Wound Ripped Open

Grief is a tidal wave that over takes you,smashes down upon you with unimaginable force,sweeps you up into its darkness,where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces,only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped...Grief will make a new person out of you,if it doesn't kill you in the making.

- Stephanie Ericsson

Some things don’t get better over time, the hole in your heart still remains.  Having a trial that continues to get postponed is one of the hardest, most emotional rollercoasters I have been on.  This is the second time the trial has been postponed and the third time the process has been delayed.  Emotionally, this has been one of the hardest things to do, especially being so far from family.  The not knowing, uncertainty of what is going on takes it’s toll on you.  It’s hard to explain what someone goes through unless they’ve gone through it themselves.  I don't think my friends understand, although they want to.  It's not something I want them to be able to fully comprehend and understand in the way I do.  Having a family member taken from you at the hands of others is hard; there is no closure.  It's not natural death or an accident.  Death is hard to rationalize when it's at the hands of others.

I can't lie - this week has been extremely hard on me.  And knowing that I'll go through this in another 3 months is also hard.  In three months, it will be a year since he was killed.  As much as I want to be with family at trial, the uncertainty of it is going to actually happen is in the forefront.  While I plan on being there at sentencing, I can't guarantee my presence at the trial.  But during each time the trial is expected to happen, I become OCD in my pursuit of information:  checking every news outlet and texting every relative for the latest information.  Honestly, I'm surprised my work hasn't said anything about my constant checking of news sources.  I'm thankful they understand what I'm going through and appreciate that I still take care of my tasks and responsibilities.  But I'm not certain my friends and team mates understand the toll this takes on someone.  The headaches, the stress, the tiredness, the need to just zone out; are all results of the stress of uncertainty that are hard to explain or comprehend to someone that hasn't been there.  Even trying to put words to my emotions is difficult.  There is no one specific emotion or term to describe it.  

Every time the wound is showing progress and healing, there is something that sets it back.  After losing my father, and all my grandparents, this has been the most difficult loss to date.  Part of that is being forced to remember the circumstances it happened.  At age 19, no healthy, young person should die, especially in the manner in which occurred.  I worry about his sisters and his parents.  His younger sister is very effected by what happened and I miss the person she used to be.  I was with her the day she was brought home from the hospital and am concerned she's not doing what makes her happy because of her grief.  I worry about his father, who was my father's youngest brother and I have the closest bond with in my family.  I know he's affected, but don't always know the right words to say or questions to ask.  His older sister is a lot like me; she keeps it in and doesn't' share her emotions.  All my other relatives, whom have been effected, how have they been doing?  My cousins and I have grown closer throughout this ordeal, but we don't discuss how this has effected us. 

I wish I could make this better for everyone, myself included.  I also wish my friends, team mates, and co-workers could feel the emotions I am going through but at the same time do not want them to experience this.  It's something I wish no person to experience, but have an understanding and empathy towards.  I want closure on what happened and those responsible to be punished.  It's a huge dichotomy containing many mixed emotions.  Closure and time are the only remedies in sight.  The sooner this can me over, the more time we have to heal and get back to living our lives in the way he would have wanted us to.

Needs Assessment

Needs Assessment for Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines is known low cost airfare with excellent customer service.  They stress friendliness and individual pride in their mission statement, as well as providing employees with opportunities for learning and personal growth (Southwest Airlines website).  If training were to be offered to them, the first step is a needs analysis to understand the organizational culture, people targeted for training, and the tasks the training would cover.  Because training is such a broad area, the training focus has been narrowed to the goal of decreasing turn-around-time (TAT).  TAT is the time it takes from when an aircraft lands and docks at the gate to when it is pushed back from the gate and is ready to take off.  TAT a very important metric to airlines, since the more time an aircraft spends in the air, the more money it is making for the company.  Even within TAT, there are many factors to be considered in training:  luggage handling, people flow and movement, cabin readiness, maintenance issues, and flight connections to name a few (Leib, 2010).

Initially, the consultant would want to have conversations with key stakeholders and obtain their support for working with their teams in effort of reducing TAT.  The stakeholders would include:  the person who is championing (and paying for) the training and performance improvement activity and the directors of the respective departments baggage handling, gate representative, flight attendants, maintenance, and logistics.  Customers are also an important stakeholder and can provide information on improvements and the effects of training.  In the initial meeting, the consultant should review the charter and ask what each of the department’s goals and objectives are for the training and improvement activity to ensure the expectations are the same as yours.  The following questions should be asked so an understanding of the culture and each organization’s needs are met:

• What are the expectations for the organization?
• What regulatory policies and constraints exist?
• Are all policies the same between airports, gates, and unions?
• What competencies, skills, and constraints exist in hiring?
• Are there any upcoming changes to the organization or technology used?
• What are the workforce demographics?
• How should the training or performance improvements be conducted? 
• • Who should do the training – internal or external?
  • What should be included?
  • Where the intervention should be held?
  • How long is available for training?
  • What are the ultimate goals?
  • Is there job progression available to employees?

After gaining a basic understanding of the culture, which should also be supplemented with research from articles, websites, and customer experiences, the following plan (with modifications as needed based on the previous conversation) could be proposed:

1.   Send surveys/questionnaires to the departments involved in the training and performance improvement activity.  This will be a quick and effective way to gather data from employees, especially if done electronically.  One of the downsides is a low rate of return and potentially only employees who are at one extreme or the other will return them (Noe, 2010).  Surveys should include the following topics with questions a mix of ranked, multiple choice, and short answer types (Morrison et al., 2007).

          a.  What issues exist with performing to expectations?
          b.  Do documented tasks exist and are they sufficient?
          c.  What motivates them to meet goals and expectations?

2.   Review the following data and records:
          a. TAT metrics and definition how it is measured
          b. Employee morale data
          c. Customer satisfaction metrics
          d. Lost luggage metrics
          e. Customer loading/unloading metrics
          f.  Value Stream Maps or past Process Maps
          g. Previous improvement activities
          h. Current training materials
          i.  Training records

3.  Perform interviews with limited people in each department.  The goal is to draw out answers through conversation and see if the employees offer additional insights, concerns, hypotheses or best practices throughout the conversation.  By allowing off-subject wandering, providing the original questions are answered, more data and information can be discovered that you wouldn’t have typically uncovered by sticking to a script or survey (Noe, 2010).

4.  If time is available, observation of people and tasks would be a great addition to understanding the organization, people, and tasks.  Observing the gate attendants, maintenance crews, customers, and watching the attendants ready the plane for the next trip could provide invaluable information.  The interactions between employees within the same department, working alongside other departments and with the customer provide information on the organizations culture and processes in addition to tasks.

Overall, the analysis phase of training and performance improvement is extremely important to the success of the intervention.  Without delving into the current and desired state analysis, the Instructional Designer (ID) will not have a clear roadmap of where the organization is and where it wants to get to.  The interventions, whether training, process re-engineering, ergonomics, or some other method, will not provides the turn-by-turn guidance or steps needed to move closer to the desired state.  Both Stolovitch (2002) and Noe (2010) stress the importance of understanding where you are and where you want to be.  Without analysis of people, culture, and process you won’t be able to select the correct intervention appropriate to the situation (Noe, 2010; Beach, 2005).  In training, there is no “one size fits all” solution.  Careful analysis is needed to obtain beneficial results.

References

Beach, L. (2005).  Leadership and the Art of Change:  A practical Guide to Organizational Transformation.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Leib, J.  (2010). “Southwest Airlines hustles to reduce turnaround times”.  The Denver Post.  Retrieved July 5, 2011 from http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16175981

Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., & Kemp, J. E. (2007). Designing effective instruction (5th ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. 

Southwest Airlines.  Website retrieved July 5, 2011 from www.iflyswa.com

 

Stolovitch, H. D., and Keeps, E. J. (2002). Telling ain’t training. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.