Tuesday, April 11, 2017

It is all about the culture

  • It is about the culture. Operational efficiency must be the value at United. 

Uber failed at understanding culture and workplace environment. Wells Fargo got what was rewarded. 

Values are not a slogan. They aren't created for marketing. Values are about understanding how a diverse group of people with like minded values can progress a service or product. This doesn't mean everyone thinks the same way. It means that they believe in a set of core values. It means there is a North Star that guides decisions. 


Solid values mean fewer policies. It means knowing what is important. United chose to handle this situation this way. They felt that getting the four employees to Louisville for the operations of the business was more important than the paying customers. 


They didn't feel that options for transport from other airlines or other crews for the Louisville plane were a better option. or maybe there weren't other options. They didn't offer the maximum for cash out to customers. That was still a choice. 


The removal of four people was probably cheaper than the grounding of a flight in Louisville. That means operational efficiency trumps the customer relations. Nothing wrong with that if those are your values. If you don't define them; your practices define them for you. 


This doesn't mean to be all "touchy feeling" kind of values. Guiding principles-simply communicated- mean something. There were ten on tablets that communicated pretty well. #valuebasedleadership #culture #workplace #hr