When Oscar Munoz became United's CEO, the airline was ailing. He prioritized having employees love their work. Here's why it was the smart move

On LinkedIn’s video series This is Working , I sit down with renowned leaders to explore the insights and lessons they've learned as they've built and guided companies or movements. We explore the approaches, techniques and tools these leaders used to master their skills.?

This week's guest: Oscar Munoz , the former CEO of United Airlines .

United Airlines was in crisis mode in 2015. Its CEO and other top executives were ousted following the launch of a federal corruption investigation; morale was at an all-time low; technology was breaking down; customer complaints were hitting new records; a merger with Continental had resulted in warring tribes of employees; and the company's efforts to please Wall Street had painted the company into a financial corner.

The board tapped Oscar Munoz , then the COO of rail-operator CSX, to right the ship. Oscar’s first move was to do what he does best: Listen. He started walking the aisles of flights asking “above the wing” employees about their lives and work. He waded into catering facilities and hangars to hear what was challenging United employees “below the wing.” He met with all of the leaders of each division. And he kept a running tally on his iPad entitled “The Top 10 Dumbest Things” list — a compilation of decisions that boggled his mind.

I asked Oscar how, with problems at every turn, he decided what to prioritize. He said learning how to find the most important priority is one of the most important things you can achieve as a leader. “You've got to figure out a way to determine what that first big thing is. Because if you start on the wrong thing, it's just not going to work.”?

Oscar was drowning in information, but it was a conversation with a flight attendant that helped him cut through the noise. At first reluctant to talk, she started tearing up: “I’m just tired of having to say ‘I’m sorry,'" she told him.

“And it just crystallized for me," Oscar told me. “We've put people in a position where they have to deliver a service, deliver products that they have nothing to do with: ‘I am sorry you don't like your coffee. I am sorry we’re late.’... There's no quicker way to disengage, disenfranchise, or disillusion a human being than having them do a job that they have no control over.” They turn into robots, he said. Got a complaint? What do I care — here’s the number to call.

Oscar determined that the first thing he had to fix was employee pride. It was the internal gear that had been stripped and that was causing the rest of the machine to malfunction. If employees didn’t believe what they did mattered or didn't believe that they could serve customers, no fixes to the finances or routes or systems would stick.?

In our interview, Oscar talked about how he got his lieutenants to reach consensus on investing in empowering employees. It's good they did. Finding that one lever — giving people control over their jobs — became the foundation for all of the other fixes. Employees started coming up with solutions, they presented a united front when hostile investors made difficult demands, they made customers feel like they mattered. By the time Oscar stepped down as CEO in 2020, United was leading the industry in stock performance and reliability.

There are lots of high points in our talk, but the other one I loved was his discussion about how his life as an immigrant both helped him and held him back —?and led to his decision to “swing easy.”

How Oscar Munoz learned to 'Swing Easy'

Oscar moved to the U.S. from Mexico as an 8 year old. He had lived with his grandmother before that, essentially homeless and traveling from city to city, before ending up with family in California. An undocumented immigrant, he lived with his mother and step-father, learning English and excelling in school. Not that he knew what he was excelling toward. When a guidance counselor asked him where he was going to college, Oscar responded: "What's college?"

After graduating from USC and earning an MBA from Pepperdine, he began a quick rise up the corporate ladder. He spent years in finance roles at PepsiCo and later served as CFO of AT&T. But he wasn't himself in the workplace. He was super serious, committed to outworking everyone, and prepared to get there on his own. "Being a Mexican American in finance, you didn't always feel like you belonged," he said. Any mistakes, he felt, were going to be magnified: "You know, 'This is going to reflect on me and my heritage.'"

Then his first “swing easy intervention” moment came.?

“I was a young hot shot at Pepsi and I got a role at Coke and it was a two-level jump in my career,” he said. “I'm 26, 27 years old and so I'm feeling pretty good about myself…My boss at the time sits me down, gives you kind of a midterm performance review sort of thing…and what he said sticks with me to this day. He said, ‘You know, you're really good. You've exceeded our expectations, but you're not yet as good as you think you are.’ And I remember thinking, ‘Wait, that didn't sound like a compliment.’”

What he realized was that he needed to loosen his grip, to be more collaborative, and to be himself.

“If you play golf or tennis or you watch the pros and it's just so smooth and easy, right?" he said. "And then we get out there and hack it around and you know, don't get near [the ball]. That concept of 'swing easy' at work means, be yourself, know who you are, involve people around you the things that you're not good at."

“My career trajectory, as nice as it was before I made this ‘swing easy’ methodology change, the trajectory was exponential after that,” said the retired executive, whose new memoir, “Turnaround Time ,” hit bookshelves earlier this month. "Everything I do, my genuine outreach to people, how I connect with people, how I aim to build bridges, how I don't tear things down, how I don't attack and I don't blame. That's the way I lead... And it didn't come intuitively to me."

I dive into this topic, “swinging easy,” and how it translates to the workplace on the This is Working podcast with my co-host, Senior Producer Nina Melendez Ibarra . We break down what we thought were some key takeaways of my interview with Oscar and share moments from our lives where we learned to swing easy.?

I want to hear from you –?is there a piece of feedback you received that you’ve taken and implemented in your career? Let me know in the comments, or send me a message - you can reach us at [email protected] .