Latest / Communication Breakdown / United Pulls Back the Curtain; Harvard Stands Their Ground

Transcript

United Pulls Back the Curtain; Harvard Stands Their Ground · Communication Breakdown

• 0:00
  Welcome back to Communication Breakdown, a weekly podcast from the Observatory on Corporate
• 0:07
  Reputation.
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  Thanks for joining us.
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  I'm Steve Dowling in Silicon Valley.
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  And I'm Craig Carroll in New York City.
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  Each week, Steve and I take a look at strategies companies are using to shape headlines and
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  sometimes save their skins.
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  It's a post-game show for PR Pros.
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  This week, Harvard's defiant media campaign kicks off at Summer Session, but first a strategic
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  peak behind the curtain courtesy of United Airlines.
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  Newark Liberty International Airport has been a source of concern for travelers, regulators
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  and airlines and a symbol of the broader crisis facing America's airports.
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  Ever since a radar outage in late April forced dozens of flights to divert and hundreds
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  more to delay or cancel.
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  Newark suffered two more equipment failures in the two weeks that followed, heightening
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  fears even as airlines cut back flights to ease the burden on air traffic controllers and
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  their equipment.
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  And no airline is more closely associated with Newark than United Airlines.
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  It's their biggest East Coast hub and the operate well over half the flights in and out
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  of the airport carrying almost 10 million passengers a year.
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  CEO Scott Kirby was quick to reassure the flying public in early May, saying air travel is
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  safe and the company is taking action, a message she has repeated in multiple TV interviews.
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  "It absolutely is safe at Newark and in the entire country.
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  And the reason is when these kind of outages happen, we train for them, we have backup procedures,
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  we have backups to backups to backups to backups to keep the sky safe, which is always the
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  number one priority."
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  That was Kirby on CBS Face the Nation two weeks ago.
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  He made similar comments on CNN around the same time.
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  And United has not stopped there.
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  Here at the end of May, when press coverage predictably focuses on the Memorial Day start
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  of summer travel, the airline is pulling back the curtain on its safety operations.
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  First with an exclusive for the New York Times behind the scenes at United's Newark Command
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  Center, then for CNN reported out of Denver in a 737 simulator training for an air traffic
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  control outage.
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  Captain Miles Morgan is the head of training for United.
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  "I don't really worry when something is a little abnormal, we're trained for all these abnormalities.
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  It's not just this, it's we're constantly training for whatever could be going wrong and
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  how to make a decision to rectify that."
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  Steve, United's message is pretty clear and after a month it seems like a mantra.
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  What's the significance of this latest step- showing customers how the sausage is made?
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  I think this is a really smart move by United.
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  It's proactive transparency and obviously we don't know the origin of these stories, whether
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  they were invitations by United or requests by the news outlets.
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  But ultimately it doesn't matter because United made this decision to grant this kind
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  of access, which I think in the case of the Newark Command Center, it's unprecedented
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  for them.
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  The TV appearances by Kirby were really effective.
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  They were really effective rapid responses.
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  He got the message out, calm and confident and he delivered it with like, about as close
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  to absolute certainty as you can responsibly get.
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  What this new round gets them is a little drama but controlled drama that taking you behind
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  the scenes in the middle of a crisis.
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  It adds this other really compelling dimension, some transparency that aims to show you that
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  United is really on top of things.
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  So, they're getting attention, they're getting it on their own terms, importantly.
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  They're really projecting confidence just by doing it because it seems like the kind of thing
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  that an airline would not be doing if there were any chance of failure.
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  Yeah.
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  Dan Sullivan is the founder of a coaching program called Strategic Coach.
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  I think he's one of the clear thinkers on leadership growth.
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  He says that confidence doesn't come first.
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  It comes last.
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  He's got this model called the Four C's: Commitment, Courage, Capability and then Confidence.
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  United is walking that path in public.
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  First, they're committed, owning, new work when others might have distanced themselves and
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  then they're showing courage, pulling back the curtain mid-crisis when most companies
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  would double down on message control and then came capability, right?
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  Not just in how they trained behind the scenes but in their willingness to let us see it.
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  But here's the thing, it takes real capability to be that transparent.
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  You don't invite cameras into your command center or simulator unless you've done the
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  reps.
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  Unless you know what people will find is a system worth showing and that's what leads to
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  confidence, not just internally but for the public.
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  United isn't saying "trust us,"
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  they're saying "watch us," and that's not messaging.
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  That's a little bit of evidence.
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  In a chaotic media environment, evidence doesn't just build trust.
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  It suspends doubt.
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  It sort of earns you another chance.
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  But to mean the confidence isn't to finish line.
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  It's only the invitation.
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  The real test is still ahead.
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  The flights leave on time.
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  So confidence isn't what you lead with.
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  It's what you earn by pulling back the curtain and proving you've done the steps.
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  But ultimately this is not going to be measured in headlines or simulator walkthroughs,
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  it's going to be measured on the tarmac.
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  I think that in the meantime though, they're leaving people with a good feeling about
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  United.
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  And this Time's story has these cool headed characters, one of them's monitoring a caduzon
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  departures and she says to the times the party never stops.
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  It's like, it's kind of blase, but again, it projects confidence.
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  And you heard the training director on CNN saying, I don't worry about anomaly.
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  But I want that guy in the cockpit of my flight.
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  But strategically, I think what they're doing here is they're taking us inside the black
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  box.
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  They're demystifying a process that people are really worried about.
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  And I think that one of the key goals is to counter this narrative that flying is risky
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  because air traffic control towers are under staffed, which apparently they are.
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  And the United Command Center is not the control tower, but the United Command Center
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  in the New York Times photos,
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  it is packed with people like the conference room is standing room only.
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  And it's pretty simple, but I think it's pretty effective what they're showing.
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  And the other narrative is that air traffic controllers have been trying to land planes
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  without radar for minutes at a time.
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  That is terrifying.
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  But you have United pilots going, I don't worry about that.
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  And we have redundancies on top of redundancies.
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  The message, even when equipment fails, you can trust the people of United.
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  So I think they made a good move and they made it at the right time.
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  Okay.
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  Well, yeah, I think that moment in the times the party never stops.
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  It reads cool and calm.
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  But I don't know.
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  I think we need to be careful that kind of framing for somebody in aviation, that line says,
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  hey, we've got this.
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  But I'm not exactly nervous, but it does sound like they're normalizing dysfunction a little
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  bit.
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  And the same thing with the simulator comment on CNN that they don't worry about anomalies
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  to me.
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  That kind of line works if people believe the system is strong.
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  But public trust is shaky.
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  That tone can feel a little different and that confidence.
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  I look at it a little differently because I think if you have a choice of what to be afraid
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  of, I think you would rather have people go back to if you said you're a nervous flyer,
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  like go back to your previous state of being a nervous flyer versus, again, the choice
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  of being afraid of something that you don't know what the, you don't know it.
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  Like that's why I say the black box.
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  So I think that it is a risk, but is a supreme, like, confidence play.
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  But at the base of it, it's pretty simple.
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  What you're doing is you're demystifying, you're taking people inside and you're saying like,
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  this is how it works.
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  You may still face the same risk, but at least you are better informed.
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  And I think especially when it comes to air travel, when you're better informed, you feel
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  a little better about air travel because it is still the safest way to travel.
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  Look, the way I see this, you know, they're not just trying to build confidence.
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  They're trying to create enough evidence to suspend doubt.
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  And I think that's a little bit of a different goal.
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  It's slower, a little bit more fragile and it depends entirely on what happens next.
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  But showing your systems is one thing, but if backs are still late, planes are still sitting
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  on the tarmac, the message changes fast.
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  It's not being, look how reddo we are and it becomes, this is them at their best, you know?
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  So that's why Transparency has got to be backed up with consistency.
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  If you don't deliver, it doesn't buy you trust.
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  It sharpens the disappointment and accelerates the scrutiny.
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  And at the end of the day, you know, it's decided on the runway, not the newsroom.
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  Yeah, no, I agree.
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  It'll be really interesting to see how their campaign plays out.
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  Let's talk about the latest from Harvard where the Trump administration has been stepping
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  up its attacks.
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  This week was a barrage by the White House like day after day, Trump's canceling their government
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  contracts.
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  He's blocking visas for foreign students, which was also immediately blocked by a federal
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  judge.
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  Trump wants Harvard to tell the feds where these students are coming from like the government
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  doesn't already know.
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  And on defense, once again, we have Alan Garber, the president of Harvard University.
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  Garber got two standing ovation at commencement on Thursday.
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  The crowd stood for almost a minute when he was introduced and then again when he mentioned
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  that Harvard's graduating class comes from in his words, "Down the street across the country
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  and around the world."
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  "A round the world just as it should be."
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  Earlier this week, as Trump was threatening and berating university from the Oval Office,
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  Garber responded to this latest round of pressure with another mini-press tour.
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  He gave interviews to the Harvard Crimson and NPR.
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  He also spent a lot of time in that interview, patiently addressing the introspection
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  that Harvard has been doing on allegations of antisemitism and inclusivity in general,
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  but Craig, the takeaway of the interests of the university, the interests of the nation,
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  that sounds like, to me, what you might call a classic alignment signaling.
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  Do you think it's working?
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  Yeah, this is alignment signaling.
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  It's also coalition signaling too.
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  Garber sang to other universities if they defund Harvard, they can defund you.
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  But the risk is if the public sees Harvard, defending Harvard, that story collapses inward.
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  To work, this message has got to become about the people who benefit when knowledge flows.
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  Students, patients, communities, even competitors.
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  That's the only way you're going to build enough narrative gravity to counteract the backlash.
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  Here's Garber telling NPR that what the administration is doing is firing a shot across the bow at
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  all research universities.
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  It is a warning.
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  They see this as a message that if you don't comply with what we're demanding, these will
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  be the consequences.
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  Yeah, I think that Garber's got really good message discipline working in his favor.
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  You want that when you're in a draw-out campaign.
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  The talking points we heard this week were very consistent with what he told Lester Holt
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  back in April.
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  I think I heard some sharpening of a few of the key messages.
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  First, he's really leaning into this idea of what's good for Harvard is good for America,
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  serving our nation and the world as a phrase that I heard a couple of times.
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  I think this is your alignment signaling.
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  He's tying Harvard's fate to America's.
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  That means also what's bad for Harvard is bad for America, but he's flipping the script on
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  this backlash against intellectuals or elites or whatever.
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  I think you may think you're punishing Harvard by cutting off research grants, and you are,
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  but you're also hurting people who would benefit from the output of that research, which
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  could be a breakthrough drug treatment.
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  Here's Garber talking about the impact of canceling those government grants and contracts.
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  "Shutting off that work does not help the country, even as it punishes Harvard, and it is hard
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  to see the link between that and say anti-Semitism."
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  The other thrust here, I think, as you point out in this latest round is it's a rallying
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  cry for other research universities.
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  Garber keeps saying this is not just Harvard, but government is firing a shot across the
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  bow of all the big research institutions.
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  There is this coalition message as well.
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  Yeah.
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  Garber's message is disciplined and it's real, and the good for America framing is certainly
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  intentional.
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  I think we have to ask alignment signaling for hope because it's one thing to say Harvard
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  is a national asset, and it's another to make people believe it, especially right now when
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  some see it as a problem and not a solution.
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  This feels like Harvard is trying to perform alignment without surrender, through signaling
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  national service, institutional restraint, scientific value, without bending the knee, and
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  that is the classic access strategy within the alignment signaling.
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  But here's the challenge.
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  Signal strength only works if someone is still willing to receive the signal, and I'm not
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  sure yet if the Trump administration or maybe even parts of the public are still on that
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  channel.
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  The deeper move here is just about saving Harvard's reputation.
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  It's about defending the legitimacy of institutional autonomy in a moment when the expertise is being
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  reframed in a city logical capture.
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  I think that's not a PR battle.
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  That's an existential one.
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  Yeah.
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  I think importantly though, for this week, and I think this is sort of a phase two of their
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  campaign.
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  Yeah.
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  It's really like who is the target for this signal this week?
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  And if you look at the media outlets that he chose to talk to, the Crimson, which is
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  the student newspaper.
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  And PR, I think this is focused on a pretty narrow audience.
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  I think we're seeing Garber here rallying the troops.
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  This is about internal credibility and morale.
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  And that's a heavy lift at elite colleges right now.
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  Just look at Columbia's commencement.
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  Was it last week that President Claire Shipman was booed and jeered?
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  And last year at Harvard, a thousand graduates walked out in protest.
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  And Garber himself was booed because they banned a dozen students who had participated
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  in pro-Palestinian demonstration.
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  So fast forward to Thursday, he's getting a standing ovation.
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  I think the playbook that he's running here is stay on message, widen the frame, stabilize
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  the base.
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  His message is may appeal to the country if anybody out there is listening to your point.
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  But he's defending his institution.
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  And in this moment, at least he's uniting his campus.
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  And don't take our word for it.
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  Take it from Karim Abdul-Jabbar, the basketball legend civil rights leader speaking at Harvard's
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  class day on Wednesday, after comparing Garber to Rosa Parks.
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  After seeing so many cowering billionaires, medium-ovales, law firms, politicians, and other
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  universities, bend their knee to an administration that is systematically strip mining in the
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  U.S. Constitution, it is inspiring to me to see Harvard University take a stand for freedom.
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  That's one heck of a validating statement as Harvard's campaign enters this next phase.
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  Yeah, this definitely feels like a stage two, the first phase about holding the line, legal
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  filings, public defense, and avoiding collapse.
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  And this one is definitely about reestablishing his footing inside the university.
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  So going to the Crimson and NPR, not because he's chasing headlines, but because he knows
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  credibility starts at home.
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  And for sure, standing ovation sounds like resolution.
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  But I don't know, I think we should be a little bit cautious here.
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  Commencement is, you know, it's built to unify.
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  It's ceremonial, it's emotional.
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  It's one of the only moments that the university president gets a scripted stage, right?
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  I mean, last year, definitely that stage cracked, booze, walkouts, fracture trust, but this
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  year at hell.
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  And but it doesn't mean that the fractures are gone, right?
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  To your point, I think what Garber is really trying to do here is to stabilize Harvard from
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  the inside out, rebuild institutional confidence after a year of fragmentation.
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  And yeah, I'm with you.
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  The playbooks clear, stand message, widen the frame, restore, restore coherence.
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  And I'd say yes, it's working for now.
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  Yeah, no, I think especially this week, if I'm Harvard, I like the split screen.
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  You have Trump at West Point, giving, you know, a weird hour long commencement address,
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  and you have Garber getting a standing ovation.
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  But I just think it punctuates it in Harvard's favor.
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  Yeah.
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  You know, if there's value to that externally, I believe that there is, but at minimum,
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  I think this is the objective here is that it's helping him internally.
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  I think there's a political dynamic that's worth watching here, and I'm interested your
• 17:29
  thoughts on this, but I'm kind of hoping that there's an element here of what the financial
• 17:33
  times has coined the taco trade.
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  Have you heard about this?
• 17:36
  Oh, yeah, so the taco is an acronym for Trump always chickens out.
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  And the taco trade is you don't panic when Trump makes another tariff threat because
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  Trump always chickens out.
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  And maybe that applies here as well as Thursday as the graduates are walking across the stage
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  and they're cheering for Garber.
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  The Trump administration quietly makes this procedural change that delays that ban on enrolling
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  international students.
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  This is a 30 day delay.
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  But they're slowing things down.
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  So is this a taco trade?
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  I don't like, it's possible.
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  They're just dragging out the process to like keep the pressure on and scare more students
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  out of showing up in the fall.
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  But I think we've seen this pattern before, institutions and foreign governments, notably
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  this week, the EU.
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  And I would hope American businesses, people who don't flinch in the face of Trump's threats
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  often find the follow through just doesn't materialize.
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  The bark is loud, but the bite keeps getting delayed.
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  Yeah, I knew you were going to bring up the taco trade.
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  I love it.
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  Yeah, look, I have to admit, it's tempting.
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  Trump always chickens out.
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  It's catchy.
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  It's clever.
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  And I swear, the moment you said it, I did like a Homer Simpson.
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  Ooh, donut.
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  But in this one, in this case, acronym.
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  But yeah, I certainly get it, right?
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  Taco has got a certain comfort with it.
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  It's a good pattern with them.
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  You see a big threat?
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  You wait it out and eventually the pressure softens.
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  I mean, that's the idea behind Trump always chickens out as an acronym.
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  But here's the reflex.
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  I think we have to name and challenge.
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  And that is the assumption that just because Trump is back down before he always will,
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  and as a result, that maybe you don't need to prepare seriously this time.
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  I mean, first of all, it hasn't happened yet, right?
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  I mean, the point here is to maintain your composure.
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  That's really what the point is, right?
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  But the instinct could get a little dangerous because if you start building strategy around
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  delay instead of direction, you stop preparing and start hoping and hope is not strategy.
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  I agree.
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  I just think Garber is doing a really good job of holding his ground and making his point
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  and standing on principle.
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  And he's also, I think, importantly, he is, I know, it's like slow and steady.
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  He's not out there every single day when he does make comments.
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  They are consistent, but they still get attention.
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  And he, again, I like the split screen because the White House comments about why they are
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  targeting Harvard and other institutions.
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  It swerves wildly all across like the road.
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  And it's pretty clear that this is not about the anti-Semitism that they started with.
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  Now Trump is onto left wing, whatever, whatever.
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  And I think that if Garber and hopefully the other institutions who were along with him,
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  in April, will continue on this path, again, slow and steady and unwavering, they just keep
• 20:41
  making that consistent point that they can get through this to the other side.
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  Whether this is Taco or not.
• 20:48
  Yeah, look, this week gave us a great remarkable split screen.
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  On Trump on one side praising Columbia University for, quote, "working with us and taking them
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  off the hot seat."
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  And yet, on the other side, Harvard's graduates rising and a standing ovation for a president
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  who spent the past month to define that very pressure.
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  So yeah, what we're watching is, to me, a tale of two reputational strategies.
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  One is avoidance: get off the radar, comply quietly, survive the moment. And the other is assertion:
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  hold your position, absorb the pressure, and make the case in public.
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  Neither one is going to be risk-free, but they're playing for different outcomes.
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  Columbia may preserve access, and Harvard is trying to preserve autonomy.
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  One seeks the exit frame, I think, the other one is simply trying to rewrite it.
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  So I don't know.
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  When I think about the standing ovation, it wasn't just for Garber, it was also for a strategy
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  of staying your ground, even though the cost is high.
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  So the real question now is, who's bet's going to hold longer, the one that avoided the
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  fight or the one that walked into it?
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  Yeah.
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  For what it's worth, the praise that Trump gave to, Claire Shipman, and I think she's
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  in a really, you know, uncomfortably be impossible spot in that role, but I don't think that, I
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  don't think that got Columbia or her or anything.
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  Certainly, I don't think it aways anybody at Columbia.
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  Yeah.
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  Maybe a few, but it doesn't unify the student population or the faculty or whatever, the way
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  that the attacks on Harvard have apparently, you know, given, at least given Garber the
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  opening to bring everybody together, which seems to be pretty effective, and I have to say
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  encouraging.
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  Absolutely.
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  Well, that's our show for this week.
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  Our podcast is produced by Shawn P Neal and his team of Advocast that support from the
• 22:33
  People Forward Network.
• 22:35
  If you like the show, hit us up on LinkedIn, Craig, or myself, or drop us a line with your
• 22:39
  comments and suggestions.
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  Our email address is podcast@ocrnetwork.com.
• 22:47
  Communication Breakdown is a production of the Observatory on Corporate Reputation.
• 22:51
  I'm Steve Dowling.
• 22:52
  And I'm Craig Carroll.
• 22:53
  Thanks for listening.
• 22:54
  We'll be back next week.
• 22:55
  [MUSIC]
• 23:05
  #UnitedAirlines #Harvard #ColumbiaUniversity #CBS #CNN #TheNewYorkTimes #NPR #CrisisCommunication #ReputationManagement #CorporateTransparency #AlignmentSignaling #InstitutionalAutonomy #ShawnPNeal #AdvoCast #OCRNetwork