Southwest Airlines Lightened Weighty Issues

There’s no love from most airlines when it comes to slightly overweight luggage. The fees get slapped on even for a pound, unless the ticket agent takes pity. And that’s rare. Can you blame them with the price of oil, volcanic eruptions from Iceland and such? But, all airlines are not equal. Why is Southwest Airlines far more flexible than others?

Other airlines just don’t get customer loyalty the way Southwest Airlines does.

Our son’s “overweight” luggage fees in one month this year reached an all time high of almost $500.00 U.S. That’s not counting the cost of the tickets. Granted he’s a touring golf pro who criss-crosses the States with a bag of golf clubs plus his normal luggage in which he says he carries “his life”. But, no matter his efforts to economize, if a pound or three overweight he got “dinged”. Even when he was forced to stay overnight part way to his destination due to mechanical problems, the particular airline insisted on charging him. Again, this is not ten pounds overweight per piece of luggage but one to three pounds. You can imagine the customer experience at the ticket counter. Not much laughing going on.

Faced with the intractability of the airlines, our son vowed to re-examine every bit of his packing to get the weight down. He bought a bigger back pack (still within regulations) so that he could “carry on” his golf balls and shoes. He bought new luggage that “looked” lighter. He pared his clothes down and his toiletries. He weighed his luggage before going to the airport and thought he’d nailed it this time.

Despite his extensive travelling during his amateur golf years while at university and as a new pro, our son had never booked with Southwest Airlines. But, because of attractive prices and Southwest’s availability, he decided to give it a go. He was still almost a pound overweight for his golf clubs and his regular luggage. But SW waived overweight fees. Plus when he changed a flight a few days later, there were no change fees. Now that IS a new experience!

Customer loyalty is a deep experience of something not felt before.

The relief at having a reasonable ticket agent making sensible decisions was almost a shock. Customer loyalty? Our son is “in”. To seal his warm feelings for SW, he had David Holmes, a “rappin’ fight attendant, belting out the usually boring flight instructions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9lZV_828OA

Southwest Airlines excels at relationships.

Jody Hoffer Gittell, an assistant professor at Brandeis University studied Southwest Airlines in depth after 9/11. She wanted to better understand why it “has a consistent record of profitability and performance in a turbulent industry”. In her 2003 book, The Southwest Airlines Way, she explains that the differentiating factor between SW and other airlines is a focus on relationships: shared goals, shared knowledge, mutual respect, timely problem solving dialogue among employees and always “leaning toward the customer”. Other airlines have, for the most part, been unable to replicate this.

Quite frankly, I have expected the penny to drop since then and Southwest Airlines to succumb to the incessant turmoil and spiraling costs in the industry. SW hasn’t been without controversy, most recently when it booted out Kevin Smith, a filmmaker, because he was too fat for one seat. But, when Kevin, who has over a million followers tweeted his distress, the airline went overboard to fix matters with him through multiple tweets to him, an apologetic blog and some fence-mending on booking a flight.

How many customers did SW gain (versus lose) with the handling of this incident?

We are social beings and thrive or not on relationships. Southwest Airlines at the least understands this and strives to build bonds whenever it can. Individual employees at other airlines do so too. But they don’t quite have the strong culture supporting them as do employees at SW. In an imperfect world, focusing on relationships like teamwork and customized problem-solving on the front-line are not easy, especially when the bottom line is a constant worry (and some customers can be difficult).

Yet, ironically, the soft touch helps the bottom line.

Related blogs:


http://nkleadership.blogspot.com/2009/12/michael-ignatieff-is-appealing-to-wrong.html

http://nkleadership.blogspot.com/2009/08/canadian-consular-officials-in-kenya.html

Architecture of Talent: Myelin Makes Perfect

Skill is insulation that wraps around neural circuits and grows according to certain signals.


---Daniel Coyle, The Talent Code

Why do we admire talent?

Highly talented persons are awesome to behold. They fill our minds and bodies with joy, amazement, admiration, and quite often relief because they cracked the intractable problem we were facing for which we wanted their help. They make our lives easier, guide us through the jungle, entertain and uplift us with their prowess and often simplify the complex world in which we live. The superhighways in their brains sheathed in myelin, the insulator of nerve cells and facilitator of speedy transmission of impulses, enable their expertise to shine through unconsciously. This is not innate. They have built their skills step by step over many years through “deep practice” or “deliberate practice”, Anders Ericsson’s term for operating at the edges of our ability and reaching further through targeted practice.

Deep or deliberate practice which generates and sustains top talent is not yet in the “DNA” of organizations

We could do with more attention to “myelin-building” in organizations, especially in developing stronger managers and leaders or individual contributors who must participate in teams and relate well to customers and stakeholders. Most of us have experienced a “deep practice” world throughout our formal education. Through a succession of courses and multiple years of “training” our expertness in a particular professional or technical domain flourished. Thereafter, despite the continuing education requirements of our respective associations, a growing body of research indicates that we tend to plateau or deteriorate, unless the circumstances of our jobs enable the right kind of expertise development.

Scientists and educators have been tweaking the “deliberate practice” phenomenon for about 150 years

In the last ten years or so, a proliferation of popular press authors has brought academia out of the closet enriching our understanding of the nature versus nurture debate. They include Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers), Geoff Colvin (Talent is Overrated) and David Shenk (The Genius in All of Us) among others. It is now clear: we can “nurture” our talents if we attend to the process in a certain way. Our raw natural capabilities are much more malleable than hitherto believed in the 20th century.

It’s rather scary and exciting: the architecture of our brains is in our hands. The thoughts we choose and the practices we implement send signals to our “living brain”. Since nerves that fire together stay together, the more we fire a particular circuit, the more myelin optimizes the circuit.

The “deep practice” technique is straightforward, but execution cannot be done in isolation

The “sweet spot”, as Daniel Coyle calls the “uncomfortable terrain located just beyond our current abilities where our reach exceeds our grasp”, can be developed with four easy steps:

1. Pick a target
   
2. Reach for it
   
3. Evaluate the gap between the target and the reach
   
4. Return to step one.

Sounds simple, but what target? And, how can you truly evaluate what you are doing? The goal is always self-sufficiency and being your own coach. However, outside coaching is almost always necessary to “scaffold” a person to another deeper level of knowing and skill. Educators are well aware of impact of the “scaffolding” technique such that they routinely use it as a support structure to help their students master a task or concepts. In addition to educators, coaches of sports teams, elite musicians and artists, who intuitively “scaffold” their emerging prodigies, are soaking up the overflowing research on the “architecture of talent” and testing it in the playing field and the classroom. Thanks to the “bridge” writers between academia and the real world, the blueprint for expanding the talent pool is seeping into organizational life too. But, at a snail’s pace in comparison. Deliberate practice is a heavy investment in time and effort for any person. If you are a leader-manager, your commitment to “deep learning” can make a significant difference to your performance as a master coach and by association that of your team. To achieve such exceptional skill means terrible difficulties along the way. Are you ready for such a sacrifice? Related blogs: http://nkleadership.blogspot.com/2008/04/where-leadership-and-golf-mastery-meet.html http://nkleadership.blogspot.com/2009/12/stop-writing-notes-at-meetings-to.html http://nkleadership.blogspot.com/2009/09/candle-problems-for-dummies-not-apply.html

The New Tiger as Anti-Hero: The Fall of a Superman, the Rise of a Human

Virtue is not a necessary qualification for heroic status,


---Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Heroes: Saviors, Traitors and Supermen

George Bernard Shaw warned us long ago to “beware of the pursuit of the Superhuman”. His rationale: “It leads to an indiscriminate contempt for the Human”. Are we now in danger of vilifying Tiger Woods because he is only “human”? Or, are we ready to see a different kind of hero emerge, not in our eyes but in his?

Tiger’s fall has shaken the equilibrium of golf, the industry as a whole, the players within, the sponsors and anyone else with a stake in the business. When once we admired Tiger’s confidence and mastery at a game that drives most people to distraction, we now have to re-evaluate our “hero”. Yesterday’s metrics don’t apply.

The history of heroism is replete with scoundrels and truly good people who have risked life and limb to advance society. For both, their extraordinary gifts often raise their level of moral peril because of the bubble in which they live. As Aristotle once wrote, “There is no law which embraces men of that caliber. They are themselves the law”. Heroes must call on their moral instinct. Unfortunately in Tiger’s case it failed him.

When asked by a reporter in his first news conference since his demise in November 2009 and before the 2010 Masters if he really knew what he was doing, Tiger professed he did not. He was duping himself and duping everyone else. How could that be so?

In Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong, Mark Hauser, professor of Psychology, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Biological Anthropology at Harvard University, argues that we have evolved a moral instinct. It is more like growing a limb than being told by government or a religious institution or our parents what to do. It is a universal moral grammar that grows within each child to make rapid judgments about what is morally right or wrong: not to kill, lie, steal or break promises. It is instinctive, innate and unconscious.

In Professor Hauser’s view, “the role of experience is to instruct the innate system, pruning the range of possible moral systems down to one distinctive moral signature”. So it is for Tiger, although painful, that he has done some pruning in recent months to reveal more clearly to himself what he stands for and how he wants to conduct his life.

Tiger now is conscious about his moral signature. He has awakened from a not knowing place. He speaks of returning to his Buddhist roots which quite likely have far greater meaning for him now. As someone who has practiced tens of thousands of hours mastering golf, he has only begun the practice of a new moral signature.

The famous physicist David Bohm viewed health and wholeness as one and the same. He also acknowledged that the journey to wholeness is not easy: “Man has sensed that wholeness of integrity is an absolute necessity to make life worth living. Yet, over the ages, he has generally lived in fragmentation”.

Tiger has had two selves. He is working on one. No superman anymore. But truly more Human.

Margie's Mad: Loblaws Has Dumped Too Much Labour on Her Shoulders

After paying $80.00 at the Loblaws Superstore checkout, Margie had to bag her own groceries. She was not in the 1 to 8 item so-called fast checkout line. Just a regular line where she expected regular service.


When Margie objected, she was told it was for efficiency’s sake, to get more customers through. Margie was downright enraged. First, she objected to doing work for Loblaws so that it could be more efficient after having handed over $80.00. Secondly, she suggested that having roving packers would be very efficient while customers are otherwise engaged keeping the process moving and paying the bill.

With other customers glaring at her for making such a fuss, she asked to see the manager. But she answered her demand at the same time as the cashier said out loud: “the manager is in a meeting”. Thought so. The stand-off ended with Margie being given a contact number for head office.

The customer service representative showed no sympathy. That’s the policy and that’s that! When Margie suggested that the Galen Weston Sr. and Mrs. Weston would never have to pack their own bags, the representative went bureaucratic chiding Margie for mentioning their names. No sense of humor there.

The only exception, Margie was told, was for seniors and the disabled. Now that really sent Margie into another tailspin as she feels quite strongly that neither of those groups should be singled out as “victims”.

Margie, as with the cashier, got nowhere with the customer service rep. Even when she said that will be the last time she will shop at the Superstore, it mattered not at all. The rep did not ask for her name or telephone number.

Over the years, Margie has likely spent tens of thousands of dollars at Loblaws in its various incarnations. No more. She has willingly supported the Loblaws’ labour force by being a loyal customer day in and day out. No more.

Margie is 83 years old and sharp as a tack. She may have another ten or so years to go. A lot of money walked out of Loblaws' door a few days ago. If you also count the people she talked to and who are equally unhappy about the downloading of labour to customers, that adds up to a considerable amount of money.

Avoiding the Slippery Slope of Negativity: Rebounding from What Life Throws at Us

During the Olympics, we lived in a surreal world. There were so many moments of joy and lots of disappointments too. Overall, the experience was uplifting as we celebrated the efforts of athletes to better their best. We were on a high, especially when Canada beat the US for hockey gold.


It was a welcome relief from the downbeat news that dominates our media. Positive experiences and messages have a hard time surviving among the weeds of travail and suffering. According to Tal Ben-Shahar, who lectures on positive psychology, articles about anger, anxiety and depression outnumber those on joy, happiness and satisfaction by a factor of 21:1!

Yet, to be creative and push the edges of our minds, inspiration partners better with perspiration than negativity. Inspiration opens us up to generating possibilities and seeing opportunities despite difficult circumstances. In evolutionary terms, it’s the only way to go for individual and group survival.

Imagine if each one of us were a little bit better at fending off the negative and cultivating the positive. It’s not easy as the reality of life is that failure, frustration and suffering abound. Nevertheless, if more of us can improve how we rebound, then maybe we will have more shared Olympic moments.

One way is to alter how we think about or evaluate our thoughts in response to an event. Cognitive scientists tell us that our thoughts drive emotions and emotions drive motion. It follows then that we have the power to change the meaning we attach to the event and thus our actions. We can cope up or down. Our choice.

The “3Ms” serve as a mirror for our unrealistic or realistic reactions to the unfolding of life’s events:

# 1: Magnifying the Failure. Avoid over-generalizing (“No one liked my idea therefore they won’t like any of my ideas.”)

# 2: Minimizing the Success: Avoid tunnel vision, focusing on the one thing that went wrong rather than the nine that went well (Giving undue attention to the one bored or disengaged person rather than the nine excited people).

# 3: Making Up Meanings: Avoid personalizing or blaming (beating yourself up instead of problem-solving your way out, taking charge).

The Olympic athletes are proof positive of the power of thoughts driving emotions and emotions driving motion. No reason why we can’t practice that too.

Cut Tiger Some Slack: He's Not a Preacher or a Politician

Scratch a man or a woman and you’ll find a child.

~common saying

Most would agree that when Tiger gave his 13 minute “forgive me” speech on February 19, 2010, he looked haggard and nervous, his emotions close to the surface. The commentary afterwards ranged from understanding to downright nasty: empathetic versus unforgiving. In the unfolding Tiger story, we are all actors struggling with “learning to become more conscious, competent human beings”. We’re not in the habit of cutting our superstars much slack, often because we hold them to a higher standard than ourselves or an equal standard. The Tiger Woods of the world though are engaged in the same melodramatic journey of life as we are. It’s a perilous journey fraught with unexpected twists and turns that call our character into question frequently.

We don’t dispute Tiger’s competency. Groomed from the age of 2 or so to be the greatest golfer in all time, he’s well on the way. On the deeper “who am I?” human question. It appears not.

Think about it. Did he have much time to ponder his inner life beyond what it takes to put a little white ball into a hole in the middle of a “lawn” faster than competitors? Deep grooves there in his brain on that one. A bit mixed up on the more general: “What’s the right thing to do in life?”

Adults have a cognitive life cycle just as children do. Debate rages in academia about how to characterize the evolution of an adult mind, in general. For simplicity’s sake, Erik Erikson’s typology offers some insight into Tiger’s struggle.

Erikson poses three interconnected, evolutionary stages in adulthood each with its own identity and life satisfaction dilemmas:

Love: Intimacy vs. Isolation (Young Adults, 20 to 34 years):

“Am I loved and wanted?” “Shall I share my life with someone or live alone?”

The challenge at this stage is to develop a mature sense of the meaning of love and how to love. How to form long-term commitments to others. How to be "in relationship" at work, in the community, with family, to contribute.

Care: Generativity vs. Stagnation (Middle Adulthood, 35 to 65 years)

“Will I produce something of value?”

The virtue to be developed during this period is to “care”. To put energy into guiding the next generation, contributing to society.

Wisdom: Ego Integrity vs. Despair (Seniors 65 years and onwards)

“Have I lived a full life?”

Starting with our 30s, the virtue to be fully developed by our "golden years" is deep self-understanding. Combined with contemplating accomplishments and looking back on the people in our lives, we have the opportunity to achieve great satisfaction with our efforts over many decades.

Applying Erikson’s view of adult development to Tiger, he’s still grappling with commitment. He’s only 34 years old!!

No excuse though for leading a double life. But, in the context of the bubble he grew up in and the fame and fortune that ensued, we can understand how he veered away from the ethical, healthy path. We recognize from his words that he’s learning how to accept help from others. He has activated a part of himself that likely has been under utilized: “life-reflection” in which he develops self-insight and a self-critical perspective. He’s just a newbie at this!

Although he wasn’t as smooth or emotionally demonstrative as a preacher or a politician typically is, Tiger made it clear that prior to the Thanksgiving 2009 incident that blew his cover, he was only thinking about himself. He was “at effect” of impulses. He was not thinking about the impact of his behaviour on his family, his golf buddies, young people who look up to him, his sponsors, etc. He was, in his mind, above the fray, “invisible” and was free to play by social rules different from the mainstream.

Tiger is now consciously trekking through a mind-jungle. When he clears a new path, he will be somewhere he’s never been before. He will see himself in the world differently. He will see others anew. It’s taxing. It’s painful. And, it is courageous.

Many adults don’t reflect enough. Consequently, their “geniuses within” never reach their full potential. For Tiger, this may not be the case. He’s working on it, probably as hard as he does his golf game.

Tiger asked us to look into our hearts and support him in his journey. Let’s do that especially if you are older than 35 years. It’s what we are supposed to do: care for the generations behind us. Support them to succeed because we should know: the only way to success is through failure.

Unless we recognize the extent to which our present is determined by our past, we make the same mistakes over and over again.

~Manfred Kets de Vries, Leader on the Couch.

No shortcuts with Mindwork, Tending to the Genius Within

Like any lifestyle habit, keeping our minds in good running order is a work in progress. Self-confidence, emotional resilience, happiness and calmness all come and go. They must be renewed daily and moment by moment. If we don’t work at it, our minds deteriorate. We can become mind wrecks as easily as coach potatoes.
Trouble is it takes time to freshen up our minds and time is one resource we never seem to have enough of. Weekend long meditation retreats are not in the cards for most of us. Family and work demands consume us. “Stayin’ alive” is a full time occupation.

Fortunately, there’s lots of advice available to show us how. Check any bookstore. Self-help books abound. Go back to the “golden oldies” in your bookshelf. Similar messages. And, now with neuroscience backing up many of the self-help claims, we’re “good to go”. Except, that a daily routine for our minds is elusive.

Olympic athletes have entire systems of support behind them to be on the cutting edge. Canada’s Olympic Committee, in partnership with the private sector, Sport Canada and the Federal government, has made significant investments in neuro-and bio-feedback equipment to boost athletes’ mind preparation. In addition, athletes have open access to sports psychologists, dietitians, biomechanical experts, exercise physiologists, massage therapists and other experts. Further, a team spirit is encouraged as part of building the “can do” spirit of helping each other to succeed.

How can we do this for ourselves so that we can be “Olympians” in our own pursuits and passions? Certainly we can make more efforts to feed the work place with positive messages and encouragement in which we focus on bringing out more “the geniuses within”. Collectively, that’s powerful. Any obstacle can be dealt with.

It all starts though with each of us tending to our own genius within. That takes works every day. Deliberate work and practice.

If we can become more physically fit with ten minutes here and there or, better still, 30 to 60 minutes daily, then so can we with mind fitness. The techniques are all around us: yoga, meditation, deep breathing, laughing, visualization, inspirational books and speakers, singing, doing good works, viewing family photos…. A silent, calm brain enables us to be mindful. A noisy brain, “mindless”.

The key is to structure mindwork into our days, a routine like many other aspects of our life, which keeps us on an even keel. Here is one way to do it.

In the morning or before going to sleep, do a combination of 30 minutes of mindwork exercises such as:

- 2 minutes of deep breathing

- 10 minutes of inspiration reading & reflecting

- 8 minutes of reviewing goals, aspirations, insights, appreciation for people in your life

- 10 minutes meditating or equivalent, such as yoga

Done more diligently, mindwork wards off the ghosts past and polishes our natural talents. In a noisy world full of the unexpected, this is one sure fire way to live more fitfully in the present.