The Southwest Airlines Way [Paperback]

Jody Hoffer Gittell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 14, 2005

"If you look at Southwest Airlines, and I admire what they do, they've been the most successful airline in the industry."

--Gerard Arpey, CEO, American Airlines

"Through extensive research Jody Hoffer Gittell gets to the bottom of what has sustained Southwest Airlines' positive employee relations and high performance through good and bad times."

--Thomas A. Kochan, professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, MIT Global Airline Industry Program

In an industry with losses in the billions, Southwest Airlines has an unbroken string of 31 consecutive years of profitability. The Southwest Airlines Way examines how the company uses high-performance relationships to create enormous competitive advantage in motivation, teamwork, and coordination among employees. It then goes further to show how any company can foster these powerful cooperative relationships and explains how to:

• Lead with credibility and caring
• Invest in frontline leaders
• Hire and train for relational competence
• Use conflicts to build relationships
• Make unions its partners, not its adversaries
• Build relationships with its suppliers

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Management lessons from the world's most profitable airline

"As a former Southwest insider, I often wondered why other organizations couldn't duplicate the business model. Anyone who wants to understand how it works should read this book."

--Libby Sartain, Senior VP of Human Resources, Yahoo

"Professor Gittell has tackled one of the hottest and most important topics in business circles today--why some airlines continually fly high over the economic wreckage of the rest of the industry."

---Thomas Winkelmann, VP-The Americas, Lufthansa German Airlines

"Through extensive research Jody Hoffer Gittell gets to the bottom of what has sustained Southwest Airlines' positive employee relations and high performance through good and bad times."

--Thomas A. Kochan, professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, MIT Global Airline Industry Program

Fortune magazine calls Southwest Airlines "the most successful airline in history." In an industry that regularly loses billions of dollars, Southwest has had 31 consecutive years of profitability. The Southwest Airlines Way reveals the secret to Southwest's remarkable success--high performance relationships--and it creates enormous competitive advantage in motivation, teamwork, and coordination among Southwest employees. Based on Professor Jody Hoffer Gittell's eight years of field research, this book explores Southwest's innovative policies, strategies, and techniques, showing how these methods can be implemented in any organization, and explains how to:

* Lead with credibility and caring * Invest in frontline leaders * Hire and train for relational competence * Use conflicts to build relationships * Encourage mutual respect among employees, managers, unions, and suppliers

About the Author

Jody Hoffer Gittell is an assistant professor of management at Brandeis University and faculty member of the MIT Global Airline Industry Program. She focuses on human resources and operations management, and frequently presents the results of her work to managers, researchers, and policymakers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (April 14, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071458271
• ISBN-13: 978-0071458276
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,468 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #17 in Books > Travel > Food, Lodging & Transportation > Air Travel

More About the Author

JODY HOFFER GITTELL IS A PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She serves as Executive Director of the Relational Coordination Research Collaborative, bringing practitioners and researchers together to transform organizational relationships for high performance. She also serves as Chief Scientific Officer of Relational Coordination Analytics Inc., offering measurement, evaluation and visualization of relational coordination networks to organizations seeking to improve their performance.

Dr. Gittell's research explores how coordination by front-line workers contributes to quality and efficiency outcomes in service settings. She has developed a theory of relational coordination, proposing that work is most effectively coordinated through relationships of shared goals, shared knowledge and mutual respect, and demonstrating how organizations can support relational coordination through the design of their work systems.

Dr. Gittell's discovery of relational coordination and its performance effects is documented in The Southwest Airlines Way: Using the Power of Relationships to Achieve High Performance (McGraw-Hill), and in High Performance Healthcare: Using the Power of Relationships to Achieve Quality, Efficiency and Resilience (McGraw-Hill). In Up In the Air: How the Airlines Can Improve Performance by Engaging Their Employees (Cornell University Press), Gittell, Bamber, Kochan and von Nordenflycht document the transformation of the global airline industry influenced by the models of Southwest Airlines and Ryanair. In Sociology of Organizations: Structures and Relationships (Sage Publications), Gittell and Godfrey compare the relational form to the bureaucratic form, proposing a hybrid driven by reciprocal relationships that are scalable, replicable and sustainable. Her newest book, Learning to Coordinate: A Relational Model of Organizational Change (under contract, Stanford University Press), under development with Edmondson and Schein, will offer a dynamic multi-interventional model of change.

In addition to writing books, Gittell has published the underlying research in scientific journals including Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Management Science, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Management Studies, Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management Journal, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, Medical Care, Health Services Research, Health Care Management Review, Journal of Nursing Management, and Journal of Early Childhood Research.

Gittell was selected Outstanding Young Scholar of the Year by the Labor and Employment Relations Association. She has won a Best Book Award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a Best Paper award from the Human Resource Division of the Academy of Management, the Douglas McGregor Memorial Award for Best Paper of the Year in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, and an Honorable Mention for the Douglas McGregor Memorial Award for Best Paper on Organizational Change.

Gittell received her PhD from the MIT Sloan School of Management, her MA from The New School and her BA from Reed College, and taught for six years at the Harvard Business School before joining the faculty of Brandeis University. She has served as Chair of the Board for Families First Health and Support Center, as MBA Program Director at the Brandeis Heller School, and as Acting Director of the MIT Leadership Center. She currently serves on the boards of Reed College, the Labor and Employment Relations Association and the Endowment for Health. She lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with her husband Ross and their daughters Rose and Grace.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Southwest's "Eternal Flame" June 28, 2003

By Robert Morris HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Why can't other companies (not only airlines) become as highly admired as well as profitable as Southwest Airlines? Here is an excerpt from Herb Kelleher's presentation at the Risk Management Association's annual conference: "Maintaining excellent customer survives involves a process of  getting people to understand the importance of it to them in their daily lives as well as in others'. We were a little concerned as we got bigger that maybe some of our early culture might be lost so we set up a culture committee whose only purpose is to keep the Southwest Airlines culture alive. Before people knew how to make fire, there was a fire watcher. Cave dwellers may have found a tree hit by lightning and brought fire back to the cave. Somebody had to make sure it kept going because if it went out, there was was the most important person in the tribe. I said to our culture committee, 'You are our fire watchers, who make sure the fire does not go out.  I think you are the most important committee at Southwest Airlines.'   I really do believe that to be the case. We have people come in from all over the world who are interested in our culture because they see it in the customer service aspect of it."

Kelleher then notes that "Southwest Airlines had 162 companies at our last corporate day [open house], which we have twice a year. We started them off that day with the Macarena and they were all wondering, 'Hmmmm....I was looking for E=mc2 and I'm getting the Macarena.' But a fellow from Swiss Air was interviewed when he left and was asked, 'What's the most important message you're taking back to Swiss Air?' And he said 'For everybody to learn to do the Macarena....' Everybody's looking for a single Big Answer, an easy answer such as 'We'll communicate for six months, then get on with something else that's more important.' I keep telling them that the intangibles are far more important than the tangibles in the competitive world because, obviously, you can replicate the tangibles.  You can get the same airplane. You can get the same ticket counters.  You can get the same computers. But the hardest thing for a competitor to match is your culture and the spirit of your people and their focus on customer service because that isn't something you can do overnight and it isn't something you can do without a great deal of attention every day in a thousand different ways. That is why I say that our employees are our competitive protection."

I cannot think of a better introduction to Gittell's book, nor to my comments on her book. Although she identifies "Ten Southwest Practices" and devotes a chapter to explaining each in Part 2, her key point (and Kelleher's) is that high performance relations are the key to Southwest's success. Gittell includes these comments by a Southwest ramp manager:

"One thing we cannot teach is attitude toward peers or other groups. There's a code, a way to respond to every individual who works for Southwest. The easiest way to get in trouble is to offend another employee. We need people to respond favorably. It promotes good working relationships....You find an individual with an upbeat and positive attitude -- and you'll find that everything that needs to be done, will get done. It's very contagious." I have been a Southwest frequent flier since 1976. Not once, even once, have I ever had a less-than-pleasant experience with anyone within the Southwest organization. Kelleher is appropriately praised for his vision, charm, business acumen, inspiration, passion, determination, wit, etc. He should also be praised for the leadership he has encouraged and supported at all levels of Southwest. In my opinion, that is his single greatest contribution. As Jim Collins describes it in Good to Great, "getting the right people on the bus."

In Part 3, Gittell explains how the "Ten Southwest Practices" reinforce (or undermine) each other; she then suggests what can be learned from Southwest, briefly discussing efforts by competitor airlines; next, she examines how Southwest responds to pressure and manages crises (e.g. September 11); finally, Gittell offers a number of suggestions as to how other organizations can implement high performance relationships. There is nothing wrong with any of those suggestions. However, obviously, listing the "Ten Southwest Practices" is far, far easier than convincing or inspiring most (if not all) people in another organization to follow them all day, every day, year after year. And it is even more difficult to create such buy-in when an organization is undergoing extensive growth and sustains it profitably as Southwest has. Especially in the ferociously competitive airline industry, the Yoda's admonition is correct: "Do or do not. There is no try." Read more ›

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Research shows that relationships fuel high performance June 21, 2003

By Libby Sartain

Format:Hardcover

Much has been written about the legendary company, Southwest Airlines. As a former insider, I often wondered why other organizations couldn't duplicate Southwest's business model. There really weren't any secrets, but while other airlines and companies tried, few succeeded. In many ways Southwest defies conventional business thinking. Based on extensive research, Jody Hoffer Gittell's The Southwest Way is filled with actual examples of business process at Southwest as compared to other airlines. The reader can easily see how basic practices based on internal values at Southwest, such as, investing in leadership development and people have made such a big difference. In fact, the findings from eight years of research of the airline industry reveal that Southwest's success is due to building high performance relationships with their people, customers, unions, vendors and suppliers, and the public in general.

Dr.Gitell includes real-life inspiring stories from insiders, which makes the book a more entertaining read versus your typical analytical reference text written by an academic. But, this is not a touchy feely book based on anecdotes, it is academic and the ideas presented are fact-based. The reader gets a glimpse into day to day practices and people who run the company and work on the frontlines, but also Gittell has compared and contrasted these practices and people to those of competitor airlines and other industries. This is where the reader can easily see why Southwest's basic values have given the airline a significant competitive advantage. And, this is where readers can see Gittel's theoretical premise in action....

The Southwest Way is a book that will most certainly appeal to general business audiences, to airline leaders, and to any business person who is engaged in efforts to build a legendary organization and organizational culture. Human resources professionals will identify secrets to creating value in organizations through people practices, leadership development, conflict resolution, work-life balance initiatives, performance management, and building a culture that fosters productivity, innovation and organizational success. Read more ›

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Southwest Way Revealed May 5, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Several books and countless articles have been written about Southwest Airlines. They highlight its structure, its culture, its CEO, its low fares and other reasons as to why it is the bright spot in an otherwise dismally performing industry. None, however, have completely captured the real explanation of why Southwest succeeds.

In this book, Dr. Gittell has managed to identify and even quantify the powerful formula of Southwest's success. Simply stated, it is the company's ability to achieve high performance relationships by sharing goals and information in a climate of mutual respect. This allows the coordination and communication necessary to attain efficiency and customer service in the complex and multi-functional environment of an airline.

Lest this appear too simple or 'soft', Dr. Gittell provides detailed analysis of Southwest's approach. She identifies ten specific practices used by the people of Southwest to achieve their incredibly consistent performance. These practices range from those that might be expected in a successful company such as credibility of leadership, emphasis on hiring and training, and positive relationships with unions and suppliers, to those that are contrary to today's accepted wisdom such as increasing frontline leadership positions and creating human 'boundry-spanners' as opposed to relying on electronic interfaces.

The good news is that Dr. Gittell clearly identifies and explains each of these elements in a highly readable way that is also backed with data. The hard part is that these are not quick fixes and that the evidence indicates that most, if not all, of the practices must be adapted/adopted if another organization is to duplicate the success of Southwest. Nevertheless, thanks to the author, the lessons are revealed for all to benefit....

I would recommend that the value of this book not be limited to the airline industry. These concepts and practices are applicable to any organization or industry that is striving for quality, efficiency and customer service in a complex, competitive environment. Read more ›