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Nuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success (Paperback)
by Kevin Freiberg, Jackie Freiberg
| Category:
Corporate history, Motivation, Corporate excellence, Business |
| Market price: ¥ 208.00
MSL price:
¥ 158.00
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In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
NUTS! is a must read if you're interested in making your employees and customers raving fans of your business as much as those of Southwest Airlines. |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
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Author: Kevin Freiberg, Jackie Freiberg
Publisher: Broadway; Reprint edition
Pub. in: February, 1998
ISBN: 0767901843
Pages: 384
Measurements: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00042
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- Awards & Credential -
National Bestseller (in North America) |
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- MSL Picks -
Kevin and Jackie Freiberg present a provocative challenge to administrators in Nuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success. The challenge is to consider the tremendous success of a small airline, which dared to compete against all odds; learn from it; and explore whether it has value.
There are no new management or organizational ideas in this book, nor does it provide "new and improved" total quality management (TQM), reengineering, or empowerment techniques. What there is, however, is truth. The story is real-the authors document the financial expansion and success of the airline, including testimony from employees and customers alike. Southwest Airlines has successfully created and maintained a culture that is rare, if not incomparable.
The book Nuts! evolved from the dissertation work of both Kevin and Jackie Freiberg. Kevin Freiberg, working on a doctorate about leadership at the University of San Diego, explored the extraordinary leadership qualities of Herb Kelleher, Southwest's chair, president, and CEO. Four years later, Jackie Freiberg, also working on an educational leadership doctorate at the University of San Diego, delved behind the leader to get more of the story.
The more they learned through their relationships at Southwest Airlines, the more they wanted to share their knowledge through a book that would reveal "how a company that defies conventional wisdom, industry norms, and fashionable management programs can keep setting performance records on so many fronts: financial performance, work force productivity, safety, customer service, and more."
Readers of Nuts! should not miss the articulation of common principles: We exist to "do" good things for people. Workers want to do a good job. Successful businesses emphasize those we serve. Joy and "fun" can exist concurrently with pursuing a serious interest. The culture of an organization is created through collaboration and communication.
If you have a nagging feeling that it is not reorganization, management by objectives, TQM, or any other technique that will improve performance at your institution, then Nuts! may inspire the excitement and enthusiasm necessary to risk change.
This book could easily be called a how-to that includes many ideas for recognizing and commending employees and for finding fun things to do in the workplace. What the ideas boil down to, however, is a very old principle-the Golden Rule (do to others, as you would have them do to you). Care and love, truth, freedom, joy, laughter, and happiness-all of these complement the particular management technique chosen at Southwest Airlines (whatever it is, for this book does not talk much about hierarchy or salary schedules, for example). These values are either a part of your culture or they are not. You as a leader must decide. Reorganization, TQM, or other management techniques will not affect or create such a culture.
Kelleher is described as crazy, courageous, fun, irreverent, loving, and proud-nuts! The corporate culture he helps to inspire includes attitudes such as:
Employees are number one. The way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers. Manage in the good times for the bad times. Irreverence is okay. It's okay to be yourself. Have fun at work. Take the competition, but not yourself, seriously. It's difficult to change someone's attitude, so hire for attitude and train for skill. Think of your company as a service organization that happens to be in the airline business. Do whatever it takes. Always practice the Golden Rule, internally and externally.
Nuts! is a positive-thinking type of book, and the enthusiasm at this airline is indeed contagious. The Freibergs have found through their work that, on an "individual level, there is an emptiness, a lack of spiritual and psychic gratification, that stems from meaningless and exhausting work." Obviously, high turnover of fearful stressed, and undervalued people will not improve performance. This book documents the difference; it requires a different culture-Yes, if the culture is right, you'll know it. You'll already be an administrator at a highly successful institution. And you won't need to read Nuts! (From quoting Glenda, USA)
Target readers:
Executives, managers, entrepreneurs, nonprofit and government leaders, professionals, academics, and MBAs.
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Kevin and Jackie Freiberg are principals of the San Diego Consulting Group, Inc., a professional speaking and management consulting firm whose clients include Merrill Lynch, the United States Marine Corp, Arthur Andersen, GTE, and Southwest Airlines.
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From the Publisher:
Twenty-five years ago, Herb Kelleher reinvented air travel when he founded Southwest Airlines, where the planes are painted like killer whales, a typical company maxim is "Hire people with a sense of humor," and in-flight meals are never served - just sixty million bags of peanuts a year. By sidestepping "reengineering," "total quality management," and other management philosophies and employing its own brand of business success, Kelleher's airline has turned a profit for twenty-four consecutive years and seen its stock soar 300 percent since 1990.
Today, Southwest is the safest airline in the world and ranks number one in the industry for service, on-time performance, and lowest employee turnover rate; and Fortune magazine has twice ranked Southwest one of the ten best companies to work for in America. How do they do it?
With unlimited access to the people and inside documents of Southwest Airlines, authors Kevin and Jackie Freiberg share the secrets behind the greatest success story in commercial aviation. Read it and discover how to transfer the Southwest inspiration to your own business and personal life.
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"Professionals" Need Not Apply: Hire for Attitude, Train for Skills
When Kelleher became chairman in 1978, he charged the People Department with the responsibility of hiring people with a sense of humor. "I want flying to be a helluva lot of fun!" he always says. "Life is too short and too hard and too serious not to be humorous about it." Fun is taken very seriously at Southwest Airlines, and the company's recruiting and hiring practices are built on the idea that humor can help people thrive during change, remain creative under pressure, work more effectively, play more enthusiastically, and stay healthier in the process.
In a world where change is one of the true constants, most people are having to work smarter and harder and faster than ever before. As the pace and intensity of our work lives have picked up, it's no wonder we've lost touch with the lighter side of life and become very serious. Many organizations expect their employees to be serious and businesslike, to check their personal and emotional baggage at the door before coming into the office.
"Terminal professionalism" is the term coined by Lighten Up authors C.W. Metcalf and Roma Felible to describe the way today's overworked, overstressed, underpaid, and underplaying individuals work. Terminal professionals - and the organizations in which they work - have come to believe that humor is unprofessional and silliness is for children. Southwest Airlines believes that failure to nourish and encourage lightness in the workplace not only undermines productivity, creativity, adaptability, and morale, but also can drive people crazy. By putting humor at the top of its list of recruiting and hiring criteria, Southwest has found a way to nourish joy, pride, and just plain fun in people on and off the job. The company's healthy alternative to terminal professionalism has restored the faded dream of satisfying work and job security for thousands of people.
A New Kind of Professionalism
At Southwest, "professional" and "businesslike" alone just won't cut it. In fact, these are terms Kelleher despises; he believes they have lost their meaning. "Anybody who likes to be called a 'professional' probably shouldn't be around Southwest Airlines," he says. "We want people who can do things well with laughter and grace." The point here is not to offend people who think of themselves as professionals. Southwest Airlines is bursting with professionalism, but it is a unique brand, practiced with flair. The type of professionalism people experience and express within the Southwest culture is not the stuffy, serious professionalism guarded by the philosophy that "the business of business is business." Instead, the professionals that customers encounter at Southwest are remarkably uninhibited and empathetic individuals who believe that the business of business is to make a profit by serving people and making life more fun.
An example of this new kind of professionalism is captured in a customer letter applauding a memorable flight and an entertaining announcement routine:
I flew in early May to Albuquerque, on a flight that began with the flight attendant welcoming us and then telling us that we had a VIP on board. He welcomed Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played Spock on "Star Trek." We all clapped and turned to see him - we were told this was all in fun. Instead, we were the VIPs on board! Then he graciously welcomed each of us to Southwest Airlines as the most important person... He then treated us to the most entertaining flight announcement routine, telling us we were flying over 7,943 hot tubs, swimming pools, etc., so here was the water evacuation information. Please wave to his mother on cue. He had a great sense of humor and mixed fun several times into our flight. On arriving, he and the crew sang a song, and he closed by saying if we enjoyed our flight, their names were Reggie, Sam, and Pete. However, if we didn't enjoy his foolishness, their names were Fred, Tom, and Harry. Everyone was laughing and in a great mood by the time we deplaned.
Now I realize that not everyone has Reggie's personality and showmanship. But I think many people don't risk this kind of playfulness because they fear that it will be seen as unprofessional. There is a new kind of professionalism that Southwest is becoming known for, all over the world--great service with lots of fun mixed in.
Southwest's philosophy of professionalism in no way puts a damper on personal style. Employees at Southwest are encouraged to be authentic, to be real. They are free to express themselves in real, creative ways and encouraged to influence the uniqueness of Southwest by projecting their own individuality. Perhaps this is one of the reasons customers find themselves drawn to Southwest employees. Somehow they have found a way to make work fun in spite of the intense pace of the airline business.
No one at Southwest doubts that the company's playful work style enriches the lives of customers and employees alike. Fun, humor, and laughter are treated as life-enhancing gifts for everyone. So how does Southwest go about creating the kind of relaxed and accepting atmosphere that grants people the freedom to play and have fun? The company is religious about hiring the right people.
Hiring for Attitude
The People Department is Southwest's equivalent of a human resources or personnel department. To Southwest, employees are more than just resources; they are real people, with real needs and real emotions, whose satisfaction is valued and respected. Libby Sartain, vice president of people, told us that fun counterbalances the stress of hard work and competition. Fun is about attitude, so Southwest hires for attitude and trains for skills.
The First Cut
First and foremost, Southwest Airlines looks for a sense of humor. As "The High Priest of Ha Ha" - Fortune magazine's nickname for Kelleher - frequently says, "We look for attitudes; people with a sense of humor who don't take themselves too seriously. We'll train you on whatever it is you have to do; but the one thing Southwest cannot change in people is inherent attitudes." Although each department has a unique hiring process, there is one fundamental, consistent principle - hire people with the right spirit. Southwest looks for people with other-oriented, outgoing personalities, individuals who become part of an extended family of people who work hard and have fun at the same time.
Southwest has tailored the general principles of Targeted Selection to hire people with this special kind of spirit. In the interview process, prospective employees are typically asked, "Tell me how you recently used your sense of humor in a work environment. Tell me how you have used humor to defuse a difficult situation." The People Department also looks for humor as well as unselfishness in the interaction people have with each other during group interviews.
To test for unselfishness, Southwest uses an exercise that's not all that creative in itself; it's the analysis of the applicants' approach to the exercise that makes it a powerful hiring tool. The interviewing team asks a group of potential employees to prepare a five-minute presentation about themselves and gives them plenty of time to prepare. As the presentations are delivered, the interviewers don't watch just the speakers; they watch the audience to see which applicants are using this time to work on their own presentations and which are enthusiastically cheering on and supporting their potential coworkers. Unselfish people who will support their teammates are the ones who catch Southwest's eye, not the applicants who are tempted to polish their own presentations while others are speaking.
Passing Through the Screen
Not everyone makes it through the screening process. Even with pilots, whose technical proficiency is supremely important, attitude also plays a major role. A highly decorated military pilot - on paper, he ranked among Southwest's all-time best applicants - applied for a position. On his way to Dallas for the interview, this pilot was rude to the customer service agent at the ticket counter where he received his transfer pass. When he arrived for the interview he seemed cold and arrogant to the receptionist. These episodes suggested to the interview team that, although the pilot was highly qualified on the technical side, he didn't have the right attitude for Southwest. He was automatically disqualified.
Another example of hiring for attitude involved a group of eight applicant pilots who were being kidded about how they were dressed - dark suits, black shoes, and dress socks. They were encouraged to loosen up by changing into Southwest's standard-issue Bermuda shorts. Six of the applicants accepted the offer and interviewed for the rest of the day in suit coats, black dress shoes and socks, and Bermuda shorts. They were hired.
By hiring the right attitude, the company is able to foster the so-called Southwest Spirit - an intangible quality in people that causes them to want to do whatever it takes and to want to go that extra mile whenever they need to. In spite of (or maybe because of) such high expectations, people who go to work for Southwest Airlines tend to stay with the company for a long time.
Act Like an Owner: Ask Questions, Think Results
People who think like owners have a unique perspective. They ask provocative questions. And the answers they come up with influence their attitudes and behaviors, which, in turn, determine the company's performance. It's not unusual to hear someone who is thinking like an owner ask, "If this were my company, how would I handle a customer in this situation? Would I buy this piece of equipment or make that investment? If I personally owned this business, how would I treat my employees? …
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| View all 15 comments |
David Rouse (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-27 00:00>
When a comparatively small, new company is able to take on major players in a highly competitive industry and gain market share, satisfy customers and employees alike, and make money, it is time for others to take notice. Southwest Airlines has turned a profit every year since 1973, yet it maintains the lowest fares in the industry. It has never furloughed an employee, regularly ranks best in customer service, and has a consistently high safety record. The Freibergs are partners in a San Diego consulting firm and specialize in "executive coaching," conducting motivational and leadership seminars. Here they tell Southwest's story, which begins with its struggle in the late 1960s with Texas' larger, established airlines, which fought to prevent Southwest from taking off. The authors attribute much of the airline's success to the personality and leadership style of CEO Herb Kelleher and the unique corporate culture he has nourished. "Nuts!" is a reference to the 67 million bags of peanuts served last year on Southwest flights and to the company's rule-breaking philosophy. |
Ken Blanchard (Coauthor of The One Minute Manager) (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-27 00:00>
If you're interested in making your employees and customers raving fans of your business, Nuts! is a must read. |
Stephen Covey (author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-27 00:00>
Full of original insights, upbeat stories, and concrete suggestions, Nuts! shows how the power of principle-centered leadership inspires people to achieve incredible results. |
Warren Bennis (author of On Becoming a Leader) (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-27 00:00>
The story of Southwest Airlines is as much fun to read as it is reader friendly and useful. I promise you, it's a blueprint for all organizations that want to succeed - not just airlines. |
View all 15 comments |
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