Things that make Southwest Airlines an amazing company
A Southwest Airways plane at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. The airline has challenged the large incumbent American airlines, making a big dent on the traditional Goliaths. FILE PHOTO | KAREN BLEIER |
What you need to know:
Making money, doing good and enjoying what one does are not mutually exclusive.
Southwest Airlines is a most unusual organisation. It challenged the large incumbent American airlines and, unlike many such Davids, this one has made a big dent on the traditional Goliaths.
How did it manage the equivalent of what Richard Branson achieved with his Virgin Atlantic? To a large extent by building an extraordinary corporate culture.
Southwest defines its purpose as being to “connect people to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable, low-cost air travel”.
Complementing this statement is its vision, which is to become “the world’s most loved, most flown and most profitable airline”.
And not surprisingly, Southwest has put together a wonderfully expressed set of values under the banner “Live the Southwest Way”.
The first encapsulates the components that make up the organisation’s “Warrior Spirit”: Work hard, desire to be the best, be courageous, display urgency, persevere and innovate.
Next comes “The Servant’s Heart”: Follow the golden rule, adhere to the principles, treat others with respect, put others first, be egalitarian, demonstrate proactive customer service and embrace the Southwest Airlines family.
For “Fun-LUVing attitude”: Have fun, don’t take yourself too seriously, maintain perspective, celebrate successes, enjoy your work, be a passionate team player.
Finally, “Work the Southwest Way”, calls for safety and reliability, friendly customer service and low cost.
I got a taste of the uniqueness of Southwest Airlines last year on a flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
“My mother-in-law is about to board,” the steward announced anxiously as we settled in, “so please hurry to take your seats or we’ll have to let her on.”
This kind of banter continued throughout the flight, as he welcomed us to “lost wages”, told us he didn’t mean to hurry us “…but hurry up”, and informed us that if we left our seat-belts crossed on our seats as we found them it would bring us good luck in our gambling. How refreshing.
When I was in the US again recently I attended a fascinating conference in Los Angeles on social, financial and environmental sustainability. Organised by Sustainatopia, it brought together an impressive collection of people who are not only concerned about the future of our planet but are driving all kinds of initiatives to reduce waste and pollution and generally make this world a better place.
Among the speakers at the conference was Bill Tiffany, Southwest Airlines’ vice president for supply chain management.
He told the gathering that three years ago the company saw that the cabins in their 700 planes were beginning to look outdated. So they stripped out the 80,000 seats and removed all the leather from them, resulting in a 43-acre stretch of unwanted material. What would they do with all that stuff? Dig a big hole and bury it?
No. Tiffany, who was a classmate of my daughter Amy at the International School of Kenya in the late 1980s, called her up to explore how at least some of this leather could be re-used in Kenya.
To cut a long story short, a large consignment of Southwest discarded seat covers was shipped over, some to the SOS Village workshop in Buruburu.
There young people being trained have used the material to make 1,000 footballs, which are now being distributed by Alive and Kicking – who use sport to spread health education. In addition, Maasai Treads have produced 2,000 pairs of shoes which are helping to protect needy children from jiggers.
It was fascinating for my daughter and I to hear Tiffany talk. He told us his company is also partnering with Looptworks to “upcycle” the material into premium products for the American domestic market.
Then Southwest, which buys ten billion dollars’ worth of goods each year, now examines the potential for second life use as a standard criterion when buying.
So is it just Tiffany and a few others at Southwest who worry about sustainability? Being the sort of company it is, with the sort of values it espouses, of course not. The airline spells out its desire to do more than merely make money for its shareholders.
The third element of its “People-Profits-Planet” tagline reveals a seriousness that is expected to spread through all employees, and this combines with a concern for the communities they serve and even communities far from where Southwest flies, as is the case in Kenya.
How nice that a US airline whose headquarters are not only in faraway Dallas but that only flies domestically and to a few neighbouring countries is concerned to support worthy causes on the other side of the planet. Now that is what living your vision and your values is all about.
The way Southwest Airlines operates has been an inspiration to many organisations around the world. It has shown that making money, doing good and enjoying what one does are not mutually exclusive.
