Tag Archive 'Create a Performance-Driven Culture'

  • Kelleher’s Steps to a High-Performance Culture

  • When asked in 2002 what advice he would give to other companies attempting to instill the "Kelleher spirit" into their own organizations, the Southwest founder took the question very seriously. His response (sent in written form to this author) is nothing less than a culture-enhancing blueprint for other managers and organizations to emulate. It is [...]

  • Limit Structure to Four Management Layers

  • How does structure fit into Kelleher’s vision of a large company with a small-company spirit? Obviously, it isn’t enough just to hire the right people, give them profit sharing, and have them crack jokes or pop out of overhead bins. In order to make sure that decision making does not get bogged down, the Southwest [...]

  • Kelleher on Compensation: Pay Executives Less and Employees More

  • Southwest has achieved some extraordinary things in the area of employee relationships. Its pilots, for example, agreed to freeze their salaries for 5 years, taking their chances with stock options instead. When another employee group, which had effectively voted itself out of a union a few years earlier, began feeling vulnerable, Kelleher responded by issuing [...]

  • Kelleher on a Leadership Culture

  • Kelleher feels strongly about his two primary constituencies—employees and customers. In correspondence (at least with this author), Kelleher uses a capital C and a capital E when writing about Customers and Employees. This CEO is serious about putting these two groups in a class by themselves. To Kelleher, culture means taking care of the people [...]

  • Kelleher on Profit: "A By-Product of Customer Service"

  • Southwest is a company that is rich in paradox—a large company with a small-company spirit. What does that mean? While many companies take themselves very seriously, Kelleher is saying that it’s perfectly acceptable to lighten up, even when you’re working—no, Kelleher would say, especially when you’re working. Kelleher believes that CEOs need to spend more [...]

  • Hire for Culture

  • All of Southwest’s corporate policies and practices send a consistent message: "We are a serious airline and a formidable competitor, but we will have fun while earning a profit." From their very first interviews, prospective employees are immersed in the company’s off beat behavior. In some interviews, for example, groups of pilots are asked to [...]

  • Kelleher on Culture: An Irreplaceable Asset

  • thwest has defied the conventional wisdom on everything from its pricing structure to its no-assigned-seats policy. But this remarkable carrier—the only major airline that has never had a money-losing year—has garnered its greatest accolades for its unique corporate culture. Its employees are incredibly loyal, and they have described the atmosphere of Southwest as more akin [...]

  • What Would Herb Kelleher Do?

  • The rule at Southwest is, if somebody has an idea, you read it quickly and you respond instantaneously. You may say no, but you give a lot of reasons why you’re saying no, or you may say we’re going to experiment with it in the field, see if it works. —HERB KELLEHER, Founder and former [...]