When Dr David Dao was dragged off a United Airlines flight in 2017, there was international outrage.
For anyone who doesn’t know the story, he had been selected to give up his seat (to make way for a United employee to fly), and refused to leave the aircraft – he was seeing patients the next morning, and this was the last flight of the day. Security was called and forcibly removed him, smashing his face against an armrest, breaking two of his teeth and giving him concussion. He was taken to hospital to recover.
It was a very bad time for United – its share price dropped, there were protests against it all round the world, and there were even calls for Oscar Munoz, then CEO of United, to resign.
Munoz’ first statement – now legendary – was awful. It didn’t sound like him at all. It showed no empathy, blamed Dao for not leaving the plane, and was an exercise in liability-dodging rather than showing any regret at what had happened. I can sort of see how it happened. Technically – and this is important – it wasn’t United’s security that caused the damage, but the City of Chicago’s, and United was clearly not keen to take the blame.
But if something happens on your watch, your land or your flight, it will be your brand that fronts the crisis. United took the blame – not just for what happened, but for how it responded.
Tamara and I look at this in more detail on our podcast, ‘What Just Happened’, and we talked to the amazing leadership expert and coach, Mark Fritz, about the lessons today’s leaders can learn from Munoz and the United crisis.
- Munoz’ second statement was a million miles away from his first. It showed empathy, he apologised personally, and laid out a clear action plan to ensure it didn’t happen again. Interestingly, when I use this case study in crisis training, people often don’t respond well to his second statement, because they’ve formed their impression from the first one. There’s a lesson there, too – get the first response right! The second one may not undo all the damage. Read your statement out loud to someone who has an objective view – how do you come across?
- Don’t blame the victim. Ever. Especially when he’s all over the media with a bloody nose and broken teeth.
- Find solutions, don’t attribute blame. This is great advice from Mark, and it really helps reduce stress on your team by looking forward, without getting defensive.
- Use “strategic patience”. This is a phrase of Mark’s that I really like. Take your time to really listen to what people are saying, what emotions they are feeling, and what’s going on under the surface. It shows you value people, gets you to the heart of what’s really happening, and ultimately helps you make better decisions.
- Leaders need to look after themselves before, during and after a crisis too. We can all get defensive if we’re tired, or stressed. Find a way to clear your mind, whether that’s taking 10 minutes to listen to music, or 30 minutes to go for a run. It’ll help you be more objective and see things more clearly.
- Be curious and persistent about finding the facts. You may have a written procedure, but there’s no guarantee that people followed it. Don’t make assumptions. Get to the truth as quickly as you can.
- Don’t always assume your legal advice is the right approach. It might be legally correct, but is it going to help or hinder the situation? I can’t help feeling that if an independent, objective communications person had given advice, that first statement would never have made it out the door.
You can listen to the podcast episode on our podcast page or on your favourite platform.
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