Leading through Crises of Reputation
What is a crisis? A working definition might well be: an unexpected event characterised by high uncertainty that threatens an organisation’s goals. Whatever definition we use, JetBlue’s 2007 “Valentine’s Day Massacre” would certainly qualify as an example of a serious crisis. So, it was a treat to engage JetBlue chairman Joel Peterson on the airline’s response to this crisis as part of our Reputation Management class.
What happened?
A winter storm at JetBlue’s home base — John F Kennedy airport — triggered a domino effect of stranded flights and passengers, resulting in over a thousand flights being canceled over a six-day period beginning February 14, 2007. But more importantly, it called into question, for the first time, JetBlue’s enviable reputation as a beloved low-cost airline with great customer service.
What can we learn?
Now, you might wonder: it’s been more than 12 years since. Is the JetBlue case still relevant? And what can today’s organisational leaders learn from this episode? After all, in February 2007, Steve Jobs had yet to announce the first iPhone, and we were still using the term “new media” to describe Facebook.
Cynefin — Where are we?
Certainly, in 2019, the speed with which organisations are expected to respond to crises is an order of magnitude faster than expectations in 2007. However, I can think of three points that I think have and will stand the test of time, and these derive from what is known as the Cynefin framework. Organisational leaders would do well to keep these in mind.
The Cynefin framework was formulated by Dave Snowden, an organizational researcher with IBM, who (coincidentally) wrote about it in a 2007 Harvard Business Review article. Cynefin (pronounced ‘kin-ev-in’ in Welsh) refers to a deep sense of understanding of place. Its key insight for organisational leaders is that organisations deal with different types of situations that fit into four main domains — obvious, complicated, complex, and chaotic.
Within each domain, the approaches that should be taken are different. For example, obvious and complicated problems are best addressed through deliberate sensemaking (sense), followed by analysis or categorisation (analyze/categorise), and finally action (respond). However, in the complex domain, unknown unknowns and weak causal linkages call for experimentation (probe) first.
You can read more about Cynefin here.
Three tips for responding to chaos
The most pertinent domain for organisations in crisis is the chaotic domain. Cynefin suggests at least three salient points for organizations which find themselves in a crisis or chaotic situation.
First, leaders need to recognise that a crisis represents a discontinuity in their business. All too often, crises blow up when organizations (and their leaders) fail to grasp that they are facing a crisis and end up playing a futile game of catch-up. This means that leaders have to put in place an internal vocabulary and process that allow their organisations to determine when they enter a crisis, and to activate the necessary contingency plans. Business-as-usual will not work.
Second, leaders need to accept that information flows in crises will be imperfect. In warfare, this effect is known as “the fog of war”. Situational awareness is diffused throughout the organization and decision-makers will be starved of critical information. And yet, the pressures and necessity to commit to a course of action become incredible, right when the information to guide that action is most lacking. Solutions can always be iterated and refined, but the first priority is to contain the immediate crisis.
Third, in any crisis — and especially a crisis of reputation — the biggest risk to an organisation is a loss of control over its story. Providing information relevant to an organization’s trust radar — its ability to empathise with customers, be transparent in resolving the crisis, demonstrate expertise, and persuade customers of its commitment — to both internal and external stakeholders is key to reducing anxiety and fear, and preventing runaway narratives from filling the information void and taking hold. Organisations have to “go big or go home”, and be prepared to let go of “standard practices” that will come “too little, too late”.
JetBlue’s response
JetBlue and its CEO David Neeleman exemplified all these when it bit the bullet by canceling flights for several days so that its fleet of aircraft could be repositioned to resume normal operations. By doing this, it bought time for dispatchers and flight crews, who had been struggling in vain to catch up to the runaway domino effect of flight cancellations, to normalise their schedules.
After an initial delay, JetBlue also clearly communicated, both internally and externally, that things were not business-as-usual. In particular, Neeleman made a video statement directly addressing JetBlue’s customers, as well as its employees, to acknowledge the breach of trust in JetBlue’s brand, and to lay out what JetBlue was committed to doing.
Finally, even though the costs were uncertain, Neeleman did not wait for a complete analysis to come in before announcing a JetBlue Customer Bill of Rights, a commitment to customers that had no precedent within the airline industry.
Hindsight is 20/20, and —after 12 years— we can confidently say that JetBlue’s decisive action and clear communication, following an ill-judged operational plan and shaky response in the immediate aftermath of the Valentine’s Day Massacre, helped to steady the ship and restore trust in the JetBlue brand and customer experience. The challenge for today’s organisations is to learn and apply the lessons from this episode — but at a much faster pace dictated by social media and advances in communications.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and do not reflect those of the author’s employer, organisation, or other group or individual.
