Why what a company does internally always becomes what the world experiences externally.
When the United Airlines passenger removal video went viral in 2017, most people blamed the flight attendants. That was the wrong conclusion.
What that moment revealed was a brand promise with no infrastructure behind it, and frontline employees who had no authority to protect it when stakes were high. The cost was staggering.
This week I wrote about why brand has to function as infrastructure, not just expression, and what happens to companies that don’t treat it as such. United Airlines, Cracker Barrel and Jimmy John’s all make an appearance, along with a framework we call the Holland Helix.
To read the full article, visit my page on Substack.
