Board-CEO Involvement in Innovation/Change Management
The Creativity-Innovation Nexus: Part One of Our Creativity Series
The innovation process – and the role of the chief executive as your authority’s “Chief Innovation Officer” – has been a major focus of this blog, and several posts have featured real-life cases of successful implementation of significant innovation initiatives. Our focus on innovation makes the best of sense in light of the challenges facing all transit authorities and other public/nonprofit organizations in these times of rapid change. Building your authority’s capacity to innovate is the key to future stability and growth, and standing pat, clinging to the present, is a sure-fire recipe for decline.
Up to now, our posts … Read the rest
Comet CEO John Andoh Wearing the Innovator-in-Chief Hat
Experience has taught me that successfully implementing significant out of the box change initiatives depends on the strong leadership of a chief executive officer wearing what I call the “Innovator-in-Chief” hat. CEOs I’ve observed over the years succeed at the Innovator-in-Chief role have without exception been what I think of as “change-savvy.” This means that:
They’ve been technically very knowledgeable about best practices in the rapidly changing area of change planning and management, which means they haven’t been wedded to conventional planning wisdom and out-of-date approaches. You’ll never hear a change-savvy CEO extolling the virtues of traditional long-range (or “strategic”) … Read the rest
What Makes Women Such Effective Board Members?
Earlier today, I interviewed John Andoh, Executive Director/CEO of the Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority (the Comet), for a podcast about a number of innovative mobility initiatives launched in the Columbia, South Carolina region on his watch. As we were recording the podcast, I was reminded of the following article, which Karen Philbrick, Executive Director of the Mineta Transportation Institute, wrote for this blog almost three years ago. There’s no question that, as Karen points out, a growing number of women serving on boards have added a large dollop of creativity to the governing process , and as we all … Read the rest
GM Jeff Knueppel Walks the Employee Engagement Talk at SEPTA
Early in my career I experienced at close range a CEO not walking his talk. I was serving as chief of staff to the president of a large three-campus community college. With the urging of his board’s officers, my boss decided that he needed to focus far more heavily on the institution’s external agenda – specifically, on building close working relationships with the chief executives of critical stakeholder organizations like the community foundation and neighboring universities. So, as a strategy to buy precious time for his expanded external role, the president tapped his executive vice president to become the college’s … Read the rest
METRO’s CEO Tom Lambert: Consummate Innovator-in-Chief
The podcast that Tom Lambert, President & CEO of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, recorded for this blog describes METRO’s new Office of Innovation, which has proved to be a very effective generator of “out of the box” change initiatives. Reporting directly to Tom, the Office isn’t a traditional planning organization. Rather, it fosters, nurtures and pilot tests practical innovation projects in partnership with internal operational units and with external stakeholder organizations. As Tom points out, the success of the office owes much to a highly supportive METRO Board of Directors that accepts that while most initiatives will … Read the rest
Board Chair Trudy Bartley and CEO Joanna Pinkerton on Breaking the Traditional CEO Mold at COTA
Traditionally, at the top of the list of qualifications public transit boards specify when recruiting candidates for the CEO position is in-depth operational experience. So it’s no surprise that over the years the great majority of vacant CEO positions have been filled with executives who have worked their way up the operational ladder in one or more transit authorities. This operational bias is easily understandable. Even small to medium-sized transit authorities are incredibly complex organizations – both operationally and technically – and it’s only natural to want an executive in the top spot who can keep the buses and trains … Read the rest
Donna DeMartino: Playing the Chief Innovation Officer Role With Gusto at San Joaquin RTD
Over the past quarter-century I’ve learned that the public transportation authorities that are really good at getting significant, out of the box innovation and change accomplished are invariably led by a CEO who is passionately committed to playing – and well prepared to play – what I call the Chief Innovation Officer role. The CEO is the only person in your authority who can wear the Chief Innovation Officer hat for the simple reason that no one else brings to the change game the formal authority, influence, access to resources, and time required to spearhead an out-of-the-box innovation effort and … Read the rest
CEO Dave Genova on Getting Stakeholder Engagement Right at RTD-Denver
You’ll recall that in earlier posts at this blog we’ve defined “stakeholders” as individuals, groups, and organizations it makes sense to build and maintain relationships with because something important is at stake. For example, the office of the mayor and board of county commissioners in your region are always primo stakeholders whose political – and often financial – support are tremendously important to your authority. Over my 30 years of work with public transit CEOs and their boards I’ve come across more than one case of poorly planned and managed stakeholder engagement. This is really unfortunate since the support of … Read the rest
CEO Brad Miller’s Podcast on Tweaking PSTA’s Business Model
In a rapidly changing environment, one of the preeminent keys to making sure your authority thrives and grows is for you, as your authority’s CEO, to take the lead in updating its business model, wearing what I call the “Innovator-in-Chief” hat. Therefore, I’m pleased to share the fourth podcast in this blog’s ongoing series on public transit business model updating, featuring Brad Miller, Chief Executive Officer of Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, who describes mobility on demand initiatives launched on his watch. After listening to Brad’s highly informative podcast, you might want to take a look at one or more of … Read the rest
A Critical CEO Challenge: Updating Your Authority’s Business Model
According to APTA Chair Nat Ford and CEO Paul Skoutelas in the podcast featured in the March 14 post at this blog (https://boardsavvytransitceo.com/aptas-dynamic-leadership-duo-takes-mobility-management-issue/), local transportation authorities must make a stark choice in this time of dramatic, continuous change, in terms not only of communication and transportation technologies, but also of changing customer needs and preferences. They can be aggressively opportunistic: embracing and capitalizing on the opportunities that a tumultuous environment offers by playing the preeminent leadership role in their communities in partnership and network building that brings together various transportation modes (ride sourcing; car sharing; bike sharing; train … Read the rest
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