Hey, United! Your Problems Aren’t PR. They’re at The Molecular Level.

United’s recent (baffling) calamity can be summed up in one word: Culture (or assholes).

They have a corporate culture that lacks trust. They do not trust their employees to do things that are commonsensical, nor (clearly) do they trust their customers. With a culture like this, it’s easy to fall into the trap of POLICY. Policy justified it. When there is no trust and a bad culture, out pops corporate bureaucracy and a TON of rules & guidelines – humans aren’t able to be humans and make decisions in the moment due to fear, guidelines, policies, and culture. Policies over people – in an ever so clear manner.

And you can blatantly tell that United is a culture that is rooted in Policy by the CEO’s email to his employees – good grief.

So please don’t say it… this industry doesn’t require this type of culture. Ask Virgin or my peeps at Southwest, or simply travel with them to experience the way their culture manifests itself in real-time.

To fix this, it’s from the bottom up and the top down.

P.S. I had to dig up a book I read years ago for this one, but here’s a Policy acronym for ya’:

P-ossibly

O-utrageous

L-egalese

I-ntended to

C-over

Y– our ass