Where is that Golf guy with the corporate spinmeisting.
When he runs and hides there must be big trouble.
I can only presume you were seeking my input since I’m the only “Golf guy” who participates in this stuff. Of course I have never spun anything as I always strive to use facts, logic and sound reasoning to make my points. I suppose that is the reason I seldom engage in the one-liner posts which require little to no facts or intelligence to impugn someone’s character and job performance without a shred of evidence.
Now that that’s out of the way, I know virtually nothing about this topic other than that it seems to be filled with hearsay, innuendo and the typical management-hating retorts that I have come to expect from certain posters. However, if anyone engaged in abusive or threatening behavior or conduct unbecoming of their position with the company, they should be dealt with swiftly and harshly once the facts can be independently confirmed beyond any reasonable suspicion. In the case of a he-said/she-said situation where facts cannot be determined beyond a reasonable doubt, then there may not be a satisfactory resolution as both parties may be telling vastly different versions of events. The company has a duty and an obligation to investigate any such claims and make a decision based on facts, not hearsay.
Now this may surprise you since you have me pigeonholed into a box that I really don’t belong to, but I wouldn’t spend much of my time defending Kirby. In my mind there is little doubt that he would qualify as a genius or as a person with extraordinarily high level of intelligence and that he knows his core areas of expertise (revenue management, scheduling, etc.) exceptionally well, perhaps better than anyone in the industry, though admittedly I don’t know how one would measure that. That being said, his personal character, leadership, and ego are not things that I would look up to in any way. Nevertheless, he’s in the position he is at US Airways because he is because of his vast expertise in those core competencies.
Kirby’s list of failures, in my opinion, is also quite long as evidenced whenever he steps outside of his core knowledge and strengths. The buck really stops with Kirby on the Res Migration failure. He pushed for the date against more conservative warnings for caution and then failed to manage the blowback repercussions from the resulting failures. His famous letter days after the conversion shows what knowing the facts (that the successful conversion of the PNRs and the overwhelming majority of systems and tasks being completed without incident) isn’t all that’s involved in measuring the situation. Employees and passengers could care less that 90%+ or even 99%+ of the systems and tasks were converted successfully when there are lines of people circling the terminal and the flight schedule is in total chaos. IMO that is a total, personal breakdown in his situational awareness. Then, with this failure to his “credit” he thought he could manage airline operations successfully when he proved he cannot. He bit off way more than he could chew and the disastrous performance in 2007 are proofs of that failure. The near immediate turn-around orchestrated by Robert Isom servers to prove that Kirby was out of his league in that arena. Isom may report to Kirby, but everyone knows that while Isom could do Kirby’s job, Kirby failed catastrophically at doing Isom’s job.
I personally think Doug will be running US for a long time to come, probably as long as he still wants to. However, if he leaves for whatever reason, I would expect Isom and perhaps Kerr to be given the most consideration for the CEO spot as internal candidates whereas Kirby may have reached his maximum potential (or has already reach the Peter principle long ago). That’s my assessment anyway.
Finally, in response to even the allegation of misconduct, I hope all those in management and executive leadership will refrain from drinking while traveling on US metal. There is simply no benefit to drinking in front of those you are supposed to lead/manage while they are working and you technically are not. Furthermore, once an executive steps into the cabin as a passenger, they should act like a passenger rather than a person with high-ranking authority. Leaders should expect all employees to follow the proper chain of command and not run into the CEO’s office for something that should be handled between the local manager and employee. In the same manner, the executive should push observations of poor service or minor policy violations through the local leadership of employees unless immediate intervention is required for the sake of the airline. Otherwise I think it would be best for the executive to practice being the model passenger who shows genuine interest in the opinions and welfare of the line employee without resorting to using executive clout to get his or her way.
There you go. Not quite what you were expecting I bet, but thanks for seeking me out for my opinions. I’m always glad to offer them.