"The Southwest Airlines Way: Using the Power of

Relationships to Achieve High Performance"

Paperback
By Jody Hoffer Gittell

Publised by McGraw Hill, 2005--ISBN 0-07-145827-1

Reviewed by Matt M. Starcevich, Ph.D.

This book examines how Southwest Airlines, the largest carrier of passengers in
the largest market in the world has become the envy of financial performance,
customer, and employee satisfaction for the airline industry. For those of us who
are involved in Organization Development or Human Resources and toil under
the belief that people make a bottom line difference, this is our book. For leaders
this is also your book, the lessons learned at Southwest are transferable not only
to the airline industry but to any industry. A word of caution, the book is based on
an academic/statistical study of the airline industry and reported more as an
academic treatise than a captivating book. Don't let the style of writing get in the
way of the important message:

Southwest's most powerful organizational competency--the "secret

ingredient" that
makes it so distinctive--is its ability to build and sustained high
performance relationships among managers, employees,
unions, and suppliers. These relationships are
characterized by shared goals, shared knowledge,
and mutual respect.

Over time Southwest Airlines has developed 10 organizational practices to

facilitate coordination among 12 distinct functions: pilots, flights attendants, gate
agents, ticketing agents, operations agents, ramp agents, baggage transfer
agents, cargo agents, mechanics, fuelers, aircraft cleaners, and caters by
building relationships of shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect.
The heart of this book is the description of these 10 practices and how managers
in any setting can implement them to improve their business performance.

Ten Southwest Practices for Building High Performance

Relationships

1. Lead with Credibility and Caring

The top management team has built trust over time by being up
front and consistent in their message. They have also made
themselves available to frontline employees, demonstrating a
 level of caring that is beyond the norm in large companies
2. Invest in Frontline Leadership
Southwest has more supervisors per frontline employee than
any other airline in the country. They are "player coaches"
having managerial authority but also performing the work of
frontline workers. The supervisors spend more time than their
counterparts engaged in coaching in the form of problem solving
and advising the frontline employees.
3. Hire and Train for Relational Competence
Southwest places a great deal of importance on hiring people
with the right attitude--people with relational competence--you
can't be an elitist. Through training and "job exchange or "Walk
a Mile" employees become familiar with other aspects of the
work process or jobs they aspire to move into.
4. Use Conflict to Build Relationships
At Southwest, managers are expected to take an active role in
resolving cross-functional conflicts. When conflicts arise and are
not resolved by the parties themselves, a conflict resolutions
process is used: informational-gathering, or "Come to Jesus"
meetings, suggesting that conflicting parties were expected to
bare their souls to achieve reconciliation.
5. Bridge the Work/Family Divide
Employees are encouraged to be themselves at work and to
openly recognize major events in the lives of employees and
their families. Each individual station has a Culture Committee
to maintain and strengthen Southwest's culture and to plan
social and charitable events. The Ronald McDonald House, a
residence provided to families while their children are
undergoing treatment for cancer, is supported by each of the
local Culture Committees.
6. Create Boundary Spanners
Operations Agents are the boundary spanners, moving in the
opposite direction of the rest of the industry Southwest has
increased the staffing levels nor relied on computer interfaces to
gather the information required to dispatch a flight.
7. Avoid Finger Pointing--Measure Performance Broadly
Southwest uses cross-functional, not functional, performance
measures to encourages participants to focus on learning rather
than blaming when things go wrong. e.g., "Team delay" which
allowed less precise reporting of the cause of delays, with the
goal of diffusing blame and encouraging learning.
8. Keep Jobs Flexible at the Boundaries
Southwest has successfully negotiated flexible job descriptions
in all of its union contracts. Every job description ends with this
statement: Whatever it takes to get the plane out.
9. Make Unions Your Partners, Not Adversaries
 Southwest is the most highly unionized airline the the U.S. airline
industry and in contrast to other airlines has emphasized the
importance of labor/management partnerships. Respectful
relationships between company management and the unions
chosen by frontline employees appear to set the tone for
respectful relationships throughout the company.
10. Build Relationships with Your Suppliers
External parties are treated to the same kind of relationship
building efforts that exist throughout Southwest Airlines.
Southwest stands apart from the rest of the airline industry in the
emphasis it places on building partnerships with the airports it
serves, air traffic controllers, and aircraft manufacturers.
Southwest effectively extends its sphere of influence beyond its
employees to encompass its entire value chain.

Southwest's success is not due to one particular organization practice or another,

but rather to the overwhelming consistency among them, a configuration of
mutually consistent practices rather than a single key practice, while imitating
organizations tend to adopt only some of these practices.

Perhaps the most impressive characteristic of Southwest is the sheer

sustainability of its success, year after year. The response to the 9-11 is
illustrative crisis, the other major airlines cut their flights by 20 percent and laid off
16 percent of their workforces. Southwest had its own unique approach for
responding to this crisis. Southwest demonstrated caring by avoiding layoffs
altogether, and by couching its decision in terms of "taking care of our people."
Southwest saw these difficult times as an opportunity to increase its presence
and expand the availability of its product to the flying public. This was based on
Southwest's long standing policy of maintaining low debt levels and relatively
high levels of cash on hand.

The last chapter, is the best: Implementing High Performance Relationships

in Your Organization. I will save this for your own reading enjoyment. Suffice it
to say that much of what has been done at Southwest is counter to modern
management and leadership theory, but it works. As a frequent Southwest flyer
the experience and personal satisfaction with their service speaks to the value of
these organizational practices.