G2 On Leadership
If I ran the TSA . . .
It’s now obvious that Homeland Security officials misjudged the public reaction to new airport security measures.What should leaders do when confronted with a widespread backlash against a decision they still believe to be sound and in which they have invested heavily? Should the Transportation Security Administration try to weather the storm, or plot a strategic retreat?
EZ
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KLMNO Todd Henshaw is the
director of executive leadership programs at Wharton. Previously, he directed the leadership programatWest Point.
The key elements within this issue are trust
and responsibility. It is the responsibility of the TSA to protect us, period. TSA leadersmust be prepared tomake unpopular decisions regarding our safety. Our sensitivities and complaintsmatter, but
in this case, leadershipmeans doing something unpopular to keep us safe and fulfilling the responsibilities associated with the TSA’s mission. It’s time to deal with the fallout of this tough decision, but not an opportunity to retreat just because some citizens can’t fathom giving up some of their privacy for security. Congress should lead by focusing on what is
right for our country rather than what we want. Pablo Eisenberg is a senior
fellow at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute.
Homeland Security, charged with protecting
American citizens against terrorist attacks, has installed body scans inmost of ourmajor airports to detect any bombs or dangerous materials thatmight endanger those who fly our airlines. It is an appropriate decision that should not be reversed by outcries fromthe public. The administration and the Congress should
strongly support the policy of full-body scans and not be deterred by the complaints of some fliers. If people refuse these scans, they should not be allowed to fly. This is no time for our political leaders to
backtrack, nomatter what the initial public response is.
TED S. WARREN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Awoman prepares to carry her dog through a metal detector as a TSAagent looks on.
Excerpts from On Leadership, a Web feature exploring vision and motivation by Steven Pearlstein and Raju Narisetti. To see videos and read the entire panel’s comments, go to
www.washingtonpost.com/leadership.
Robert J. Goodwin is chief
executive and co-founder of ExecutivesWithout Borders.
It doesn’tmatter if you have served in themilitary,
are young or old, are a former law enforcement officer or have a top-level security clearance. When standing in the security line, everyone is treated the same — like a potential terrorist — and that, inherently, is the problem. The system, likemany government programs,
is built on a base line of “fairness.” This approach removes common-sense decision- making fromthe process and, as a result, Grandma’s walker and Junior’s leg braces are weapons until proved otherwise. Not to mention the hip-replacement-and-pacemaker crowd that sets off themetal detectors. There is no doubt that the TSA’s security
measures are in response to legitimate and actual threats, but the process andmethodology for who is selected for screening is flawed. Admittingmistakes and pledging to both
learn fromand correct themshows a level of responsiveness and concern that people appreciate.We all have the same goal — security without unduly limiting our personal freedoms — and the TSA needs to do a better job of engaging the public it is sworn to protect.
Ken Adelman is co-
founder ofMovers and Shakespeares, which offers executive training and leadership development.
Airport security has become a performance
art. It reassures passengers they’re safe. And it reinforces national hysteria over terrorism. Get real: Some terrorist attack will come. Some people will be killed. But the nation will survive. Yearly, auto accidents bring 33,000-plus
deaths. That’s a lot. Every time you turn the ignition key, you risk death. Yet you keep turning that key. You accept that risk, realizing it’s a lot better than being grounded.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2010 Donald F. Kettl is dean of
the School of Public Policy at the University ofMaryland.
Since everyone knew this was coming, the TSA failed
in talking people through the new steps, what was happening and why, in advance, instead of allowing iPhone recordings to rule the agenda. Once a leader has tomount explanations after the fact, the game ismostly lost. The TSA is in a tough spot. Every encounter
with the screening process is destined to be unpleasant: inconvenient waits, intrusions into personal privacy, the risks of rude workers — all the fun of dealing with the IRS, with the awful specter of September 11 in the background as the inescapable reason for the encounter. The only real hope is not strategic reversal or
weathering the storm. The TSA needs a frank conversation with the public about itsmission and our shared interest in its success. The agency’s job isn’t really screening passengers, but keeping travel safe. A little less debate about touching our junk and a littlemore about safe skies would go a long way toward changing the tone — and giving the late-night comedians a smaller target.
Carol Kinsey Goman is an
executive coach, author and keynote speaker.
The best way for any leader to deal with a
widespread backlash to change is to avoid it in the first place. Bring those who will bemost affected by the change — unions, frontline workers, customers — into the planning process. Remember, no one likes change done to them, whilemost people willingly support change that they are involved in creating.
A very close-up viewof onemanufacturer of airport scanners BY ANNIE LOWERY
Ofall the inventivenamesenragedand unamused people have conjured for air- port backscatter X-ray scanning ma- chines, “genital visualizer” is the one that comes to mind as I assess the curves and folds of Peter Kant. Kant is an executive vice president at Rapiscan, which makes such machines, and we’re standing in a room in Rapiscan’s offices in Arlington County. He is demonstrating for me — nothing to be afraid of, he says, without saying so—the Rapiscan Secure 1000, in use in about 70 U.S. airports. Two indus- trial-blue boxes, the size of voting booths, are separated by a rubber mat with yellow crime-scene-type footprints. Kant gamely hops in and takes the stick-’em- up pose. When the image pops up, a whir and
about 10 seconds later, I can easily see wherehis belt cinches his stomach. I note the pronation of his knees. These are details otherwise obscured by his loose suit. The picture is not so clear that I can make out nipples. It is not a photograph. Nevertheless, there are otherappendages clearly visible. I hope Rapiscan is paying him extra for this. If we were in an airport, Kant notes,
the image would appear for only a few seconds, so long as the scanning software did not flag anything suspect. The ma- chines have no capacity to save or store images, he says. (The case where mar- shals in a courthouse in Florida saved 35,000 images from a scanner? Those were not agents of the Transportation Security Administration, and that was not a Rapiscan machine.) Nevertheless, the recent furor over the
TSA screening process has meant furor over the graphic images. And furor over the graphic images has meant grief for Rapiscan — three syllables, by the way, with a short “a” as in “sat.” Of late, everyone from the stolidly apolitical to hippie parents to civil libertarians, from the Huffington Post to the Drudge Re- port, has taken aim at it. Rapiscan’s response to this controver-
sy? First, it says, it just makes the scan- ners — it does not tell its clients how to use them, and it has nothing to do with TSA’s aggressive new pat-down proce- dures. Second, Rapiscan says, itcanmake better scanners. It is aware of the contro- versy and at pains to show everyone how it is workingonways tomake the security process easier on air travelers. Recent “Don’t touch my junk!” furor
aside, timeshavebeengoodfor Rapiscan. Terrorism and war are good for security contractors, and the previous decade has seen a lot of both. “People scanning,” in industry lingo, makes up a minority of Rapiscan’s business. The company also makes luggage and cargo scanners, mail scanners and scanners for shipping con- tainers. But the people-scanning busi- ness is growing. About a year ago, the firmwon$173 million inTSAcontracts to produce Secure 1000s for airports. (L-3 Communications, a competitor, won a similar-size deal.) About 1,000 machines will be in place by the end of next year. Investors in Rapiscan’s parent, OSI
Systems, seem mostly unperturbed by the media blitz, and the company’s stock recently started rising again after dip-
PHOTOS BY JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES
Full-body scanners are in use at most major airports, including Denver International Airport, above. Rapiscan, a Virginia-based scanning manufacturer, says it is working on integrating a shoe scanner into its machines and creating dynamic scanners, so people can walk through them without stopping.
In the longer term, Rapiscan is work-
ping a bit. Some publications and pundits have
questioned the company’s lobbying and ties to government, noting that its chief executive, Deepak Chopra (not that Deepak Chopra) accompanied President Obamaon part of his trip toAsia and that Michael Chertoff, former Department of Homeland Security chief, has lobbied for thecompany. But thecompany notes that there are no real allegations of impropri- ety on its part. Of course Rapiscan has close ties to and lobbies the government: It is a government contractor. Rapiscan is confident that scanning—
specifically, more-automated scanning— is the future of airport security. And its argument isn’t just about safety. It’s about efficiency. “For this newest airport model, the precision of the data is very high,” Kant says. “We have very low false-alarm rates, meaning fewer people need to go through secondary pat- downs.” In the meantime, Rapiscan is building
a software patch so that the TSAscreener looking at the X-ray image sees nothing but a plain, test-dummy-type body, with any anomalies flagged. It is also creating
ing on ways to make the airport security process less unpleasant as well. (The TSA says much the same thing.) It is working on integrating a shoe scanner into its machines so passengers don’t have to take theirs off, and on dynamic scanners, so that people can walk through ma- chines without stopping.Kantnotes that, as far as the hassle of airport security is concerned, “bag clutter” is actually a bigger challenge for Rapiscan than “peo- ple clutter.” It’s easier to see whether there is something dangerous tucked into a bra or a pocket than to seewhether one item out of 100 packed into a crowd- ed carry-on is dangerous. Kant also says the company’s polling
ATSAagent at Denver International Airport pats down a traveler just before the Thanksgiving holiday travel rush. Rapiscan says its scanners have very low false- alarm rates, necessitating fewpat-downs.
new sensitivities and add-ons. Soon, Kant says, Rapiscan machines will have more advanced threat-recognition sys- tems, sensitive to liquids, ceramics, guns, sharp metal objects and any number of other possible weapons or illegal items.
The machines will automatically flag contraband, removing the need for a TSA representative to review most of the X-rays. (The government would like that, too, because it would cut down on per- sonnel costs.)
202-334-6200 Buy it. Sell it.
GHI
washingtonpost.com CLASSIFIEDS
C304 MC 6x1.25
shows that 99 percent of passengers would rather go through the Rapiscan machine than be patted down. In Lon- don’sHeathrow Airport, where Rapiscan machines are in use, 95 percent of pas- sengers opt for a X-ray rather than a pat-down, it says. Independently collect- ed data back Rapiscan up. And a recent CBS News poll found that more than 80 percent of Americans approve of the use of the machines in airports. OnethingRapiscanmayhavegoingfor
it is that when it comes to airline security — unlike, say, toll-free customer service lines—most people would prefer to deal with a machine than with a person.
Annie Lowrey reports on economics and business for Slate.
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