Posts about General Manager Search

Sarles hasn't been that kind of strong and visible leader, and as interim GM, he hasn't tackled the big problems. He's been quiet, but has built up better relations with local officials and bodies like the NTSB. That's something Metro really needs. He's launched a good "vital signs" report to track progress, and set up a very specific checklist of issues he would tackle this year.

On the other hand, other than not having any crashes, he hasn't done much (or at least not much yet) to improve customer service, WMATA's notoriously poor relationship with the press or its secretive culture, or really engaged with riders or the public at all. His defense of a wrong-headed bag search program based on no data whatsoever is disappointing.

For another year or two, maybe what WMATA needs most is just for everything to be really stable. Many Board seats are turning over, which will bring in some great new blood but also lose some institutional memory. That could make this a relatively bad time to also bring in a brand-new GM.

In other words, if Sarles' leadership has been positive for one year, why not keep it going for another year or two?

The big question, once he doesn't have an immediate end date, is whether he will start to deal with these longer-term issues. WMATA needs to lead on bringing jurisdictional partners together to find some more sustainable revenue sources. The Board and GM/CEO need to attack the organizational culture.

There aren't many reasons to believe this will suddenly happen. His approach to safety has been too reactive and short-term, which has made the NTSB happy but leaves some issues unsolved. Devoting all resources to safety has also taken all money away from upgrading the infrastructure to handle more 8-car trains. Without that, Metro is already nearly at capacity on some lines, and overcrowding on platforms can cause its own safety problems.

Will we be dealing with other safety threats in a few years and look back baffled as to why the leadership of today didn't tackle them, just as people reacted to John Catoe not having done anything about failing track signals?

Perhaps fortunately, Sarles is not going to be GM for a long time. He was already at retirement when he came on board. He'll probably only stay for a few more years.

Rather than thinking of him as permanent General Manager, I'm going to consider him the longer-term interim GM, but not the CEO many have called for. An interim GM like him could be just what WMATA needs for a couple of years. However, the Board shouldn't completely stop thinking about how to find the real CEO who will truly lead WMATA where it has to go. In a couple of years, that'll again be their task.

1. Overall, how satisfied are you with the workings of WMATA as an organization?
   
   • Extremely
     
   • Satisfied
     
   • Neither Satisfied nor Dissatisfied
     
   • Dissatisfied
     
   • Extremely Dissatisfied

2. What is the most significant challenge facing WMATA today? Please elaborate.

3. What are other significant challenges facing WMATA today?

4. How would you describe the culture of WMATA as an organization?

5. In an ideal world, how should the Board for WMATA function?
   
   • The Board should be a Governing Board only
     
   • The Board should be a Managing Board only
     
   • The Board should be a hybrid of a Managing and a Governing Board
     
   • Other, please specify

6. Describe the perfect working relationship between the General Manager and the Board of WMATA in terms of:
   
   • Reporting
     
   • Frequency of interaction with Board
     
   • Setting and managing expectations
     
   • Communications (internal and external)
     
   • Other

7. What are the three most important responsibilities of the General Manager? Please also indicate what % of time should the person spend on each?

8. WMATA's previous General Manager was in the position for a relatively brief period of time. Why was his tenure so short?

9. What, if anything, can be learned from his experience?

10. What particular skill sets will the new General Manager need?

11. What would be the optimal professional background for a leading candidate?

12. Is 'Transit' experience critical for the next General Manager of WMATA? Why?

13. Are there specific work experiences (other than 'Transit' experience) that are appropriate for a leading candidate?

14. On what criteria will the new leader be judged after his/her first year?

15. On what criteria do you expect the new leader will be judged after five years?

16. Additional comments or suggestions?

Sarles recently retired from NJ Transit. He's reached a retirement age, but also incoming Governor Chris Christie is putting his own picks into top management posts. (NJ Transit is an agency of the State of New Jersey rather than an independent authority.)

The Board also appointed former bus head and one-time Acting GM Jack Requa as Assistant General Manager of Bus Services. With Requa back running bus, said the source, WMATA will have an experienced manager keeping the bus system going so that Sarles can focus a large part of his attention on the sickest part of the system, Metrorail.

With several recent top departures, the ranks of WMATA's top managers had gotten very thin; MetroAccess head Christian Kent was handling bus operations as well as MetroAccess, and other top people were doing two jobs or more as well. This situation also contributed to the Board's decision to look outside WMATA for its interim GM, since tapping one of them would further exacerbate the talent shortage.

Some have said that Metro needs a manager who knows safety. After all, fixing safety is Metro's top priority. The latter is true, but that doesn't mean that the General Manager needs to be a safety expert. If the General Manager personally checked up on everyone inspecting tracks or operating work zones, he'd never handle the bigger issues.

Instead, the General Manager needs to know enough about safety to find the world's best Chief Safety Officer and give him or her broad powers to make sure that Metro institutes a firm culture of safety. The GM also needs to back up the safety officer in whatever decisions he or she makes. A good manager, especially a good private sector manager, can do this. Many private sector companies also deal with safety issues, and we could hire a GM whose company has a stellar safety record.

More and more public sector and nonprofit organizations are hiring leaders from the private sector. Many universities have started to do this, for example. Private sector companies aren't always better run than public sector ones and their managers aren't always better (just look at AIG, or the automakers), but there are a lot of good ones, and management techniques from the private sector that would improve public sector organizations.

Any industry, whether private or public, also develops certain "ways of doing things." People who work in the transit field say that is no different. Some of them are good, and reflect time-tested strategies learned over time. Others are simply relics maintained by inertia. Bringing in someone who's not steeped in existing assumptions gives the opportunity to reexamine them and reject the ones that aren't adding value.

The conservative path would be to hire one of the nation's best transit managers. Maybe there's a really good one out there. But Metro needs change, and it especially needs change in areas that aren't unique to transit, like customer service, or areas that the GM can't personally fix, like safety.

Metro needs two great people: a top-notch manager who knows enough about transportation but more importantly knows how to manage a large operational system, many employees, a sometimes-fractious Board, unions, customer service, and the press, and the world's best safety officer who can knock heads as necessary to make Metro one of the safest systems in the world. Looking beyond transit agencies will give Metro the best chance for success.