Ep. 31 Christian Strikes Back! (ft. Christian Hunt)

Questioning Behaviour

Welcome to Episode 31 of the Questioning Behaviour Podcast! On this episode, Merle and Sarah interview friend of the show Christian Hunt once more, regarding a previous episode (episode 28). The conversation goes back to the "mistake of the month" example from the previous episode, what it means to signal and report mistakes, and the differences in opinion on its effectiveness between Merle and Christian, carefully mediated by Sarah!

We hope you enjoy this sequel episode, we definitely enjoyed making it! Although, we cannot find the exact "mistake of the month" article from BA's internal magazine, here's an excerpt from an interview by Jason Clampet for Skift.com with BA's CEO, Alex Cruz, in 2017: https://skift.com/2017/01/11/british-airways-ceo-interview-how-to-bring-a-low-cost-mindset-to-a-legacy-airline/

Skift [interviewer]: What are some of the things you learned at a start-up airline that have stuck with you since?

Cruz [CEO British Airways]: I think we’ve covered a number of them, so let me tell you some others.

At BA — and I know in American Airlines it was the same thing 20-30 years ago — making mistakes is not something you tend to admit.

I’ve introduced in the employee magazine [a feature called] the ‘Mistake of the Month’ because I want people to know it’s OK to make a mistake and it’s OK to talk about it, because that’s how we actually learn. I’m having a tough time getting people to actually admit their mistakes. We have to go and look at them. There’s 45,000 people in the company [and] no one makes a mistake? Come on!

The important thing is to not spend all your time looking at every single angle and doing budgets and [then] not doing [the project]. Yes, if you get it wrong [and] it didn’t work, that’s OK. What are the learnings? [We need to] make sure that we do the right communication on those learnings, and we move onto the next thing. We try the next thing and we’re going to get it right.

That whole culture of giving more importance to getting things done quickly and having tolerance towards honest mistakes with a mission behind it is something that doesn’t exist, and probably is not part of a very large company culture. I’m trying to drive it, and it’s been very liberating for some colleagues. They’re actually feeling like, ‘this actually feels different.’ Still a small number of colleagues, but with time we will go.

There is a lot of redundancy work, meaning lots of reports. If I have a meeting cancelled in the office, I get around and start walking around the office, and it’s all glass walls so I’ll see a room and there’s a PowerPoint and there’s like 10 people, I’ll just open the door and walk in [and say,] “Hi guys, if you don’t mind I’m going to sit down, I’m learning.’ A few times I’ve done it, there was no reason for the meeting to take place at all. But I can’t blame them, because the people that called the meeting really felt that there was a need to have that meeting for a number of reasons. Those reasons are no longer compatible with managing a company in today’s world.

Skift [interviewer]: And the meetings last too long, right?

Cruz [CEO British Airways]: Sometimes you’ve got to have the meeting to prepare for the meeting. You’ve got to talk to a few people and have coffee with them before that meeting so they’re aligned. Some people in the office are getting nervous.

[One time] I told [someone], ‘Do you have anybody you would like to hire’ [And he said,] ‘Oh yeah, I know this fantastic guy and he’s available now.’ I said “OK, hire him.’ He said “OK, all right, great, fantastic, I’m going to submit the paperwork.” I said, ‘No, just call the guy, tell him to start working on Monday.’

It was like [talking to] a robot — ‘I can’t compute.’ He started getting nervous. I said, ‘No no, tell the guy to start working on Monday!” [He said,] ‘Yeah, but we have to appraise his salary and the position because that position doesn’t exist.’ “I said, ‘just do it this way.’

[He said], ‘Man I’m going to get in trouble.’ [I said] “I’m the boss, you’re not going to get in trouble, just do it!’

You really have to push people in this respect, and support them in the process. There’s some really good people. They’re just not used to working in that environment.

Finding Christian Hunt: Twitter: @HumanRiskBlog: https://twitter.com/HumanRiskBlog LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/humanrisk/ Human Risk: https://www.human-risk.com/ Human Risk Podcast: https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-human-risk-podcast

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Music: Derek Clegg “You’re the Dummy” https://derekclegg.bandcamp.com/