“These people who work for you are creative, loyal, energetic and innovative…except during the eight hours each day they work for you” Tom Peters

“Until I came to IBM, I probably would have told you that culture was just one among several important elements in any organization’s makeup and success — along with vision, strategy, marketing, financials, and the like. I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game; it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value”. Lou Gerstner – CEO of IBM from 1993 to 2002, credited to saving and transforming the organisation

“If we lose our esprit de corps, the culture, the spirit, we have lost our most valuable competitive asset”– Herb Kelleher- CEO and Chairman of Southwest Airlines

One company has beaten Apple, Google, Microsoft, Berkshire Hataway or even GE under Jack Welch by giving 34% per year average return over its first 26 years (which means that a $1,000 initial investment would have grown to more than $2 millions 26 years later). It was even showed to be the best share over the last 30 years by the Money Magazine in 2002!

That company has been in the ranking of the Most Admired Companies by Fortune Magazine for the last 20 years being every year but 2 in the top 10! Something only Berkshire Hathaway can match.

That company made a profit in its third year of existence and has since then made a profit every year for the last 42 years in an industry sadly famous for its losts, bankruptcies and chapter 11.

That company has never had a redundancy plan, even after 9/11, in an industry famous for this.

That company has seen its operating model copied more than a hundred times across the world, and sometimes with a bad image, however not its Esprit de corps.

That company has only 4 values but they are continuously communicated and they are lived by everyone. One of those values is Fun with… Love! And they really mean it.

A company where client does not come first… but well its employees!

That company has made millionaires of frontline employees through shareholding and profit sharing.

That company is rich of thousands of moving and beautiful stories on how they behave, how they do the “extra mile” for their customers, how they play and entertain their customers, how they celebrate their achievements, how they do not take themselves too seriously!

That company is Southwest Airlines.

Several books have been written about Southwest Airlines, of which 2 were written by former employee, one by former CEO, James Parker, “Do the right thing” and one by former COO and President Colleen Barrett “Lead with Luv” (co-author with Ken Blanchard) and 2 others were written with the cooperation of Southwest people at all level of the organisation, “NUTS! Southwest Airlines’ crazy recipe for business and personal success” by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg, and, “The Southwest Airlines Way, Using the Power of Relationships to Achieve High Performance” by Jody Hoffer Gittell. On top of that we have read many articles, studies, analysis and watched dozens of videos about Southwest Airlines.

We help you to understand, during a 2 day intensive seminar, what every company can learn from Southwest Airlines. During this workshop you will also  discover how each company, or department, can internally apply the Southwest recipes to become better, perform better and gain a unique “Esprit de Corps”.

So if you want to build up a unique “Esprit de corps” within your company or department, please contact us to see how we can help you.

One last thing about Southwest Airlines, with their market value, you could buy British Airways … and Air France …and Lufthansa …and KLM …and Iberia …and Brussels Airlines ….and Swiss …and Austrian Airlines …and BMI …and Vueling! But you probably don’t want to put yourself in that much trouble!