So, it’s a little bit of wordplay. It won’t have escaped anyone’s attention recently – United Airlines is in a little bit of a pickle. But, why? For doing what it does as standard practice – bumping passengers, prioritizing crew? Apparently, yes.

A senior citizen was forcibly dragged off an aircraft when he refused to give up his seat for a United crew member who was not booked on the flight. His excuse for refusal to comply; he was a Doctor, who had patients to see in the morning. OK, fair enough. But, let’s go a little deeper. He was travelling with his wife – the airline, rather than choosing to bump an individual travelling alone, chose to bump someone who was travelling with another person – adding extra inconvenience and safety issues to the parties concerned (it’s never good to be split up when travelling).

What concerns me about this case is – are we focusing our anger on the right target?

Yes, United Airlines was the carrier. Yes, United Airlines did an extremely poor job of responding to the plethora of videos, comments, and hatred regarding this; and yes, United Airlines CEO gave such a weak excuse for an apology that he appeared inhumane.

But, is all this negative attention deserved?

The Airport Security / Police were the ones responsible for physically removing the passenger. They are the ones who abruptly assaulted the man, who treated him no better than a caged animal about to go to the slaughter house; and they were the ones, who in front of nearly two hundred individuals, acted in an extremely unprofessional and inappropriate manner given the circumstances they faced. Yes, except for one officer being stood down (there were, however, as I understand, three officers involved), they have avoided the scathing commentaries and impact of this. United’s stock values have fallen, passengers the world over are sharing their negative United stories, and instead of the usual 24-48 hours of popularity, this story still dominates headlines more than a week later. Yet, the airline is suffering disproportionately, and those responsible for the actions are happy to let the airline become the scapegoat, rightly or wrongly.

Protest against United Airlines erupted soon after the incident.

What could have been done better? United’s CEO should have made an immediate statement. Policy or not, this is not how customers deserve to be treated. Why did the airline, or other parties, bring up aspects of this man’s past? What does that have to do with how he was treated? Unless of course, it’s airline policy to target those who have a blemish against their name. Why did the first statement from the airline CEO appear so extremely weak and defensive, in the face of multiple video recordings of the event? Why has the airline offered some sort of pathetic compensation to all the passengers on board for the inconvenience, but not to the Asian gentleman and his wife? And why did someone even play the race card?

What could have been done better was an immediate apology, and immediate investigation into the incident, and to the actions of both airline staff and ground staff (including security / Police) – but this seemed slow. They waited, they dragged, and the court of public opinion served a very harsh judgment and penalty on United.

Can United recover? Of course, but it will take longer. As the momentum builds – we see examples of an about-to-be-married couple being kicked off one of their planes, an elderly lady being demoted from her paid-for seat in business class to economy, and generally, we see a “hate United” attitude by netizens.

Yes, they deserve the criticism. No doubt. Yes, they should learn from this – and I believe that they have. But no, they should not be judged endlessly for this situation. At the end of the day, one flight amongst tens of thousands had an incident. Should that put into jeopardy everything else the business is doing? The proportion, and the assignment of blame, is not equitable to the offence committed.

In case anyone wants to lynch me, I in no way advocate or support how this matter was handled; I am as horrified and disgusted as the next person; the people responsible need to be punished fully, but the right people need to be punished in the appropriate scope of the law. Enough is enough – stop the diversion – we have some world leaders taking us to the brink of war – our focus, and energies are needed elsewhere.

Craig J Selby | Craig is a long-time proponent of structured and measured change. His early career saw him teaching marketing and management at a variety of Universities and PTE’s in his native New Zealand, where he quickly climbed the management ladder to head several private sector institutes. Needing to do that little bit extra, Craig formed his own consultancy firm and was engaged by many in the sector as a trouble-shooter - responsible for internal auditing, restructuring and redevelopment of many departments and institutes in order to remain competitive in a highly contested market. This involvement motivated him to branch out and work with other industries - focussing on change and development as a core theme in business survival. When Craig moved to Malaysia, he went back into the Education sector to share his ideas with local private sector educational facilities. In 2009 Craig co-founded Orchan Consulting Asia, an award-winning Public Relations agency. His areas of specialisation are Crisis Management Communications and Change Management.

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change - Wayne Dyer

A recent article we encountered revealed a shocking truth about how impacted we are by social media. A restaurant in New York, who has been around for a long time, noticed that the average amount of time spent by their customers at their establishment has increased over the last decade, which ultimately make more customers complain about slow service and the long waiting time to get a table. They were perplexed, as they didn’t suspect their properly trained staff, or their cut down menu to have been the causes. So they hired a firm to get to the bottom of things.

As the place has been equipped with CCTV surveillance since its start, the firm decided to retrieve and study the footage of the establishment from past years. They analysed all of them, but only needed to study one video from a decade ago and compare it to a recent one in order to identify the cause.

It turns out that back in 2004, the customers were seen spending less time on their mobile devices compared to now, where most people are occupied with capturing and updating moments on social media. For instance, what they saw was that before even opening the menu, some customers would take their phones out to take photos while some others are doing something else on their phone; and when the waiter comes to take orders, the majority have not even opened the menu and ask the waiter to wait. The flow goes on with other instances where customers spend more time on their phones instead of actually focusing on having a dine-in experience; hence, the increase in service time.

Considering the popularity of mobile social media began to take stage in middle 00s, the impact of its presence became prevalent over time, and it has manifested itself into our everyday routine, which includes time spent patronising a restaurant.

Most of us can’t deny that we have a strong need to be connected to our friends and families. We want to share our moments, stories, and information; like the food we eat, our dine-in experience, the menu and location of the restaurant; just so that we can keep the connections alive. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that, but we somehow need to think about how our need to be ordinary citizen journalists engrossed by information sharing has implications far greater than just that of the regular updates we send out.

More time is spent to converse via phone with people far from us, than conversing in real time with people who are near us. More time is spent establishing our presence on social media, than actually getting crucial work done. More time is spent shouting out to the world about our adorable kids, than actually spending good quality time with them (by good quality I mean uninterrupted by technology). More time is spent sharing vain selfies with people who don’t not even care, than actually improving one’s character.

Previously we were a focused set of individuals, accompanied by low number of distractions; so low that we were always in the moment. Now, we are bombarded with a barrage of relevant and irrelevant news and social feeds on our portable toys, playing tug of war with our attention as the rope. From these observations, a question arisen, are our lives taken over by social media? Only we, who are creators and consumers of social media, can answer that.

For those who are curious about the analysis of time difference at the restaurant in New York, check out the details shared from AuntyAcid.com below.

 _________________________________________

This was the average situation back in 2004.

2004:

-       Customers walk in.

-       They get seated and are given menus, out of 45 customers 3 request to be seated elsewhere.

-       Customers on average spend 8 minutes before closing the menu to show they are ready to order.

-       Waiters show up almost instantly takes the order.

-       Appetizers are fired within 6 minutes, obviously the more complex items take longer.

-       Out of 45 customers 2 sent items back.

-       Waiters keep an eye out for their tables so they can respond quickly if the customer needs something.

-       After guests are done, the check delivered, and within 5 minutes they leave.

-       Average time from start to finish: 1:05

But wait until you see the average time for 2014.

2014:

-       Customers walk in.

-       Customers get seated and are given menus, out of 45 customers 18 requested to be seated elsewhere.

-       Before even opening the menu they take their phones out, some are taking photos while others are simply doing something else on their phone (sorry we have no clue what they are doing and do not monitor customer WIFI activity).

-       7 out of the 45 customers had waiters come over right away, they showed them something on their phone and spent an average of 5 minutes of the waiter’s time. Given this is recent footage, we asked the waiters about this and they explained those customers had a problem connecting to the WIFI and demanded the waiters try to help them.

-       Finally the waiters are walking over to the table to see what the customers would like to order. The majority have not even opened the menu and ask the waiter to wait a bit.

-       Customer opens the menu, places their hands holding their phones on top of it and continue doing whatever on their phone.

-       Waiter returns to see if they are ready to order or have any questions. The customer asks for more time.

-       Finally they are ready to order.

-       Total average time from when the customer was seated until they placed their order 21 minutes.

-       Food starts getting delivered within 6 minutes, obviously the more complex items take way longer.

-       26 out of 45 customers spend an average of 3 minutes taking photos of the food.

-       14 out of 45 customers take pictures of each other with the food in front of them or as they are eating the food. This takes on average another 4 minutes as they must review and sometimes retake the photo.

-       9 out of 45 customers sent their food back to reheat. Obviously if they didn’t pause to do whatever on their phone the food wouldn’t have gotten cold.

-       27 out of 45 customers asked their waiter to take a group photo. 14 of those requested the waiter retake the photo as they were not pleased with the first photo. On average this entire process between the chit chatting and reviewing the photo taken added another 5 minutes and obviously caused the waiter not to be able to take care of other tables he/she was serving.

-       Given in most cases the customers are constantly busy on their phones it took an average of 20 minutes more from when they were done eating until they requested a check. Furthermore once the check was delivered it took 15 minutes longer than 10 years ago for them to pay and leave.

-       8 out of 45 customers bumped into other customers or in one case a waiter (texting while walking) as they were either walking in or out of the Restaurant.

-       Average time from start to finish: 1:55

That makes it an extra 50 minutes all because of the customers spending more time on their phone! This to me serves as a really sad reminder of the digital age and how we are spending less time connecting in reality and more time on our phones.

Link:

Restaurant Watches Old Footage Of Customers And Uncovers A Shocking Truth

You can make excuses or you can make a difference - Unknown

In the previous article on employee motivation, I talked about how employers have the capacity to re-motivate those within the organisation when they start viewing their jobs as being a routine humdrum. However, this begged the question – should motivation be reserved only for those who are dealing with a low point in their career? What about those that have potential, those who are overachieving in their positions, those who have the capacity to contribute further to the organisation?

Employees should be looking towards star employees within their organisation and giving them due motivation as well as assurance. I mean, you do want your best to stay and continue playing an important role, right?

The first option is by having a one-on-one conversation with your employee, discussing and illustrating their career prospects with them. Convince them that their future lies with the organisation, and be an active contributor in helping them shape their vision. The intention of the talk is to establish confidence within your employee, and highlight the value they have for the organisation. Chances are that they will already be thinking about future plans – it’s on you to show them that they have buy-in to the organisational outlook.

Here’s the catch though. There should be some hedging in place, and employers / managers alike must mention and reiterate that there are no guarantees in place! Both parties should be aware of the multitude of factors which can interrupt the positive trajectory which they have worked so hard to achieve. Remember to preface any potential unforeseen factors which could alter the outcome of the discussion, and utilise the informality of the conversation to reinforce disclaimers throughout the talk.

Finally, be sure to tell them that they themselves are the final determinant of their own path. Sure, external factors play an important role, and it is extremely valuable to identify what these factors are, and how they can affect you. However, it is imperative that employers highlight accountability as a winning formula, and make sure that at the end of the day, their employees take responsibility for where they eventually end up.

Link: 3 Essentials for Spontaneously Mentoring Your Star Employees

Image Source:

(1) theoriginalwinger.com

(2) indulgencesandwhims.blogspot.com

Benjamin Lee Cheng Han | Benjamin is a student of International Relations at the University of Nottingham, currently exploring unchartered realms in the Public Relations field. Writing is clearly his interest – a decisive contributor to his foray into the public relations industry. To date, he boasts the proud record of having tamed one of the office cats, and drinking expired tea from the pantry.

When you can't change the direction of the wind; adjust your sails - Unknown