Here is an article developed during my work with the London Underground. The key here is all about 'internal working relationships'

1. T
o succeed, all businesses must estab-
lish strong working relationships with
customers, partners, suppliers and
other stakeholders. This is especially
true in the world of London
Underground (LU), where responsibility for main-
taining, upgrading and renewing the assets of the
underground system, a £30bn investment over the
next 30 years, has been taken on under public pri-
vate partnership (PPP) contracts by two consortia,
Metronet and Tube Lines. Metronet brings together
the skills and resources of five core consortium
members: WS Atkins, Bombardier, EDF, Thames
Water and Balfour Beatty.Tube Lines brings togeth-
er the talents of Bechtel and Amey.
Both organisations aim to combine the best of
the commercial marketplace with LU’s unique
knowledge of the underground system. To do this
they must integrate staff from the old LU with a
diverse range of people from different commercial
organisations, each of which brings its own legacy,
practices and culture, and create a common identity
and way of working. Steve Furmston, contracts
manager at Tube Lines, has said: ‘The contract isn’t
JULY 200530
London tube
Delays, over-crowding or broken-down
trains mean that any Londoner with a
weekly travel card will have a horror story
to tell about the capital’s underground
system.What commuters may not realise is
that behind the scenes a consortium of
companies is developing its relationships to
modernise the system, from the inside out.
Gregor Marshall and Ted Marra
explain how it works
tube
test
Allphotographs©TransportforLondon2005

2. 31
black and white but a good partnership will facili-
tate its management, help us work through the
grey areas and better ensure that everyone is think-
ing win-win.’
It is not surprising that both Metronet and Tube
Lines cite partnership as one of their fundamental
values. It is a concept that all levels of management
are accountable for as part of their individual objec-
tives, but putting high ideals about partnership into
practice is not easy, especially when there are many
different business relationships to negotiate.
The success of each partnership can be judged
from three perspectives:
• value for money
• whether the work specified by the contract is
being delivered and if there are visible signs of
improvement for long-suffering London com-
muters
• the quality of the relationship
These perspectives are all interrelated.The quality of
relationships, for example, influences the level and
speed of delivery which, through the contract
penalty and incentive mechanisms, drive profit for
the PPP contractor and cost for the client (see figure
1). There are also strong feedback mechanisms at
work, as a delayed or problematic delivery of the
contract can have detrimental effects on relationship
quality. The fact that much of the work of the con-
sortia must be done in a four hour (maximum) slot
when the tube is closed creates a massive challenge
to the maintaining of progress. Over-running engi-
neering works mean train delays, compounding
public criticism and diminishing staff motivation.
This, in turn, can further undermine delivery.
Cause and effect
A central task of the partnership is to manage this
chain of cause and effect and maintain the right bal-
ance between the PPP contractors and LU. Both
Metronet andTube Lines recognised from the outset
that managing relationship quality would be a key
enabler to progress. Every day there are hundreds of
interactions across organisational boundaries: from
the calls to the fault reporting centre made by LU
station management; to the exchange of longer-
term planning information among senior manage-
ment.The overall health of a relationship is made up
from the quality of each individual interaction. Low
London tube
JULY 2005
Gregor Marshall is a direc-
tor of Symbia Ltd. For
more information contact
e: gmarshall@symbia.com
Ted Marra is an associate
of Symbia and heads the
Centre for Innovation
Management Europe. For
more information contact
e: tmarra@symbia.com

3. JULY 200532
London tube
Figure 1:
Interrelated partnership
perspectives
Figure 2.
The number and quality of
client/partner interactions.
Relationship
quality
LU view
PPP
contractor
view
Delivery of contract Cost and profit
quality interactions and negative attitudes may go
unnoticed but the effects can be devastating. If
behaviour becomes defensive, working arrange-
ments can lose the flexibility needed to overcome
day-to-day challenges. In essence, the challenge is to
shift the distribution of interactions, eliminating
those that are unacceptable, increasing the number
of ‘special’ interactions and reducing the variability
to give a consistently good experience.This is illus-
trated in figure 2.
Metronet has explicitly addressed this issue by
defining ‘good relationship practices’ in tangible,
practical terms and communicating a policy
requirement across the organisation. A similar
approach has also been adopted by the LU engi-
neering team, which has improved its stakeholder
satisfaction rating by over 30 per cent.‘Quality rela-
tionships’ should always be defined, measured and
managed, and in the case of LU, Metronet and Tube
Lines, a 30 year contract means that the smooth
interaction between the parties is essential to over-
coming gaps and inadequacies while supporting
efficient planning and decision-making in the
longer term.
But how is ‘relationship quality’ defined? It
requires both sides to jointly decide which aspects
of performance and behaviour are most important.
Using focus groups, both Metronet and Tube Lines
identified the primary attributes of a good relation-
ship as communication, reliability, pro-activity,
knowledge and empathy, for example. Each primary
attribute was then broken down further until
around 20 explicit criteria were agreed as a basis for
defining relationship quality.
The next step is to measure. Metronet and Tube
Lines do this through a monthly process of sam-
pling up to 100 staff from across the relationship,
and asking them to score the defined criteria and
provide comments if appropriate. To reinforce the
partnership, this measurement is a two-way process
which captures not only LU’s view of the effective-
ness of its PPP partner, but also the partner’s view of
how effective LU is as a client.
Active listening
Paul Vincent, change manager at Tube Lines,
believes: ‘You can’t help your customer and your
customer can’t help you unless you listen and learn.’
The comments received from staff as a result of
monthly samples were much more useful than
numbers alone. The information was consolidated
and analysed to give a regular report which tracks
the trends and adds commentary and context to the
Unacceptable Acceptable Special Quality of
interactionsPoor Good

4. 33
London tube
data. Management can use such information to
identify current concerns and, over time, build up a
picture of systematic problems. ‘What’s important’,
says Andrew Cleaves, Tube Lines director of assur-
ance and contracts, ‘is that you take the feedback at
face value. The approach needs to be simple and
uncomplicated, not a statistical exercise. It’s just lis-
tening to real people give real feedback.’
Stephen Jones, customer satisfaction manager at
Metronet claims that the value of this analysis and
review process is that ‘any satisfaction score below a
certain threshold will result in an automatic follow-
up meeting with the customer to determine first-
hand what the issues are and avoid any misunder-
standings’. So far, so good, but listening to the cus-
tomer will be in vain unless relationship quality is
actively managed.A simple but effective cycle is fol-
lowed by both organisations, as illustrated in figure 3.
From a customer perspective, the approach out-
lined in figure 3 provides visibility and enables
action to be taken as a result of their issues imme-
diately. Over time, the number of unsolicited com-
ments such as: ‘I look forward to seeing some
action’ have been diminishing as both Metronet and
Tube Lines focus on making the partnership work
more effectively.
JULY 2005
Figure 3.
An active management cycle.
From a customer perspective,
this provides visibility and
enables action to be taken as a
result of their issues immediately
Taking action
Decision criteria are set so that when the customer
satisfaction level is below a certain level, an auto-
matic follow-up meeting takes place with the cus-
tomer to review the situation. Metronet utilises a
‘flash bulletin’ that immediately communicates to
LU the status of faults which can directly impact LU
and the public. System as well as local issues are
identified and Tube Lines utilises a change council
to review the feedback.
This change council consists of a cross-section of
the business from management to on-site level, and
looks after the partnership exclusively. Executives
are briefed on the results of the change council
meetings. Graphs showing performance across 13
periods are then integrated into the LU board’s
monthly performance review. In addition, the cus-
tomer information is also shared throughout both
organisations at team and individual level.
Listen to the customer
Feedback to the
customer on
actions taken
Act on the
information
Work on London Underground’s
tube lines is designed to minimise
the disruption to services.

5. JULY 200534
London tube
A Jubilee line LU train.
The Jubilee line is London’s
newest underground line, but
serves stations that opened 100
years ago.Work started on the
£3.5bn project to extend the
line in 1993 and it was fully
operational by December 1999.
Approximately 406,000 people
use the line every day.
From the perspective of Metronet and Tube Lines, this customer-
driven improvement process has had many advantages.These
include:
• knowing where the organisation stands in the customer’s
opinion and whether progress is being made
• helping drive positive customer-focused change is a particular-
ly useful benefit for a heavily engineering or technically-based
organisation where softer elements such as ‘the customer’ can
often take a back seat to engineering expertise
• providing a structured, disciplined approach for gaining cus-
tomer feedback
• providing better focus in terms of identifying where the issues
are, as many organisations do not effectively set priorities, but
instead attempt to attack everything - diluting their limited
resources and making little forward progress
• helping to identify trends and patterns much faster, enabling
both organisations to improve their responsiveness
• helping avoid ‘filtering’ of information, allowing the true voice
of the customer to come through
Is it perfect? Neither organisation would admit
to that, but they understand that ‘active listening’ is
an excellent step in the right direction and should
continue to strengthen the partnership. In the inter-
ests of continuous improvement and feedback from
their customers, Metronet andTube Lines have iden-
tified a number of ways to enhance the current
approach to make it more effective.
The ultimate aim, according to Furmston, is to
‘change the culture - to just keep plugging away at
it and keep people responsible and accountable for
partnership at all levels.They must think about how
their service influences the partnership.’ More will
also be done in terms of what is communicated and
how it is communicated - getting the right infor-
mation to the right people within Metronet and
Tube Lines as well as within LU, the customer
organisation, is paramount.
Many organisations claim to listen carefully to
their customers but few do it well. Metronet and
Tube Lines have gone further than most. In doing so
they have learned some important lessons:
• keep strategies for customer feedback simple,
practical, relevant and uncomplicated
• utilise the information to identify opportunities
Tracking the benefits

6. 35
London tube
for improvement, monitor progress in building
relationships and stimulate meaningful dialogue
with your customer at all levels and across all the
key interfaces
• ensure that some rational approach is utilised to
set priorities for improvement so that limited
resources are not diluted and efforts remain
focused on what is most important and what
aligns with the customer’s objectives
• hold regular reviews at all levels
• gain management buy-in/ownership by agree-
ing to make the survey and information from it
an integral part of board-level reporting, and by
holding staff accountable for managing the rela-
tionship with their customer counterpart
• don’t confuse this qualitative approach with a
statistical exercise. The trends and data provided
are useful indicators which must be used in con-
junction with information on how well the con-
tract is being delivered to paint the full picture
Jones adds that the listening approach has to be
comprehensively adopted by the business and
viewed by the business as being important:
‘Ownership for the approach has to be built.
Getting buy-in at all levels will ensure it works
properly. In addition, the approach also helps the
organisation to catch issues earlier - to be proactive
instead of just reactive,’ he said.
The focus here is on finding better ways for manag-
ing and enhancing the customer relationship,
which is a critical element of the excellence model.
Management must lead by example and embody the
values of the organisation. Given that both Metronet
and Tube Lines have ‘partnership’ as a value, a clear
and sustained message as well as a set of practices
and behaviours must flow. At Metronet and Tube
Lines this is beginning to happen. Can you say the
same for your organisation?
JULY 2005
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