Do the Right Thing

Summary

Learn how companies and managers who treat employees and customers well can achieve extraordinary success. bull; Why ""doing the right thing" to your employees and customers is the secret of sustainable business success bull; Learn how an underdog in an impossible industry has stayed profitable for 34 straight years and become the darling of the industry bull; Find out why finding the right direction in a time of crisis isn't difficult if you always work from the principle: Do the Right Thing.

Acknowledgments	p. xi
About the Author	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Stumbling into the Business World	p. 5
9/11	p. 9
The Question Was Answered	p. 17
But I Don't Want to Be a Corporate Bureaucrat	p. 29
Getting Off the Ground	p. 33
The Ten-Minute Turnaround	p. 39
The Great Texas Whiskey War	p. 47
I Just Couldn't Resist	p. 53
Some of the Obvious Things I Learned	p. 55
We're in What Kind of Business?	p. 65
With a Little Help from Our Competitors	p. 71
Leaders Are Everywhere	p. 73
Great Organizations Have Great Leaders at Every Level	p. 83
In Case You Didn't Get It Great Organizations Have Great Leaders at Every Level	p. 89
Great Leaders Make the People Around Them Better	p. 93
People Recognize a Phony	p. 97
People Follow a Leader They Trust	p. 101
Who Wants the "Best" People?	p. 105
Looking for the Right People	p. 109
Interview for Attitude	p. 115
Attitudes Also Matter at 30,000 Feet	p. 121
Everybody Remembers Their Interview	p. 127
Every Job Affects Others	p. 131
People Need to Understand Their Mission	p. 135
Shared Goals, Shared Knowledge, and Mutual Respect = A Shared Mission	p. 143
Do People Think Like Employees or Owners?	p. 151
Making Employees Owners	p. 155
A Sense of Ownership	p. 163
Make Work Fun	p. 169
Build a Customer Service Culture	p. 173
Everything He Did Was So I Could Come to Work	p. 177
Fun Can Have a Purpose	p. 181
Celebrate Success and Achievement	p. 187
Creating Entrepreneurs	p. 189
Encourage Unconventional Thinking	p. 197
Suggestion Boxes	p. 207
Many Roads Lead to the Promised Land	p. 209
Define the Right Goals and Give People Room to Succeed	p. 215
The Two-Minute Drill	p. 219
Give People Something to Believe In-Define a Grand Mission	p. 225
Create a Culture in Which People Want to Do the Right Things	p. 229
It's a Family Affair	p. 233
The Tactics of Success May Vary, but the Principles Are Constant	p. 239
Be Yourself and Have Some Fun	p. 247
It's a Round World	p. 251
Index	p. 255
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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Excerpts

Introduction Most people have a passion for success and creative self expression somewhere deep inside them. They want to be part of something meaningful, to make a contribution, and to find fulfillment in what they do. Sadly, these yearnings are often managed out of people in the unrelenting quest for predictable mediocrity that most organizations pursue. People are seldom encouraged to be themselves, have fun, or seek fulfillment in their jobs. Instead, they are pushed to just do their jobs, meet their quotas, and not make waves. Think outside the box? Proceed at your own peril. A lot of companies say their employees are their most important asset, but they donrs"t really mean it. The truth is, they treat employees as depreciable assets, to be used up and then discarded. This is the root cause of the culture of conflict that infects many major corporations today. You can see the results in any customer service business. When you ask for help at the drug store or hardware store, does the person you ask groan because you interrupted his other duties, or does he cheerfully walk you over to the proper aisle and start telling you about the products you could choose? When the cable guy shows up at your house, does he really care about your business, or does he spend most of his time telling you how lousy the cable company is and that you ought to get satellite? The truth is that employees who love their jobs will cause customers to love their company. Employees who hate their jobs will make customers hate the company. Quite simply, people who enjoy their work do a better job than people who donrs"t. And it doesnrs"t necessarily relate to how much they are paid. From the shop floor to the executive suite, it can fairly be said that the most highly paid people in their professions often do the worst jobs. The ultimate success of any organization requires consistently excellent performance at every level. Vibrant and successful organizations are not built on a feeling of detachment by employees. Rather, they are built on a culture of engagement, in which employees believe in the mission they are trying to accomplish and know that they are contributing to its success. People who are given the room to succeed usually will. For 25 years, I had the opportunity to be associated with such a vibrant and successful organization, as outside counsel, then as General Counsel, and finally for three years as CEO of Southwest Airlines. To be sure, I was always thrilled to accept the many honors that were bestowed on our company--Airline of the Year, one of the three most admired companies in America, co-CEO of the year, one of the worldrs"s most socially responsible companies, and so forth. But I never deluded myself into thinking that I had much to do with it. I knew the honors really belonged to our people, who showed their dedication and spirit every day. In fact, in our written communications at Southwest Airlines, we always capitalized theEinEmployees, theCinCustomers, and theSinShareholders, to help us remember why we were in business. As the guardian of our corporate culture, President Colleen Barrett was certain to correct anybody who did not show the proper respect for any of these three constituencies in their writing or otherwise. To those who are looking for a definitive history of Southwest Airlines; or a critical commentary on the brilliant leadership of the companyrs"s legendary cofounder, Herb Kelleher; or what the airliners"s business strategy should be from here, this is not your book. Of course, no book that touches on Southwest Airlines can avoid some of the rich stories from its colorful past, or some mention of Herb, but this book is not really about Southwest Airlines. Rather, it is about some of the lessons I learned from working with the people of Southwest Airlines for more than 25 years--mostly