According
to Brown, corporate culture can be defined as an interdependent set of beliefs,
values, ways of behaving, and tools for living that are so common in a community
that they tend to perpetuate themselves, sometimes over long periods of time (Brown,
2011). Southwest Airlines has been a company that has always been devoted to
its employees, customers, and the community it serves. The Southwest Airline
culture is one that follows “The Golden Rule” of behavior, meaning that they
treat each other the way they would like to be treated. This behavior is
essential to the company and its culture. The company believes that by
continuing to do the right thing by their employees and customers the company
has grown to what it is today, a fun, loving, friendly, safe, cost-efficient,
low-cost and successful passenger carrier (Southwest Citizenship, n.d.).
After
watching A Day in the Life of the Culture Committee by Southwest Airlines
video, I can say that the Southwest Culture Committee has done a great job in
establishing the company’s cultural norms. Employees treat each other equally
in this loving, friendly manner that in a way represents the way they feel
about the company and in turn it’s contagious. The behavior and feeling about
the company just continue to be passed on from employee to employee and to
customers. From what I could tell from the video, I believe that the culture
committee at Southwest Airlines is in charge of giving back to employees by
showing them they can have fun at work, the company appreciates them and their
efforts, and that the company is willing to go the extra mile for its
employees. The committee just seems to work behind the scenes of the entire
company by interacting with its employees on a daily basis and providing them
the support they need to continue on with their work day, career, and so on.
Relating the culture committee of Southwest Airlines to
the existent culture committee of my company, I believe my company should
implement a culture committee on a regional or district basis. It just feels
like the company has a culture but it is not reflected or represented well
sometimes. It seems like they don’t truly care about giving back to their
employees, the employees who are making the money for them. So, it is hard
sometimes to say great things about the company when an employee feels like
just another number in the company payroll. I think every company can learn a
great deal of how to treat employees and how to show employees that they care
about them. Therefore, if I had to choose a viable mission for my company’s
culture committee it would be to show employees how much we appreciate them and
their hard work.
There’s one main norm that I take away from this
Southwest Airline culture committee exercise, it is to treat others, as you
would like to be treated. Sometimes as humans, we get so wrapped up about what
is happening to us and what is going on around us that we forget that those standing
next to us are fighting along with us. They may even be going through the same
thing as us and they deserve to feel treated fairly and equally as well feel
appreciated from the company they work for. So even though for some people it
gets annoying meeting someone that is very cheerful and happy, it’s best to
spread that love, happiness, and friendliness to other employees. The moral of
the company may even improve.
As a result of this exercise, I have stumbled upon
Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly’s few secrets to creating a winning corporate
culture. These are:
1.
Make
culture everyone’s responsibility, ask everyone to own it
2.
Create a
culture committee. Southwest has two. Both Local Culture Committees and a
Corporate Culture Committee are responsible for keeping the focus on culture.
3.
Make the
key components of your culture a part of your leadership expectations. In other
words, don’t promote people who don’t reflect the company culture
4.
Include
a section on culture on your annual employee performance appraisals. What gets measured,
gets done (Oswald, 2009).
Reference:
Brown, D. R.
(2011). Changing the Culture. An experiential approach to organization
development (8th ed., p. 63). Boston: Prentice Hall.
Oswald, D.
(2009, November 29). Corporate Culture Done Right: Southwest Airlines |
The Oswald Letter by Dan Oswald. Hr
Hero Blogs. Retrieved September 1, 2013,
from http://blogs.hrhero.com/oswaldletters/2009/11/29/corporate-culture-done-right-southwest-airlines/
Southwest Citizenship.
(n.d.). Southwest Airlines | Book Flights, Airline Tickets, Airfare.
Retrieved September 1, 2013, from http://www.southwest.com/html/southwest-difference/southwest-citizenship/
No comments:
Post a Comment