Southwest Airline Case Study

Southwest Airline

The culture I admire

Rachelle M Lewis

7/27/2012

This was prepared for Professor Angela Byles MGT 425 Organizational Behavior & Culture---Spring/Summer Session 2012

The culture of a company is the values and practices shared by the members/employees of that company. A company's culture was never something I had thought of as very significant to me in my everyday living and even in my employment history. After my participation in this learning experience, I now know that the way that I choose the company's I support and choose to be employed by, as well as continue to be employed with actually does have a lot to do with that company's culture. Having the knowledge of what a company's culture is is vital for everyone to be successful as an employee and a business owner.

The culture I chose to admire was Southwest Airline. I admire Southwest because it is a consciously developed customer-centered culture. According to Marhoffer (2011), their culture's focus is on providing the best customer service for both our internal customers (employees) and external customers (passengers). Southwest Airlines culture is as unique as each of their employees. The employees are all encouraged to "Live the Southwest Way," and their employees exemplify this with their warrior spirits, servant's hearts, and fun-Luving attitudes, but each employee is also encouraged to "color outside of the lines" when appropriate in doing what is right by their Customers and their Company (bends the rules to benefit the customer but don't break them). The characteristics of these three components of "Living the Southwest Way" are:

*Warrior Spirit: work hard, desire to be the best, be courageous, display a sense of urgency, preserve, and innovate.

*Servant's Heart: follow The Golden Rule, put others first, demonstrate proactive customer service (that includes both internal--SWA employees--and external customers), and embrace the SWA family.

*Fun-Luving Attitude: don't take yourself too seriously, maintain perspective (balance), celebrate successes, enjoy your work, and be a passionate team player.

Southwest's culture differs from Jet blue, AirTran and most of the airline companies. Southwest, in their "order of importance," they put their employees first, then their customers, then their shareholders. Many companies feel they have to appease the customers or shareholders first, but Southwest Airlines has the magic formula that makes them an admired company: Happy Employees=Happy Customers=Increased Business/Profits=Happy