Driving Excellence by Mark Aesch

Mark Aesch, the CEO of the Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority (RGRTA), describes in his book Driving Excellence how to take an organization driven by mediocrity and drive them towards excellence.  Prior to his tenure, this organization was operated like a standard government agency, no accountability, no desire to achieve, and beholden to the union.  Aesch was able to bring a private sector mentality to a public agency and transform them from an underachieving, dysfunctional, and spendthrift organization to a budget conscious and efficient one.

                Aesch makes several good points like create a culture of no ego, embrace accountability, and foster a culture of analysis and action.  But the concept that I found the most unique was his discussion of decision making.   He says there are two types of decisions, tough ones and sad ones.  “Making a business decisions is not like choosing which house to buy or what color car to get.  These decisions are rooted in subjective judgments that largely defy external guidance, whereas business decisions are mainly objective calls.  By implementing sound strategy with a quality measurement system and a commitment to continuous improvement, leaders can almost always determine what the right call is, and unlike football, they don’t even need an instant replay. Truly tough calls – in the sense of intellectually difficult, puzzling, bedeviling – are few and far between.  And yet many decisions that we perceive to be objectively right and in line with the truth tear our guts out when we make them (as we always must).  These are sad decisions”.  We need to differentiate determining what to do, the decision, from the action required, the implementation of the decision.  When we combine them, decision making with action of implementation,, it clouds the truth and results in the decision being subjective, based on our emotions.  This makes us perceive the decision as tough because we don’t have facts to backup an emotional or subjective decision.  Listen, decision making is something we all face and we could save ourselves significant stress and consternation if we can make objective, fact based decisions and shy away from subjective, emotional ones.