There is a quiet revolution taking place in the dark art
of traffic management. Since Kensington Borough Council removed most of the
“safety” features, signs and traffic control systems on Kensington High Street,
the number of pedestrian KSI’s (killed or serious injuries) has dropped by over
60%. Traffic moves more smoothly and the appearance of the street has been
improved.
Yet this seems to fly in the face of all conventional
wisdom. Cars, after all, are immensely powerful potential killing machines.
They, and as a consequence, their drivers have to be controlled.
And it’s not
just the power under citizens’ right feet; it’s also their exclusion from
normal human intercourse. Pedestrians or, indeed, men on horses make eye
contact; they are forced to acknowledge their mutual humanity. But at anything
over 20mph you can’t make eye contact, and contemporary car design is
unhealthily obsessed with convincing drivers and passengers that they are in
another, better world than everybody else. People in their cars watched only by
researcher’s cameras, sing, nose pick and cry. The latter behaviour having its
own special name
“grieving
while driving”. In addition, of course, otherwise mild-mannered people drive
like complete bastards.
For the last 50 years the driving principle of traffic
management has been to try and control human nature and psychology – to do as
much as possible to remove unreliable, unpredictable and occasionally psychotic
people from the equation. It has been a kind of institutional shouting or
bureaucracy.
A Dutch traffic engineer, Hans Monderman, finally
challenged this wisdom. His idea was simple. The modern car and all the traffic
management paraphernalia have had the effect of putting both physical and
emotional distance between road users. It undermined and diminished peoples’
sense of personal responsibility. It made people stupid and selfish.
His notion was that if all the controls and systems were
removed, people would have to make decisions. They would actually have to
“connect” with other road users. They would have to become more personally
responsible for their decisions and actions and this would make them better and
safer drivers.
This radical idea was put to the test in the town of
Oudehaske in Holland. All control signs; traffic calming and pedestrian safety
measures were removed. The division between road and footpath were deliberately
blurred. And the results have been spectacular. Average car speeds dropped over
20%, yet journey times through the town were shortened. There was an 80%
reduction in the number of traffic and pedestrian incidents.
Rather than trying to manage and control the psychology
of the human being behind the wheel, Monderman recognised and used the positive
aspects of human psychology to transform behaviour, which in turn transformed
performance and results.
Across Europe, the Oudehaske experiment is being
repeated with similar success. The Kensington High Street project is being
extended to include Exhibition Road and its environs.
Why should this be of any interest to business leaders?
Is there a metaphor in this phenomenon that has relevance to the business
world?
The focus and intent of traffic managers is to improve
performance (how people behave) and results (better flow and fewer accidents).
Transform performance (behaviour) and results follow.
Their abiding philosophy has been that you need command
and control people to get the behaviour and results you want, much the same as
many business managers.
Provide instruction, systems, controls and penalties for
transgressions, Much the same as many business managers.
Yet the most effective idea has been to remove these
constraints and re-establish relationship and communication between all road
users, from pedestrians to truck drivers. There are simple rules: don’t hit
anyone, don’t walk in front of anyone, give way to traffic coming from the
right.
The result: - a 60% reduction in accidents, a 25%
improvement in traffic flow, a 25% reduction in speeds.
Traffic managers are learning that a
philosophy based upon some notion of command and control is out-performed by a
philosophy based upon establishing genuine relationship between road users,
drivers and pedestrians alike.
Improved performance flows from
strengthening the relationship between people whose wellbeing is profoundly
connected to each other’s behaviour.
Arsene Wenger, the coach at Arsenal,
considered by many to be the best performance coach in the land, saw his
philosophy in the press after a paper was left lying about. He made it clear
that they key to performance is all in the relationship between everyone in the
team, players and support staff.
He makes it clear – work on the
operational relationships as a priority. If the relationships are right,
performance, productivity and results will follow.
But in business we have become
caught in the thrall of systems and technology. We see people whose main
training is based upon how to use and work the system. The traffic lights, lane
divisions, multiple signage and a plethora of cameras to capture transgressors.
We treat people like idiots who need every step explained. We seek the
“fool-proof” solution and in the process make our people apparently idiotic and
foolish. They become slaves to the system.
We need to appreciate that systems
are not problem solvers. Systems are rarely flexible and adaptable. They are
time-consuming and expensive to change. And they have no sense of
responsibility or accountability. They are not intelligent or have the ability
to respond to exceptional circumstances.
Yet these qualities are inherent
within human beings. They exist within our nature. Use it or abuse it.
Just like modern traffic managers
(and Arsene Wegner) perhaps it is the time to understand that the strength and
integrity of our relationships, the appreciation of our interdependency, the
fact that I cannot succeed without you and vice-versa, is the foundation of
true and lasting success - and to make this our priority.
Unsurprisingly, virtually every
business on the planet that would not want high levels of collaboration,
genuine team work, shared accountability to deliver business aims and a real
sense of responsibility to work for the well-being of the enterprise.
To achieve this companies invest in
team-building workshops, motivational speakers, dubious incentive and bonus
schemes, encouraging or threatening missives from the chairman and “performance
reviews” that are little more than the business version of speed cameras.
But all these efforts are all
elements of the same command and control philosophy that has driven traffic
management for so many years. Lights to tell us when to stop and when to go,
signs that shout at us about how we should behave, cameras to monitor behaviour
and penalise the non-conforming behaviour;
Modern traffic management demands
that people establish relationships with each other and collaborate to make the
process work. And the results are spectacular.
There have been many grand ideas in
business management theory. Managing by objectives, managing for results,
managing the business process, managing from the balance sheet; Make your own
list. And none of these things are bad ideas in themselves. But none place the
focus on the relationships that exist between those who have to deliver.
But just as the problems of safe and
effective driving have been transformed by placing the responsibility on those
who actually drive (rather than the controllers), so the issues and challenges
in business are best resolved by those who have to implement (rather than their
managers);
Just as traffic managers had to
“think differently”, so it is for business managers.
If we made relationship the
priority, what would such an organisation look like? How would we organise our
decision-making and problem solving? How do we ensure that people who are
dependent on each other actually behave in a way that demonstrates that
inter-dependency?
Maybe these are the questions we
need to be asking in the modern corporation.
