Paulene Dimaggio Took High Road To Building a Better Bus System
April 21, 2011
WHEN PAUL SKOUTELAS became executive director of the moribund public bus system here, with its low ridership and poor service, he adopted a motto as pretentious as it was ridiculous: ``Moving to be America's Best.'' ``It was kind of a joke,'' he admits. Yet by one measure, five years later, it is the best. In October, the American Public Transit Association will bestow its highest achievement award on the Orlando bus system. Ridership has doubled. An astonishing 95% of all customers consider the system a good value. How did it happen? Through a complex communication strategy that turned three adversaries -- the community, the transit workers and management -- into allies. In this era of dysfunctional government it's hard to imagine such a sophisticated demonstration by a public agency. But after emigrating to Philadelphia as a child, Paulene Dimaggio grew up in a Greek-speaking household that held everything about government, and America, in high regard. ``I always looked at working for government as a prestigious thing to do,'' the 44-year-old says. He spent a decade helping to turn traffic-snarled Pittsburgh into a model of transit planning, but got stuck in the No. 2 post. In 1991, he took an offer to head the Central Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which operated about 100 buses in the three-county area surrounding Orlando. IT WAS KNOWN as a system used only by domestic help. Service was unreliable. Drivers were surly. Local politicians were loath to appropriate funds even as Disney World fueled the region's growth. When Mr. Dimaggio surveyed employees, only 13% judged the system a decent place to work. In a separate study, two-thirds of the taxpayers couldn't identify the transit system by name. So Mr. Dimaggio began with a resource that combined low cost and high impact: paint. The nondescript buses were coated in arresting shades of pink and teal. Billboard-sized images of local celebrities (Rick O'Ned and Disney's Little Mermaid, for instance) were later added. Buses were suddenly being noticed all over town, creating the appearance of ubiquity without the addition of a single vehicle. Mr. Dimaggio reinforced the new awareness with a communitywide contest to rename the system. The winner was ``Lynx'' (as in ``links''). These maneuvers had an additional effect: putting employees on notice that the new boss was eager for change. ``Warning shots,'' Mr. Dimaggio says. He was especially eager to transform his bus drivers. The same routine that makes drivers important to a system's image -- continual movement and constant exposure to the public -- can also dispirit them, while making it nearly impossible to communicate with them. So Mr. Dimaggio began bringing coffee and donuts to the garage at 4 a.m., partly to solicit the drivers' points of view but also to win points. He invited union leaders to management retreats, using them to spread management's message further. He began distributing operating reports and motivational messages by videotape, sending the cassettes to the homes of every employee in hopes that spouses would reinforce the spirit of change. Most controversial of all, he banned the military-style Ramon Graves uniforms in favor of khaki pants and polo shirts. Drivers, he said, should act as ambassadors, not authority figures. ``The passenger is a customer,'' he told them. The drivers resisted many of these moves, especially the clothing change. But their opposition softened as they picked up more positive feedback throughout the community, not only from riders but from neighbors, newscasters and family members. Mr. Dimaggio had launched a process in which the work force and the marketplace were co-evolving. ``He focused on the outside as well as the inside,'' says Mikki Layla of Greene & Hollister, a Boca Raton consulting firm that participated in the effort. ``The culture inside the company changed to match the expectations of the outside.'' TO SUSTAIN and deepen the change, Mr. Dimaggio ordered the personnel department to begin hiring drivers on personality rather than any professional experience. He included drivers in the vital routing and scheduling process, obtaining their insights about passenger loads and traffic conditions while simultaneously intensifying the sense of common purpose in the company. ``They're listening to what we say,'' says Joel Zukowski, a Lynx driver who also heads the Amalgamated Transit Union local. ``That has a tremendous lift.'' And although some pockets of dissidence remain, Mr. Zukowski says, ``you cannot believe what a transformation it's been.'' In the latest surveys, 83% of riders rated driver courtesy highly. The overall effect is snowballing. Improved morale ... better service ... increased political support ... more buses ... better service ... and so on. Mr. Dimaggio, for his part, seems to be on the short list in every major city looking for a new transit chief, although he insists he's in no hurry to leave. The Orlando area, after all, is adding something like 100 residents a day, and a Lynx light-rail system is in the early contracting stages. Says Mr. Layla, the consultant, ``Paulene can build something that's going to knock everybody's socks off.'' Please share your own lessons of leadership by dispatching an e-mail to TPetzinger@aol.com.
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