A Tale in Three Adverts
We can thank Dave Carroll and “United Breaks Guitars” for exposing the keen library of United videos on YouTube. Culling through them is like rummaging around in the old attic trunks of the airline industry. There are little slices of United history for every generation from the 1950’s to 9/11 to now. I’ve selected three to show here. All were produced within 2-3 years following the 9/11 attacks.
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Forbes.com: Three Lessons for United
From the China side of the world, Shaun Rein (a freelancer for Forbes) has a pretty good take on the lessons to be learned from “United Breaks Guitars:”
“In today’s economy you can’t get by on decent prices or acceptable service. You have to stand out and win the hearts of your customers. To do that you have to go beyond satisfaction to true loyalty. You have to provide a compelling reason, beyond basic service and price, for consumers to choose you. And your organization must be unified in that mission. Otherwise, you may be the next to follow GM into Chapter 11.”
He has some noteworthy comments on the importance of employee morale as well.
Read the whole post here: United Airlines Shows How Not To Run Your Business.
United Breaks Guitars: The Saga … In Video
Canadian musician Dave Carroll posted his viral-revenge video on YouTube on July 5, some eight months after United Airlines baggage handlers damaged his guitar and the airline refused to compensate him for his loss. Dave’s musical tribute to corporate idiocy went viral almost immediately, logging 1 million hits in about 36 hours. It quickly became a media phenomenon as well as a public relations disaster for United. Here’s the timeline:
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Crain’s Chicago Business: Tilton’s Troubles
Crain’s has this piece about United’s current cash flow problems. In the piece, the author (John Pletz) states what is now common knowledge:
That’s far from the flight path Mr. Tilton, 61, envisioned when the longtime oil industry executive took charge of a struggling United in 2002. He expected to purge excess costs in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, then initiate a badly needed airline industry consolidation with a sale or merger that would send him into retirement with a handsome payday.
“That was Glenn’s plan — to consolidate,” says Mo Garfinkle, CEO of Virginia-based GCW Consulting LLC, who has advised Mr. Tilton and United. “The game plan now is to survive.”
So, this begs the question: How well is United now positioned to survive?
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JAL: Another “Shared Sacrifices” Lesson from Haruka
Here we have a second YouTube video clip (the first is here) about Haruka Nishimatsu, CEO of Japan Airlines. As with a current comparison between, say, Toyota (world’s #1 automaker) and GM (now bankrupt and bailed-out), the cultural differences between Japanese and American leadership styles is striking:
“Maybe they could learn something from the boss of Japan Airlines … who takes a city bus to work. Merrill Lynch CEO John Thane spent more than a million dollars decorating his office. But Haruka Nishimatsu knocked down his office walls, so people can walk up and talk. And he works from a desk with an old-fashioned wooden in and out box. But there is method to his anti-corporate-perk lifestyle: It’s about his employees.”
(At 02:30, Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly appears with another short leadership message about shared sacrifice.)
In 2006, while Haruka Nishimatsu was cutting his own pay to less than that of his pilots, United CEO Glenn Tilton — with his airline still in bankruptcy — collected a $40 million “performance” bonus on top of his regular salary. If I remember correctly, this was an amount larger than the entire profit posted that year by United’s maintenance division, United Services. Every last aircraft, engine, and coffee pot serviced that year for another airline, or the U.S. military, was serviced so that Tilton could collect his bonus.
Even so, at headquarters it wasn’t politically correct to openly criticize Tilton’s leadership. The typical response by upwardly-mobile, young manager-apologists to such an event went something like this: “Think you can do any better? When you become CEO, then you can criticize. Until then ….”
True leadership is often indescribable but, as with pornography, it is possible for one to say with certainty, “I know it when I see it.”
Today, at United, what passes for leadership in the CEO suite is … truly … obscene.
