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From “Laidlaw” by William McIlvanney
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Herb Kelleher was the co-founder of Southwest Airlines, he died earlier this month. He had many attributes that I admire, not least of which was introducing a culture to the company where Southwest’s employees took themselves lightly but their jobs seriously.
Kelleher had a simple philosophy, “A motivated employee treats the customer well. The customer is happy, so they keep coming back. It’s not one of the enduring mysteries of all time; it is just the way it works.”
An article in the FT Michael Skapinker which celebrated Herb, contrasted his outlook with a recent email from a disappointed British Airways passenger. Skapinker concluded with this statement, “few people come to work intending to be unhelpful. If they are horrible, it is usually because their bosses are horrible to them, or they prioritise sticking to the rules, or cutting costs, over keeping customers happy.”
In 1987 Michael O’Leary (of RyanAir) visited Southwest Airlines and Herb Kelleher to learn about the airline industry. Although there were plans for them to meet again, O’Leary never went back to complete his tuition.
Read more about Southwest’s business model here.
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It’s never too late to set new goals or to revisit old ones and, as long as you persist, just about anything is achievable (even passing A-levels).
I eventually passed my A-levels in August 1973, (with grateful thanks to the lecturers at Harrogate Tech). I asked my father if he could get me a copy of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, the book, or rather books as there were two volumes, was published by William Collins for whom my Dad worked, based in their office in the Corn Exchange in Leeds.
Then, as now, whenever I buy a new book I sign my name and the date inside the front cover.
The scrawl has become more flamboyant and less decipherable over the years but is still recognisable.
I had started to read Tolstoy’s Magnum Opus at several times since then, but never got beyond the first chapter. This summer, 45 years on from that date in August 1973 I determined to get through both volumes, in all 1443 pages, by the end of the year. I put aside 30 minutes after lunch and when I had finished work every day whilst at home, but as I travel a good deal there were gaps between sessions. Thankfully there are relatively short chapters so it was straightforward to complete the day’s task at convenient points.
This “small steps” approach did the trick, I was able to get involved in the plot lines and the characters of the novel without having to rush. Tolstoy’s writing is wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed the tale of Russia in the first two decades of the 19th Century. It’s a great book and I recommend it to you, there are lessons to learn that still apply to each of us in our daily lives.
The point about goals being 1)Specific, 2)Measurable, 3)Achievable, 4)Relevant and 5)Timely, is well made. In this case, I wanted to read the book from beginning to end, so that takes care of 1) & 2). I can read and short of going under a bus (or my finding the book unreadable) I knew I could manage 3). It was relevant to my overall life plan 4) which includes tackling some “big” reads and 5) I set an end point of December 31st 2018, knowing that if I had to do some catching up I had the Christmas period to complete the task.
Should you be setting goals in your business or personal life then I hope this might inspire you.
PS when we moved into our home in West Cork five years ago, there were no fewer than three separate volumes of War & Peace amongst our books – the enthusiasm had obviously been there but we had allowed life to get in the way.
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“…some employees who raised concerns were fired and others resigned. A combination of secrecy and a pugilistic tendency for legal skirmishes prevailed under the founder’s view that she required absolute loyalty…”
“How could the markets have been so misled? Flawed human nature predicts our ability to succumb to overselling and inflated claims. The company had created expectations that were inflated by the media and its investors…..a board of directors that included Henry Kissinger and former Secretary of Defense William Perry, the emperor was naked in plain sight.”
“The UK Government embraces technology in health care, and frequently, when concerns are raised—about outcomes, harms, safety, or testing—they are dismissed as cynicism or simply a failure to embrace change. Yet it is possible that we could harm patients through badly thought out and improperly tested technology—and not least through moving funds away from better use.”
Margaret McCartney reviewing Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup in The Lancet
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I first came across the concept of Servant Leadership in Robert Greenleaf’s book.
Wikipaedia describes the concept thus, “the servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible. Servant leadership turns the power pyramid upside down which puts the customer service associates at top of pyramid; instead of the people working to serve the leader, the leader exists to serve the people. When leaders shift their mindset and serve first, they unlock purpose and ingenuity in those around them, resulting in higher performance and engaged, fulfilled employees.”
In recent times I was impressed by Danny Meyer’s description of his use of the concept in his restaurants described in his excellent book, “Setting the Table”.
Traditional management is “top down”:
But something wonderful happens when you flip the structure:
The leader’s role is to serve and support the layer above them, no matter where or who they are.
You cannot have a dynamic organisation unless you are constantly encouraging people to improve and believing that they can do it.
Does it work? My personal experience says so and Suzanne Peterson and her colleagues showed that when CEOs are servant leaders, tech companies have significantly higher returns on assets over the next nine months, even after controlling for prior returns. HERE
Leadership is a multifaceted discipline take some time and consider this concept, you’ll be glad that you did.
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Taken from John Naughton’s blog post “Global Warning” about Nick Harkaway’s new novel Gnomon where he shares the author’s blogpost which you can read in full here. These paragraphs struck a chord with me.
…..I remember the luxury of saying “we must be precautionary about surveillance laws, about human rights violations, because one day the liberal democracies might start electing monsters and making bad pathways, and we’ll want solid protections from our governments’ over-reach.”
Oops.
I remember the halcyon days of April 2016 when I thought I’d missed the boat and I hadn’t written a warning at all, but a sort of melancholic state of the nation, and I really did think things might get better from there. Then Brexit came – I was half expecting that – and then Trump – which I was really not – and now here we are, with the UK boiling as May’s government and Corbyn’s Labour sit on their hands and clock ticks down and the negotiating table is blank except for a few sheets of crumpled scrap paper, and the only global certainty seems to be that this US administration will try to wreck every decent thing the international community has attempted in my lifetime, with the occasional connivance of our own leaders when they aren’t busy tearing one another to bits.
And now I’m pretty sure I did write a warning after all. ….
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