West Somerset Railway General Discussion

It must have been a wrench for him to leave the WSR, but it is a fantastic opportunity for him to be in at the start of the L & B's next major advancement.

 

You can't lead a business hiding behind your big fence in a town an hours drive away from the railway.

But you can lead a business, occasionally hiding behind your big fence in a town an hours drive away from the railway, if you are regularly showing your face around the railway, getting involved with all the different departments along the line, engaging with your workforce and customers.

 

It's typical of this thread that you accuse someone of being a troll simply because they dare to bring a different opinion or comment on the effectiveness of the "discussion". Your black/white thinking doesn't really give much room for anyone with alternative or middle-ground views. TTFN

 

And posting for the umpteenth time about how people shouldn't be discussing the WSR is in no way a reflection of your own zealotry to control what people say. Nice little passive aggressive dig to slip in there.

When a football team is doing badly or being mismanaged do you go on the discussion sites and tell them that they shouldn't talk about the manager or the board or the players? Or when there are political issues that people shouldn't talk about politics because it achieves nothing? No don't discuss climate change because it achieves nothing?

No one forces you to read the thread, if it upsets your cosy deferential pipe and slippers worldview then don't click on the link to the discussion.

It is a discussion forum, people talk about things. When things are going badly people have more to say. I am surprised you haven't yet worked that out.

I couldn't agree more. Just to give an example - I was chatting to a friend of mine who works in an IT dept, not one of the sexy depts but one without which the organisation can't function. They contrasted how previous CEOs had walked around, popped in and chatted to them. This was then followed by a CEO who never visited, tried to impose ideas, wasn't interested in staff, so morale plummeted, people left etc organisation, the CEO left after causing untold damage. The new CEO restarted walking around and meeting people, lo and behold, morale improves, people are listened to and performance improves. Are there still blunders, of course there are but by listening informally and being open they are being picked up earlier before they become major issues.

Worse though than the invisible CEO are those visits that are more like inspections than finding out what is going on. No one learns anything from those and they are just lip-service to engagement.

 

There you go again! What is this different opinion you want discussed ? You've been asked three times and refuse to answer. I say "Troll".

@Sidmouth put it better than me but I was typing at the time.

 

Its termed mbwa - management by walking about - and works brilliantly for good managers that are prepared to listen. If they start with an unhappy organisation it might be a tough ask till things improve but if they do people should become less disenchanted. I do question, though, whether, on the evidence available to the outsider, the current chairman/acting CEO at Minehead has the personality to be successful at mbwa!

 

Its a shame that , on the face of it, the WSR, is losing someone who would have be an ideal candidate for the GM role, good managers are worth their weight in gold, makes you wonder, had he, and not the present chair have been in charge, would the railway be in a better place?

 

Be careful not to confuse managers and directors, Martin - they are not the same role (and arguably suit different personality types).

Not confined to the WSR - I think a weakness in some small organisations (and heritage railways are, in many senses, small organisations) is that directors end up being managers, i.e. get heavily involved in the day-to-day rather than concentrating on the strategic. Often for very good reasons, but it isn't ideal.

Tom

 

May I suggest that next time you reply to one of my comments, you read more than two or three words of it first? I didn't accuse you of being a troll, in fact I said that I didn't think you were. What I did say was that, by constantly repeating the request for "another viewpoint" unchanged, no matter how many other viewpoints other posters made, you were reading like one. Sad to say, the sort of red mist, knee-jerk response you made is another troll-like characteristic. You may not intend to be a troll, but if you continue to sound like one, then the difference becomes somewhat academic.

 

My view is that the role of Directors on heritage railways is twofold:

(1) to lead the discussion which decides strategy (involving all significant stakeholders in that discussion), and then

(2) clearing logjams out of the way which arise to prevent managers and staff (volunteer and paid) implementing that strategy.

It’s working pretty well in Kent but as we know, the laws of physics are different in other parts of the universe.

 

I think @martin1656's point is correct as the chair is also the GM at the moment.

What is striking about the WSR considering how large it is as an organisation is how many people wear multiple hats and have multiple roles.

 

I'm not so sure I see the two as being exclusive, or that the difference is desirable. If we look at the template for large corporates, there's a difference on boards between "executive" and "non-executive" directors, where the "executive" directors are managers in the business, and "non executive" are outsiders brought in for an independent viewpoint. Those execs, in my experience, get very heavily involved in the day to day, albeit from the 50,000ft level.

I don't like too many barriers between shop floor and the top, and directors being arms length feels like one such. The challenge is how to ensure that they have enough space left to deal with strategic as well as tactical matters.

 

So that certain individuals can then buy the assets at firesale prices, and then have their private trainset.

Cock-up or conspiracy; take your pick.

 

I'd add 3, to provide 'air cover' for the professional managers so they can focus on the day job!

 

Should they be dealing with 'tactical matters' though? Should this not be for the relevant department manager to deal with?

I always think 'executive directors' is a bit of a funny one, as we have come to use the word Director to mean 'very senior manager', especially in wholly owned companies. I think the IOW has something closer to the Victorian idea of a board of directors who were essentially elected shareholder reps (and may or may not have relevant expertise), which gives instruction to a paid General Manager, who then cascades it to the managers for rolling stock, track etc.

 

That's something about which I remain to be convinced.

Patrick