The Eighth Commandment
United CEO Oscar Munoz Joins the Liar’s Club
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. (Exodus 20:16)
UPDATE: CEO Oscar Munoz says what he should have said two days ago. My sense is that he had more of a hand in writing this. But it took United several days and severe market devaluation to come to its senses. The lesson I wrote about originally remains — and the key here is that if this was Ted Nugent Airlines we’d have no problem — but it’s United and their initial response was so flat-footed, so far off brand, that it cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in valuation and more than that in lost customer loyalty.
ORIGINAL POST:
There are actually 613 commandments in the Hebrew Bible. Most people can’t name more than a few of the top ten that remain in western culture.
Far fewer live by them.
Then there is a group of people that actually make a living by breaking the commandments. One specific commandment actually. These people are often called politicians, press secretaries or special advisors.
Today we add CEO’s like Oscar Munoz whose original statement tips the scales of epic obfuscation. No doubt it was written by a PR person, or more likely a team of PR people, who decided to passively-aggressively accept zero blame for what happened. Munoz went along with it, going so far as to accuse the passenger, a paying seated customer mind you, as “disruptive and belligerent" despite the video evidence to the contrary.
This has gotten so bad that even the Merriam-Webster dictionary is reminding us of the definition of “volunteer.”
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There is nothing wrong with crisis PR, in business and life it’s necessary. United, their United Express partner and the police all bear significant responsibility here but the feckless attempts at putting out this fire with gasoline speaks volumes.
What They Said, and Perhaps What They Should Have Said
Re-accommodate = Alternative Facts
The people that seem to have a grip on corporate and political messaging come in different stripes, but the message is the same. They tweet or trundle out in front of the cameras and “re-frame” arguments, present “alternative facts,” repeat keyword phrases like “phenomenal” and say things like “re-accommodate” passengers.
Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. (Proverbs 12:22)
The sad thing is that these people do not honor the core of the brands or movements they represent, but instead work to blame others, deny responsibility and sow doubt in objective reality.
They do not seek to bring understanding or clarity, instead they seek to confuse and divert.
Their job is to lie.
Professionally. They get paid to break the Eight Commandment.
That’s on them.
What voters and consumers do with that is their decision.
