This guest piece in Forbes about the importance of culture and employee communications at the new United Airlines just hit my inbox. It’s true that the majority of mergers fail due to post merger integration problems. While experts often focus on systems and back office, the issue of culture should not be overlooked.

Airlines are particularly vulnerable to the impact of culture on reputation. In any given customer flight, there are a multitude of opportunities to muck it up – oversold seats, security lines, weather and air traffic delays, lost luggage – and none of these involved direct employee customer interaction yet. Add a surly flight attendant, a prickly gate agent or baggage handler who just doesn’t care that it takes forever for your bag to arrive, it seems miraculous that airlines – who live and die by their DOT statistics – ever have a good reputation. Let’s face it, they pack hundreds of humans into a flying tin can, with not enough personal space (unless you know which seat to pick or choose to buy more leg room!) and nothing to do but tweet from the tarmac.

Employees need to have a common goal, and a shared vision of how to reach that goal. And they need to understand HOW TO DO THEIR SPECIFIC JOB in order to contribute to that goal.

Continental Airlines has a great track record in building a culture to optimize performance. Some of my greatest years were spent working with them on that very project. United, by reputation, not so much.

It should be an interesting case to watch.

Bob Silver can be reached at bsilver@mww.com.

bsilver Employee Engagement, General Corporate Continental, Employee Engagement, integration, mergers, United