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Lessons in Loyalty

Lessons in Loyalty

Lorraine Grubbs-West
2005
T4 130 pages · about 2h 10m to read Open Librarygoodreads

Insider account: former head of people on hiring and retention.

Summary

The reference has not verified this book in detail; the summary states only what the title, author and subject establish.

Lorraine Grubbs-West spent fifteen years at Southwest Airlines, including as director of employment, and wrote this as a practical account of the airline's people practices from inside the human resources function.

The content covers hiring, which she describes as selecting for attitude and cultural fit rather than for experience, with peer involvement in interviews and a high rejection rate; onboarding, where new employees learn company history and stories rather than only procedures; internal communication and the deliberate use of recognition; and the treatment of employees during downturns, including Southwest's record of avoiding layoffs.

The reference has not verified the book in detail. It is a short practitioner volume rather than an analytical work, and it shares the limitation of all Southwest culture books: it attributes the airline's financial results to its people practices without examining the structural cost advantages that also produced them. Readers wanting the same material from a more senior perspective should consider Colleen Barrett's account in Leading with LUV.

Key takeaways 5

  1. Southwest hired for attitude and cultural fit and rejected technically qualified candidates who did not fit.
  2. Involving peers in hiring decisions makes the existing workforce responsible for the standard it will have to work alongside.
  3. Onboarding that teaches company history and stories transmits norms that procedure manuals cannot.
  4. Avoiding layoffs during downturns buys workforce flexibility during recoveries, which Grubbs-West presents as a deliberate trade.
  5. Recognition programmes work when they name individuals for specific actions rather than when they distribute awards by category.

Who should read it

Human resources practitioners looking for specific hiring and onboarding practices from a company known for retention, with the caveat that this entry is not verified in detail.

Similar books 6

Chosen by shared topics, the entries that hold them, and the people who recommended both.

Hard LandingHard Landing
T2 Hard Landing
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US airlines after 1978 deregulation through Crandall, Lorenzo and Kelleher.

Recommended by: Patrick Collison

Nuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for BNuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success
T2 Nuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success
Kevin Freiberg, Jackie Freiberg · 1996
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How Southwest Airlines built its low-cost model and its culture under Herb Kelleher.

The Southwest Airlines WayThe Southwest Airlines Way
T3 The Southwest Airlines Way
Jody Hoffer Gittell · 2003
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Academic study of relational coordination and turnaround times.

Recommended by: Ryan Peterson

Leading with LUV
T4 Leading with LUV
Ken Blanchard, Colleen Barrett · 2010
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Insider management account from Southwest's long-serving president.

100 Days: the rush to judgment that killed N
T4 100 Days: the rush to judgment that killed Nortel
James E Bagnall · 2013
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Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai

A Savage Factory: An Eyewitness Account of tA Savage Factory: An Eyewitness Account of the Auto Industry's Self- Destruction
T4 A Savage Factory: An Eyewitness Account of the Auto Industry's Self- Destruction
Robert J. Dewar · 2009
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Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai

Where it sits in the reference 3

Southwest Airlines
Companies
Management and Organisational Design
Business themes
Company stories and CEO memoirs
Business themes

Topics

Business and ManagementCompany Histories