Toys, Fire, and Staff Engagement

Me as Sherlock Holmes on my last day at PTM

In late 2012, I interviewed to be the Manager of Visitor Services at the Please Touch Museum. During the panel interview with PTM's leadership team, the VP this position would be reporting to could not exude any more disinterest and I was convinced there was no way I was getting the job. I quickly refocused my energy more on winning over the rest of the room in hopes of being considered for future openings at the museum. Needless to say, I was shocked when I actually landed the role.

Soon after starting, the situation around my hiring became evident. A series of events had occurred prior to the position being posted that I was not aware of, but would have a major impact on not only my time at PTM, but the rest of my career to date. Here's a quick breakdown of what I was walking into when I started at PTM in February of 2013:

1. Please Touch Museum, after many successful years in a small building behind the Franklin Institute, made the decision to move to a larger facility as part of a major waterfront redevelopment project at Penn's Landing.

2. That project never came to light and PTM quickly pivoted, moving into Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park, a building from the 1876 Centennial Exhibition that was in rough shape. This move happened in 2008, just before the start of the Great Recession.

3. The Visitor Services team, under the Operations umbrella, was run by a Director, a well-loved and respected manager, and a team of four supervisors.

4. The Director of Visitor Services moved into a development role, and everyone from the VP of Operations to the Visitor Services team both wanted and expected the manager to be promoted.

5. Museum leadership, over the objections of the VP of Operations, decided not to promote the manager.

6. The manager left the museum, and a decision was made not to promote any staff or supervisors and hire externally.

7. I was hired, despite no one on the team wanting me there, and was not given any of the above context when I started at the museum, ready to work with a new team.

8. Two of the Visitor Services Supervisors were actively working on leaving their roles, with one moving to another department and another going to work with the former manager at their new job within a few weeks of my start.

Me, clueless, and just happy to be there

My boss, colleagues, and my entire team

As one may imagine, this was not the ideal way to start a job. Any time I walked into the supervisor office or up to the staff in the exhibits, I was met with side eye at best and open hostility at worst. I could not understand why, in a museum filled with toys and a focus on learning through play, everyone was so miserable. All I knew is that it was my job to fix whatever the problem was.

First, I had to hire two new Visitor Services Supervisors to replace the two who, like my predecessor, were exceptionally well-liked by the staff and my boss. I ended up offering the jobs to two folks from the Franklin Institute, one of whom I had worked closely with for years and another who came highly recommended. This was a universally hated idea. In fact, after one of their interviews, my colleagues on the panel accused me of prepping the candidate because his answers were to good. I had them call him back in and ask any questions of the top of their heads to prove that he was just that good. My boss' exact reaction to my bringing in two outsiders was, and I quote, "It's your ass if it doesn't work." It probably would've been easier to hire from within, but I was on a time crunch and the staff hated me, so I went with external hires. Spoiler alert: this paid off in the end.

During that hiring process, my main focus was earning the trust and respect of the staff. This was accomplished by doing two things. One was creating a March Madness tournament of children's television shows complete with brackets and a voting schedule, and posting the tournament on my open office door. This drew people to my doorway, where we'd discuss the merits of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles versus Rugrats, which often led to chats about the work we did there and PTM's mission. Gradually, people became more comfortable coming to my office and having a chat.

As fun as that was, the second thing I did was more important. Through these chats about kids TV shows in my office doorway, I got a sense of what people liked and disliked about the work they did. The biggest dislike by far was working in the supermarket exhibit. I imagine this is universal among workers in children's museums - constantly cleaning up all of the toy food and other props in the market wears on you. There's nothing worse then picking up a plastic apple for the 17th time that hour to find it coated in some kid's drool.

I immediately adjusted the daily schedule to reduce the amount of time staff would have to spend in any one place, which was begrudgingly appreciated. But what truly won them over is that I went into that supermarket exhibit several times each day and cleaned it up for them. In addition to that, I began shadowing them at other posts throughout the museum, asking them to show me how to do things, asking for their input on how it could be better, and taking action based on their feedback whenever possible.

By the time Maggie and Alex, the two supervisors I hired, had joined us and got their feet under them, the staff had begun warming up to me. Maggie and Alex were also an absolute dream team and adjusted to their roles exceptionally well. But the three of us had yet to win over the rest of the museum. Things literally had to burn down for that to happen.

That's not a metaphor. In May of 2013, there was a fire in the building. My team and I cleared the entire building of guests in under two minutes. As we took stock of who was outside, we realized several folks from the back office team did not evacuate, assuming this was another in a long line of false alarms from our old system. I ran back into the building with another colleague, through the smoke that was pouring out of the front door and up to the mezzanine offices to get everyone outside. While that was happening, my boss was running toward the fire with another member of the operations team, attempting to get it under control before it did too much damage. Six months later, three of the four people who ran into the burning building were no longer with the museum, but that's another story for another day.

This proved to be the catalyst for changing how I was perceived in that institution. My boss and I developed a great working relationship. He, and several others, apologized for how I was treated in my first few months and I still use him as a reference to this day. The significant improvement in morale on my team was noticed, and I attempted to build on that by engaging more departments in the work and making some institutional changes. I wrote about those attempts back in 2014 on the Philadelphia Emerging Museum Professionals website. First, in an article titled Improving Staff Relations and then again in one titled The Reality of Staff Relations.

The whole point of writing this was just to highlight those two articles as it shows where I really started focusing on staff engagement. Of course I got a bit longwinded because I love giving context, but the fact of the matter is that I have been focusing on staff engagement for at least 12 years now. That focus wasn't something that I learned in a class or was told to do, but instead it came from necessity. It was clear that there was a problem, and the obvious answer was to improve the relationship between the frontline team and the institution that employed them. In other words, it wasn't rocket science. I, as a twenty-something manager in a difficult environment, was able to identify the problem and its solution. All I had to do is treat the staff well, listen to their feedback, and involve them in decision-making.

It's comically simple, but it is still met with resistance in many workplaces. In any organization with a customer-facing team, that team is your greatest asset. The role of any manager or leader is to provide that team with the exact level of care and attention you expect them to provide your customer base. In my work since leaving PTM, providing excellent service and meaningful engagement for my team has been at the center of everything I do, and a quick look at the Google reviews for the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum shows that it is effective. Most of the reviews highlight how amazing the visitor experience team is at that institution. My all-time favorite review is this one-star review that calls to light several issues that particular guest had with their museum experience, but still calls out how great the frontline team is.

In a quote that always appears in my leadership training, Bruce I. Jones of the Disney Institute says "Our cast members are the ones making magic every day. If they weren't happy, it would be difficult for them to make our guests happy." It is truly that simple. That quote, which I first heard as a Disney Cast Member, has become a central part of my philosophy when it comes to building a positive and mutually beneficial workplace culture. Treat your employees the way you expect them to treat your clients, involve stakeholders from all levels in decision making, and constantly solicit and react to their feedback. You will be happy you did!