It’s not often a CEO starts his tenure with an apology, but the CEO of United has done so. He is asking forgiveness for the mess his predecessor made of a merger. Note that he doesn’t name his predecessor nor does he refer to him in his letter of apology, but it doesn’t take reading between the lines to see that he has thrown the previous CEO under the bus. The circumstances in this case are extraordinary. The new CEO has stated publicly that the company has lost credibility with employees who are demoralized and angry. The only way he is going to get them back is through meeting them and listening to their complaints. It seems just about everything went wrong in the combination of United and Continental airlines. The new company spent months planning the integration of reservation systems only to have them crash repeatedly discouraging agents and outraging customers. Five years into the merger, the airline is still stumbling and can’t seem to find its way. No wonder he is apologetic. But, that will buy him only a few weeks before reality sets in. Customers and employees are unlikely to forgive a second time.
How Hard Is It?
How hard is it to communicate through the web? Try a billion times to be heard above the noise. Or, to be more precise 935,950,654, give or take a few tens of thousands. Those of us who have long memories and can recall the early days of the web are gobsmacked by its growth and wonder how anyone can make his way through the welter of new sites and expiring old ones. Having run online-pr.com for 18 years, that makes the site a Methuselah on the web, and probably in the top 1 to 5 percent in terms of longevity. Online-pr.com has evolved over the years as new links supplant old ones and new features such as social media appeared. The site changes approximately 10 percent a year. The entire web might change more than that. It is surprising how many sites wink out of existence without so much as a goodbye. What this means is that several times a year, I must clean links from online-pr.com and add new ones. It is not hard work, but it is a reminder that the web has reached a size that no one can comprehend.