The Southwest Airlines Way

By: Jody Hoffer Gittell

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Management lessons from the world's most profitable airline.

"If you want to understand how one organization can change the competitive rules of the game for an entire industry, read this book." (James L. Heskett, Baker Foundation professor, Harvard Business School and coauthor of The Value-Profit Chain)

Fortune magazine calls Southwest Airlines "the most successful airline in history". With a market value greater than the rest of the US airline industry combined, Southwest Airlines is an amazing company with amazing management practices. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with frontline Southwest employees, managers, and senior executives­­, The Southwest Airlines Way explains how Southwest's relationship-based performance principles can be adopted by managers in any industry, with dramatic results.

Full of frontline tales of Southwest's innovative management style, this compelling book explains how Southwest's relentless focus on high-performance relationships and its people-management practices have been the key to its unparalleled success in the airline industry. It reveals how any organization willing to invest the time and effort can learn from Southwest's management style by creating shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect among management, employees, and suppliers. This is the secret of how Southwest consistently outperforms its competitors in the high-pressure, time-sensitive airline industry.

Please note: This is an historical recording. The audio quality represents the technology of the time when it was produced.

©2003 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (P)2005 McGraw Hill-Ascent Audio