Southwest Airlines celebrated their 40th anniversary this year, young by most standards for larger corporations. The origin of Southwest is as remarkable as the great airline that they have come to be. Their first chairman, Herb Kelleher, led the legal fight to provide service within the state of Texas. It was a long and costly fight but finally on June 18, 1971 Southwest Airlines began offering service to Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. (If you would like to know more about the Southwest story and their colorful former chairman, Herb Kelleher, a book you would thoroughly enjoy is called “Nuts.”)
Culture is neither negotiable nor optional. Almost 20 years ago, two former Price Waterhouse partners wrote a book called, “The 100 Greatest companies in America”. They reviewed thousands and thousands of pages of data on over 5,000 companies to determine the best of the best. They discovered two unique traits about the companies they eventually chose as “the best 100”. First, except for one company the other 99 had stuck to their knitting during their entire history. The other discovery was that the original “Value statement” and Culture of the organizations had remained intact.
I can remember as a kid in the 60’s and in love with baseball and the Oriole’s, you would often hear people talk about “The Oriole Way” (their culture). What was it that made the hometown team dominant in baseball through the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s? Sure, it was great pitching and defense and as Hall of Fame Manager Earl Weaver would say, “and a nice three run homer from time to time”. However, it was also the professionalism, team spirit, “hustle” preparation and a determination to be the best that was expected from every player. An organization that has had the highest winning percentage in baseball the last twenty years is the Atlanta Braves, and it is not a coincidence that their leader as GM and now team president for that entire period has been Baltimorean John Schuerholz, whose first job in baseball was in 1966 with…. You guessed it, the Oriole’s.
Is your Culture a competitive differentiator?
Go For It!
http://www.southwest.com/assets/pdfs/about-southwest/garys-greeting.pd
Kevin Cashen says
Mike,
I always enjoy your insights. Your references to the O’s are right on track. They are tough to follow now since they lost that culture many years ago. For the first time in 40 years, I did not attend a game this year. Sad. I hope all is well. Go Tigers!
Kevin