Take Me Out to the Cricket Pitch

Back after a one week hiatus and some personal travel to New England. This week, we have a company getting blindsided by an aggressive activist shareholder and probably ruining the summer for their comms team; and a milestone for the U.S. national cricket squad, which could have a halo effect for a tech giant's employment brand.

Loser: Southwest Airlines, for being caught seemingly unprepared by an activist shareholder, and their comms team specifically, for the year of hell that now awaits them. On Monday, Elliott Investment Management reported that it has quietly acquired a $1.9 billion stake in the airline, and with it, launched an effort to oust the CEO and shake up the Board. According to AP, the company was notified Sunday by Elliott, and scrambled to put together a public statement. Axios reports that Elliott seemed to time this to give them as much time as possible to make its point to shareholders, waiting until just after this year's annual board meeting. Even though the company was seemingly caught off guard, that's not all that unusual, and their official statement was pretty anodyne. What will truly suck, however, is what awaits the communications team (including legal and IR) over the next 12 months. Nothing but brutal takedowns of the current CEO, the entire management team, and the business strategy that has made Southwest unique in the industry.

Learnings: Southwest probably could have done a better job monitoring the market to see Elliott building its position. That would have allowed for some background media work, engagement with Elliott at some level, or at least some prep work to be done. But the biggest learning may be that all their comms people probably ought to clear their calendars, because it's going to be a year of dodging grenades.

Winner: Oracle's employment brand. And the sport of Cricket. I am a huge sports fan. Always have been. My earliest reading source was the Boston Globe sports section in its heyday. I'll watch whatever game is on. But try as I might (and have), I cannot decipher cricket. Now, I read enough to have known that, for the first time ever, the U.S. was co-hosting the ICC Men's T20 World Cup. And last Thursday, the U.S. team upset Pakistan in New York City in front of a packed house of crazed fans. It was basically a Miracle on Ice moment for the nation in the second most popular sport in the world. Closest we've come to a hinge moment for a sport that has been trying to break into the U.S. market. And just in time, too, as the Major League Cricket league just started here last year. That upset, plus the huge India v Pakistan match, is creating brand new fans here, including this writer at the New York Times / Athletic. In the days that followed, a wave of stories came out on one of the U.S. team stars, Saurabh Netravalkar. Turns out our newest national hero is a principal engineer at Oracle. I have to believe that this fact is helping Oracle burnish its employment brand reputation -- would be interesting to see if applications for open technical roles go up. There are probably a lot of engineers out there who wouldn't mind working closely with a cricket star.

Learnings: If a core comms goal is to increase interest in your company as a place to work, the best way to do that is to shine a light on interesting employees. And don't get stuck focusing on what they do at work. Go find people who have really cool stories about who they are, where they came from, and what they do in their spare time. Everyone has a life outside of the office, and they want to know that their co-workers also do. Celebrating your well-rounded staff helps other talent be able to see themselves at the company.

I'm Hani Durzy, president and founder of Red Dog Strategies, a senior level communications consultancy. We fulfill fractional and interim comms lead needs; handle distinct and specific projects around crisis comms, corporate narrative development, M&A/financial communications, change management, and building editorial content capabilities to augment storytelling; and execute "wellness check" assessments of existing comms programs to unlock the power of the function. If you want to talk, please reach out at hdurzy@reddogstrategies.co.