MGMT 535 - Week 3 Reflections

 As I've stated before, there are several workforce organizations within the TSA. We have the blue shirts (TSO's) that do the screening and security missions at the airports and then you have HQ, which does everything else to support the TSO's. 

I work in the field testing the equipment the TSO's use to conduct screening. When that equipment doesn't work or work well, I hear about it.

In one particular instance, we were testing some new equipment at Long Beach Airport. The equipment that was being temporarily replaced was old and slow. In the security screening game, timeliness is a key metric. The airlines are quick to throw the TSA under the bus as to the reason why a bag missed a flight, when in reality the problem rests with the airlines baggage operations. The good thing about being in the TSA is we can time stamp the moment the bag was handed off to the TSA, with timestamps throughout the security equipment processing and timestamps when it was handed off to the airlines (or landed at the makeup carousel). Well as we were installing and testing the new equipment next to the old stuff, the TSO's were getting excited. We were bringing in speed and better screen resolution and tools (3D technology vs 2D technology). Once up and running the new technology was hands down better but it wasn't per the specifications. We were going to have to remove the new stuff and reinstall the old stuff. You should have seen the fight at the airport. From the airport director and City to the local TSA, everyone made a plea to keep the new stuff, warts and all. They would rather live with the problems than lose the new equipment. Unfortunately, billions of dollars are at stake and we weren't going to pay for any less capability and functionality than agreed upon.

So how this relates to corporate culture is the fact that the TSO's were so impressed with the new capability, they "unofficially" rallied other airports across the nation to support or request whatever was necessary to expedite the capability to the field. In my experience this also works the other way. When the workforce hears that some new technology was having problems in the lab testing environment there is push back and "the grapevine" makes it difficult for me to find a site that will allow us to test. 

The bottom line is that the workforce has a vote whether leadership believes it or not. The culture of security helps influence decisions.

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