10 things I learnt working at London 2012

I worked at LOCOG (London Organising Committee for the Olympic & Paralympic Games) for over three years as the Head of Spectator/Customer Experience. It taught me a myriad of life lessons (including never stand next to a female Olympic boxer if you don’t want to assess your appalling levels of personal fitness). There were obvious lessons in mega event planning, strategy and programme management, but it was those less obvious lessons that stick with me today:

It’s ok to be the person singing from a different hymn sheet…

….although it’s not always that much fun.

No previous Olympics’ had had a team focused solely on the customer. I know…. seems unbelievable, but true. The 2008 Beijing Games, whilst a massive, shiny, behemoth of a Games did not have anyone associated to customer design. Here I was in 2009, a team of one* in charge of planning the Spectator Experience, with no budget and very little remit. Pushing water up hill doesn’t quite describe it. Being described as the person who consistently asked annoying questions and had unrealistic demands makes you super popular, I can tell you. Questions such as ‘ how do we make sure customer service is fun on London Underground’ made me loads of friends. Not.

* By 2012 we had grown to a team of 45 plus a wonderful team of volunteers. That proves we either gained a fair amount of traction around planning for customers, or they just decided to surround me with a bunch of people to prevent me from asking any more annoying questions.

Doing it for the first time means you get to basically make it up….

…and that is fun! So here’s the secret to how we planned to deliver 11 million people the most memorable experience of their life (other than maybe getting married or having a baby…obviously): my Mother actually designed the London 2012 Games.

All other departments at an Olympics are given a tome-like guide (and scary-ass schedule) to follow. A sacred Olympic ‘how-to’ set of documents, projects and timelines. I had nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. So we totally made up what we were doing, mostly as and when we realised something had to be done.

Hmmmm…..we’ll need to design the experience, so lets create a Spectator Vision. First time the Olympics have had one of those. Ok, let’s segment 11 million ticket holders into some groupings to help us plan;…segments, not had those before! Let’s pull apart the venues and look at it from a customer perspective (that went down like a bucket of cold sick with…well, just about everybody). Each day we came in and tackled the next thing, not knowing particularly what we were doing, but with an absolute focus on the people who would be ‘using’ the Games.

I figured if I kept planning with my Mum in mind (and the grief I would get if she had a crappy Games) then I couldn’t go too badly wrong…she was my focus. Ensuring she could understand the information, the system processes, cope with the walks from the tube and standing in queues, and afford to buy some food and a piece of Olympic merchandise. In essence the London 2012 Games was inadvertently designed by my 70 year old mother.

When you are shown the mascot for the first time, just smile and nod

I learnt to love the little one-eyed buggers, especially once I understood the back story. The fact is, no mascot, in the history of small people standing in furry outfits with oversized heads, should ever require a back story.

Perhaps the British Bulldog style mascot would have been better. A fluffy bulldog with legs long enough to actually walk around a venue/chase down Usain Bolt.

The Devil is in the detail

This is a whole other blog, but in essence the risks to London being a success was always hidden in the detail — because the big ticket items like terrorism and transport failure were being dealt with by large numbers of very clever people.

Therefore the risk to our Games was going to be hidden in something a lot less obvious. And trust me when I say 11 million people will find that little risk and expose it (mostly all over Twitter). So dig into the detail and de-risk. When we asked the advice of Sir Jony Ive about building plans for the customer, his one piece of advice was ‘find their problems and solve them’. So that’s what we did. First review of our plans exposed over 7,000 potential risks to the Spectator. That was one of my longer ‘To Do’ lists.

Never accept the answer ‘it will be fine’

If my husband says I look ‘fine’ when I’ve got dressed up for a night out, I know I look like a bag of shit. The same goes for the person who tells you ‘it will be fine’, especially if the question is something like ‘will people have to queue for more than 30 minutes to get into the venue?’. ‘It will be fine’ is shorthand for ‘I don’t actually know the answer’, or ‘I’m totally winging this thing’, or ‘I’m praying I don’t get called out’. Or worse still ‘I don’t actually care about Spectators’. That’s the moment to start digging for that devil hiding in the detail. The little bugger is there just waiting to come out.

Practice reacting to the crisis

There were many brilliant and talented people who worked on the Games. Some of the best were those who taught us to plan for the stuff we didn’t know would happen. It turns some of the biggest voices go very quiet when faced with the crisis directly in front of you. The times when things did go slightly left-field during the Games were probably my most favourite. Problem? We had practiced how to solve it, even if we didn’t know the thing we were going to be solving.

Londoners are buggers*

Despite endless plans, a coherent, timed and designed communication plan to our ticket holders, designed to manipulate the behaviour of the customer.…Londoners will do their very best to bugger it up for you.

Three weeks prior to Games, after a year of highly designed communications across a multiple of channels, I sat in a research lab listening to a group of Londoners tell me that whilst, yes, they had read our emails, and yes, they had read their Guide (back to back) and yes, had looked at the online transport journey planner, no, they would not give it two hours to travel and no, they had no plans to arrive early at the venues to get through the security and the crowds.

The moment where you realise the last three years are about to go down the swanney because a bunch of Londoners don’t like being told what to do, and they will use the Jubilee Line (despite you repeatedly telling them not to), and they will turn up 30 minutes before the sport, and no they won’t listen to your polite advice. Cue the only emergency text we ever sent to all our Spectators.

Read your information. Follow our advice or you WILL miss your sport.

Cheers London 2012 xx

*I am a Londoner.

100% Recycled polyester uniforms are deeply sweaty

Especially if you are 8 months pregnant, and it’s in the middle of a heat wave. Deep joy. Deep sweat. They do however miraculously dry after being washed in a sink (at the end of a 20 hour shift).

People will complain about literally anything

The temporary toilets weren’t facing in the right direction. There were sheep in the opening ceremony. There weren’t any pigs in the opening ceremony. The Hockey pitch was blue. Why can’t we seed the clouds to stop it raining over the Olympic Park? You name it…we saw, heard it and attempted to formulate polite replies to it.

I did struggle with the complaint I received that our customer service was ‘too American’, by which I think they meant ‘too personal and engaging’?

Sometimes the UK needs to be bold

Yup, so we did bulldoze half of East London, and yes it cost quite a bit. But every penny was worth it. Stratford regenerated — tick. Increase in people participating in sport — tick. Increase in people attending sports events — tick. Increase in volunteering — tick. World-class venues still being used every single day — tick. Increase in employment, tourism, housing, transport — tick tick tick tickety-tick. Don’t bother having the discussion with me about whether it was worth it. You will not win.

When we are bold as a nation we can prove the ‘Great’ in Great Britain. London 2012 was one such example.

www.experience360.co.uk

Heather McGill is the Director and Founder of Experience360. Experience360 now helps host cities to organise mega-events in both the Entertainment and Sports industries.

International Women’s Day: Things I learnt working in a man’s world

I’m a big fan of a particular editorial in a weekly paper that highlights women who have risen to the top of their field. It poses interesting questions about tackling today’s trickiest situations in the work place. I suspect if I was starting out now it would be an invaluable source of help. As it is, I read these articles and ponder what these women’s views mean to me now, and whether they would have changed any decisions I made along the way.

Very few of the articles however have posed conundrums where the woman in question was literally the only female in the room. I suspect, and hope, that that is a rarity now, although we are not exactly even-stevens in the boardrooms yet!

Rewind twenty or so years and I was starting my career in the Live Music Industry. Let’s be clear, I was not the person performing the music, but part of the backstage team that made it happen. That backstage team being…well, male. Totally male. Male and me. Ooh, could be a title for a book. Occasionally I would meet another women, doing what I did, and we would eye each other suspiciously, as one would a mirage. But in the main, it was lots of men. The men at the top of the tree in the 90s and noughties were the guys who had literally created the industry, mavericks who made a billion dollar global industry.

I worked producing tours for some of the world’s most iconic music acts. Household names with legendary stories. It was in every sense very ‘Rock and Roll’. My job was two part: the first office based, interacting with suppliers, production teams, promoters and Artist Management. All were male. Yes, you would come across female PAs (everyone had one of those….had to have them to keep track of the endless and lengthy booze/coke filled lunch meetings that were a regular part of life). But women actually doing the work….hmmm, not so much.

The other part of the job was being on tour. I regularly toured with bands where I was the only female backstage (apart from maybe the odd lady in the catering team…..top tip: if you ever want to eat amazing food, go on tour with a great band, and you will literally double your body weight in a few weeks).

The tour crew are like a family, albeit a family that didn’t think twice about watching back-to-back porn on the crew bus, making lewd comments or occasionally making a pass at you. I genuinely never thought there was anything wrong with that. It was just the way it was. I could either get offended, and frankly get another job, or accept it and crack on with my work. I was lucky in that I never felt threatened, nor discriminated against, I was just was a bit of an anomaly. I suspect the reason it worked for me was because I didn’t bat an eyelid at the antics. If I had, not only would no one have cared to listen, but I would have found life indescribably difficult if I had chosen to take offence.

So for me, the first thing I learnt was — You don’t always have to ‘fight’ in order to create a change.

I’m not saying put up with abuse, but you can choose whether to take offence. Finding a mind-set that allows you to feel at ease can often be easier than fighting a situation that you can’t win.

Now was their behaviour acceptable? Probably not. But do I care? No. Would I care if a younger female colleague was put in that situation now? Part of me says yes, because every work place should feel equal and accepted, but part of me says that life is difficult and you have to learn to create boundaries, be clear with people as to what those boundaries are, and do it in a way where you gain respect and not enemies. I had some of the best times of my life out on tour and that was because I found my place as a woman in a man’s world, created boundaries, and quite simply got on with the job.

Second thing I learnt: No job is worth having if you are being diminished as a person.

In my mid twenties I was working for a particularly difficult individual. He drove us all demented with his appalling behaviour and attitudes. But (as typified the music industry in the 90’s) he was bloody good at what he did.

I was taking a work call with a supplier, reviewing a contract. I was having a busy day but the boss clearly was not and I realised, mid call, that he was listening in. He got up, walked over to my desk, without saying a word, put my call on hold, walked back to his desk, picked up the call on his phone and started in with the words “OK, let’s start this conversation again, but do it properly”. This was neither surprising, nor out of the blue. It was just that days example of belittling behaviour. But on this occasion, I inherently felt that a line had been crossed.

During the remainder of that call I typed up a three-sentence resignation letter, stating my owed holiday, contractual period of notice and my leaving date (the following Friday). I printed it, put it in an envelope, placed it on his desk, got my coat and walked out….all whilst he finished his ‘proper’ call.

I returned the next day to finish the last week and a half of work. I had a new job waiting for me by the time I left his employment (there’s nothing like necessity and lack of income to force you to find that next job). The loss was his. Not mine. Never let another individual control you, or imply to the wider world that you are less than you are.

Third thing I learnt: being the only woman in the room gives you power (if you choose it to).

I recently went to a meeting of 15 senior individuals on a project. I was the only female. I have to say that’s not happened in a very, very long time. But boy did it bring back memories of when this was totally normal. It also brought back a weird sensation of feeling empowered. Now I realise that makes me sound like a total narcissist, but I suspect it was just some sort of tactic I taught myself for when I was deeply outnumbered when I started out in Music, and then the Sport industry.

Going in as the ‘odd one out’ surely gives you something of a bunk up in the pecking order? I don’t want to be the same as everyone else, I’m kinda glad I am different. The trick for me was to give off an aura of confidence because subconsciously if you are the odd one out people do tend to watch — whether that’s to call you out, or to take your lead.

I was told once by a female colleague that I sit like a man in meetings. I was sort of shocked when I heard this (initially thinking that I was doing some sort of man-spreading — which my mother would be horrified about). She went on to explain that she had watched the other women in a particular meeting sit with a closed body language that made them smaller in their seated space. I, apparently, sat like a man, with my arm over the back of the chair, opening out to apparently take up more space than my allotted chair. She said I was sitting in the same way as the men in the room.

Initially I sort of felt embarrassed on hearing this, but I realised that I had probably inadvertently learnt this from all the male dominated rooms I had been in. I suspect it’s just one of the tactics I adopted to assert my power in a room.

It’s OK to recognise the difference between men and women (learning number 4).

Not having a willy wasn’t the only difference between me and my male counterparts. I am not talking about intelligence, and I am not talking about capability, I’m talking about ‘approach’. I’ve never found that men and women approach a project or a problem in the same way. As women we can be more emotionally driven in our decision making. And a bloody good thing it is too. I want decisions I make to be based on the emotion it inspires within me. OK, I work in industries where we are inspiring emotions in the people who come to our shows or events, so I think it’s absolutely right that my emotionally-driven decision making has a place.

We’ve all met women trying to be men in the workplace, and we’ve all come across women who are working their femininity to get on top (not literally I hasten to add). I find both of these rather weird and disconcerting. Gender should not play a part in how we behave in the work place. But, acknowledging there are differences in genders is not wrong. We can approach and analyse in a different way, and those elements of my make up, those that make me different, are not something to hide, but to use.

Lesson Five: Having a heroine doesn’t half help you reach for the next wrung on the ladder.

There was one woman in the live music industry, who frankly was something of an icon to me. She was one of the most successful individuals in the music world (still is) and frankly had bigger balls than most of the men. She was terrifying and awe-inspiring in one amazing package and whether she knew it or not, gave us girls who were trying to be something other than ‘make-me-a-cup-of-tea’ employee, a vision of where we could go. Thank you, Emma. You scared the living crap out of me, and I wanted to be you every day for all of those early years of my career.

Having a strong, successful female role model in your chosen line of work helps us realise there is literally nothing stopping us getting to the top. I would go so far as saying often the only people stopping us achieve are ourselves. Yes, so there might be individuals who don’t believe we can do it as women, systems that support men, and traditions that mean we are outnumbered. They are just hurdles. Hurdles are built to be jumped over. Every time we jump them we make those hurdles slightly smaller for the woman behind us.

Much has changed, even in the last two years. The Music and Sports industries are unrecognisable in the way they work. I hope it is easier for those coming in to these industries now, but secretly, I bloody loved the first years of my career when I had to forge my own path. Wouldn’t have changed it for the world. Often the path less travelled is the most fun.



We are hiring

Project Manager Required

Overview

Experience360 Ltd is a Customer Experience design agency and consultancy.  We consult to Customer based and infrastructural projects globally. We design and create the end-to-end experience for ticket holders at large scale sports, leisure and entertainment events.  We also advise on design and planning for large infrastructural projects, delivering against Client/Customer expectations and needs whilst building against international service standards.  Clients include The International Olympic Committee, Deloitte, UK Sport, The FA amongst others.

 

Our Client

You will be working on a large- scale UK plc Infrastructural project. Our role is to work with the client to build understanding amongst key client groups who will benefit and be impacted by the project.

 

Job Description

·         Project delivery and management, reporting to Experience360 Director (Project Lead)

·         Up- front project planning and review of current situation including client group analysis and scoping deliverables

·         Structure and creation of project output documents including qualitative and quantitative data inputting

·         Development of a Service Catalogue, Interface Strategy, Project Charter and Implementation Plan


The Successful Applicant

·         Experienced in delivering multiple project work streams with diverse stakeholder interest

·         Background in creation of project reports, with meticulous attention to detail

·         Experience in developing service level

·         Strong communication skills

·         Ability to form and deliver effective relations with client, including wider technical teams

·         Background in Customer Experience an advantage, but not essential

 

We Offer:

·         Competitive hourly/ daily rates

·         Flexible working hours in small friendly office in Kingston

·         20 hours per week currently envisaged, ideally over 4 days, Monday to Thursday (final hours are to be confirmed)

·         Potential to work school hours, though some school holiday hours may be required

·         Self- employed, short-term contract

Timelines

The role is currently tentative pending awarding of our contract from the client. We envisage the role starting in the first or second week of February 2019. It will initially be from February to April, with a possible extension until Autumn of 2019.

Please send CVs to: georgina@experience360.co.uk by Friday 1st February 2019, earlier if possible.