Southwest Airlines hires for attitude, and trains for skills. They insist that employees should have a sense of humor in order to improve their productivity, creativity, flexibility, and morale. The ideal applicants have outgoing personalities, are capable of fitting into an extended “family” who work hard, think on their feet and have fun at the same time.

At the heart of Southwest’s seemingly frivolous focus on self-expression is a very practical idea. If employees pretend to be people they’re not, they will take out the stress they feel on their co-workers and customers. Through humor, employees create more enjoyable experiences for passengers.

Hudson Valley companies can motivate employees to behave like owners by giving everyone a stake. By sharing cost savings and increased profits everyone wins. They will be driven to cut costs, increase speed, and go beyond job descriptions to get the job done.

In order to keep growing, we need to keep innovating. Southwest encourages its people to question and challenge every assumption.

When needing 800 computers the company debated whether to buy the hardware from IBM, Apple, or Compaq. An employee spoke up: “Why can’t we make the computers ourselves?” He purchased the parts off the shelf at wholesalers, recruited Southwest volunteers to work on an assembly line and reduced the cost of the computers by 50 percent- a savings of more than $1 million.

A young manager proposed a same-day cargo service that would increase Southwest’s revenue by 50 percent. Aggressive advertising campaigns were launched, and new phone lines were installed to handle the demand - which never materialized. The manager has been promoted three times, because Southwest valued his entrepreneurial spirit and appreciated his ability to learn from the mistake.

Do people in your organization have an appreciation for another person’s job? At Southwest the pilots put on ramp agent’s uniforms and unloaded the baggage while ramp agents climb into the cockpit and discover how a 30-second delay on their end can cause a wait behind other planes, making them late for every flight that day.

Another way to give employees the training they need to act like owners is through a newsletter. Issues should contain information that will help them better understand the company, its mission, customers, and competition. Most importantly, explain how their individual efforts are linked to the overall performance of the company.

There are more successes waiting to be created in the Hudson Valley. Regardless of your business, by identifying your culture and hiring people who can enthusiastically live, breath, eat and sleep it you will grow dramatically because of hiring for attitude and training for needed skills.

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