Oscar Munoz

>>Craig Gould: Oscar Munoz, thank you so much for joining me today. Oscar. You have a long and prestigious career in the executive world. Positions at Pepsi, Coca Cola, AT&T, a decade at CSX in the railroad industry. And most notably your time as chairman and CEO of United Airlines. I really want to dive into your experience, your wisdom talked to you about your book Turnaround Time, uniting an Airline and its Employees in the Friendly Skies. But a lot of times, Oscar, I like to start with taking people back to the beginning and asking them about their first job. What was your first job, Oscar?

>> Osca Munoz: Oh, first of all, thanks for having me. and thanks for that nice introduction. As you read off all those many roles, I can’t help my wonder that my mom would say, like, you know, son, can you not hold a job? when I graduated from college I was, I was scheduled to go to ah, law school. I did not have enough money to go to law school, so I needed to go to work first. And so I got my first job after a while looking, and it wasn’t quite the job I’ve been looking for, but you know, I was getting desperate because I needed money. So I took the job as a cash management analyst at Mattel Toys in Southern California. Only, only. So that’s the first job. But the real first job was two weeks later, a job that I had been interviewing with Pepsi. and it was like massive Amounts of people and they were taking forever. And I just thought I was going to get lost in the shuffle. So I took the Mattel job. But two weeks later I get this job at Pepsi. And again, back to all of you listening, you know, these decisions that we made. It’s like, do I take, you know, do I keep the one that I have or do I go with the other one? And how do you have that conversation? And it’s, it’s a, more than long story for today. But, but in essence, I left Mattel and I was very honest with my manager. I felt horrible walking in, but I just told him the truth. You know, somebody says, well, just tell them you’re moving out of town or whatever, you know. And I just went in and it’s one of those first lessons you learn. I went in and I just told him the truth. Like, listen, I had this other thing I was looking for. It just came through. You know, it’s a financial analyst. It’s all of the things that I want to be done. And I’m sorry, but I have to go. And he was very, you know, he was, you know, he wasn’t happy, but he was at. But I felt much better about it. I didn’t have to hide it. So my first job was a financial analyst at the Pepsi Cola bottling company of Southern California. Place called Torrance. It was a manufacturing plant and I, was one of the finance people there. And it was a wonderful first start because I got to see everything, how it came together, how we made the stuff, how we loaded it, what it cost the salespeople, how they priced it. And it was just a nice little, vantage point. And I got to see a little bit of the, you know, the corporate bureaucracy that Pepsi was at the time and how it works. So it was a nice vantage point and it was really what, I would call shark infested waters. It was a very, very political place where everybody was always looking around the corner and somebody was always trying to one up you. So I learned how to stay competitive, but I think balanced over the long run. So it was, it was a great first job.

>> Craig Gould: What I always think is interesting is that people wind up having some nugget from that first experience that they’re able to carry with them. And you know, when I look at your story of, you know, in 2015, you had to have a similar sort of conversation with, with your head at csx, because at the time you were president and chief operating officer. But the opportunity was on the table. A plan was in place for you to kind of take the reins at CSX when the opportunity came available at United. Right. I mean that, that had to be a difficult conversation to have. It had to be a difficult decision to make, but even more a difficult conversation.

>> Osca Munoz: Oh my God, it was, it was awful. It was awful. You know, and I’ll refer a lot to the book just because the longer story and the contextual nature is there. But it’s worth a read for folks that are facing that situation. And it’s not too dissimilar from what I just told about my Mattel versus Pepsi at the start of the, at, ah, the start of our conversation. yeah, now I was, it was, we were just six weeks from announcing that I would be coming, I would become the CEO at the end of the year, succeeding my boss, who had been like an incredibly supportive mentor, had picked me from a rank of many people who had a ton of industry experience at a relatively young age, picked me to be his, not only his chief financial officer, but after we got to know each other, he gave me technology, he gave me procurement, he gave me operations, he gave me a ton of stuff on top of that. And his phrase at the time was Oscar X. I had a different job that I was going to go be. The number two finance guy at American Express is still in New York where I was working at, AT and T. So great job, right? Great brand and everybody go, hey, way to go, Oscar. Or you could go down south and go be the CFO of some, what, railroad company. Well, it was an international global logistics company that we grew from a 7 billion market cap to a 70 billion market cap. So it was the right decision. But, but this is the individual who had allowed me that thing. And he had said, your Oscar, you can go to American Express and have that great job or you can come here. And he said the magic words, help me run this business. Fast forward, you know, 12, 13, 14 years that we’ve been working together. I’m six weeks from taking over, his role. He’s incredibly supportive of it, of course. And I remember walking in the room and like, oh, it was the most dreadful thing. And I said, you’re going to be, you’re going to be very disappointed in me. And and I’m sorry to do this, but, I’m going to take this role. And I’ve used the same sort of phrase, is that, you know, I know me, we’ve done so much here, we’ve really grown the Business. And the next few years for me would have been just, you know, in essence, fine tuning the succession plan. For me where going to a place that was broken, which was United, I just had the energy and the sense that I could go and, and build my own turnaround as opposed to one that was. I was part of a team, so I got my D in a row, so to speak. But they’re selfish, right? Because here’s a guy who’s given everything for you and you’re going to put him in tumult because now all of a sudden he doesn’t have a succession plan. So there is no good way of doing this. but again, it starts with knowing who you are, what drives you, what that energy is, and, when opportunities come up, just, you know, it’s the fact of just having to be really deeply honest. And, you know, I, regretfully, wrecked, a relationship there. And, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re mindful of our situation, but, you know, we’re nice to each other. But he clearly still holds a little bit of that. and, and then that’s the, you know, that’s the price sometimes we have to pay. So, for all of you facing that situation, it’s not easy. But, if you know yourself and you know what the next step for you has to be, we do have to be, you know, sort of focused on that.

Building a succession plan is one of the hardest things that you do

>> Craig Gould: Eventually you had to manage your own secession plan at United. And so, I mean, you, you wound up being in those same shoes. How do you go about making that plan?

>> Osca Munoz: Yeah, well, first of all, it’s like. And again, what I didn’t say in the last, story is, you know, my boss is wonderful. He, he kept extending his stay by just a little longer for a whole. A couple different reasons. You know, personal issues with the marriages that didn’t work. And so that kept happening. And of course, you know, I’m, I’m a good soldier and I still learning a. I had a great job and we were having great success. But there is a point in time when someone else comes calling and says, we have, we have, we have zero concerns about your ability to take this role. We’re ready to do this, we’re ready to do that. And so for all of us to be aware that building a succession plan is one of the hardest things that you do. Not the tactical aspect of that, that if you do it right, you’re finding another human being that can take your job. Like. And the. So the sword of Damocles begins to swing right when you picked and your role as a leader. I always say that leadership is never, I mean, never about you, but about the people you lead. And it means things like this, where you have to distance yourself from. It’s like, you know, you know, picking up this person is, he, he is going to be ready, and you’re going to make him ready probably quicker than you’re ready to leave and probably not as soon as, he or she might want to take over. And you’re going to start that process going. But it is the right thing because your role is to leave the place. Your legacy should be to leave the place better than you found it. And at United, they had had eight CEOs in the previous decade. Eight. and so, you know, me having somebody inside the company take over, there’s always tumble, but it’s someone they know. And then my successor’s job, and he knows it well, he’s in the process of building three or four people inside his organ. So hopefully for the next 30 years, there’s only a total of two or three CEOs, and the organization is much better for it. And the focus and, you know, the United success, through all of this has been part of the fact that we’ve had a very consistent leadership. Different humans certainly, but with the same underlying principle of the things that we believe in. And that can only be passed on by person. The person who’s been in the role has been developed and groomed. So for all of you that are part of a succession plan, congrats. For those of you that are developing, knowing that, just know that it’s a hard, it’s a hard thing to do, but it’s the right thing to do because you’ll leave the place indeed better than you found it.

You mentioned United having eight CEOs in the 10 years leading up to merger

>> Craig Gould: You mentioned United having eight CEOs in the 10 years leading up to taking, Taking, over. You were on the board of United during that time. Were you on the board of United the whole time, or were you on the board of Continental? How did you wind up being on the board?

>> Osca Munoz: Yeah, so it started with the Continental side of the United Continental merger. So, again, I didn’t know anything about the industry. I was this young cfo. Again, back to the story that of how my previous role, my previous boss at CSX had picked me at a very young age. First, you know, public company C, suite role. I’m learning that business and, through some connections of people, somebody calls me and says, hey, would you ever consider I mean, I knew what a board was, but I said sure. And so I joined the Continental board there, learned from some of the folks and all the issues, and eventually was an integral part of driving the, acquisition or merger of equals, between United and Continental. When United was ready at the time to merge with was then us, US Air, and so how it came to be is once we, you know, once we formed the two companies, we selected this, you know, 50% of the United board and 50% of the Continental board, we’re going to join together and some people would have to leave and then we would form a management team that it was again, sort of this 50% ideal. By the way, anytime I hear that, I laugh because it’s never 50. I mean, you know, we, we know the Continental had the, the CEO, cfo, CRO, coo, and then United brought their HR person. Nothing against HR people, chief legal. So it was not balanced, at all whatsoever. But that’s how I came to be in that situation.

>> Craig Gould: Yeah, I always shake my head when I hear about companies that have co. CEOs. I’m, I’ve never quite understood exactly how that works.

>> Osca Munoz: it doesn’t, you know, it’s. You wish. I mean, and of course it does in certain places. I think Oracle had a good, sort of grouping at some point in time. But there was very clear, there’s very clear delineation that one person is doing this very one, thing and the other one is doing. And the two don’t really cross. It’s, kind of like. It’s kind of like parenting. I mean, you know, kids very quickly figure out what mom agrees to and what dad agrees to and they will go to the appropriate parent to get their best answer. And it’s, it’s not too dissimilar in, in the work life in the sense that, you know, there’s a path forward. And that strategy is usually singular and usually has to have a degree of, aggressiveness and more importantly, conviction and commitment in. And to get two humans to have the same risk profile, the same strategic. And all, all of those things and the same people, leadership, choices of people. All of that, I think becomes difficult. And there’s always. So therefore there’s always one that’s slightly less CO and more CEO than the other. And if the other person’s okay with it, it usually works out well. you know, if you read my background, I’ve, I’ve been at Salesforce for a while on their board, and we’ve had epic, breakdowns in that co CEO model. and I think we will never have that again. I think whenever that succession planning process, goes into effect, there we will have a singular person to run the company. And, and I think our founder will always be part of our great company because he’s awesome. But, you know, it just, it just doesn’t work for all of those ideas and it feels good initially, but over time there’s just always, there’s always drama and there’s always a decision that just, it can’t always. It’s not going to be made by two people in the same way. Again, there is. You cannot waver from what you’re telling an organization because we all can see it immediately. Ah, you know, Craig wants to do this, but I hear Oscar saying that and this. And it’s like. And then you just, you just are heading for what I think is not. And I’m sure your, your listeners. Oh, well, there’s this example and there’s example. It’s like, yeah, you know what? Of course there is. But generally, the, what’s the phrase? One throat to choke. I think you’re, you’re outside constituents. Just like, you know, I just want one of you guys or gals to.

>> Craig Gould: Do the right thing when you’re chosen as CEO. And it’s a really interesting story about just how that plays out in your book, but, you know, you walk into a situation where there’s been this marriage on paper of these two organizations, but it’s almost like a couple of people deciding to get married but still live in separate houses. Priority one kind of needs to be able to figure out how to reconcile that.

You stepped into the role of United Airlines CEO in 2011 facing several challenges

Also, even though you had been an insider on the board for a decade, you didn’t come in with the preconceptions of thinking you knew how to run United Airlines. You came in with old axiom that we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Right. Can you kind of talk about the challenges that were facing you as you stepped into the CEO role?

>> Osca Munoz: Sure. And how do you go about fixing something like that? When again, it was a turnaround and however it’s dubbed or called the situation was, when you do have that sort of situation, the leadership lesson I provide to folks or people are facing that is you got to figure out the thing to start with this turnaround, because by the nature of a turnaround, there’s a lot of things that are broken. And to your question, United, our customer, service levels were awful and therefore customers Were pissed. Our investors, oh, my God, we get me started with our investors. And then, of course, our own employees. we still had dueling contracts from this merger. Seven, five, six years later, we still hadn’t solved union contracts for our flight attendants, for instance. And that means they’re. They’re working on the same wages that they did five or six years ago, versus their peers. So, you know, that wears on you just on the economic front. So we had a situation where, as I dubbed it in the Wall Street Journal article that, you know, how do you find the people? I found them disengaged, disenfranchised, and increasingly disillusioned. It’s like, where the hell are we going? I mean, you know, got all these people coming, promising things they’re going to do, but nothing’s got to go. So the place was indeed broken. So what is it that. How do you find the first thing to start? And to your question, you know, there’s an axiom that has been developed because when you write a book, you have to put axioms into it, but that’s called listening and learning before you lead. And so that’s come afterwards. But my instinct at the time, based on who I am, my upbringing working with other unions, was I knew things were broken. I think they were broken across the, floor. And I had many people telling me what was broken outside of, you know, advisors, consultants, et cetera. but, when asked directly what I was going to fix, I said, I don’t know yet, but I’m going to go find out. So I’m going to spend the next, you know, 30 to 60 days, and I am going to go listen to the one group of people that no one’s ever talked with, and that is, you know, we call them frontline or essential work. But these are the people that take your ticket, that look, load you on the aircraft, that give you coffee and meals, that frown at you, that throw your bags, whatever. You want to think of the people that work in an airline, but those are the people who is, it is their life choosing, to be part of this business. Because once you get in it, you’re in a union and you have seniority and, you know, to a degree, it’s a little bit of indentured servitude because you really can’t go anywhere else because you have to start lower on the totem pole on the union structure. So, you know, once you commit to be an airline union employee for a particular company, that’s where you. That’s where you work. And that is. Could be a frustrating thing. And then you have all this BS going around you with all these CEOs and everybody is imparting wisdom and you need to do this and you need to do that and you’re not doing this well and all those sorts of things. and so I needed to go find out a little bit more and inadvertently by going out to listen. And inevitably, what I learned was, yes, there’s a lot of strategic and all stuff, but more importantly, the biggest key learning that I had is, like I said, oh my God, we have truly lost, truly lost the trust of our employees. I mean, they’re just not going to listen to anybody at this point because you all sound the same. And I saw that in spades. And so again, as part of the book, and it’s a much longer journey. The culmination of all of that became the thing that I found that needed to be fixed first before we could do anything else, was to re. Earn the trust of our employees. And of course, our customer. Our customers are like, on what the hell? Our investors going, what the hell? Right? But it was, There was just no way you’re going to get. We have 140,000 people all over the world flying to all of these, you know, eighty hundred different places all over the. And they’re all like, I’m just here, I’m going to do what you tell me to do, but I’m not going to do anything more. And so that was the, start of that whole journey.

>> Craig Gould: How do you go from the employee’s perception that you’re going to be just one in a long line of detached CEOs to earning their trust?

How can an executive walking into a situation like yours start to earn Trust

How can an executive walking into a situation like yours start to earn Trust? Is it FaceTime? Is it authenticity? What words would you put on it? What would be your action plan? What was your action plan?

>> Osca Munoz: Yeah, it’s a combination of all of the above. I mean, we haven’t really discussed and I guess go to it in details again in the book. Sorry. but, you know, I was raised south of the border by my maternal grandmother, and I spent informative years of my life, you know, sort of being towed by her from home to home, place in place for her to work, and, you know, on buses and trains and dusty roads and all that. And, this is a woman who, despite not having anything really been, other than the importance of taking care of me, was the most incredible human. And the fact that she was kind and caring and unselfish and so hardworking and so forgiving and so every I, you know, they are latent dormant values that I didn’t know I had. And so all of my career has always been a sort of a person that bridges two sides of a viewpoint and whether they, people I work with that don’t get along to you know, the philosophical, strategic, conversations to contractual agreements between massive unions and management. Right. You can put all of that into perspective. my intent is not to go show you how smart I am and how I can overcome you. It’s like, okay, can you give me a little more information about this? And so trust travels at the speed of transparency. People have said I like to sort of adjust it. Like trust, trust travels at the speed of vulnerability. How do you put yourself? So you know, to your question I just, I said, you know, when I asked the question I said I don’t know. And by the way we were, I was on an earnings call and we have a Bloomberg screen right there watching us. When I said, big question was asked, what are you going to do? And I said, I don’t know, I just watched the Bloomberg screen just drop. And I said, you know, I’m going to find out from these people who, what really they have. And so how do you get them to trust you? Well, yes, there’s certainly FaceTime. Yes, clearly authenticity and genuineness. And you know an airline doesn’t have a factory floor where you know, all the 100,000 plus people all over the world are in one place at any point in time. They travels in twos and threes and fours maybe. And there’s a break room where there’s maybe 10 of them. Well you go in there and you sit your ass down and this is where the transparency, vulnerability, authenticity, genuineness, where you can’t fake that. And you know, you don’t walk in with a camera crew and 20 people of an entourage at, you know, at 10:00 in the morning. You know, you walk into these places at 2:30 in the morning. You walk into a room of maintenance folks at a Houston hangar with true story with you know, 700 people doing night shift and you stand on a picnic table because the microphone is shitty and you can’t, they can’t really hear you. And you let them yell, you let them scream, you let them, you know, tell you, you let them get that emotion out and you let them say things like we’ve heard all this BS before and, and then you respond, you know, tactfully but firmly, it’s like, is that true? The CEO of this corporation has been here at, by now, 3:30 in the morning, standing on a damp picnic bench, trying to get you to get him some information that he can act on. Because I cannot a fire everyone, right? I cannot, you know, just magically make your contracts go up by 100,000 because it’ll create a, But I can listen to something that’s more practical and logical. And it’s funny because this concept of listening and learning when I talk to CEOs, it’s so hard, Oscar. And you know, you’re promising people. It’s like you’re not promising them anything. You are literally sit there and listen. You. You. Punctuated by listen. I’m not going to. I’m going to hear all this stuff from a lot of different people. I don’t know where it’s headed. That’s an important part. I don’t have a task in mind. And I’m okay, that’s back to vulnerability and the stock price dropping. I’m okay saying that because you know what? Eight people before me in the last 10 years have tried, and you know what? They have failed miserably. So you’re the last bastion of insight that I need to have. So you can either screw me over or you can try to engage with me and be part of the story, you know, and, and that, you know, telling that story repeatedly in various, you know, you know, with two people in the room or 2,000 people in the room, I think was the magic for me at that company at its situational place. And I’m always careful to say that because just listening and learning isn’t going to solve all your problems if your company and your department has something different. But for me, being able to ascertain all that and having, you know, for lack of a better term, a natural skill in engaging with somebody so they would trust me. And again, I would like, if I found you sitting there by yourself, I would see you had, you know, you’re from Texas, so apologize for this if you had a Dallas Cowboy lanyard or something. I, come up and I’m like, oh, dude, really? You like the Cowboys? I hate the Cowboys. Right? Just. You start a conversation by that, there’s immediately like, okay, who are you and why are you? And then. But all of a sudden you’re talking and I’m asking you, hey, tell me about your children. Or, you know, is there something on you that I can see that has a reference point? And all of a sudden I’m not The CEO of the company. And you’re not, you know, the, whatever role that you’re doing. We’re just two humans in the middle of the night talking about something, and I. And then that trust develops with that vulnerability. And then all of a sudden I’m hearing stuff. It’s like, you know, and it was kind of like this and that and that. and so that’s how all of that got started. The problem with that is that you got to synthesize all that at some point in time into something manageable. And that also takes a little luck and a little fate. And, you know, I was on an air. I was on a flight, and I was talking to a flight, attendant. And she, wouldn’t even talk to me. You know, my conversations were difficult because most people didn’t want. Despite that, I was getting a fair level of, support because people were like, you know what? This guy’s different. Back to your question. How do you, how do you. It’s like you just do it. And then one person tells. I didn’t. I wasn’t walking around saying, well, you know, I talked to Bill over at maintenance and he liked me, so you should like. No, Bill told someone who told someone. So all of a sudden, I’m walking into rooms and people are stopping. They’re not yelling and screaming anymore.

The concept of we have to regain the trust of our employees first happened

They sit down. You know, they want to hear the guy that people are talking about might be different. So you start building that level of trust. But. But then you have this outside world, right? Your investors, your customers, your board, your senior management. Like, okay, that sounds great. And all touchy feely and crap like, what are we going to do? and that’s what, you know, over a long period of time. Again, all of this in the book. This concept of we have to regain the trust of our, of our employees first happened. And again, that same Bloomberg A screen when I first issued that again, plummeted. It was like, oh, my God. What’s, what’s that mean? He’s going to give away the farm, he’s going to sign the contracts? No, it just. We needed to do just simple things. And I sent my team around to all over the, all over the world. Great, story about a CFO who’s naturally a CFO and kind of tight with his money. He, he grew up in the Delaware area. He went to our station there and I sent my, my senior executives to go and I said, just go ask people, you know, what, what can I do? What can we do to earn your trust? Here in this particular location, department station. And you’ll, find that there’s the most human things. And the example is that they’re like, they’re looking around like, who are you and why are you here? I don’t even know anything about this. But you know what? We’ve been asking for a refrigerator or smart to put our food in while we take a break. And so Jerry went to the local Costco, Target, whatever, with his own money, bought what, you know what, $100, whatever, kind of be up firm. And he brought it in and put it himself. And you do that time and time again. All of a sudden people are like, okay, I get this. And then we went to work on doing all the really hard work about strategy and network development, getting the right people on the bus to run this whole thing. so all of that is really stupid hard. But in this situation, you know, you had 100,000 plus people, who needed to be re engaged and feel again, like they were part of the story.

>> Craig Gould: So what was the biggest part of the strategy? Was it operational, which would kind of fit into your wheelhouse, or was it trying to get everything ironed out with your different unions? What wound up being priority one there.

>> Osca Munoz: The regaining the trust of our employees. Is the phrase, to your question, what is the. An example of one of the things you have to do. So you do many, all right. And they were staged. But I think, I think one thing was the, the. Our fight with our flight attendants was now in its seventh year. And it was ugly and it was contentious and you really, you know, despite my best efforts to connect, there was always somebody that could throw it in your face. The one we did in a contract, Oscar, you know, that kind of thing. so I had a summit. Ah, a meeting with the head of the, the head of the flight attend. her name is Sarah Nelson, and she’s incredibly intelligent and very, telegenic on top of that. So she’s on TV all the time and we’re looking like dummies. You know, these, you know, we’re oppressing these people after all this many years. And she’s very good at it. so I needed to have a summit. She had no interest in meeting with me. I’m just, just yet another part of the evil empire. but a long winded, way we got together and again, back to my instinct of bridging the things and something I urge a lot of your listeners to do. We talk about these business ideals and principles. I talk about them as human traits and capabilities. When you are actually wanting to make something work, when you’re arguing with your brother or your sister, you know, yeah, you want to beat them a little bit, but at the end of the day, you got to be brother and sister for the rest of your damn life. So can we try to pick a place that we both can work? So my instinct with her when she first walked in the room, she was not a happy camper. I don’t know where it came from, but my instinct was simply to ask her. It’s like, you know, hey, before we get started with any conversation we need to have, because I want to get tonight, like, tell me how you got started in this world of being. Because, she used to be a young flight attendant. She grew up in the ranks and she went into, you know, the union. And so she told a, a night a wonderful story about being a young flight attendant without any money and in tears one day because she didn’t know where she was going to spend the night and she didn’t have no money for a hotel. And you know, somebody tapped her on the shoulder and there was another union person that, there was a local rep that wrote her a personal $500 check and said, here, take this, take care of yourself. You’ll pay me back when you can. And just know the union is always here for you. And so when you hear a story from a combatant, somebody that you know you’re fighting against, for me as a human, I see another human who’s battling things for a very, She’s passionate about this because it means something deeply to her. She wasn’t out for herself, just trying to, you know, get m idolatry and self aggrandizement. She was doing this because she really friggin cared about these folks. And with that, that phrasal one, we didn’t even talk about almost anything else. It was just all of a sudden because she, in telling the story, she broke down a little bit and it made me a little emotional. And then all of a sudden back to this transparency and vulnerability. Now we’re like, now we’re BFFs. And when we walked out of the room, I mean, it was a hug and a shake. the handshake was simply. I said, sarah, we’re going to make this work. I said, just keep going and negotiating. But we get, let’s get close. And when we get close, if there’s a, you just call me and I’ll settle it from there. And sure enough, about three, four Months later, you know, I got a call, I was in LA, it was 3 o’clock in the morning, you know, for me, and they were still battling and we were $40 million apart on something that was, you know, 40 million can be 4 or 400 the way people do math. But, you know, these are billion dollar contracts. And so, we solved it right there. I told my team, you know, pencils down, pencil, and we solved that contract. Now the punchline of all of that on my book on the back, the first endorsement is from her. And her words are, oscar Munoz saved United Airlines. Those are strong words for a person that you’ve been this combat. Right. And I use that example again, it sounds self promoting to some degree.

I just, I do that because the uh, best thing you can develop is teamwork

I just, I do that because the best thing you can develop in your career, an ability to get things done and have success, but you did them together as opposed to. Yeah, I beat the heck out of her. Wait another three years. And you know, we saved, whatever money. No, we, we got, you know, where United is today is all part of that journey. And it was successful. And again, back. It’s my style and my approach, but I think it’s one that works really nicely for most human beings.

Master Move Premium helps you find the next great opportunity in the C Suite

>> Craig Gould: Now, there was an interesting part of the book where you were in the middle of this proxy battle. It kind of reminded me of Miracle on 34th street at 1 point where, you know, in the movie, all these children in the US Post office say that this person is Santa Claus, then he must be Santa Claus. And you know, in this case, you know, your combatant Sarah and the head of the pilot union both write these letters that say, Oscar’s the man for the job. But you only get to that place because you’ve invested time in these relationships and you’ve been authentic and you’ve earned trust.

>> Osca Munoz: Thank you for saying that, because it’s hard for me to say, but, I’ll tell you, the people we were battling there from the outside thought they had a pretty easy run to house, me, ask my board or do whatever they wanted to do because they misjudged that level of relationship that I had built. And for union senior leaders to stand up for their CEO in that way, it doesn’t happen, period, when, you know, go just see something at Boeing recently how much that is. And so it is an important part of who I am and how I lead. And it’s an important part of how I talk about leading because there are many ways to solve issues, but the value of that conversation. Fast forward to this Proxy battle. Fast forward to the, Covid. Horribleness to, other, you know, crisis that we had in the industry. You know, it’s just we all knew. I knew that I had the, you know, they had my proverbial back in a lot of ways because they trusted you. And even today, you know, a couple years away, I, you know, if you walk with me in an airport, and again, this sounds so I can. People come up and, you know, it’s like, you know, doors, park, planes don’t leave without. It’s like nobody’s asked them to do any of that. It’s just the power of other human beings. Like, hey, Oscars in town. People stop in, I get pictures. It’s a wonderful. Again, this concept of leaving a legacy, leaving a place better than you found it has such enduring personal value beyond what level you reached as a. As a business leader and all that. Don’t ever forget that real, true happiness over time is how you make other people feel. And it’s been for me, I just, I mean, I sleep very well, sleep great, because I don’t sleep great. But I think very comfortably in the fact that, you know, there’s a, you know, there’s a lot of families that are significantly better off financially and even more importantly, personally.

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Your presidency or your time in office is judged by how you manage crises

Now, back to our conversation. Maybe it’s just because we’re in an election year, but I, you know, I think about platforms that people run on and, you know, in a lot of ways, you. You were out there stumping for consensus, right? And in a lot of ways, in these elections, there are these platforms and promises that people will make. But a lot of times your presidency or your time in office is judged by how you managed crises. Can we talk A little bit about crisis management because it’s kind of where a, person in that role earns their keep. And you faced, a couple of big ones over the years. What advice would you give just at the macro level? In your case, you had some very specific situations. But for the person listening, the specifics of your situation may not help them. But how to operate in that unexpected. In that Black Swan moment is going to be important. What did you turn to when confronted with those darkest situations?

>> Osca Munoz: well, and again, probably the darkest and the one that I don’t think there’s, ah, a human alive that didn’t see the terrible video of a customer of United’s being dragged and beaten off an aircraft out of, Chicago Harris Airport, and the subsequent storm that arose from, us being the first viral, Twitter at the time video we’ve, checked there. We clearly went global, became infamous globally overnight with I think 800 million views of that video in just China alone. and then the response mechanism that was, put together that just inflamed, that issue to a degree. And then of course, which led to, the axiom that I used to answer your question of how do you do? It’s like, God, you know, as awful as that was, and we can describe it a little more detail, but, it’s never too late to do the right thing. And so for me, the situation was awful that, you know, but the facts were supportive of what we said. And that’s. This is the first sort of, aha moment that all of us have to have because, you know, we’ll all be faced. If you haven’t already, you will be faced with this where the proverbial buck stops right there. You know, it’s a lonely at the top or whatever those phrases are. This was a moment where, okay, this is, you know, this is me and I’ve got to figure this out, and do the right thing and what’s going to be the thing for the right long term. So the initial facts were simple. we, United Airlines had really nothing to do with it. There was a. One of our. One of our express carriers are people we borrowed to do some of our flying, had some policies and procedures and needed to get people off a plane, and nobody would get off. So they have a mechanism to just pick two random people and they pick, not that you’re ever picking the right one. They picked the wrong one who also the policy said if they won’t move, then you call the local police authorities and usually people will leave at that point in time. Well, this person did not. He chose to fight law enforcement. And law enforcement, Biden’s very nature, right, is going to, restrain that person. And so all of a sudden you have it playing in a world where everyone has a camera. This is only 2017, by the way, which seems like just yesterday, but this whole concept of viral videos wasn’t a thing yet. X and Twitter wasn’t a thing yet. Social media was there, but it wasn’t, you know, doing what it does today. I started that. That’s another thing. I’m, And so, so that became widely known. And then when the facts come to me, it’s like, hey, here’s what happened. Here’s the process. It wasn’t us, it was the police. It was, it was, you know, this other carrier, not united. And then, then we learn about the individual’s background. And he was not a stellar human being either. So we fell into the trap of those facts are like, okay, you know, listen, everyone slow down. You know, he wasn’t a great guy and was just policy and procedure and he fought. So really isn’t our fault is kind of how it came across. Unfortunately, the word that was used, was me. My quote saying that, you know, after a person’s been dragged and beaten up an airplane, the word was used that was re. Accommodated. Me apologizing for someone being re accommodated. And you would be right to say it’s like, oscar, what the hell were you thinking about using a word like that when I’m watching a video of a guy getting, you know, beaten, you know, pretty severely. And you would be absolutely right. A lot of reasons before that. Legal people. The word that was used initially had a regulatory overhang that we didn’t want to have in play. So it was. And nobody understood what social media was at the time. We didn’t see this. It was not a thing. Literally, not a thing. So it’s like, yeah, whatever, it’s on Twitter. Go. You know, everybody go away. We gave the apology. Well, it just got worse and worse and worse and led, to the need to go on live TV shows. Good Morning America, they had, I don’t know, I’ve heard numbers from 20 to 40 million people watching because everybody loves the spectacle of a CEO under the spotlight. It’s like, oh, this is going to be great. Ah, we haven’t had one since, you know, BP and the oil spill. And so here I am. So you talk about dark moments. Oh, hell, I was Just like, so here’s the, the lesson, and the concept of it’s never too late to do the right thing for all of you listening, because you’ll be faced with some version of this, hopefully not this, and hopefully you won’t respond, like all of that sort of thing. But inevitably stuff happens. So in leading up to this TV thing, I am, I’ve got the best people calling it coaching and training because, again, remember, the facts really, do point away from United. It really wasn’t, quote, our fault, it wasn’t our doing, it wasn’t all of these things. And so how do you effectively do that concisely, when you have the barrage of questions from the producers and, you know, this talking head who’s going to, who’s out to get you and you’re under the lights and they’re going to want to make you squirm and they want to, they’re going to want, you know, to say some phrase that’s going to go public for the rest of your life about you saying, oh, you know, what did the guy from BP say? Yeah, you know what, I need a vacation too, or something, which obviously sounded very well, not well. So I have all this coaching going on. And, this is back to this concept of knowing who you are as a person, the latent endorman values that you have. You’ll remember in our conversation, my, my maternal grandmother who raised me and her ideals and skills and, you know, in the middle of the night, I got up and, the rest of them came back and I fell on my knees and looked up. Not because I’m a pious person necessarily, but I think as Lincoln said it, it’s like I looked up because no one else to look, nowhere else to look. And I thought about her. This is this calming thing. It’s like. And it’s not like, gee, what would Grandma do? But it was kind of like, yeah, you know, it’s like, who are you? You have this company, you have your brand, you’re a Latino and your heritage, I mean, they kind of play on all of this and it’s going to just make it, so what are you going to do? And the calming influences. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to say when asked whatever questions they were going to be asked, but I knew it was not going to be what I had been coached the day before to say. so when I asked the question and, you know, this, I said, you know, I pointed to myself, let the policies and procedures of Running an airline get in the way of treating another human being the way they should, and that will never, ever happen again. and that just came out. And I remember to this very day, because my words, they came out of me and, and I knew someone in the back of my head said, you know, 30 years from now, you’re going to be talking about this and trying to craft the story.

You reassured customers it would never happen again, gave steps to improve customer service

They were trying to help me. Just wasn’t going to work. And, and again, you know, it wasn’t entirely true because it wasn’t necessarily, you know, my policies or whatever, nobody wanted to hear anything, but. And so funny moments. the face of my interviewer is all of a sudden puzzled because expecting something different. It’s like he just said, it’s his fault. And I was like, producers, help me. And the producers in her ear, like, oh, my God. You know, coming up with different questions. The louder gasp for us from my corpcom and legal team behind me who’s like, wait, he’s not supposed to say that. but again, this concept, it’s just never too late to do the right thing. Because I quickly had. It’s like, listen, in the next 30 days, we are going to put in place 10 initiatives that are going to make the customer service aspect for airline customers at United Airlines better and things that we’ve had on the board for a long time, but for various reasons, we don’t. We. In 30 days, we’re going to implement, including that if we need you to get off a plane for some reason, we’re going to offer you up to $10,000. Right. And so you just put things into place where, you know that, that people are like, okay, well, you. I hate you. Oh, wait. Oh, okay. And the news cycle flashed and went past it. And I went out on a tour and talked to anyone and everyone that would talk about this. The people that were most upset by this were my own employees. Like, Austria, what the hell? Why did you take this on? It wasn’t us. It was that guy or it was the police. It’s like, you know what? I hear you. I’ll tell a story about my grandmother. She would have never blamed someone. She would have never. And those are those. That’s who I am. And I’m in charge of this company right now. And it’s what we did. So it worked out nicely. all the big business schools initially wrote the business case of how to respond very badly to a crisis to now, how to recover from responding bad to a thing. And I’m always proud to Talk about it, because it really began a reformation, certainly at United, to initiatives that we’ve taken. But the whole airline industry has become slightly better and people will argue with me about taking care of customers and it’s because they want to avoid something of that. Similar, I mean, the fact that we had a policy that said, yes, when somebody doesn’t get off, you bring the police and you forcibly take them off the plane. Right. You would never write that policy today or any time, but yet, indeed, we had that and obviously we’ve removed that and reworked all of that.

>> Craig Gould: Well, you just diffuse the entire situation. I mean, the blood was in the water. People are anticipating on you doubling down. You know, not that you necessarily made yourself a martyr, but, you know, I think the talking points there are you reassured customers it would never happen again, gave, you know, steps on how things were going to be different. But I think you also established for your employees and your partners that you weren’t going to throw somebody else under the bus. You know, ultimately, if, if someone needs to accept responsibility, it’s going to come from the top, which is different.

>> Osca Munoz: No, it was. I mean, let’s. Because of it. Again, back to how you build trust with people and authenticity and genuineness. And there was nothing scripted about this thing. It was. No, I mean, it was. And so, and, and people will say, oh, you know, he’s making this. What, Whatever they said, the actions took place. And, and to you, you made a very good point. The, the partners and people we have that surround our industry, the benefits of not throwing them under the proverbial bus. To this very day. I tell a funny story about, the then senior people in the police department of Chicago. Great town of Chicago. I come out of my building and my guy, the doorman was wonderful. Call me Oscar. The whole brigade of police are out there and it’s like, oh my God, what have I done lately? but it was this, and the phrase was, you know, you will never have to worry about anything happening in Chicago with you ever again. I’m like, I’m not sure exactly what that meant. I was like, I don’t plan on doing anything that I might need you, but good to know.

You talk about a life changing event in your new book

>> Craig Gould: I do feel like, I need to ask you about this, this life changing event that you cover in the book. it’s a, it’s a pretty big part of your narrative and it happens pretty much towards the end of your roadshow. you know, you’ve gone out, you’ve been in these conversations. You’ve been all over the country listening, and you have a life changing event just, just five weeks into your tenure at United. Can you tell people exactly what I’m talking around?

>> Osca Munoz: Sure, sure. yes, I’m. So that’s why we ended up writing the book. There’s just so much other stuff that you just literally can’t make up and didn’t sign up for any of it. But nevertheless, it all happened. And and it serves, it serves for wonderful life, life, lessons for all of us.

Mark Widener suffered a major heart attack during a listening tour

So, yeah, so the situation we’ve talked about my listening tour. So I’m out 37 days. on the 37th day, the conversation I referred to with the flight attendant, where I was trying to figure out what all this listening tour was going to amount for and, and things that she told me and I kind of gleaned that I had to regain the trust of our employees. All of that is happening in real time. Right about that. I’m heading back to Chicago. Got lots of meetings or everybody’s waiting for me. I was like, okay, the guy’s been out there listening. Like, we know, like, you know, rapture is coming. It’s like he’s going to solve all these problems for us. And so, I, I get up that morning, for a big full day, go for a normal run. By the way, I was a, I was a triathlete, marathon runner type. I was a vegan. I was supporting one of my sisters who had some cancer treatments. So I hadn’t been eating anything. I had been eating very healthy for a year and a half. so not your typical sort of, heart attack, a victim, but one of my, one of my train, one of my people I trained with, a good friend of mine, it happens to be a cardiac surgeon. And he’d always tell us stories about how heart disease is the biggest killer in America. People don’t pay attention to the symptoms. And he would say things like, hey, if you ever feel anything weird, just call 911. The worst you can be is embarrassed. and I remember him adding a phrase that, you know, to some degree saved my life. Not to sound too corny, but he says, you know, and when you reach 91 1, he said, immediately tell him where you are. I’m like, like, duh, of course. But he added, because he goes, because you may not make it past the phone call. And I remember looking at him, I know exactly where we were. We just got on a long bike ride and everything. Okay, Mark, that’s His name, that’s, a little dramatic, but, you know, fast forward a, few years later, I’m in my apartment. 30, seventh day on the job, going in for this big, long day. I just went for a five mile, pretty easy run. I’m, making my vegan protein shake and my phone, buzzes across the room. And, I said, you know, that’s not good news because we were still operating poorly. So as I go to walk across my, my 50th floor apartment where I’m by myself, my legs get wobbly, and I think it’s like I didn’t run that hard. I take two more steps towards the phone and my legs sort of give out. I follow my knees and I feel a little clammy. And I remember his words. it’s like, you know, if you. It’s like, this is not for my run, clearly. This is weird. I’m clammy. That doesn’t feel. So I crawled to this, thing called the landline. You might know what that is. I’ve only read about him, but, and I call 911 and immediately say, hey, listen, I’m, on the 50th floor of this building. and, and I realized my front door was locked. There’s only one entry to this, you know, little, you know, two bedroom, small rental apartment. It was temporary and I, I somewhat crawled to the front door and just in time for the paramedics to come in the door. And that’s the last thing I remember. So I suffered a major heart attack. That by all accounts, people that are all part of that, there’s just no way I should have made it through that. It was that significant. The widowmaker and all that is not a real medical term. But it’s like one doctor said, you took the concept of the middle of the, widowmaker and gave it the middle finger. That’s how bad your thing was. so 37 days in jump, 37 minutes later, I am in the hospital at Northwestern Hospital, having been transported there in a modern, new, newly equipped ambulance that just happened to be around the corner when my call went through. They pulled right in, with all this new technology that tells the doctors exactly what they have coming, as opposed to, we have a cardiac issue, they have much more specifics, which prompted two doctors that were ready to do other things that are already scrubbed, to stop everything and wait for me to come in and so they could put. And then they made the quick decision to put me on, what’s called ecmo, which is, an artificial heart lung machine, which is a big decision you make because if they do that, you’re in the hospital for a couple of months. I mean they just, it’s not something they plug and unplug. Right? So it’s a big decision for a doctor to make because you are committing this, person to the place. But I was in that horrible situation, and so long story there about all that happened and which inevitably, led to me requiring a heart transplant, which I received a few months later. A couple months later, magically again, back to the wonderful story that’s my blessed life on the morning of my birthday. you know, you’re waiting. Waiting for an organ is just a weight game. And it’s a weird waiting game because you know, again, if you’re a pious person, what are you praying for? That someone else dies so you can get something, for you to live. So that’s kind of a weird, so you sit in this weird limbo point. but on the morning of my birthday and I was kind of already starting to go back to work a little bit, I had a, I had a machine that was keeping me, you know, sort of healthy. And I get this call and Dr. Anderson says, have we got a kick ass heart for you. And I’m like, okay. And I was like, what do I do now? It’s like, you know, by that time you’re fully the content. By the way, when they first told me you’re going to need a new heart. And so, yeah, go away. I’m okay, I’ll figure this out. but when you, you know, when that comes, you’re, you’re ready for it. I had the whole, strategy meeting going with my senior folks, the meeting I was supposed to have when I got the heart, that big summit of people. Here’s what we need to do in the business. We were having that conversation, ironically enough, and we were on the third day of it. And so, I asked them, so when do I need to come in? It’s like, well, you don’t have to come till later in the afternoon, in early evening because there’s a lot of stuff to do. So just do whatever you’re going to do today. Relax. So I went back to work and we culminated the meeting, ah, at lunchtime for me, all this conversation, all my senior leaders, we, we have now settled together that the first thing we have to do at United strategically Is regain the trust of our employees and what the process was going to be for that. Literally, right before lunchtime, I stood up and said, hey, I got to go back to the hospital for this thing, and, I will see you.

You asked yourself why you were spared by the transplant

On the other side, was a phrase that I used that seemed like a throwaway phrase until I think about what that could have meant had I not made it, through the transplant. but these are, again, these are stories you just can’t make up. And, I’m, I’m always, glad to tell them in the way I do, because it’s a meaningful part of my life. But, you know, good things do happen to good people. And I learned a lot from being in the hospital. I learned a lot about the front line and learned a lot about, I know what people do in the middle of the night when they’re stricken with this. I learned, from a nurse that said, you know, a lot of people are mad and angry and ask why this has happened to them. Like, you seem like a person that asked the question about why? Not in that way, but in a why. It’s like, gosh, why was I saved? Because by all accounts, I should be done for, but I’m still here, so why. Why am I help? Why had I been spared? So I began to think of it that way. So going back to work was not a big decision for my family or I, in the sense that, you know, the letters that were coming from all over, the company. I mean, we had a morning reading with bags, and all the doctors and nurses would stop in and listen, and my kids. My kids would read these notes. so it’s just a magical thing that was the basis in the building of this incredible level of trust between me and those employees and what we were able to accomplish in a very short period of time. And to help us live through all of these things, including the crisis we just discussed with Flight 3411 as we reference it.

How was it that you were able to be so positive again after heart attack

>> Craig Gould: It’s interesting because I know that it’s really common for folks who have just a normal heart attack to deal with, fear, to deal with depression, that there can be a logical responsibility response to want to just stop life and not completely stop, but shift down, take things easy. Maybe this is a sign for me to back up and think about a different way of life. But it sounds like your career, not necessarily unhealthily, was providing you purpose in that you felt, a responsibility to all those faces that you had been in conversations with and that can you Talk about the mindset that you were in. How was it that you were able to be so positive again?

>> Osca Munoz: We all know ourselves and we all have a certain side of us that makes us maybe a little crazy sometimes. I do have to say that throughout this whole journey of me being in the hospital, all those ugly, awful nights, I never, never doubted, that I would not only be okay, that I would be okay to go back to work, and that I would be going back to work. In fact, in my less lucid and more drug fueled, early days, I kept demanding that we call the board and have them come see me. I’m fine. I’m just, you know, it’s got to take a little while to get better, but, you know, we’re all focused. I had this, you know, I did have that sort of mission. Now, nobody thankfully allowed that because I saw a picture. My, my, my family saved some, of the pictures from those early days. And if you ever were to see one, you would gasp. I mean, when I saw it, I fell to my knees. I looked like death, period. I, if they, if my board had seen anybody outside of Miami, family had seen me, they would have run for cover. I mean, I looked awful, but in my mind I was fairly, I was more than clear. And so I never doubted any of that. And then all of this wonderful love and attention is coming through these bags of mail. And I began to really formulate this concept of my team is behind this, regaining the trust of our employees. Now they’re really engaged. What are the things that we need to do? And then I thought, started thinking about strategy. And, you know, I surprised, we had a worldwide leader meeting, a couple of months later that I was still in the hospital, but I left the hospital for to make a speech that became a famous speech in the sense that I talked about us, you know, being wandering nomads in the desert, all great people wanting to do the right thing, but all pulling in different directions inadvertently. And what we need and what I need to provide is this concept of one North Star where we all can drive to. And that North Star is we first need to regain this trust of our employees. And that became famous for a couple of reasons. One, it was a rallying cry like, okay, we’re going to do things with the lens of our employees, not our customers, not our investors, until we get the ship right size and do all these other things. And so that was meaningful in the think of the employee base. It’s like, wait, what? We are the focus. Oh, pest.

>> Craig Gould: Great.

>> Osca Munoz: We love Oscar and more importantly, our team. My team, my direct, my mom, we’re all behind it as well for all of this going on and, a fun little trade off. If you fly United and you fly our front cabin and that whole experience, it is called Polaris. and Polaris, if you know all your history, is indeed the North Star. It’s another name for the North Star. And one of our engineer, is getting. Chris came up with that. And I just laughed so hard because the marketing people were so pissed. It’s like Oscar picked the engineering guys, but it was such a perfect thing. North Star, wandering nomads. Polaris became our front of our, of our, of our planes. And so, wonderful stories. And, and again, that positive attitude came from the employees. I mean, it’s, those letters really took me over the site, importantly took my family. I mean it was. We never had a conversation about, oh, I wasn’t sitting down with your spouse and your kids about going back to work. It was never a conversation. It was clear that I, needed to go back and I, you know, I was, I was, my, my transplant was on a Thursday. I was back in the office on Monday. and you know, the medical capabilities that they have nowadays now, you shouldn’t be out in public. You need to be separated from people. So I don’t, I don’t condone any of that, my craziness. But I felt awesome. I felt great. And you know, having a brand new heart inside your body was pretty helpful.

>> Craig Gould: It’s been, what, three and a half years since you fulfilled your secession plan? you’ve written a book. You are on what looks like upwards of maybe nine different boards. And they’re all just sounds like amazing opportunities. and they all seem like they fit with who you are. from cardiac medical devices to, the, sustainable electrical, vertical takeoff and landing vehicles that can provide kind of connections to two, for that last mile.

>> Osca Munoz: Flying car. Flying cars. We call them flying cars. Think, think, think. The jet. Think the Jetsons is the best way. I’d always describe that.

>> Craig Gould: It looks like you’ve got a pretty full plate, but is it Archer? And what Archer is trying to do with United is that the flying cars.

Is that what, what has you most excited these days?

Is that what, what has you most excited these days?

>> Osca Munoz: Oh, gosh, you know, it’s hard to pick between all your children, right? And pick a favorite because they’re all great. I think they are one of the things that, you know, back to advice to folks. You got to have a plan for what you want to do next and you got to build a structure about what that plan means for me. I have, I’m going to have a lot of options to do a lot of different things. So how do I start, you know, building pillars? I want to bridge inequities in the world from a philanthropic perspective. So you know, American Heart association started a social platform, fund, I want to help people that are less thing in my heritage. You know, people from Latino, Latina heritage don’t get money from private equity and VCs. So I start a venture fund, you know, with with some friends. And we know we’re funding a lot of those folks. And so each one of those things had. So from inequity to innovation, which is Archer is clearly that. And then to me personally there’s things I don’t know about like technology and all its craziness is not something. I mean I know how to use it, I just don’t know how it gets built. And that’s a salesforce initiative. And then I got cbre, which sounds kind of off the beaten path but you know, gosh, real estate in this planet is an amazing sort of economic underpinning to so many things and how those deals are done. And so all of those combinations of things and you know, things I’ve invested in, the health situation all provide me ah, this wonderful constant thread of information and I connect people again back to building bridges. I can connect people that are starting up here to something that’s more established but all leading to people having better outcomes from a health perspective, from a financial perspective, from a equity bias, you know, the solution basis to all those sorts of things. And so that’s my mission. So unfortunately it’s a broad mission so it does keep you busy. But I always say yes, I’m busy, I am healthy and more importantly I am happy.

>> Craig Gould: Well if, if people wanted to keep track of you, you know, obviously I would suggest folks checking out the book, right. Turnaround time. Uniting an airline and its employees in the friendly skies. Available wherever you buy books. But if you know, is there, is there a website or LinkedIn or.

>> Osca Munoz: Yeah, so LinkedIn my name. It’s simple, it’s Oscar Munoz and everything. I don’t have any fancy handles on both Instagram and LinkedIn. The LinkedIn has a link to the website. the books are now usually available through online versions where we’re yet another printing. So it’s done well, so get it quick. and I write about A lot of this stuff on both, IG, and LinkedIn, just because, again, I had people tell me it’s like, Oscar, people write about all this stuff from a fifth grader’s perspective. You’ve actually done a lot of this stuff, and you do it in an authentic fashion. So get a lot of followers, a lot of interaction with those folks. and so that’s a way to keep track of me. Thank you for asking that, Oscar.

>> Craig Gould: I can’t thank you enough. the book is, wonderful. It’s a great read. I’m wondering if anyone’s optioned the rights for a movie, because there’s certainly enough, enough drama and twists and turns in your life. but, man, I really appreciate you sitting down and being my guest today.

>> Osca Munoz: Well, listen, it was my pleasure. And yes, I remember when my agent, finalized the book deal, he was very happy about all this other stuff because, by the way, I retained the movie rights, which we all laughed about, sort of thing.

Building a great team is so important because the work is never finished

But there’s one closing thought, if I could. And often people ask that to me. So I’ve always thought about it and it’s like, okay, it’s great. Oscar, you know what, what would you say to this crowd? but one of them that I always found we should all have a good answer to this. And it’s like, no, what do you wish you had done differently while, you know, during your time at United? And they want to, you know, pick a particular aspect of that. But I always like to say, that your biggest regrets aren’t the things you did, but a lot of the times the things that you didn’t get a chance to do. Which is why building a team and whether succession and. But building a great team is so important because the work is, gosh, it’s never finished, right? You can go back and say, I wish I’d done this, I wish I’d done that. But, if you assemble a great team with the right philosophy and the right background that you’ve nurtured, and you leave that as your legacy, then you can be confident that the work that will continue and the things that left undone, will get done and then more importantly, get done, right? So, you know, I ask all of you listeners to think about that concept of legacy. And one of the best ways to do that is to develop the people underneath you. We all think so highly of ourselves. Great. Build five more like people like yourself and, you know, your organization, your department, your company can do better.

>> Craig Gould: Absolutely.