves in the position of others in the workplace, failure is bound to occur. There is broad agreement across the literature that diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace is a good thing. Simply put, it is the right thing to do. The transit environment must value all employees’ contributions and reflect the demographic characteristics of the available labor force (Cox and Lancefield, 2021). However, when diversity, equity, and inclusion become engrained in the transit environment, leaders will find and nurture the best talent, increase employee engagement, and improve ridership satisfaction.
But the transit industry has a long way to go. While the killing of George Floyd in May 2020 was a clarifying catalyst that should have helped transit leaders see the enormous inequities that have always existed in the industry, a year later, a critical question can be asked of transit leaders, what progress has been made in the industry to address the systemic inequity that lives in the transit industry? What promises were made to frontline employees? What promises were made to the middle managers? What commitments have been made by transit boards, CEOs, Governors. and the federal government to the communities’ transit systems serve?
In an article titled, Male, White Transportation Staff Complicate Biden Equity Pledge, by Lillianna Byington cites, A spokesperson at the Department of Transportation said Secretary Pete Buttigieg is building a diverse team of political appointees, and staff is looking at how to do the same in the department's workforce. Buttigieg's Deputy Secretary, Polly Trottenberg, an Obama administration veteran, was recently confirmed. Leaders waiting for confirmation include Nuria Fernandez, the first Senate-confirmed woman of color to run the Federal Transit Administration, and Amit Bose, Indian American, to lead the Federal Railroad Administration.
Buttigieg’s predecessor, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, is Asian-American and immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan. Chao said in a statement that she made it her “personal mission” as transportation secretary to improve diversity and increase inclusion” at the department. Throughout my life, I mentored and promoted women to leadership positions,” she said. “To increase the number of women in the transportation industry, more female students need to be encouraged to enter the STEM fields early in their schooling, a mission I have emphasized throughout my career.”
Anthony Foxx, who served as transportation secretary during the Obama administration and is Black, said the lack of diversity persists industry-wide at state boards of transportation and local, state, and federal transportation departments. "That's a systemic problem that doesn't get fixed overnight; that said, from a leadership perspective, it is critical to have as many diverse voices at the table as possible," he said.
Foxx said he created a chief opportunities officer position, whose job was to ensure that "opportunity was part of every conversation" and to work on the administration's equity initiatives. However, there is not currently a chief opportunities officer listed in the department. Foxx also stated that "Diverse perspective in the department can influence the allocation of discretionary grants and programs like those designed to spur local hiring." "The hope is that the president and Secretary Buttigieg, and others who are I think genuinely pushing for equity to be made real, in many respects, don't get slowed down by those who would want to pump the brakes."
The DOT and the transit industry must find new approaches in addressing these systemic practices and patterns and create an inclusive DE&I culture moving forward. Transit Boards and CEOs should face more significant pressure from the President, the Secretary of Transportation, employees, state and local elected officials, transit board members, transit CEOs, and riders to deliver on DE&I effective initiatives. Until then, the systemic patterns and practices of inequity will remain.
Having worked at the DOT, I find this article fascinating because it reveals an untold truth about DOT. The report highlights that at DOT, white males in senior and mid-level management not only control DE&I efforts but have blocked many DE&I initiatives by the many secretaries of the past. A chart in the article highlighted the slow progress on race in DOT staff over 20 years. I urge readers to review this information listed in the reference. Lack of diversity in policy development has led to notable lapses. For example, “The link between transportation and low-income communities has only been “sporadically addressed” on the national level, said Evelyn Blumenberg, director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at UCLA.
The rapper Dr. Dre cited in the words of his song, “Been there, done that.” During my 45 years in transit, I have seen and experienced overt discrimination at the transit, state, and federal levels. Let us be patently clear; racism is real. Racism is one of the founding fathers of the transit industry. Racism remains alive and well today in every aspect of transit: hiring, service delivery, contracting, project development, and many others.
No equity, no empathy is genuine in the transit industry. Yet, leaders and senior leaders at DOT and throughout the industry fail to understand the pain and hurt African Americans, and people of color are experiencing as a result of inequity, as well as some of the issues many are facing--those who are bi-ethnic-and those whose ethnic mixing may have happened generations ago-the bottom line is too many are still experiencing in-group bias-about skin color and hair... and then, of course, the basic racism hate experience from outside of our group - the damage that is done to our self-esteem, our sense of what we can accomplish, along with the myth of what we cannot accomplish-and our basic right to live. These are the realities that transit workers live and experience daily in the transit industry.
I find it most disturbing, and I hope all African Americans and people of color find it disturbing as well that transit systems across the nation have been and are a failing enterprise because no transit systems in America recover their operating cost. Transit systems, including AMTRAX, rely totally on taxpayers’ dollars to survive. Yet, transit systems are legally mandated only to recover minimum operations costs. The balance is paid by taxpayers, African Americans, and people of color while being discriminated against daily. Yet, while transit systems abroad in the Mediterranean Region and the Asian Railways operate at 120 %, 130%, 140%, and 150% profit levels. Transit systems in America are caught in the failure trap of inequity in the Mobius strip.
Transit Industry Adaptability
In the modius strip, the transit industry adaptability competency is in the failure trap. The new world of work requires transit leaders to comprehend the tremendous economic opportunity inherent in achieving genuine equity, along with total diversity and inclusion by being inclusive. Unfortunately, if transit leaders continue to follow traditional processes, they will remain in the failure trap on the Mobius strip of adaptability.
Adaptability is the ability to adjust your approach or actions in response to changes in your external environment. Adaptability is also about changing the rules. Transit leaders must change the patterns and practices that have lived so long in the transit industry. The transit industry's weaknesses and vulnerabilities can become growth opportunities if leaders model a new way of thinking. Successful goals, strategies, and tactics must mirror the transit systems’ landscape. Where are we today? What are our go-to moves? What guides our decisions? The time is now for changes, yet most transit leaders are silent about the crucial issues facing society and the transit industry itself. Dr. Martin L. King cited, "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."
Leading transformational changes in the transit industry requires adaptability, which involves helping the systems transcend their current positioning, performance, and capabilities. The transformational process will require visionary and transformational thinking, the ability to tackle complex problems, and the courage to make difficult choices. Transit leaders must think profoundly and manage their emotions in intense situations, all while employees are expecting to see the result.
So, how does the transit industry get there? First, transit leaders must get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Second, transit leaders must have the humility to know that there is much they do not know about the workplace and others' experience. Third, getting comfortable with discomfort, embracing risk, operating from the edge are a few examples of how leaders can challenge themselves through this post-pandemic era. Additionally, transit leaders can ask themselves personal and difficult questions about their own leadership style, experience, and emotional intelligence as an important place to start their journey to becoming authentic and becoming an ally with employees on the frontline and throughout the transit system (Smith, Johnson, and Stromberg, 2021).
Transit leaders must ask themselves, how am I supporting employees, especially frontline employees? Transit leaders must ask and respect the unique experiences of employees in their workplace. Transit leaders must ask if employees feel fully included, valued, and respected and be willing to hear answers you might not like. If you are comfortable as a leader, you are probably not challenging yourself, your people, and your transit systems in ways that will ensure future success. Inclusive leadership must come from the heart. Transit leaders’ messages about diversity, equity, and inclusion must be personal and authentic. When managers, supervisors, and employees do not see you owing and fully engaging in programs and initiatives to drive equity in the workplace, you will not be respected as a leader. In that case, chances are they will turn to other priorities, and the transit system will never become adaptable, resilient, and sustainable (Smith, Johnson, Stromberg, 2021).
In a changed, post-pandemic environment, transit employees have high expectations for transit leaders in their system. They expect transit leaders to play a more prominent role in tackling systemic issues like social inequity, safety, and they expect their leaders to be effective, authentic, and compassionate. Transit leaders who want their systems to meet the moment and succeed long-term need to move away from the status quo and change their approach to leading the necessary transformations. We call it adaptability.
Transit Industry Resilience
In the Mobius strip, transit industry resilience competency is in the failure trap. The ability for transit systems to bounce back from setbacks and crises like the pandemic is often described as the difference between successful and unsuccessful leaders. Resilience has been shown to influence work satisfaction, engagement, and overall well-being positively and can lower stress/depression levels. Unfortunately, many frontline workers died from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) at the New York Transit and other systems across the industry. Many employees contracted the virus.
According to Rob Cross, Karen Dillon, and Danna Greenberg’s article, The Secret to Building Resilience, "New research shows that resilience is also heavily enabled by strong relationships and networks. Transit leaders can nurture and build strong resilience through a wide variety of interactions with managers and frontline employees. These interactions can help transit leaders to alter the magnitude of the challenges transit systems are facing. They can help crystalize the meaningful purpose in what transit systems are doing or help them see a path forward to overcome setbacks and crises — these are the kinds of interactions that motivate employees to persist.
Transit leaders can build resilience and support frontline employees by reducing bureaucratic demands, creating a culture of trust, and rethinking the role of leadership. Building trust rests on frontline employees seeing how transit leaders, managers, and supervisors care about their work-related concerns and well-being. To truly develop confidence, transit leaders and managers should solicit input from employees at every level in the transit system, acknowledge employee ideas, understand how their decisions influence employees’ experiences at work, and communicate why some ideas are not/cannot be accepted. Asking for input and articulating a response to it leads to employees feeling heard and not feeling dismissed by pat explanations of budget shortages and other standard replies.
Summary
As defined by David K. Hurst, the sweet zone of sustainability is the delicate balancing of competencies between failures and success in the Mobius strip model. To succeed, transit leaders must clarify the transit industry purpose, purpose statement, narrative, DE&I, safety culture, adaptability, and resilience. All employees must know and take full ownership of these competencies to build effective teams. There are many additional competencies that transit leaders must consider based on their own customers' needs. The challenges are understanding how the many competencies operate within an ecosystem to maintain sustainability in the Mobius strip. These competencies are not mutually exclusive.
The transit industry Mobius strip model demonstrates that the transit industry has been in a continuous circle of incompetency for over 50 years with no real beginning and no real ending. The transit industry, like the Mobius strip, is one-sized, in many of their core competencies, needed to remain in the sweet zone of sustainability. This is a failure of leadership at all levels in transit. Rather, promoting social equity, development, and implementation of a sustainability safety culture, learning to be an adaptable industry, building resilience, and identifying the industry purpose, purpose statement, narrative, and performance, the transit industry has spun in the failure/success trap for over 50 years to primarily support systemic patterns and practices.
At some point, along with the 50-year spin in the transit Mobius strip model, transit leaders should have reflected and asked, "How on earth did this happen? Indeed, how did this happen? Perhaps, instead of pursuing and measuring proper transit competencies along the journey, the emphasis was placed on those things that transit leaders viewed as success competencies when, in fact, they were failed competencies. When leaders fail and forget, it is an underlying symptom of an opportunity that must be identified and seized upon. Transit leaders will never improve transit competencies unless they improve themselves, transit purpose, purpose statement, narrative, and actual core values.
To be a success in the Mobius strip, transit leaders must be held accountable. The one key factor determined by David K. Hurst, The Ecocycle: A Mental Model for Understanding Complex Systems is accountability. Accountability is a secret competency weapon that transit leaders cannot ignore. According to Korn Ferry, there are five critical factors for achieving superior performance in organizations, like transit. Three are intuitive: purpose, leadership, and strategy. The other two probably do not come to mind automatically: accountability and capability—but together, they contribute about 50 percent of organizational performance.
If transit leaders continue to ignore the red warning signs flashing in front of them daily, transit leaders will continue to fail and continue to forget—until one day they hit a brick wall, like the recent pandemic. Self-awareness is everything. Without it, transit leaders will never learn, grow, or improve. Instead, they will continue to ignore their blind spots, overestimate their strengths, and gloss over their weakness. This behavior and attitude will not benefit the industry, the employees, nor the communities transit serve.
My article reflected the many transit failures in the Mobius strip, from my perspective, and did not address success factors. So, Levern, why did you not address success factors in the model, I hear you ask? I am not aware of success factors to address over the past 50 years. While I do not expect everyone to agree with me, I am prepared to accept your rationales based on documentation, not conversation. It is difficult for me to view old and antiquated measures as success during a post-pandemic period while many frontline workers and customers have died and continue to suffer. It is difficult to measure success when systemic patterns and practices of inequity abound throughout the transit industry with no real strategies for progress when the transit industry is still holding its hands out for taxpayers’ support.
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Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Lancefield, D. and Rangen, C. (2021), 4 Actions Transformational Leaders Take, Harvard Business Review, May 05, 2021, https://www.hbr.org.
McPherson, S. (2021), How Much of Your “Authentic Self” Should You Really Bring to Work? www.hbr.org
Mobius Strip, The Mathematical Madness of M?bius Strips and Other One-Sided Objects, The discovery of the M?bius strip in the mid-19th century launched a brand-new field of mathematics: topology, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/mathematical-madness-mobius-strips-and-other-one-sided-objects-180970394/.
Smith, D. G, Johnson, W. B. and Stromberg, L. (2021) How Men Can Be More Inclusive Leaders, Harvard Business Review, https://www.hbr.org