The Southwest Airlines Way - AchieveMax® Top Ten Book Review - Answering Service Resources

Home
>
Book Reviews
>
The Southwest Airlines Way - AchieveMax® Top Ten Book Review

The Southwest Airlines Way - AchieveMax® Top Ten Book Review

Over the years, several books and countless magazine and newspaper articles have been written about Southwest Airlines. Numerous MBA programs highlight the Southwest 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. Fortune magazine calls Southwest Airlines "the most successful airline in history." With a market value greater than the rest of the U.S. airline industry combined, Southwest Airlines is an amazing company with amazing management practices. No one, however, has completely captured the real explanation of why Southwest succeeds.

In a previous review, I highly recommended NUTS! (Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success). This laugh-a-page, inspirational book captured all the delicious myth, disarming magic, original insights, and upbeat stories of a high-energy, caring, playful culture that's sometimes hard to believe. I enjoyed it thoroughly and recommended it to anyone and everyone striving to create and maintain a successful and productive culture.

Now comes The Southwest Airlines Way ... an in-depth profile, based on eight years of field research on the airline industry. In this book, the author, Dr. Jody Gittell, has managed to identify and even quantify the powerful formula of Southwest's success. This effortless read is filled with actual examples of business processes at Southwest as compared to other airlines. You 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 reveal that Southwest's success is due to building high performance relationships with its people, customers, unions, vendors and suppliers, and the public in general.

Full of frontline tales of Southwest's innovative management style, this compelling book unveils the secret ingredient, high performance relationships, that has enabled Southwest to sustain a steady 10% to 15% rate of growth throughout its 32 year history while also turning a profit when few others can manage to break even. This great read reveals 10 practices that Southwest Airlines uses to build high performance relationships, and how they can be implemented in any organization-with dramatic results. The good news is that Dr. Gittell clearly identifies and explains each of these practices 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.

This no-nonsense analysis takes a more serious look at the airline that continues to fascinate friend and foe alike. Learn why Southwest Airlines is valued higher than all other major U.S. Passenger air carriers combined. Learn how, in the wake of 9-11, Southwest could keep all of its employees working and continue its unblemished record of growth and profitability as other airlines laid off thousands, begged Congress for money, and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Learn how American, Continental, United and other airlines have tried to imitate Southwest-and why they have failed.

You may not find yourself laughing as often as you did while reading NUTS!, but you'll certainly walk away with a greater respect and much deeper insight into the unique culture that will undoubtedly continue to fascinate everyone for decades to come.

More than 100 business book reviews written by Harry K. Jones are available at http://www.AchieveMax.com/books/.

Repr int Information

Your organization may reprint this article for your newsletter, online publication, or mailing list. We ask that you print the:

article in its entirety;
byline of the writer;
information about the writer, which is available at the end of each article; and
contact information, including our toll-free phone number in the U.S. (800-886-2MAX) and link to our website - www.AchieveMax.com.

We would appreciate a tear sheet or electronic copy of the articles you reprint.

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a firm specializing in custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has made presentations ranging from leadership to employee retention and time management to stress management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. He can be reached at 800-886-2MAX or by visiting http://www.AchieveMax.com.

In The News:

Book Review: Bedlam South by Mark Grisham and David Donaldson
Blogger News Network - 4 hours ago
by Simon Barrett in Book Reviews, Reviews The disorder known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) came to the forefront following the Vietnam conflict. ...

Daredevil, X-Force among this week's comic book reviews
Creative Loafing, NC - 10 hours ago
By Carlton Hargro As usual, I read a ton of comics this week; however, no book stood out as incredibly good or awful. So for this edition of Comic ...

Book Review: Bear Any Burden by Ellis M. Goodman
Blogger News Network - Dec 1, 2008
by Simon Barrett in Book Reviews, Reviews I have mixed emotions about this book. I enjoyed it a lot, much of the action takes place at the hight of the Cold ...

John Freeman
Publishers Weekly, NY - 9 hours ago
by Craig Morgan Teicher -- Publishers Weekly, 12/1/2008 In the past few years, space for book reviews has been steadily shrinking, leading some in the ...

New Book for BlackBerry Users (and Abusers) Now Available at ...
MarketWatch - 7 hours ago
CrackBerry.com is updated daily with BlackBerry news, reviews, rumors, humor, help and how-to articles, and the site features an active forum community ...

Children's Book Reviews
Publishers Weekly, NY - Nov 30, 2008
FSG/Foster, $17.95 (64p) ISBN 978-0-374-33528-1 Of interest to adults as well as children, this handsomely produced black-and-white book intriguingly ...

Book Review: New Tricks
Monsters and Critics.com - Nov 30, 2008
Perceptive readers will likely pick out the villain within the first third of the book yet donâ€™t let that dissuade you from enjoying the interactions ...

Monsters and Critics.com
Book Review: Dangerous Women
Monsters and Critics.com - Nov 30, 2008
Morris went beyond writing a simple â€œscare tacticâ€ book, he examined the often complex history that created murdering women and provides thoughtful insights ...

Monsters and Critics.com
Book Review: Operation Blue Light
Monsters and Critics.com - Nov 30, 2008
The first portion of this book is the best as it follows Chabot through his developmental years. By the end, the story deteriorates into a rambling, ...

Monsters and Critics.com
Book Review: The Reach
Monsters and Critics.com - Nov 30, 2008
By Sandy Amazeen Nov 30, 2008, 22:41 GMT When psychology grad student Jess Chambers was tapped for a special assignment by the demanding but secretive ...

book reviews - Google News

Answering Service ResourceAnswering Service Resource