Church of the Customer Blog
« Southwest's crazy culture | Main | "Where the TV's don't get CNBC" »
May 08, 2006
Southwest's crazy culture
Would you buy a t-shirt, bake a cake, or volunteer to give up an evening to support your company's leaders?
That's what employees at Southwest Airlines do. Jeff Lamb, the company's VP of People and Leadership Development, explains his indoctrination into the company's iconoclatic culture:
Having worked for three other major companies, it blows my mind that [Southwest] Employees will raise money [through bake sales and the like] to buy matching Company T-shirts, hire the “Hamburger Man” to cook burgers, buy a few adult beverages, and go celebrate in anticipation of the “Message.” The Message to the Field is a series of events around the country where our Employees gather to hear from our leaders Gary Kelly and Colleen Barrett. A state of the Company message is delivered, and Employees stand and cheer (in their matching T-shirts). The tailgate occurs prior to the Message and would rival most Super Bowl parking lots.
We attended one of the "Message to the Field" events as research for our book. It was not unlike a family reunion. People stood in a long line to hug president Colleen Barrett. No tailgating since the event was in Chicago in the dead of winter, but it was unlike anything I experienced during 12 years of "All Hands Meetings" at IBM.
Other blogs that reference Southwest's crazy culture:
