According to the New York Times, February 13, 2008 issue, Gary Kelly, CEO from Southwest Airlines, dressed up like a woman. He walked into the office looking like the mother from the movie Hairspray, just to have fun and make the employees laugh. He was continuing the custom of making the airline a fun place to work.
Southwest has raised fares, packs more people onto airplanes, has passengers line up and board by numbers and consequently this is a lot of hard work for the employees. Mr. Kelly’s dress-up routine is just one of many ways the company put a little fun into the work environment.
“Many times,” Mr. Cerf, the Southwest union officer said, “You have to work fast. Workers who come to Southwest Airlines after being laid up by other airlines often quit. They are not use to working that hard.”
Southwest believes that “fun translates into a lot of productivity.” It has the industry’s highest wages, but because of efficient work habits its costs are the lowest among the big airlines.
Mr. Kelly knows how to have fun at work, yet many companies do not do this. Board meetings and decision-making are important, yet how employees are treated is important too.
I would like to share with you seven reasons why many companies do not excel, or profits and productivity are low.
1. In my experience, many people will do just what they are told and no more. They are not motivated to do anything else.
2. They do not know what their talent is or how to use it.
3. Lack of training.
4. Not encouraged to do change or do anything different.
5. Management is the same everyday—no smile, no conversation, no excitement, no laughter, no personal contact, and not sharing the company plan and ideas with the employees.
6. Many executives do not understand the basic needs of their employees as described in Maslov’s Theory.
7. Company culture is boring and not exciting to the employees like Southwest’s culture is.
Executives can do many things to make their company a better workplace. For example, Mr. Tan, who graduated from UC Berkeley with an MBA and had four years work experience in Hong Kong, came to work for my company when I was a vice president of a clothing manufacturing company. My executive team and I knew he was an innovator but it took one year before he brought his own experience and ideas to the workplace. In the beginning he was shy and quiet and because of the culture he was taught not to step on anybody’s toes. He also quietly held on to his ideas until he was told it was okay to express himself.
Because of the organizational structure he could only go directly to his boss with his ideas and if his boss disagreed his idea died. A year later the company had a new approach. My CEO and I assigned nine creative employees, including Mr. Tan, from different departments to be part of a brainstorming fun team. We encouraged them to be relaxed and brainstorm new ideas for the company. Because we gave them the freedom to express themselves this team brought dozens of great innovative ideas to the workplace including how to improve productivity.
We also saw how creative Mr. Tan was. When the CEO talked open to him and the group they all became more open-minded and brought laughter and smiles to the workplace. Because of these creative groups in six months they brought 15 new ideas to us and we developed seven new products that resulted in a $500,000 in new sales.
Do you want to bring fun and laughter to your company? In my next thread I will share with you nine ideas to help you bring FUN into your workplace.
Learn, Experience, Enjoy Global Success !
Jinsoo Terry
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