GMCS Editorial: This article is an excellent article on the current
management leadership at the Pennsylvania Convention Center and their personal
approach to labor / management relations.
I have had the pleasure of talking with Mr.
McClintock for many hours over the last year and have come to appreciate his
approach to labor relations and the relationship between labor and management. Like me,
he is one of just a handful of labor relation’s professionals in the field that
approaches his work from a collaborative position and has achieved significant
results in the process. We cannot always
choose who is sitting at the table across from us, but we can choose how we approach
that relationship and whether we do it in a collaborative or adversarial based
approach.
A marriage of management and labor
Just over a quarter-century ago, Robert "Bob" McClintock, a top executive in the management company that now runs the Convention Center, landed his first real job in convention center management.
"I started out as a
housekeeping supervisor at the old Philadelphia Civic Center," McClintock
said.
He was working there as part
of an outside management firm hired to improve labor relations at the Civic
Center.
Does anything ever change in
Philadelphia?
Maybe not, because now
McClintock works for SMG, the management company hired in December by the
Convention Center, the Civic Center's successor building. A priority? Fix labor
relations with many of the same union leaders McClintock, now 54, met in 1987.
Maybe one thing has changed.
These days, McClintock no
longer directly supervises the folks who clean restrooms. He is chief operating
officer of SMG's convention division, in charge of 71 convention centers.
In May, SMG and the center's
board made headlines by signing a customer satisfaction agreement with four of
the six unions that had worked in the Convention Center, with two that failed
to sign on time locked out. The agreement was designed to reduce cost and labor
hassles after those factors, among others, caused the center to lose bookings.
Question: What leads to good
labor-management relations?
Answer: Strong management and
strong labor is a very good recipe for success. It's when you have the
imbalance - if you're weak and labor is strong, or if labor is weak and you are
strong - you have problems.
Q: Really? I bet a lot of
companies would like weak labor and strong management.
A: The reason I disagree is
that labor unions are there to represent employees, to provide them with good
working conditions, to make them feel in a good place. If management is strong
and labor is weak, very often you have dissatisfied employees.
Q: Why is that?
A: They don't feel like their
voice is heard. When you have strong labor relations, they feel their voice is
heard. Labor and management work in a very strong, harmonious relationship and
it works extremely well.
Q: Interesting, because the
center's unions had long complained that the center's prior management was weak
and ineffectual.
A: I'll be honest in saying
with you that we all had to fix our houses. We as management had to fix our
houses. Labor had to fix their house.
Q: What do you like about the
convention center business?
A: It is an amazing process
when you realize that in the course of a week, there are going to be hundreds
of people constructing a show. Then there are going to be thousands of people
attending that show. Then, it's all going to get torn down in two days and it
just repeats itself over again.
Q: Sounds like a short attention
span kind of business.
A: I have no problem
admitting two things. One is that I have OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder).
The other is I have a short attention span.
Q: How does OCD impact work?
A: If you are in this
business and you have a little OCD, it really helps, because the key to success
of any event is attention to detail.
Q: How about at home?
A: My kids laugh at me. My
wife will leave me alone and say, 'That spice cabinet is really messy.' She'll
come back in an hour and it's organized.
ROBERT
McCLINTOCK
Title: Chief operating officer,
convention center division, SMG.
Job: Manages 15 million square
feet in 71 convention centers.
Home: Linwood, N.J.
Family: Wife, Carol; children,
Colleen, 22, twin sons, Chris and Kevin, 19, Katie, 11.
Diplomas: Radnor High School; College
of William and Mary, political science.
Major events: Headed support teams at the
2009 G-20 Summit, Pittsburgh and the 2011 NATO Summit, Chicago.
Beer: Stella Artois.
Travel ritual: Finish the crossword before
the plane takes off.
SMG
Where: West Conshohocken
Business: Operates convention centers,
stadiums, arenas.
Employment: 20,000 worldwide, 170
locally.
Ownership: Privately held. Majority
owner is American Capital, Ltd., a private equity firm.
Major centers: McCormick Place, Chicago;
Cobo Center, Detroit; Moscone Center, San Francisco.
Nearby: Pennsylvania Convention
Center, Wildwoods Convention Center, Meadowlands Exposition Center.
Source: Philly.com
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