Summary
Highlights
Southwest Airlines is unleashing a margin of performance by focusing on both performance and people. The Strengths initiative began as a grassroots effort, with one person in a department bringing it to their team, and it quickly expanded across the organization. This approach helps the company show interest in employee development broadly, recognizing individual uniqueness and gifts.
Southwest's philosophy is to put its employees first. By developing employees in their areas of strength and encouraging them to bring their authentic selves to work, the company gets the best out of them. The Strengths tool is considered a great way to implement this 'employees first' approach, contributing to their 'secret sauce'.
An anecdote illustrates Southwest's commitment to its people: new employees are cheered on with a red carpet and celebrations every Monday morning. This exemplifies Southwest's value for celebrating individuals. Integrating a strengths-based approach into an organization that already values its people allows a great company to become exceptional by providing tools to bring out the best in their workforce.
Southwest aims to embed strengths into every aspect of its operations, making it part of the company's language and daily life. Employees are starting to see the practical application of strengths, using it for self-management, customizing approaches to colleagues, and positioning team members to excel in their strongest areas. Full teams are now aware of their strengths.
Departments that have embraced strengths training show higher engagement, increased productivity, and genuinely happier employees. Concrete results include drops in attrition and turnover, increased engagement scores, higher employee Net Promoter Scores, improved morale, and more effective delegation by leaders based on individual strengths. Strengths also positively impact employees' personal lives by affirming their uniqueness.
After the initial discovery and education phase, the focus shifts to integrating strengths into daily processes, from performance management to leader-employee conversations. This integration is expected to bolster Southwest's already strong culture. The vision is for this approach to not only help employees thrive at Southwest but also positively impact their families, friends, and communities, making Southwest a place where people feel valued.