'Warrior Spirit with a Servant's Heart': SWA's Thriving Culture of Service

'Warrior Spirit with a Servant's Heart': SWA's Thriving Culture of Service
Published: May 24, 2006 in Knowledge@W.P. Carey

Southwest Airlines is not the same airline that David Ridley, recently retired as vice president of marketing and sales, joined in 1988. For one, it's bigger. An upstart operation with 198 employees and three planes when it took flight in 1971, Southwest today employs 32,000, with 3,000 flights a day to 62 cities.

And the difference is not just size. Fun-loving Southwest is also a fierce competitor, ready to change even longstanding practices to keep its lead. For example, at its annual shareholders' meeting earlier this month, chief executive Gary Kelly announced that a $5 million technology upgrade to its reservation system will allow Southwest to begin seat assignment -- when and if it's ready. The airline's "open seating" approach to boarding has been as much a hallmark of the Southwest experience as its joke-cracking flight attendants.

What has not changed is what the airline calls the Southwest way -- the key, Ridley argues, to the carrier's success. "This is an industry that has managed to lose $40 billion in the past four years. Since its inception in the early '30s, the industry has been in the red," he said during a speech recently at the W. P. Carey School of Business. Yet Southwest flies above the industry's dismal history. Ridley pointed out that Southwest has achieved consistent profitability -- the company will pay its 119th consecutive quarterly dividend next month -- without a single "involuntary furlough." At the same time it has created a work atmosphere that has landed the company year after year in the top five of Fortune magazine's best places to work.

The Southwest recipe for customer service

The Southwest way, Ridley explained, grows out of the airline's founding principle: "We are a customer service business that just happens to fly airplanes."

Southwest's product, Ridley explained, is the service: taking a customer from point A to point B, with his or her bags, on time. However there's an intangible element -- an experiential piece -- that is critical to success, and Southwest tends that part with great care.

Ridley explained that the product itself can be perfect -- providing the right flights to the right places, delivering baggage intact and nailing on-time landings. But, "if in the middle of the service delivery the human spirit has come into play in a negative way -- someone's thrown the bag of peanuts at you, someone was rude when you asked a question at the airport -- then when you walk off that plane you say to yourself, 'I'll never do business with those people again.'"

Conversely, "sometimes it's a rough landing, but in the process, if someone touches you -- looks in your eyes with a smile and asks 'How can I help you?' -- you walk off the plane and say, 'I'll be back again.'"

Ridley said that when he arrived at Southwest, pundits warned that the company's profitable customer-centric culture would be difficult if not impossible to maintain when its payroll passed 10,000. But instead of allowing that to happen, company president Colleen Barrett created a culture committee whose mission was to keep the Southwest way alive throughout growth. Regardless of what that committee actually accomplished, the very fact that it was formed makes one of Ridley's important points: to succeed in the Southwest customer service style, companies have to be deliberate about culture, starting with people.

"We tell our leaders that of all the decisions they will make, the most important ones will be hiring decisions," Ridley said. "We tell them to make it tough to become part of the team," because the traits Southwest looks for are inherent in personalities and cannot be achieved through training.

Ridley said Southwest has a name for the quality they are seeking: a warrior spirit. That means people who "understand hard work and sweat on the brow," he said. These folks are looking for a job, not a "position," he said; they are looking for work, not a "role."

Passion, service and spirit of fun

"Warrior spirits have passion -- they care, they have emotions," Ridley said. "Some organizations and companies are clinics, and that's fine -- the Southwest way is not for everyone," Ridley said. "But I'd rather work in an organization where people show their emotions -- express themselves."

As well, a warrior spirit has a "servant's heart," he said. "You want people to serve others," he said, "but are you calling it out in your job descriptions? Are you telling people that's what you want? People who are other-oriented, not self-important, who put others first -- these are the people who will deliver service like Southwest Airlines." Last, they have a fun-loving attitude. "We take our customers and our competition seriously -- not ourselves," Ridley said.


But a company cannot expect employees to commit at this level unless the company itself reciprocates. Ridley said that the Southwest philosophy "puts our employees in front of the customers."  He followed with a story about a gate agent who had dealt with an impatient passenger during a weather delay. Later the passenger wrote a letter to the airline complaining that the Southwest employee had been rude and unhelpful.

"A lot of companies would automatically assume guilt and automatically fire off two free tickets to the customer," Ridley said. Southwest, however, investigates. This time it turned out that the gate agent was an exemplary employee with a pile of commendations in her file. It was the customer who had been rude.

Result? The customer received a letter inviting him to fly another airline, and the gate agent received a copy. At that moment, Ridley said, the gate agent understood that the company would stand behind her.

"Great customer service is driven by people who want to give great service," Ridley said, "not by rules, regulations and training. That gate agent gave her heart to Southwest."

The same approach can uncover problems, too. "We check out every single letter written to us by employees," Ridley said. "We ask the local managers and it takes time, but it's people stuff, and it's important. Nineteen out of 20 times it turns out that the employee is whining and we tell them to get back to work, but every once in a while we find out something's fishy in Seattle …"

No BS leaders  

Leaders, Ridley concluded, can make the customer service formula work -- or completely subvert it. By leaders he meant anyone in the organization who has influence on anyone else, not just the managers with the titles.

"Our leaders have a genuine love for people," he said. "We don't want you in leadership if you don't. If it's all about you we don't want you -- there are no BS [Big Shot] leaders at Southwest."

The role model, Ridley said, is founder Herb Kelleher -- who works out of a modest office without a window, who devotes his attention to the person he is speaking to, whether it's a maintenance worker or a vice president. "That's caring for people," Ridley said. "It isn't about the people at the top … and if you don't understand that, you're not a leader at Southwest."

In closing, Ridley sketched an imaginary chart showing two kinds of companies: the smart ones and the healthy ones. Over here are the smart ones, he said. They focus on "accounting, financials, operations … they're going to do it right, metric-ize everything. All praise to Jack Welch and Six Sigma!" Southwest is good at a lot of this, Ridley said, but "there are a lot of bankrupt companies on this side of the chart."

On the other side of the chart are the healthy companies, he said. They focus on "culture and leadership and passion and service." Southwest's rapid return to service following the 9/11 attacks was a testament to the healthy approach.

"Exceed expectations," he said. "That's the key."

The Southwest Way:

Our product is service.
To succeed, companies have to be deliberate about culture, starting with people. Hiring decisions are key components to the company's success.
Great customer service is driven by people who want to give great service -- not by rules, regulations and training.
Exceed expectations.



Here's what you think...
Total Comments: 1

#1    healthy companies
Healthy companies take their culture seriously. They intentionally cast a shadow for their culture as discussed in the book Delivering Happiness.
There is a new survey that says as high as 70% of employees plan to leave their current jobs when the economy improves...talk about a future disruption.
If you struggle with how to start...start with the golden rule as I discuss in my blog http://nosmokeandmirrors.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/delivering-happiness-proof-%e2%80%a6the-%e2%80%9cgolden-rule%e2%80%9d-is-profitable/

Mark Allen Roberts
By: Mark Roberts, otb solutions/CEO
Sent: 06:11 PM Sun Oct.17.2010 - US
 
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Additional Reading
"Guts and Glory: 'Airline' Offers Glimpse of Front-Line Action at Southwest Airlines"

"Workplace Relationships Sets the Tone for Job Performance"

"Corporate Culture as a Road Map to Success"

W. P. Carey School of Business

Southwest Airlines

Fortune 500 2006 – Annual Ranking of America's Largest Corporations

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