By Lynne Curry, Ph.D, SPHR bio
Consider this scenario: One of your firm’s most successful attorneys is also one of the most abrasive individuals you’ve met. He doubles down whenever he gets into any kind of skirmish, no matter who it’s with—a client, an employee, or even someone on the street.
You’ve tried for years to get this “Darth Vader” to change. No such luck. You’ve begged your firm’s senior partners to help you rein him in. They smile, but shake their heads, not willing to risk the battle. Further, this person wins cases, and his track record continues to attract new, lucrative clients.
You, however, know it’s just a matter of time before this attorney ticks off the wrong person. How do you convince your senior partners that Darth needs to change his ways?
The power of social media
Although this battle has proved difficult in the past, particularly as lawyers and law firms view themselves as impregnable, David Dao and United Airlines just handed you an answer. Can your firm handle a reputation-destroying social media firefight? More importantly, do they want to?
In 2016, United Airlines owned 14.5 percent of the U.S. domestic market, with a monopoly on many routes. Like many attorneys, United Airlines’ senior managers considered the airline virtually impregnable and acted on that belief. As just one example, United enforced procedures that transferred the airline’s overbooking problem to passengers. Multiple UA employees bumped passengers from flights and even booted them from seats, telling these passengers that arguing could result in their being escorted off the plane in handcuffs.
Until April, 2017, when one incident and the resulting social media fire storm turned United Airline’s world upside down in a day—and that day hasn’t yet ended.
Do your senior partners think a social media storm could never hit your firm? It can and quite possibly will. We live and work in an era of social media savvy clients and former employees, where even the mighty bow their heads after a media firestorm. United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz initially praised his employees for following the company manual after learning security had dragged a passenger from the flight. CEO Munoz didn’t think he needed to apologize to the bloodied passenger or his horrified fellow passengers, and instead regretted that United had to “re-accommodate” customers, clearly torturing the meaning of the word “accommodate”. It took United’s loss of $800 million in corporate value to induce Munoz to finally apologize.
While Munoz clearly hoped the Dao storm would blow over, United Airlines senior managers soon learned that it takes little for a social media frenzy to explode. Geoff Fearns quickly joined the firestorm, feeding it new fuel with his story. Just days before the Dao incident, executive Geoff Fearns paid approximately one thousand dollars for a full-fare, first class ticket from Kauai to Los Angeles. Although boarded and seated, a United Airlines employee told him Fearns needed to get off the plane because they “needed the seat for somebody more important who came at the last minute” and “if you don’t leave voluntarily, we’ll summon security” and escort you off in handcuffs. Soon after this, the flying public learned when Munoz’s family decided at the last minute to board another flight, the airlines bumped four already-boarded customers from their first-class seats.
Passengers, tired of being herded like cattle on and off flights, quickly developed new mottos for United, from “We treat our passengers like baggage” to “United puts the hospital in hospitality.” Thousands of passengers now book future travel on any airline “other than United” and investors hastily unloaded United Airlines stock.
Arrogance is no longer tolerated
What can you do with this information? Present your senior partners with the cold, hard facts, showing what United and other corporations targeted by social media fueled anger face. Then ask them to consider the number of attorney jokes everyone knows and tells, and to add to that tinder the passions that legal problems fuel. Ask that they imagine what one social media savvy ticked-off client or employee could do to your firm’s reputation by revealing your firm’s Darth Vader in all his belligerent, arrogant glory.
Then, show your partners how inexpensively they can change your practice’s culture to one that gives clients and employees the sense they’re valued. Ice the cake by outlining to them the productivity differences between inspired and dissatisfied employees and the productivity, time and money costs involved in replacing employees who leave.
In short, convince them that this lawyer presents a risk factor, and ask their permission to reshape your practice’s culture to one less likely to find itself attacked by a social media firestorm.
Lynne Curry writes a weekly column on workplace issues. She is author of “Solutions” and “Beating the Workplace Bully” and owner of the management/HR consulting/training firm The Growth Company Inc. She regularly consults with law firms in a wide variety of areas, from staff training to expert witness and investigation services. You can reach her at lynne@thegrowthcompany.com, follow her on twitter @lynnecurry10, or read her articles at www.workplacecoachblog.com.
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