In my last blog I noted the fact that Southwest Airlines had “landed” in Cincinnati. I outlined the leadership of Herb Kelleher, the first CEO of the company. Kelleher believed that his Number 1 job as a leader was the culture — Both fostering and maintaining the culture of the organization. I promised to look into that culture in my next blog…well we are here.
Organizational culture is “The shared set of beliefs, expectations, values, norms, and work routines that influence how individuals, groups and teams interact with one another and cooperate to achieve organizational goals” (Jones & George, 2014, p 84). Kelleher set out to create a culture at Southwest where individuals could bring their personality to work. The book, Lessons from the Top, outlines some of Kelleher’s thoughts on culture.
Kelleher is a believer in the Golden Rule, with a twist. “Serve others as you would want to be served”. Southwest also looks for attitude when it comes to selecting employees. They figure that they can teach the skills, but the person must possess the right attitude.
One of the attitudes that I have observed, firsthand, is fun. Southwest employees generally want to have fun while they do their jobs. It was March of 2007. I was stuck in Baltimore Maryland, trying desperately to get back to Kentucky where my friend Phil had tickets for an NCAA tournament basketball game between Xavier and Ohio State at Rupp Arena. I had to stay overnight due to bad weather and it was now early morning. As I settled into my seat, the flight attendant, I will call her “Amy”, took the microphone. “Did someone lose a cell phone”? Everyone looked up. “Actually it is my cell phone, but now that I have your attention let me go over some safety guidelines”, Amy said with a twinkle in her eye.
She continued, “In case you haven’t been in a car since 1964, this is how you fasten a seat belt…” the jokes continued from there. But the passengers got the point and Amy got their attention. Sporadic chuckles occurred all the way back to Louisville as Amy continued to keep us on our toes with her announcements. The final one, was the crème de la crème. “If you enjoyed this flight, my name is Amy”, she then clicked off the mic and leaned over to an elderly lady in the front seat and said something, the woman said something back. “If you did not enjoy the flight, my name is Sallie Mae”. The elderly lady, and the rest of us, cracked up. The flight was over.
I think Herb Kelleher reached his goal of establishing a culture of fun. At least in the March of 2007.