I’m Star Alliance Gold – which means I not racking up “Up in the Air” levels of frequent flyer miles, but I’ll exceed 100,000 miles in the air this year. In my travels, I have learned that some airlines are just better than others when it comes to breaking bad news.  I won’t name names, but let’s just say that I’m amazed that an airline so good at landing on the Hudson River can be so BAD at basic customer service.

But for every horror story, you run into a story which just makes you pause, and gives you hope.

I was flying with a different airline, United (notorious for breaking guitars), through Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC.  It was the end of the day, and a group of passengers – about 30 – boarded a small regional jet for what was supposed to be a short flight into Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

We were seated and ready to leave when the dreaded disembodied voice came on.  You all know the voice I’m talking about – the voice where some strange man introduces himself, says he’s the pilot… and that “we’re expecting a short delay.”  And inevitably, you know what happens next… you sit on the plane doing nothing, wondering what the problem is and why can’t they just fix it.

There’s no sugar coating this – delays suck.  You’re stuck on a plane, watching the minute’s tick by; increasingly convinced you’re going to miss a connection.  It’s the sense of helplessness that makes it untenable.

But this time it was different.

The pilot came on to say, “Folks, I know you’re not going to like this.  I’m sorry, but we have a problem.  The folks on the ground here have given us too much fuel.  Now, I know you’re wondering ‘Hey, what’s the problem with a little extra gas on board’ but they gave us an extra 4,000 pounds of fuel.  That’s going to make us too heavy.”

“Now, we’re not going to kick anyone off the plane to save weight, or anything like that.  You’ll all get there, but what we’ve done is asked them to come and offload some of the extra fuel.  But it’s not a simple process.  They need to find a spare truck, empty its existing load of fuel, and have it come over here.  I’ve been on the phone with them and they’re working on it, but I’ve heard two reports – one says ten minutes, the other says forty-five.  I’m going to keep working on them and as soon as I have anything else to report back, I’ll let you know.  On behalf of United, please accept our apologies.  We’re doing everything we can to get us going.”

Lets take a quick look here. First, Mr. Pilot absolutely nailed the cardinal rule of breaking bad news – serve up a healthy dose of empathy.  I’m pretty sure United doesn’t teach that to their pilots, but he did a good job.

Interestingly, from a risk communication perspective, it was a classic stand-by statement: Tell them what you know, tell them what you don’t know, tell them where they can go for more information.  And here’s the beauty of it – it worked. Rather than mass grumbling, I look around and saw a few resigned shrugs and whispered conversations.  People were resigned to the problem, but didn’t appear to be upset with the pilot or more importantly, the airline.

Ten minutes later, we heard back from my pilot with “OK folks, I’ve got a bit of an update.  I’ve been on the phone with ground control.  They assure me a fuel truck is on its way.  They told me five minutes.  Now, we all know five minutes means different things to different people, I’m happy they’re doing something about it.”

“We thought about offloading you, but it’s just not worth making everyone disembark, getting new boarding passes, unloading the carry-on luggage and making you go sit in hard plastic chairs in the lobby rather than the chairs you’re in now.  But if any of you have any needs or concerns, please talk to Debbie, your flight attendant.  She’ll bring it up to me and we’ll do all we can to look after you.

Here’s our pilot nailing a second rule – anticipate the hot button issues and answer the underlying concerns.  (Concern – are we stuck on this little tiny plane?  Answer: Yes, but let me give you a valid reason why, and serve it up with a healthy dose of empathy.)

Again, I look around, and this time the (now 30 minute delayed) passengers were actually chuckling to themselves.

It was great – a beautiful example of taking what could have been an ugly situation and calming everyone down.

(And for the record – five minutes later there was, indeed, a fuel truck outside our window.  We all made it to Harrisburg.)

How embarrassing if a video of those private moments was shared with friends?  How could you go to church, knowing the usher watched you clip your toe nails while sitting on the toilet (or worse?)

Seriously – stop and think about all the things you’ve done in the last few hours that you hope no one witnessed?  I’m not trying to be indelicate; I’m trying to drive home a point.

Human beings have a natural need for privacy.  But that same courtesy isn’t extended to corporations.

Companies do stuff all the time that they hope no one witnessed.  Not even illegal things, simply… embarrassing things.

• A mailman needs to visit the restroom and stops at a beckoning bush.
• A vehicle takes a wrong turn and ends up stuck.
• A pilot misjudges conditions and ends up going past the runway.
• The CEO is out for dinner with his daughter and has a credit card declined.

All of these moments used to be laughable, but forgivable.  It’s easy to avoid communicating something when no one actually notices.  But it doesn’t work like that – anymore.

The latest organization to become painfully aware of the new rules: FedEx.  You may have seen the story on the news: a stupid delivery driver did something dumb, and pitched a package over a fence.  Unfortunately, the driver didn’t count on two things.  The first was that the package contained an expensive video monitor.  The second was that the whole thing was caught on Youtube.

Ouch.  That hurts. You know what else hurts?  The video showing the ‘rush delivery’ collected over a million hits in 24 hours.  A MILLION.  Six zeroes!  At the time this post is published, it’s eight times that.

The days of ‘deadline journalism’ are long over, and have been replaced by citizen journalism.  In a world where everyone has a cellphone with a built in video camera and access to the Internet, the last thing you can count on is privacy.

So what do you do if you’re caught red handed doing something stupid?

1/ Admit it: Admit it openly, honestly, and completely.  Don’t make excuses for your behavior.  Simply admit that it happened, but it shouldn’t have.

2/ Apologize: Don’t wimp out on this one and “apologize for how they feel.”  Sincerely, authentically apologize for your actions.

3/ Consequences: Call it self-flagellation, call it throwing someone under the bus – it doesn’t matter.  If your people have done wrong, explain what happened to them.  Were they dismissed?  Were they formally warned?

(I know many places can’t release specific details, due to employment contracts and privacy laws.  In which case, explain the policies that exist. ie: We cannot specifically comment about what disciplinary action this employee will face due to privacy laws.  However, I can say that our employee contracts specifically state that anyone found stealing is subject to immediate dismissal with cause.)

4/ Prevention: Are you changing your training procedures?  Are you reminding employees not to pee on customer bushes?  Are you reviewing your training criteria for wet runways?  If you are making changes, explain what they are.

5/ Ongoing commitment: Demonstrate that you take this seriously, and you don’t want to see it happen again either.  Once may be forgivable… get caught doing it again and the public will angrily strike back, twice as hard.

The public has a remarkable ability to forgive you, once – if you give them an opportunity.  But you have to create the conditions that allow them that opportunity.

For most businesses, there are simply more cost effective, efficient ways of preparing for those “Oh Crap” moments:

I mean, hey – I’m honoured, but perhaps you’re looking for some witty banter.  I’m terribly sorry to disappoint.

Perhaps you’re looking for an insightful commentary on a recent news issue… but considering this first blog post, written mainly as a placeholder, by necessity is written well in advance, I’m disappointing you again.

I’m all about bringing value.  So in the interest of bringing value, here’s the best piece of advice I can give you… just stop reading now.

OK.  You’re still here.

Perhaps you weren’t paying any attention.  That’s a bad habit, you know.  I mean, what if I had fantastic, insightful knowledge that could have revolutionized your life.  You weren’t paying attention though… you missed it.

In fact, just by continuing to read this shows you’re simply not that much of an ‘attention to detail’ type person.  So really – there’s nothing you can gain here.  Check in later.  Go read some of the other posts.  Just don’t continue reading here.

Wow.  You don’t give up easily, do you.

Remind me to refer you to a great book, called “There’s a Monster at the End of this Book.”  It stars that action hero of Sesame Street programming, “Grover.”

I think you’d like it.