What's the airline-industry jargon for unconventional wisdom? Southwest Airlines.
By some estimates, the country's major carriers have consumed perhaps $100 billion in capital during the past decade, but Southwest Airlines continues to be profitable. It's been in the black for 33 consecutive years and, last week, for the 127th consecutive quarter, it paid a modest dividend. Its balance sheet, with about $3 billion in cash on hand and $600 million in available credit, is the envy of an otherwise fuel-price-ravaged industry.
Its competitors among the network carriers—American, United, Delta, Continental, Northwest and US Airways—are shrinking passenger capacity by more than 10 percent and grounding hundreds of aircraft starting in the fall. Southwest will add a handful of daily flights. It will take delivery of another dozen aircraft next year and still plans to grow by 2 to 3 percent. And Southwest now carries more passengers annually (101 million last year) than any other U.S. carrier, a nifty trick for an airline that didn't fly outside Texas at the dawn of deregulation in 1978.
Even the fickle financial markets, which have long discounted Southwest's relentless growth and steady profits, have finally taken note. As oil prices doubled in the past year, share prices of the six network carriers have slid, with the drop-offs ranging from 76 to 94 percent. Southwest's decline has been more modest, within a point of the Dow's 21 percent 52-week drop. As a result, Southwest's market capitalization yesterday (about $9.7 billion) is now more than the combined $5.7 billion market cap of its Big Six competitors.
What does Southwest know that no one else in airlines does? It keeps things simple and consistent, which drives costs down, maximizes productive assets, and helps manage customer expectations.
One Plane Fits All
Unlike the network carriers and their commuter surrogates, which operate all manner of regional jets, turboprops, and narrow-body and wide-body aircraft, Southwest flies just one plane type, the Boeing 737 series. That saves Southwest millions in maintenance costs—spare-parts inventories, mechanic training and other nuts-and-bolts airline issues. It also gives the airline unique flexibility to move its 527 aircraft throughout the route network without costly disruptions and reconfigurations.
Point-to-Point Flying
Network carriers rely on a hub-and-spoke system, which laboriously collects passengers from "spoke" cities, flies them to a central "hub" airport, and then redistributes them to other spokes. Not Southwest. Most of its flying is nonstop between two points. That minimizes the time that planes sit on the ground at crowded, delay-prone hubs and allows the average Southwest aircraft to be in the air for more than an hour longer each day than a similarly sized jet flown by a network carrier. Southwest's avoid-the-hubs strategy also pays dividends in on-time operations. According to FlightStats, Southwest's 78 percent on-time performance in June is eight percentage points higher than the industry average and higher than that of any of its major competitors.
Simple In-Flight Service
Business travelers haven't always loved Southwest's über-simple service, but it's looking better and better as competitors cut back. There is just one class of service, a decent coach cabin that is slightly more spacious than those of Southwest's competitors. There are no assigned seats. There have never been meals, just beverages and snacks. Keeping it basic allows Southwest to unload a flight, clean and restock the plane, and board another flight full of passengers in as little as 20 minutes compared with as much as 90 minutes on a network airline. Airline efficiency experts say that the savings allow each Southwest jet to fly an extra flight per day. Extra flights mean extra revenue.
No Frills, No Fees
As other carriers have rushed to remove perks and pile on fees and restrictions, Southwest has kept its customer proposition streamlined and transparent. The airline only sells one-way fares and only in a few price "buckets." That not only keeps costs down—complex fare structures are expensive to manage—it convinces fliers that they are getting value for money. Prices are all-inclusive too. Southwest doesn't have fuel surcharges, doesn't charge for standby travel or ticket changes, and continues to permit travelers to check two pieces of luggage free. And since every seat on every flight is virtually identical, travelers know exactly what they will get when they make a purchase.
Strong Management
The public face of Southwest Airlines for a generation, hard-drinking, chain-smoking, always-leave-'em laughing Herb Kelleher, finally stepped away from the carrier earlier this year. Kelleher's bonhomie masked the discipline that Southwest has had throughout its history. The airline has always avoided fads and eschewed anything that increased costs or complicated the basic travel proposition. When it has changed—last year it ended its infamous cattle-call boarding process to favor its most frequent fliers and highest-fare customers—it has done so without slowing down the movement of aircraft. Management ranks are lean, but well compensated and, most importantly, productive. I once calculated that the top executives of Southwest generated 10 times more revenue per dollar of compensation than did the C-suite types at some of the network carriers.
A Relatively Happy Workforce
Network carriers have railed for decades about the power of their employee unions. But guess who's the most unionized carrier in the nation? Southwest, of course. The airline says that 87 percent of its employees belong to a union. Southwest has never had a strike, and now that the network carriers have whacked away at salaries and benefits, Southwest staffers are generally the highest paid in the industry. But since Southwest has about 30 percent fewer employees per aircraft than its network competitors, it has the lowest non-fuel C.A.S.M. (cost per available seat mile) of any of the major carriers.
Aggressive Fuel Hedging
Rampaging fuel prices now represent around 40 percent of an airline's costs, but, as usual, Southwest Airlines has been ahead of the curve. Since 1999, the airline's aggressive fuel-hedging program has saved it an estimated $3.5 billion. In the first quarter, for example, it paid $1.98 a gallon for fuel, approximately a dollar less than its network competitors. And Southwest's future position is admirable: It is 70 percent hedged at $51 a barrel through the end of the year and 55 percent hedged at the same price next year.
In a world of $140-a-barrel oil, suggesting that any airline is a guaranteed winner is beyond hubris. But this much can be said: Southwest Airlines is sitting on a pile of cash and fuel hedges and has a proven and easily adaptable service model. And history shows that Southwest has comfortably survived every airline-industry downturn, then grown rapidly and profited hugely when the business cycle turns.
By Joe Brancatelli
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Southwest Airlines Seven Secret of Success
What's the airline-industry jargon for unconventional wisdom? Southwest Airlines.
By some estimates, the country's major carriers have consumed perhaps $100 billion in capital during the past decade, but Southwest Airlines continues to be profitable. It's been in the black for 33 consecutive years and, last week, for the 127th consecutive quarter, it paid a modest dividend. Its balance sheet, with about $3 billion in cash on hand and $600 million in available credit, is the envy of an otherwise fuel-price-ravaged industry.
Its competitors among the network carriers—American, United, Delta, Continental, Northwest and US Airways—are shrinking passenger capacity by more than 10 percent and grounding hundreds of aircraft starting in the fall. Southwest will add a handful of daily flights. It will take delivery of another dozen aircraft next year and still plans to grow by 2 to 3 percent. And Southwest now carries more passengers annually (101 million last year) than any other U.S. carrier, a nifty trick for an airline that didn't fly outside Texas at the dawn of deregulation in 1978.
Even the fickle financial markets, which have long discounted Southwest's relentless growth and steady profits, have finally taken note. As oil prices doubled in the past year, share prices of the six network carriers have slid, with the drop-offs ranging from 76 to 94 percent. Southwest's decline has been more modest, within a point of the Dow's 21 percent 52-week drop. As a result, Southwest's market capitalization yesterday (about $9.7 billion) is now more than the combined $5.7 billion market cap of its Big Six competitors.
What does Southwest know that no one else in airlines does? It keeps things simple and consistent, which drives costs down, maximizes productive assets, and helps manage customer expectations.
One Plane Fits All
Unlike the network carriers and their commuter surrogates, which operate all manner of regional jets, turboprops, and narrow-body and wide-body aircraft, Southwest flies just one plane type, the Boeing 737 series. That saves Southwest millions in maintenance costs—spare-parts inventories, mechanic training and other nuts-and-bolts airline issues. It also gives the airline unique flexibility to move its 527 aircraft throughout the route network without costly disruptions and reconfigurations.
Point-to-Point Flying
Network carriers rely on a hub-and-spoke system, which laboriously collects passengers from "spoke" cities, flies them to a central "hub" airport, and then redistributes them to other spokes. Not Southwest. Most of its flying is nonstop between two points. That minimizes the time that planes sit on the ground at crowded, delay-prone hubs and allows the average Southwest aircraft to be in the air for more than an hour longer each day than a similarly sized jet flown by a network carrier. Southwest's avoid-the-hubs strategy also pays dividends in on-time operations. According to FlightStats, Southwest's 78 percent on-time performance in June is eight percentage points higher than the industry average and higher than that of any of its major competitors.
Simple In-Flight Service
Business travelers haven't always loved Southwest's über-simple service, but it's looking better and better as competitors cut back. There is just one class of service, a decent coach cabin that is slightly more spacious than those of Southwest's competitors. There are no assigned seats. There have never been meals, just beverages and snacks. Keeping it basic allows Southwest to unload a flight, clean and restock the plane, and board another flight full of passengers in as little as 20 minutes compared with as much as 90 minutes on a network airline. Airline efficiency experts say that the savings allow each Southwest jet to fly an extra flight per day. Extra flights mean extra revenue.
No Frills, No Fees
As other carriers have rushed to remove perks and pile on fees and restrictions, Southwest has kept its customer proposition streamlined and transparent. The airline only sells one-way fares and only in a few price "buckets." That not only keeps costs down—complex fare structures are expensive to manage—it convinces fliers that they are getting value for money. Prices are all-inclusive too. Southwest doesn't have fuel surcharges, doesn't charge for standby travel or ticket changes, and continues to permit travelers to check two pieces of luggage free. And since every seat on every flight is virtually identical, travelers know exactly what they will get when they make a purchase.
Strong Management
The public face of Southwest Airlines for a generation, hard-drinking, chain-smoking, always-leave-'em laughing Herb Kelleher, finally stepped away from the carrier earlier this year. Kelleher's bonhomie masked the discipline that Southwest has had throughout its history. The airline has always avoided fads and eschewed anything that increased costs or complicated the basic travel proposition. When it has changed—last year it ended its infamous cattle-call boarding process to favor its most frequent fliers and highest-fare customers—it has done so without slowing down the movement of aircraft. Management ranks are lean, but well compensated and, most importantly, productive. I once calculated that the top executives of Southwest generated 10 times more revenue per dollar of compensation than did the C-suite types at some of the network carriers.
A Relatively Happy Workforce
Network carriers have railed for decades about the power of their employee unions. But guess who's the most unionized carrier in the nation? Southwest, of course. The airline says that 87 percent of its employees belong to a union. Southwest has never had a strike, and now that the network carriers have whacked away at salaries and benefits, Southwest staffers are generally the highest paid in the industry. But since Southwest has about 30 percent fewer employees per aircraft than its network competitors, it has the lowest non-fuel C.A.S.M. (cost per available seat mile) of any of the major carriers.
Aggressive Fuel Hedging
Rampaging fuel prices now represent around 40 percent of an airline's costs, but, as usual, Southwest Airlines has been ahead of the curve. Since 1999, the airline's aggressive fuel-hedging program has saved it an estimated $3.5 billion. In the first quarter, for example, it paid $1.98 a gallon for fuel, approximately a dollar less than its network competitors. And Southwest's future position is admirable: It is 70 percent hedged at $51 a barrel through the end of the year and 55 percent hedged at the same price next year.
In a world of $140-a-barrel oil, suggesting that any airline is a guaranteed winner is beyond hubris. But this much can be said: Southwest Airlines is sitting on a pile of cash and fuel hedges and has a proven and easily adaptable service model. And history shows that Southwest has comfortably survived every airline-industry downturn, then grown rapidly and profited hugely when the business cycle turns.
By Joe Brancatelli
By some estimates, the country's major carriers have consumed perhaps $100 billion in capital during the past decade, but Southwest Airlines continues to be profitable. It's been in the black for 33 consecutive years and, last week, for the 127th consecutive quarter, it paid a modest dividend. Its balance sheet, with about $3 billion in cash on hand and $600 million in available credit, is the envy of an otherwise fuel-price-ravaged industry.
Its competitors among the network carriers—American, United, Delta, Continental, Northwest and US Airways—are shrinking passenger capacity by more than 10 percent and grounding hundreds of aircraft starting in the fall. Southwest will add a handful of daily flights. It will take delivery of another dozen aircraft next year and still plans to grow by 2 to 3 percent. And Southwest now carries more passengers annually (101 million last year) than any other U.S. carrier, a nifty trick for an airline that didn't fly outside Texas at the dawn of deregulation in 1978.
Even the fickle financial markets, which have long discounted Southwest's relentless growth and steady profits, have finally taken note. As oil prices doubled in the past year, share prices of the six network carriers have slid, with the drop-offs ranging from 76 to 94 percent. Southwest's decline has been more modest, within a point of the Dow's 21 percent 52-week drop. As a result, Southwest's market capitalization yesterday (about $9.7 billion) is now more than the combined $5.7 billion market cap of its Big Six competitors.
What does Southwest know that no one else in airlines does? It keeps things simple and consistent, which drives costs down, maximizes productive assets, and helps manage customer expectations.
One Plane Fits All
Unlike the network carriers and their commuter surrogates, which operate all manner of regional jets, turboprops, and narrow-body and wide-body aircraft, Southwest flies just one plane type, the Boeing 737 series. That saves Southwest millions in maintenance costs—spare-parts inventories, mechanic training and other nuts-and-bolts airline issues. It also gives the airline unique flexibility to move its 527 aircraft throughout the route network without costly disruptions and reconfigurations.
Point-to-Point Flying
Network carriers rely on a hub-and-spoke system, which laboriously collects passengers from "spoke" cities, flies them to a central "hub" airport, and then redistributes them to other spokes. Not Southwest. Most of its flying is nonstop between two points. That minimizes the time that planes sit on the ground at crowded, delay-prone hubs and allows the average Southwest aircraft to be in the air for more than an hour longer each day than a similarly sized jet flown by a network carrier. Southwest's avoid-the-hubs strategy also pays dividends in on-time operations. According to FlightStats, Southwest's 78 percent on-time performance in June is eight percentage points higher than the industry average and higher than that of any of its major competitors.
Simple In-Flight Service
Business travelers haven't always loved Southwest's über-simple service, but it's looking better and better as competitors cut back. There is just one class of service, a decent coach cabin that is slightly more spacious than those of Southwest's competitors. There are no assigned seats. There have never been meals, just beverages and snacks. Keeping it basic allows Southwest to unload a flight, clean and restock the plane, and board another flight full of passengers in as little as 20 minutes compared with as much as 90 minutes on a network airline. Airline efficiency experts say that the savings allow each Southwest jet to fly an extra flight per day. Extra flights mean extra revenue.
No Frills, No Fees
As other carriers have rushed to remove perks and pile on fees and restrictions, Southwest has kept its customer proposition streamlined and transparent. The airline only sells one-way fares and only in a few price "buckets." That not only keeps costs down—complex fare structures are expensive to manage—it convinces fliers that they are getting value for money. Prices are all-inclusive too. Southwest doesn't have fuel surcharges, doesn't charge for standby travel or ticket changes, and continues to permit travelers to check two pieces of luggage free. And since every seat on every flight is virtually identical, travelers know exactly what they will get when they make a purchase.
Strong Management
The public face of Southwest Airlines for a generation, hard-drinking, chain-smoking, always-leave-'em laughing Herb Kelleher, finally stepped away from the carrier earlier this year. Kelleher's bonhomie masked the discipline that Southwest has had throughout its history. The airline has always avoided fads and eschewed anything that increased costs or complicated the basic travel proposition. When it has changed—last year it ended its infamous cattle-call boarding process to favor its most frequent fliers and highest-fare customers—it has done so without slowing down the movement of aircraft. Management ranks are lean, but well compensated and, most importantly, productive. I once calculated that the top executives of Southwest generated 10 times more revenue per dollar of compensation than did the C-suite types at some of the network carriers.
A Relatively Happy Workforce
Network carriers have railed for decades about the power of their employee unions. But guess who's the most unionized carrier in the nation? Southwest, of course. The airline says that 87 percent of its employees belong to a union. Southwest has never had a strike, and now that the network carriers have whacked away at salaries and benefits, Southwest staffers are generally the highest paid in the industry. But since Southwest has about 30 percent fewer employees per aircraft than its network competitors, it has the lowest non-fuel C.A.S.M. (cost per available seat mile) of any of the major carriers.
Aggressive Fuel Hedging
Rampaging fuel prices now represent around 40 percent of an airline's costs, but, as usual, Southwest Airlines has been ahead of the curve. Since 1999, the airline's aggressive fuel-hedging program has saved it an estimated $3.5 billion. In the first quarter, for example, it paid $1.98 a gallon for fuel, approximately a dollar less than its network competitors. And Southwest's future position is admirable: It is 70 percent hedged at $51 a barrel through the end of the year and 55 percent hedged at the same price next year.
In a world of $140-a-barrel oil, suggesting that any airline is a guaranteed winner is beyond hubris. But this much can be said: Southwest Airlines is sitting on a pile of cash and fuel hedges and has a proven and easily adaptable service model. And history shows that Southwest has comfortably survived every airline-industry downturn, then grown rapidly and profited hugely when the business cycle turns.
By Joe Brancatelli
Southwest Airlines Seven Secret of Success
What's the airline-industry jargon for unconventional wisdom? Southwest Airlines.
By some estimates, the country's major carriers have consumed perhaps $100 billion in capital during the past decade, but Southwest Airlines continues to be profitable. It's been in the black for 33 consecutive years and, last week, for the 127th consecutive quarter, it paid a modest dividend. Its balance sheet, with about $3 billion in cash on hand and $600 million in available credit, is the envy of an otherwise fuel-price-ravaged industry.
Its competitors among the network carriers—American, United, Delta, Continental, Northwest and US Airways—are shrinking passenger capacity by more than 10 percent and grounding hundreds of aircraft starting in the fall. Southwest will add a handful of daily flights. It will take delivery of another dozen aircraft next year and still plans to grow by 2 to 3 percent. And Southwest now carries more passengers annually (101 million last year) than any other U.S. carrier, a nifty trick for an airline that didn't fly outside Texas at the dawn of deregulation in 1978.
Even the fickle financial markets, which have long discounted Southwest's relentless growth and steady profits, have finally taken note. As oil prices doubled in the past year, share prices of the six network carriers have slid, with the drop-offs ranging from 76 to 94 percent. Southwest's decline has been more modest, within a point of the Dow's 21 percent 52-week drop. As a result, Southwest's market capitalization yesterday (about $9.7 billion) is now more than the combined $5.7 billion market cap of its Big Six competitors.
What does Southwest know that no one else in airlines does? It keeps things simple and consistent, which drives costs down, maximizes productive assets, and helps manage customer expectations.
One Plane Fits All
Unlike the network carriers and their commuter surrogates, which operate all manner of regional jets, turboprops, and narrow-body and wide-body aircraft, Southwest flies just one plane type, the Boeing 737 series. That saves Southwest millions in maintenance costs—spare-parts inventories, mechanic training and other nuts-and-bolts airline issues. It also gives the airline unique flexibility to move its 527 aircraft throughout the route network without costly disruptions and reconfigurations.
Point-to-Point Flying
Network carriers rely on a hub-and-spoke system, which laboriously collects passengers from "spoke" cities, flies them to a central "hub" airport, and then redistributes them to other spokes. Not Southwest. Most of its flying is nonstop between two points. That minimizes the time that planes sit on the ground at crowded, delay-prone hubs and allows the average Southwest aircraft to be in the air for more than an hour longer each day than a similarly sized jet flown by a network carrier. Southwest's avoid-the-hubs strategy also pays dividends in on-time operations. According to FlightStats, Southwest's 78 percent on-time performance in June is eight percentage points higher than the industry average and higher than that of any of its major competitors.
Simple In-Flight Service
Business travelers haven't always loved Southwest's über-simple service, but it's looking better and better as competitors cut back. There is just one class of service, a decent coach cabin that is slightly more spacious than those of Southwest's competitors. There are no assigned seats. There have never been meals, just beverages and snacks. Keeping it basic allows Southwest to unload a flight, clean and restock the plane, and board another flight full of passengers in as little as 20 minutes compared with as much as 90 minutes on a network airline. Airline efficiency experts say that the savings allow each Southwest jet to fly an extra flight per day. Extra flights mean extra revenue.
No Frills, No Fees
As other carriers have rushed to remove perks and pile on fees and restrictions, Southwest has kept its customer proposition streamlined and transparent. The airline only sells one-way fares and only in a few price "buckets." That not only keeps costs down—complex fare structures are expensive to manage—it convinces fliers that they are getting value for money. Prices are all-inclusive too. Southwest doesn't have fuel surcharges, doesn't charge for standby travel or ticket changes, and continues to permit travelers to check two pieces of luggage free. And since every seat on every flight is virtually identical, travelers know exactly what they will get when they make a purchase.
Strong Management
The public face of Southwest Airlines for a generation, hard-drinking, chain-smoking, always-leave-'em laughing Herb Kelleher, finally stepped away from the carrier earlier this year. Kelleher's bonhomie masked the discipline that Southwest has had throughout its history. The airline has always avoided fads and eschewed anything that increased costs or complicated the basic travel proposition. When it has changed—last year it ended its infamous cattle-call boarding process to favor its most frequent fliers and highest-fare customers—it has done so without slowing down the movement of aircraft. Management ranks are lean, but well compensated and, most importantly, productive. I once calculated that the top executives of Southwest generated 10 times more revenue per dollar of compensation than did the C-suite types at some of the network carriers.
A Relatively Happy Workforce
Network carriers have railed for decades about the power of their employee unions. But guess who's the most unionized carrier in the nation? Southwest, of course. The airline says that 87 percent of its employees belong to a union. Southwest has never had a strike, and now that the network carriers have whacked away at salaries and benefits, Southwest staffers are generally the highest paid in the industry. But since Southwest has about 30 percent fewer employees per aircraft than its network competitors, it has the lowest non-fuel C.A.S.M. (cost per available seat mile) of any of the major carriers.
Aggressive Fuel Hedging
Rampaging fuel prices now represent around 40 percent of an airline's costs, but, as usual, Southwest Airlines has been ahead of the curve. Since 1999, the airline's aggressive fuel-hedging program has saved it an estimated $3.5 billion. In the first quarter, for example, it paid $1.98 a gallon for fuel, approximately a dollar less than its network competitors. And Southwest's future position is admirable: It is 70 percent hedged at $51 a barrel through the end of the year and 55 percent hedged at the same price next year.
In a world of $140-a-barrel oil, suggesting that any airline is a guaranteed winner is beyond hubris. But this much can be said: Southwest Airlines is sitting on a pile of cash and fuel hedges and has a proven and easily adaptable service model. And history shows that Southwest has comfortably survived every airline-industry downturn, then grown rapidly and profited hugely when the business cycle turns.
Turning around a struggling airline: An interview with the CEO of Malaysia Airlines
Turning around a struggling airline: An interview with the CEO of Malaysia Airlines
Idris Jala led the state-controlled carrier from the brink of bankruptcy to record-breaking profits. Now he wants it to become what he calls a “five-star value carrier.”
NOVEMBER 2008 • Alex Dichter, Fredrik Lind, and Seelan Singham
Source: Travel Infrastructure Logistics Practice
In This Article
Sidebar: Biography of Idris Jala
Exhibit: Malaysia Airlines’ financial picture improved dramatically when Idris Jala took charge, in December 2005.
About the authors
Comments (4)
When Idris Jala became CEO at Malaysia Airlines, his goal was to keep the carrier flying. Now he wants to create a new breed of air service. Much has happened in the intervening three years.
Malaysia Airlines, the Southeast Asian country’s national carrier, was less than four months away from running out of cash when Jala took charge, in December 2005. The state-controlled airline had been struggling for some time, but inadequate yield management, an inefficient network, and poor cost control finally brought it to its knees that year, when it posted a 1.7 billion ringgit ($500 million) loss.
Yet in 2007, the airline earned record annual profits of 851 million ringgit. Such a swing would be remarkable for any company, much less one facing the hurdles common with state ownership: a large number of stakeholders, intense public scrutiny, competing priorities, insufficient freedom to operate commercially, and a host of legacy personnel challenges. Now Jala aspires to turn Malaysia Airlines into a “five-star value carrier.”
Jala came to Malaysia Airlines with no experience in the aviation industry or state-run companies. But he had won a reputation for engineering business turnarounds during his 23 years at the oil giant Shell, whose Sri Lankan and Malaysian units he rescued from years of chronic losses. In Sri Lanka, he says, “The Shell leadership told me if I couldn’t fix it in two years, just tell them and they would shut it down. I’d be the last person to switch off the lights.”
In this interview at his office, at Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, near Kuala Lumpur, Jala discussed the lessons he brought from Shell and how he met the urgent need for change when he arrived at Malaysia Airlines.
The Quarterly: What were your first impressions when you took over Malaysia Airlines, in 2005?
Idris Jala: The company was in a financial crisis—the worst in its entire 50-year history. At the time, we just had enough cash to last three-and-a-half months.
Before I joined, I looked at ten years of financial data. When you’re brought into a problem, you should first ask what’s wrong with the profit-and-loss statement. It’s crucially important to frame the problem in the context of the P&L rather than something nebulous, like the culture, the structure, the processes, and all these other things. You must anchor everything on the profit and loss. I’m boringly consistent on that point.
Here, it was clear that there were three problems with the P&L statement. The first was a very low yield. Average fares were unable to cover the cost of running the airline. The second problem was a very inefficient network. For a long time, we were asked to fly routes that didn’t make any commercial sense. The government wanted those routes, and we flew them. The third problem was high costs linked to low productivity—too many people. In the year when I joined, costs went up by more than 50 percent.
But I didn’t need to tell anyone that there were these three problems. Every analyst report about Malaysia Airlines talked about the same problems. The question was what would we do about them.
The Quarterly: How did you begin?
Idris Jala: When most CEOs try to turn around a business, they will say let’s change the organization or the structure. Or they’ll say let’s change the culture. Or let’s change the systems and processes. They do business-process mapping or make organizational changes that take a few years to finish.
But we had three-and-a-half months to fix the problem, and if we didn’t fix it by then we’d be bankrupt—we’d have no money for salaries, no money for fuel. So I told everyone we had no time to reorganize, to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
At a board meeting on my first day, I announced our business-turnaround blueprint. I’d never worked a single day at an airline before, but looking at the P&L it didn’t take more than an hour to figure out the solution. If you have to control costs, you just go and cut the costs. If your network’s inefficient, get rid of the routes that are bleeding cash. And if you have a problem with low yield, fix the yield. What else are you going to say?
Your javascript is turned off. Javascript is required to view exhibits.
The Quarterly: Were you given free rein to tackle these problems?
Idris Jala: When the government approached me about this job, I said I would need freedom to act. Of course, they promised I would have it, but I discounted 50 percent of what they said. I wouldn’t say I have 100 percent freedom to act, but I have more than 50 percent. And, more importantly, the freedom was granted in areas really relevant to fixing the business.
For example, nobody disturbed us as we improved the yield, which often meant increasing fares. We could change flight frequencies, get rid of routes, cut costs. These were things that were virtually impossible for my predecessors to do, because they didn’t have such freedom. When I started, our headquarters was in downtown Kuala Lumpur. We sold it for 130 million ringgit, which gave us enough cash to operate for 20 more days. A lot of people, especially a few politicians and long serving Malaysia Airlines employees, said the building’s an icon—it’s our brand in the city—but we were given the freedom to act.
The Quarterly: Were there other factors that helped you push your plans forward?
Idris Jala: Once the government agreed on what needed to be done, we made our business turnaround plan available publicly. At Shell, I never needed to do that. But Malaysia Airlines is a government-linked company and the national flagship. Publishing helped us build a winning coalition not only with the government but also with other stakeholders, like the unions, the staff, and the public. Being upfront about the P&L and making it all transparent were very important to bringing the coalition together.
The Quarterly: How did this translate into action?
Idris Jala: In a business turnaround plan, you need to identify the key business activities that impact the P&L. These activities are candidates for transitional vehicles that I call laboratories. Essentially, we’d create groups of 10 to 15 people from various functions and backgrounds—all people who had a direct stake in a given activity—and tell them they had to tell us how to fix the problem or else. The people inside the labs were fully accountable. The motto behind the labs is “big results fast.” We had no interest in slow and incremental results. We focused these laboratories on routes and many other parts of the business but never, never on minor activities. If you run a lab on something that has nothing to do with key business activities, don’t be surprised when there are no results. And when you put people in labs, you had better put the best and the brightest.
It is also important to think of the laboratories as a nursery for ideas. We grow the seedlings of innovation in the nursery, and once they are big enough they are implemented. But we really keep control over them—and the CEO has to protect them—so that nobody can kill them when they are transplanted into the operating jungle of the organization.
The one item with the biggest P&L impact was yield, so we set up laboratories to examine the profitability of various routes, with a focus on yield. The members of these labs knew that if they didn’t fix a route, we’d close it and they’d have no jobs. It was as simple as that. We had a team looking at the Kuala Lumpur–Manchester route. The team couldn’t fix it. To be profitable, we needed 40 percent more passengers than we had capacity for. What would we do? Tie the passengers on the wings? After we went through a full analysis, everyone on the team knew that the route couldn’t be fixed. They all knew that they were out of a job.
In the first three months, we got rid of a lot of routes that were bleeding cash and not contributing to the P&L. Within another six months or so, we got rid of most of the ones that were unsalvageable. But we rescued a lot of routes, too. The thing that really catalyzed the new way we did these things was that there was real accountability.
Today, we have individual P&Ls for each route—by day, by month, and by flight number. Altogether 160,000 P&Ls. These are grouped into regional P&Ls, and every day at 5 pm sharp I get all these on my Blackberry. So do all the route managers.
The Quarterly: Did transplanting and protecting these innovations require organizational changes?
Idris Jala: I prefer to keep the current setup and change the responsibilities. For instance, our laboratories developed a new job—route profitability manager—that didn’t exist in our structure. Instead of adding a new player, we told people to double up on their responsibilities. The person taking on the responsibility might not be a regional manager; it could be a subordinate. But someone was now responsible for profitability on that route. The structure remained the same, but we gave people a new vocabulary, new responsibilities. Once we were sure that the new thinking works, we got rid of the transitional role. With route profitability managers, we did that after one year.
The Quarterly: Looking back, you make your effort sound very straightforward. How confident were you when you started?
Idris Jala: I gave myself a 50/50 chance of success. First, I had never worked in an airline before, and, second, I had never worked in a company that’s government linked. So there was a tremendous chance of failure, and it was very important for me to conquer that fear. My wife and I had a lot of discussions about that. If I hadn’t conquered the fear of failure, I would never have stepped out of Shell to take this job.
To conquer that kind of fear, it is important to have serious conversations with the people who matter. First of all, I’d share with them targets that are seemingly impossible, such as turning around the company within a year and making huge profits within three. Everyone said it couldn’t be done. The conversation must end with the stakeholders saying, “It’s OK to fail.” That takes out a lot of the fear before the journey begins.
But the key word is seemingly impossible. You must believe deep inside that it can be done. If the leader doesn’t believe in the journey, then it cannot begin. The leader is like someone who cuts a clearing in a very dense tropical jungle. Everyone else is under the canopy, where they can’t see the sky and it’s very depressing. The leader has to bring people over to that clearing, into the space where innovation begins. The single biggest thing a leader brings to a turnaround is hope.
The Quarterly: With the initial turnaround complete, you’ve begun a transformation program. What does that entail?
Idris Jala: We originally wanted to do the business turnaround in three years, but we completed it in two. We targeted profits of 500 million ringgit in 2008, but in 2007 our profits had already reached a record 851 million ringgit.
We’ve already talked about some of the principles embedded in any change program: the game of the impossible, anchoring everything on the P&L, and building a winning coalition. Two others that I brought from my time with Shell are discipline of action—which means that when we commit to doing something, we monitor results relentlessly and make sure it’s done—and situational leadership. At the start of a turnaround journey, a company is not a democracy. You can’t empower people or ask everybody what they think. You have to be directive, brave enough to set the course. How many generals do you need to win a battle? One. But once results begin to appear and new leaders begin to learn, you must be ready to let go and empower them.
The corporate graveyard is full of people who thought they were indispensable. After every turnaround I’ve done, my successors have gone on to earn even higher profits and greater achievements. These leaders have been developed by putting individuals in the right situations when they’re ready to take control.
The final principle is a subject people don’t talk about in the corporate world: divine intervention. More than 50 percent of what happens to you in life, and in my case probably more than 60 percent, is outside your control. It is important for everyone in an organization, particularly the top leaders, to understand that. I can’t, for example, control oil prices—the single largest thing that impacts our industry—or SARS,1 or other things like that.
If you are a spiritual person, you’d better pray. If you believe in feng shui, go consult a feng shui master. Everyone must come to realize that we only control a small component, so you do the best you can with that and relax about the rest. It gives you peace of mind. You know, when you run a really hard race, like what we did here, you put yourself under tremendous pressure—and others around you, too. You want to go home every single day knowing you’ve done your best, and if you fail it’s OK because we all recognize that you can fail. It has a calming effect on the organization.
The Quarterly: Does talking about divine intervention give people a handy excuse to fail?
Idris Jala: No, because the other five principles provide balance. When you look at our plans, there are reams and reams of detailed activities that must be completed. For example, we have a service campaign called Malaysian Hospitality—MH—which is also our airline code. We have 500 initiatives underpinning it. These are spread throughout the organization, and you can’t run away from them, because of the principle of discipline of action. If you follow all six principles, there’s no way you can run away.
The Quarterly: Have you set new impossible goals for the current phase of your transformation?
Idris Jala: Our new target is to reach profits of 2 billion to 3 billion ringgit within three years, but the more exciting aspiration is that we want to become the world’s five-star value carrier. Such a thing doesn’t exist in today’s vocabulary; what we mean is an airline that provides top-quality products and services at the most affordable prices. We want to be the Toyota of the airline industry.
Is it impossible? Yes. Can it be done? It can. The key is to find the sweet spots. There will always be trade-offs between the quality of products and services and their costs, but there are many, many sweet spots.
One example: for a time, we were serving lamb biryani on our flights to China. But customers didn’t really like it, and it was very expensive. We looked at different meals. When we starting serving fried rice with some satay chicken, which is half the cost, the customers loved it. Why were we giving them something that was expensive and that they didn’t like? But customers flying to Delhi would love lamb biryani.
You have to customize to find the sweet spot, and this is painful. The mantra for bringing down costs says you have to standardize, but standardization really requires you to migrate to the highest common cost denominator, and that’s expensive. Instead, by finding these sweet spots, we can continue playing the game of the impossible and reach our goal.
The Quarterly: In the initial transformation and this ongoing effort, how have you handled talent?
Idris Jala: I believe that everybody can contribute more than they are currently. In my old job at Shell, we turned around Shell MDS, a gas-to-liquids plant in Malaysia, and not a single person was employed from the outside. The people in the company were the same guys who had been losing money for ten years. Help is abundantly available from within, but you must channel the energy to the right business activities.
How do you do that? You make sure people have the right priorities. You say, “I know you like to do this or that, but that’s not what we are going to do now.” When you reward people for doing things differently, like linking pay increases and bonuses to their performance and contribution to the P&L, you find that they deliver results that impact the P&L. They get out from the complacency of not delivering. They discover that they can do a lot more than they ever dreamed possible.
The Quarterly: Beyond the financials, what changes have you noticed at Malaysia Airlines since your program began?
Idris Jala: Number one, this organization is now very good at rigorous analysis. When I joined, that was sadly missing. People did cursory analysis, and I mean cursory. Today, people really get into the analysis and bring back fact-based work.
Second, a cultural change has taken place. This is no longer a culture where if you don’t agree with someone, you keep quiet about it. We now have a culture where people will speak up and disagree.
Also, people are more prepared to step up. Recently, one of my general managers who is in charge of strategic procurement held a session with the top management team to generate cost-cutting ideas for next year. I didn’t even know about it. He asked me at the last minute to speak briefly at the meeting. He gave me five minutes.
The Quarterly: What would you like your legacy to be at Malaysia Airlines?
Idris Jala: I would like to see us achieve our vision of becoming a five-star value carrier. I’m inspired by creating a kind of airline that doesn’t exist today. If we can do it, it will be fascinating. This will be one of the most attractive places to work in Malaysia. In fact, we have the chance to make this one of the best places to work not just in Malaysia but in the world. That’s the legacy I hope for.
About the Authors
Alex Dichter is a principal in McKinsey’s Atlanta office, Fredrik Lind is a principal in the Singapore office, and Seelan Singham is a director in the Kuala Lumpur office.
Idris Jala led the state-controlled carrier from the brink of bankruptcy to record-breaking profits. Now he wants it to become what he calls a “five-star value carrier.”
NOVEMBER 2008 • Alex Dichter, Fredrik Lind, and Seelan Singham
Source: Travel Infrastructure Logistics Practice
In This Article
Sidebar: Biography of Idris Jala
Exhibit: Malaysia Airlines’ financial picture improved dramatically when Idris Jala took charge, in December 2005.
About the authors
Comments (4)
When Idris Jala became CEO at Malaysia Airlines, his goal was to keep the carrier flying. Now he wants to create a new breed of air service. Much has happened in the intervening three years.
Malaysia Airlines, the Southeast Asian country’s national carrier, was less than four months away from running out of cash when Jala took charge, in December 2005. The state-controlled airline had been struggling for some time, but inadequate yield management, an inefficient network, and poor cost control finally brought it to its knees that year, when it posted a 1.7 billion ringgit ($500 million) loss.
Yet in 2007, the airline earned record annual profits of 851 million ringgit. Such a swing would be remarkable for any company, much less one facing the hurdles common with state ownership: a large number of stakeholders, intense public scrutiny, competing priorities, insufficient freedom to operate commercially, and a host of legacy personnel challenges. Now Jala aspires to turn Malaysia Airlines into a “five-star value carrier.”
Jala came to Malaysia Airlines with no experience in the aviation industry or state-run companies. But he had won a reputation for engineering business turnarounds during his 23 years at the oil giant Shell, whose Sri Lankan and Malaysian units he rescued from years of chronic losses. In Sri Lanka, he says, “The Shell leadership told me if I couldn’t fix it in two years, just tell them and they would shut it down. I’d be the last person to switch off the lights.”
In this interview at his office, at Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, near Kuala Lumpur, Jala discussed the lessons he brought from Shell and how he met the urgent need for change when he arrived at Malaysia Airlines.
The Quarterly: What were your first impressions when you took over Malaysia Airlines, in 2005?
Idris Jala: The company was in a financial crisis—the worst in its entire 50-year history. At the time, we just had enough cash to last three-and-a-half months.
Before I joined, I looked at ten years of financial data. When you’re brought into a problem, you should first ask what’s wrong with the profit-and-loss statement. It’s crucially important to frame the problem in the context of the P&L rather than something nebulous, like the culture, the structure, the processes, and all these other things. You must anchor everything on the profit and loss. I’m boringly consistent on that point.
Here, it was clear that there were three problems with the P&L statement. The first was a very low yield. Average fares were unable to cover the cost of running the airline. The second problem was a very inefficient network. For a long time, we were asked to fly routes that didn’t make any commercial sense. The government wanted those routes, and we flew them. The third problem was high costs linked to low productivity—too many people. In the year when I joined, costs went up by more than 50 percent.
But I didn’t need to tell anyone that there were these three problems. Every analyst report about Malaysia Airlines talked about the same problems. The question was what would we do about them.
The Quarterly: How did you begin?
Idris Jala: When most CEOs try to turn around a business, they will say let’s change the organization or the structure. Or they’ll say let’s change the culture. Or let’s change the systems and processes. They do business-process mapping or make organizational changes that take a few years to finish.
But we had three-and-a-half months to fix the problem, and if we didn’t fix it by then we’d be bankrupt—we’d have no money for salaries, no money for fuel. So I told everyone we had no time to reorganize, to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
At a board meeting on my first day, I announced our business-turnaround blueprint. I’d never worked a single day at an airline before, but looking at the P&L it didn’t take more than an hour to figure out the solution. If you have to control costs, you just go and cut the costs. If your network’s inefficient, get rid of the routes that are bleeding cash. And if you have a problem with low yield, fix the yield. What else are you going to say?
Your javascript is turned off. Javascript is required to view exhibits.
The Quarterly: Were you given free rein to tackle these problems?
Idris Jala: When the government approached me about this job, I said I would need freedom to act. Of course, they promised I would have it, but I discounted 50 percent of what they said. I wouldn’t say I have 100 percent freedom to act, but I have more than 50 percent. And, more importantly, the freedom was granted in areas really relevant to fixing the business.
For example, nobody disturbed us as we improved the yield, which often meant increasing fares. We could change flight frequencies, get rid of routes, cut costs. These were things that were virtually impossible for my predecessors to do, because they didn’t have such freedom. When I started, our headquarters was in downtown Kuala Lumpur. We sold it for 130 million ringgit, which gave us enough cash to operate for 20 more days. A lot of people, especially a few politicians and long serving Malaysia Airlines employees, said the building’s an icon—it’s our brand in the city—but we were given the freedom to act.
The Quarterly: Were there other factors that helped you push your plans forward?
Idris Jala: Once the government agreed on what needed to be done, we made our business turnaround plan available publicly. At Shell, I never needed to do that. But Malaysia Airlines is a government-linked company and the national flagship. Publishing helped us build a winning coalition not only with the government but also with other stakeholders, like the unions, the staff, and the public. Being upfront about the P&L and making it all transparent were very important to bringing the coalition together.
The Quarterly: How did this translate into action?
Idris Jala: In a business turnaround plan, you need to identify the key business activities that impact the P&L. These activities are candidates for transitional vehicles that I call laboratories. Essentially, we’d create groups of 10 to 15 people from various functions and backgrounds—all people who had a direct stake in a given activity—and tell them they had to tell us how to fix the problem or else. The people inside the labs were fully accountable. The motto behind the labs is “big results fast.” We had no interest in slow and incremental results. We focused these laboratories on routes and many other parts of the business but never, never on minor activities. If you run a lab on something that has nothing to do with key business activities, don’t be surprised when there are no results. And when you put people in labs, you had better put the best and the brightest.
It is also important to think of the laboratories as a nursery for ideas. We grow the seedlings of innovation in the nursery, and once they are big enough they are implemented. But we really keep control over them—and the CEO has to protect them—so that nobody can kill them when they are transplanted into the operating jungle of the organization.
The one item with the biggest P&L impact was yield, so we set up laboratories to examine the profitability of various routes, with a focus on yield. The members of these labs knew that if they didn’t fix a route, we’d close it and they’d have no jobs. It was as simple as that. We had a team looking at the Kuala Lumpur–Manchester route. The team couldn’t fix it. To be profitable, we needed 40 percent more passengers than we had capacity for. What would we do? Tie the passengers on the wings? After we went through a full analysis, everyone on the team knew that the route couldn’t be fixed. They all knew that they were out of a job.
In the first three months, we got rid of a lot of routes that were bleeding cash and not contributing to the P&L. Within another six months or so, we got rid of most of the ones that were unsalvageable. But we rescued a lot of routes, too. The thing that really catalyzed the new way we did these things was that there was real accountability.
Today, we have individual P&Ls for each route—by day, by month, and by flight number. Altogether 160,000 P&Ls. These are grouped into regional P&Ls, and every day at 5 pm sharp I get all these on my Blackberry. So do all the route managers.
The Quarterly: Did transplanting and protecting these innovations require organizational changes?
Idris Jala: I prefer to keep the current setup and change the responsibilities. For instance, our laboratories developed a new job—route profitability manager—that didn’t exist in our structure. Instead of adding a new player, we told people to double up on their responsibilities. The person taking on the responsibility might not be a regional manager; it could be a subordinate. But someone was now responsible for profitability on that route. The structure remained the same, but we gave people a new vocabulary, new responsibilities. Once we were sure that the new thinking works, we got rid of the transitional role. With route profitability managers, we did that after one year.
The Quarterly: Looking back, you make your effort sound very straightforward. How confident were you when you started?
Idris Jala: I gave myself a 50/50 chance of success. First, I had never worked in an airline before, and, second, I had never worked in a company that’s government linked. So there was a tremendous chance of failure, and it was very important for me to conquer that fear. My wife and I had a lot of discussions about that. If I hadn’t conquered the fear of failure, I would never have stepped out of Shell to take this job.
To conquer that kind of fear, it is important to have serious conversations with the people who matter. First of all, I’d share with them targets that are seemingly impossible, such as turning around the company within a year and making huge profits within three. Everyone said it couldn’t be done. The conversation must end with the stakeholders saying, “It’s OK to fail.” That takes out a lot of the fear before the journey begins.
But the key word is seemingly impossible. You must believe deep inside that it can be done. If the leader doesn’t believe in the journey, then it cannot begin. The leader is like someone who cuts a clearing in a very dense tropical jungle. Everyone else is under the canopy, where they can’t see the sky and it’s very depressing. The leader has to bring people over to that clearing, into the space where innovation begins. The single biggest thing a leader brings to a turnaround is hope.
The Quarterly: With the initial turnaround complete, you’ve begun a transformation program. What does that entail?
Idris Jala: We originally wanted to do the business turnaround in three years, but we completed it in two. We targeted profits of 500 million ringgit in 2008, but in 2007 our profits had already reached a record 851 million ringgit.
We’ve already talked about some of the principles embedded in any change program: the game of the impossible, anchoring everything on the P&L, and building a winning coalition. Two others that I brought from my time with Shell are discipline of action—which means that when we commit to doing something, we monitor results relentlessly and make sure it’s done—and situational leadership. At the start of a turnaround journey, a company is not a democracy. You can’t empower people or ask everybody what they think. You have to be directive, brave enough to set the course. How many generals do you need to win a battle? One. But once results begin to appear and new leaders begin to learn, you must be ready to let go and empower them.
The corporate graveyard is full of people who thought they were indispensable. After every turnaround I’ve done, my successors have gone on to earn even higher profits and greater achievements. These leaders have been developed by putting individuals in the right situations when they’re ready to take control.
The final principle is a subject people don’t talk about in the corporate world: divine intervention. More than 50 percent of what happens to you in life, and in my case probably more than 60 percent, is outside your control. It is important for everyone in an organization, particularly the top leaders, to understand that. I can’t, for example, control oil prices—the single largest thing that impacts our industry—or SARS,1 or other things like that.
If you are a spiritual person, you’d better pray. If you believe in feng shui, go consult a feng shui master. Everyone must come to realize that we only control a small component, so you do the best you can with that and relax about the rest. It gives you peace of mind. You know, when you run a really hard race, like what we did here, you put yourself under tremendous pressure—and others around you, too. You want to go home every single day knowing you’ve done your best, and if you fail it’s OK because we all recognize that you can fail. It has a calming effect on the organization.
The Quarterly: Does talking about divine intervention give people a handy excuse to fail?
Idris Jala: No, because the other five principles provide balance. When you look at our plans, there are reams and reams of detailed activities that must be completed. For example, we have a service campaign called Malaysian Hospitality—MH—which is also our airline code. We have 500 initiatives underpinning it. These are spread throughout the organization, and you can’t run away from them, because of the principle of discipline of action. If you follow all six principles, there’s no way you can run away.
The Quarterly: Have you set new impossible goals for the current phase of your transformation?
Idris Jala: Our new target is to reach profits of 2 billion to 3 billion ringgit within three years, but the more exciting aspiration is that we want to become the world’s five-star value carrier. Such a thing doesn’t exist in today’s vocabulary; what we mean is an airline that provides top-quality products and services at the most affordable prices. We want to be the Toyota of the airline industry.
Is it impossible? Yes. Can it be done? It can. The key is to find the sweet spots. There will always be trade-offs between the quality of products and services and their costs, but there are many, many sweet spots.
One example: for a time, we were serving lamb biryani on our flights to China. But customers didn’t really like it, and it was very expensive. We looked at different meals. When we starting serving fried rice with some satay chicken, which is half the cost, the customers loved it. Why were we giving them something that was expensive and that they didn’t like? But customers flying to Delhi would love lamb biryani.
You have to customize to find the sweet spot, and this is painful. The mantra for bringing down costs says you have to standardize, but standardization really requires you to migrate to the highest common cost denominator, and that’s expensive. Instead, by finding these sweet spots, we can continue playing the game of the impossible and reach our goal.
The Quarterly: In the initial transformation and this ongoing effort, how have you handled talent?
Idris Jala: I believe that everybody can contribute more than they are currently. In my old job at Shell, we turned around Shell MDS, a gas-to-liquids plant in Malaysia, and not a single person was employed from the outside. The people in the company were the same guys who had been losing money for ten years. Help is abundantly available from within, but you must channel the energy to the right business activities.
How do you do that? You make sure people have the right priorities. You say, “I know you like to do this or that, but that’s not what we are going to do now.” When you reward people for doing things differently, like linking pay increases and bonuses to their performance and contribution to the P&L, you find that they deliver results that impact the P&L. They get out from the complacency of not delivering. They discover that they can do a lot more than they ever dreamed possible.
The Quarterly: Beyond the financials, what changes have you noticed at Malaysia Airlines since your program began?
Idris Jala: Number one, this organization is now very good at rigorous analysis. When I joined, that was sadly missing. People did cursory analysis, and I mean cursory. Today, people really get into the analysis and bring back fact-based work.
Second, a cultural change has taken place. This is no longer a culture where if you don’t agree with someone, you keep quiet about it. We now have a culture where people will speak up and disagree.
Also, people are more prepared to step up. Recently, one of my general managers who is in charge of strategic procurement held a session with the top management team to generate cost-cutting ideas for next year. I didn’t even know about it. He asked me at the last minute to speak briefly at the meeting. He gave me five minutes.
The Quarterly: What would you like your legacy to be at Malaysia Airlines?
Idris Jala: I would like to see us achieve our vision of becoming a five-star value carrier. I’m inspired by creating a kind of airline that doesn’t exist today. If we can do it, it will be fascinating. This will be one of the most attractive places to work in Malaysia. In fact, we have the chance to make this one of the best places to work not just in Malaysia but in the world. That’s the legacy I hope for.
About the Authors
Alex Dichter is a principal in McKinsey’s Atlanta office, Fredrik Lind is a principal in the Singapore office, and Seelan Singham is a director in the Kuala Lumpur office.
Gratitude Is Part of Achieving Your Goals and Dreams
I am a big believer that an attitude of gratitude goes a long way in helping you realize your hopes and dreams, and enjoy your life's journey along the way. Gratitude helps you fully enjoy the experience of attaining that which you desire. By being grateful for that which you have, you pause to reflect on the happiness, joy, love, peace and other positive things that what you are grateful for bring to your life. This allows you to be present for your own happiness, instead of letting challenges and unimportant distractions steal your experience of these positive things away from you.
I also subscribe to the philosophy that what we focus on expands. So, if I spend my time focused on what is wrong in my life, that which I am focused on by default takes a larger role in my daily experience, simply because it is where I put my attention. I also believe that if I spend most of my time thinking about what I don't have, I will be reinforcing that who I am is the person that lacks these things that I want or need. The more I define myself as that person who is lacking, the more I become that person.
Instead, I practice one of many gratitude exercises I have learned over the years that helps remind me of all I have to be thankful for in this life. The main point of all of these gratitude exercises are to move you to the emotional place where you can be present for the happiness, love, joy, peace or other positive emotion that these people, places, things or concepts brings to you.
Gratitude Exercises Some people will write down in their journal everything they are grateful for as it happens throughout their day, so that they pause and become present for that special moment.
Some people will write what they are most grateful for in a journal at the beginning of the day, to start their day off in a positive way and remind them that no matter what challenges life sends, they have many things to be grateful for.
Others replay in their minds what happened in their day right before they go to sleep and relive the feelings and express their gratitude in the form of a prayer, or they capture it in a journal.
I am sure there are many other methods, as well. People need to choose the one that works the best for them. I just suggest taking time to cultivate some sort of gratitude practice. It will help you bring more into your life to be grateful for and help you enjoy that which is already going so well, even more!
By Blair Singer
Gratitude Is Part of Achieving Your Goals and Dreams
I am a big believer that an attitude of gratitude goes a long way in helping you realize your hopes and dreams, and enjoy your life's journey along the way. Gratitude helps you fully enjoy the experience of attaining that which you desire. By being grateful for that which you have, you pause to reflect on the happiness, joy, love, peace and other positive things that what you are grateful for bring to your life. This allows you to be present for your own happiness, instead of letting challenges and unimportant distractions steal your experience of these positive things away from you.
I also subscribe to the philosophy that what we focus on expands. So, if I spend my time focused on what is wrong in my life, that which I am focused on by default takes a larger role in my daily experience, simply because it is where I put my attention. I also believe that if I spend most of my time thinking about what I don't have, I will be reinforcing that who I am is the person that lacks these things that I want or need. The more I define myself as that person who is lacking, the more I become that person.
Instead, I practice one of many gratitude exercises I have learned over the years that helps remind me of all I have to be thankful for in this life. The main point of all of these gratitude exercises are to move you to the emotional place where you can be present for the happiness, love, joy, peace or other positive emotion that these people, places, things or concepts brings to you.
Gratitude Exercises Some people will write down in their journal everything they are grateful for as it happens throughout their day, so that they pause and become present for that special moment.
Some people will write what they are most grateful for in a journal at the beginning of the day, to start their day off in a positive way and remind them that no matter what challenges life sends, they have many things to be grateful for.
Others replay in their minds what happened in their day right before they go to sleep and relive the feelings and express their gratitude in the form of a prayer, or they capture it in a journal.
I am sure there are many other methods, as well. People need to choose the one that works the best for them. I just suggest taking time to cultivate some sort of gratitude practice. It will help you bring more into your life to be grateful for and help you enjoy that which is already going so well, even more!
By Blair Singer
I also subscribe to the philosophy that what we focus on expands. So, if I spend my time focused on what is wrong in my life, that which I am focused on by default takes a larger role in my daily experience, simply because it is where I put my attention. I also believe that if I spend most of my time thinking about what I don't have, I will be reinforcing that who I am is the person that lacks these things that I want or need. The more I define myself as that person who is lacking, the more I become that person.
Instead, I practice one of many gratitude exercises I have learned over the years that helps remind me of all I have to be thankful for in this life. The main point of all of these gratitude exercises are to move you to the emotional place where you can be present for the happiness, love, joy, peace or other positive emotion that these people, places, things or concepts brings to you.
Gratitude Exercises Some people will write down in their journal everything they are grateful for as it happens throughout their day, so that they pause and become present for that special moment.
Some people will write what they are most grateful for in a journal at the beginning of the day, to start their day off in a positive way and remind them that no matter what challenges life sends, they have many things to be grateful for.
Others replay in their minds what happened in their day right before they go to sleep and relive the feelings and express their gratitude in the form of a prayer, or they capture it in a journal.
I am sure there are many other methods, as well. People need to choose the one that works the best for them. I just suggest taking time to cultivate some sort of gratitude practice. It will help you bring more into your life to be grateful for and help you enjoy that which is already going so well, even more!
By Blair Singer
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
7 Steps to success
There is a powerful seven step formula that you can use to set andachieve your goals for the rest of your life. Every successfulperson uses this formula or some variation of it to achievevastly more than the average person. And so can you. Here it is:Decide What You WantStep number one, decide exactly what it is you want in each part of yourlife. Become a "meaningful specific" rather than a "wanderinggenerality." If you don’t know where you’re going, you might get there. And that’s unfortunate.
Connect with your inner mission. God put you here for a purpose. We all have special ways we can contribute to make the world better, more spiritual. Pray and search and ask, “What is my unique contribution? “Write It DownSecond, write it down, clearly and in detail. Always think on paper. Agoal that is not in writing is not a goal at all. It is merely a wishand it has no energy behind it. Sound strange? It’s absolutely true.
Next, take it one stage further. Form your goals into prayers. Now it’s not just about you; it’s about you and God. Set A DeadlineThird, set a deadline for your goal. A deadline acts as a "forcingsystem" in your subconscious mind. It motivates you to do the thingsnecessary to make your goal come true. If it is a big enough goal, setsub-deadlines as well. Don't leave this to chance.
Make A ListFourth, make a list of everything that you can think of that you aregoing to have to do to achieve your goal. When you think of new tasksand activities, write them on your list until your list is complete.
Most of us do this anyway. Just do it for your new goals also. Make your new goals a part of your life, not just a wish. Make it happen. If you don’t, no one else will. Organize Your ListFifth, organize your list into a plan. Decide what you will have to dofirst and what you will have to do second. Decide what is more importantand what is less important. And then write out your plan on paper, thesame way you would develop a blueprint to build your house.Take ActionThe sixth step is for you to take action on your plan. Do something. Doanything. But get busy. Get going.Do something every single day that moves you in the direction of yourmost important goal at the moment. Develop the discipline of doingsomething 365 days each year that is moving you forward. You will beabsolutely astonished at how much you accomplish when you utilize thisformula in your life every single day.Most people don’t work on their goals because they seem so big, distant, or difficult to achieve. Forget all that. Just take little steps. Ask yourself at the end of the day, “Did I do anything to get closer to my goals?” If not, do some little thing. Even just tell somebody your goal and that you are going to do it. Doing something builds momentum.
You need to fight the inertia that is holding you back.
Action PlanFirst, decide exactly what you want, write it down with a deadline, makea plan and take action - on at least one goal - today!Second, determine the price you will have to pay to achieve this goaland then get busy paying that price - whatever it is.
The only other alternative to this is to keep you goal in your head and just to wish you reach your goal without doing anything. And of course you could also go around and tell people why you can’t reach it. That might make you feel better for awhile. But I don’t think you don’t want to go to the grave with your life mission still in your head.
And let me ask you a question. What story are you going to tell yourself if you don’t follow through? I bet that story comes up a lot, doesn’t it. Want some good advice? Throw that story as far away as you can. The sooner you do, the sooner things will happen.
TsTrain..
Connect with your inner mission. God put you here for a purpose. We all have special ways we can contribute to make the world better, more spiritual. Pray and search and ask, “What is my unique contribution? “Write It DownSecond, write it down, clearly and in detail. Always think on paper. Agoal that is not in writing is not a goal at all. It is merely a wishand it has no energy behind it. Sound strange? It’s absolutely true.
Next, take it one stage further. Form your goals into prayers. Now it’s not just about you; it’s about you and God. Set A DeadlineThird, set a deadline for your goal. A deadline acts as a "forcingsystem" in your subconscious mind. It motivates you to do the thingsnecessary to make your goal come true. If it is a big enough goal, setsub-deadlines as well. Don't leave this to chance.
Make A ListFourth, make a list of everything that you can think of that you aregoing to have to do to achieve your goal. When you think of new tasksand activities, write them on your list until your list is complete.
Most of us do this anyway. Just do it for your new goals also. Make your new goals a part of your life, not just a wish. Make it happen. If you don’t, no one else will. Organize Your ListFifth, organize your list into a plan. Decide what you will have to dofirst and what you will have to do second. Decide what is more importantand what is less important. And then write out your plan on paper, thesame way you would develop a blueprint to build your house.Take ActionThe sixth step is for you to take action on your plan. Do something. Doanything. But get busy. Get going.Do something every single day that moves you in the direction of yourmost important goal at the moment. Develop the discipline of doingsomething 365 days each year that is moving you forward. You will beabsolutely astonished at how much you accomplish when you utilize thisformula in your life every single day.Most people don’t work on their goals because they seem so big, distant, or difficult to achieve. Forget all that. Just take little steps. Ask yourself at the end of the day, “Did I do anything to get closer to my goals?” If not, do some little thing. Even just tell somebody your goal and that you are going to do it. Doing something builds momentum.
You need to fight the inertia that is holding you back.
Action PlanFirst, decide exactly what you want, write it down with a deadline, makea plan and take action - on at least one goal - today!Second, determine the price you will have to pay to achieve this goaland then get busy paying that price - whatever it is.
The only other alternative to this is to keep you goal in your head and just to wish you reach your goal without doing anything. And of course you could also go around and tell people why you can’t reach it. That might make you feel better for awhile. But I don’t think you don’t want to go to the grave with your life mission still in your head.
And let me ask you a question. What story are you going to tell yourself if you don’t follow through? I bet that story comes up a lot, doesn’t it. Want some good advice? Throw that story as far away as you can. The sooner you do, the sooner things will happen.
TsTrain..
How to create a code of honour
The Code of Honor and Professionalism.
Here are some things to consider about bringing professional skills to the table. 90 percent of all new businesses fail in the first five years. And 90 percent of the 10 percent that do survive, fail before the tenth year. Experts belief it is not a lack of money that is the main cause, it is a lack of business skills.
The higher the performance, the higher the tolerances need to be. This means that the more you want to achieve, the more you need a code, and the higher the code must be. Alsothe more you will need good communication skills, relationship skills, managerial skills, etc.
Code of Honor
What is it?
It is a set of simple, powerful rules that govern the internal behavior of any team, organization, family, individual and even nation. The rules determine how we behave toward one another within the team. They are its heart and spirit. They are what people are willing to stand and defend – and be accountable to. A code of honor brings out the best in every person who subscribes to it.
But it goes beyond rules. It is the unwavering discipline of the team itself to enforce those rules. Not to rely on bosses, leaders, administrators, coaches, regulators, parents to enforce them, but to have the team spontaneously support each other in adhering to the code. It is practiced, repeated and drilled in so many instances that it becomes unconsciously embedded in the hearts of the players, The code builds trust, cohesion, and energy.
It is a statement of who you are and what you stand for. It is your values extended into real physical behavior.
My experience, especially with working with devotees living outside the temple, is that unless there is a strong commitment, nothing much gets done; or it takes forever to get it done. Once you make a code, those who cannot or do not want to commit, will opt out of your team. But those who remain will be totally committed and accountable. It doesn’t mean others can’t advise or help in other ways, but you don’t want them on the core team if they can’t follow the code. You don’t want to depend on them because by opting out they are more or less admitting they are not dependable to one degree or another.
The code is a reflection of you and will attract those who aspire to the same standards. If you know how to build it, maintain it, and protect it, you will attract only the best players and you will experience the repeated magic of championship results.
In meetings in which you discuss the code, you may wish to talk about great teams that you have been on. What was it like? What were the rules? How did it feel? You can also discuss what you think the benefits of having a code would be.
About the Code of Honor from a former Marine Corps Officer. “In my opinion, it was the code of honor that gave my men and me the courage to operate as a unified team, overcome our own fears, and perform tasks that seemed impossible. Today, in my own business, it is the same code of honor that is core to much of my business and financial success.” Robert Kiyasaki
In the absence of rules, people make up their own
Sometimes the easiest way to avoid upset, collisions and disharmony in any group is to take the time to make sure that everyone is playing by the same rules. The value of a code is that under pressure or during difficult times, when emotions rise, the code prevails, not emotional reactions.
Everyone on the team must know the rules, interpret them in the same way and commit themselves to the code. Otherwise the team can’t win. Sometimes the easiest way to avoid upset, collisions and disharmony in any group is to take the time to make sure that everyone is playing by the same rules.
It is the cornerstone of the culture of any successful organization because it is the physical manifestation of its thoughts, ideals, and philosophies. The number one tool to establish culture is the code of honor.
Developing a code of honor creates accountability and a feeling of support and is a powerful statement of who you are and what your team stands for. It defines you and your goals.
You may wish to discuss instances in which a team had rules and didn’t follow them or didn’t have rules and what the results were.
One of the things a code does is create support and encouragement for one another. It creates an environment in which we push one another to be our best.
Don’t just have people on your team to fill space. Make sure everyone has some unique talent that he or she brings to the position. Also, once you have your code, if prospective team members don’t agree with it, you shouldn’t allow them on your team (unless you decide to change the code).
Here are some qualities of a team player
1. Has energy
2. Has an unstoppable desire to win
3. Is willing to let someone else win (support others and not get recognition)
4. Takes personal responsibility – no blaming or justifying.
5. Willing to submit to the code
6. Unique ability or talent.
Results are always a function of behavior, attitude and conditioning. If you focus on results, you are too late.
Steps for creating a code.
1. Find a sane moment in which to create the code. Don’t wait until the pressure is high, emotions are hot, or a deadline has to be met to do this. Don’t expect to do it in one sitting.
2. Find recurring issues that repeatedly interfere with the performance of the team. This might also entail looking at past mistakes of other teams you’ve been on or anticipating potential problems.
3. Everyone on the team participates. If they create it, they own it.
4. Talk about various ways your team might interact (good and bad) and how everyone would feel about them.
5. As soon as you are able to decide on a rule, write it down and post them (in this case, every member should have a copy they can post at home).
6. Be specific. They must be rules that can be acted on. Don’t be vague.
This is not a mission statement. It is not a list of values. Everyone has different ideas about what those values could mean. If you spell it out as a statement that someone can act on, you don’t run the risk of different interpretations. For example, instead of using the word teamwork, you spell out what you mean. You might then say something like, “the goals of the team come before the goals of the individual.”
The same goes for rules like “Be professional.” How do you define professional? Well, you have to let eveyone talk about what they mean by this. Otherwise, you may end up with many different definitions.
7. Don’t try to legislate moods. You can’t legislate that no one is in a bad mood, but what you can say is, “Don't take out your bad mood on other people.”
8. Make sure the rules are somewhat of a stretch. The code should challenge everyone on the team to be better. This will create an environment in which everyone gives their best. It can be hard to follow the rules, but challenge makes the team rise to the occasion.
9. Don’t get carried away making rules. Shoot for a dozen or less. If you make too many, look for common threads.
10. If someone breaches the code, call it. Just tell them they broke the code. The largest distinction between a good team and bad one is that bad ones don’t say anything when the code is broken. You don’t chastise, you just acknowledge or mention it.
It is not the job of the leader to enforce the code. The entire team enforces it.
Code of Honor for Touchstone Training
1. Make our personal lives and organization a living example of what we teach.
2. Commit to personal development in the areas of service, relationships and spiritual advancement; and to be willing to undergo practices with team members to further these goals.
3. Take full responsibility for problems. If someone else has made a mistake, help them resolve the issue rather than blame them. If it is your mistake, own up to it.
4. We serve to further the mission, not because of what’s in it for us.
5. The service and support of other team members comes above our own interests. Never abandon a team member in need.
6. Never speak ill of team members behind their backs. If we have an issue or problem with another team member, we will speak to them directly in an open, honest, humble and non confrontational way.
7. Keep all agreements and clean up any broken or potentially broken agreements. This includes being on time for everything.
8. Never let personal issues get in the way of the mission.
9. To commit to continual exploration of more effective ways to help people make spiritual advancement
10. To work with and encourage team member’s strengths and not expect everyone to be good at everything.
11. To fully listen to, clearly understand, and carefully consider other team member’s ideas and points of view, and to demonstrate such by reflective listening before replying to them. If we instinctively disagree with another team member, consider their idea more carefully before replying.
12. To encourage members and celebrate successes. Overlook faults and focus on and glorify good qualities.
Here are some things to consider about bringing professional skills to the table. 90 percent of all new businesses fail in the first five years. And 90 percent of the 10 percent that do survive, fail before the tenth year. Experts belief it is not a lack of money that is the main cause, it is a lack of business skills.
The higher the performance, the higher the tolerances need to be. This means that the more you want to achieve, the more you need a code, and the higher the code must be. Alsothe more you will need good communication skills, relationship skills, managerial skills, etc.
Code of Honor
What is it?
It is a set of simple, powerful rules that govern the internal behavior of any team, organization, family, individual and even nation. The rules determine how we behave toward one another within the team. They are its heart and spirit. They are what people are willing to stand and defend – and be accountable to. A code of honor brings out the best in every person who subscribes to it.
But it goes beyond rules. It is the unwavering discipline of the team itself to enforce those rules. Not to rely on bosses, leaders, administrators, coaches, regulators, parents to enforce them, but to have the team spontaneously support each other in adhering to the code. It is practiced, repeated and drilled in so many instances that it becomes unconsciously embedded in the hearts of the players, The code builds trust, cohesion, and energy.
It is a statement of who you are and what you stand for. It is your values extended into real physical behavior.
My experience, especially with working with devotees living outside the temple, is that unless there is a strong commitment, nothing much gets done; or it takes forever to get it done. Once you make a code, those who cannot or do not want to commit, will opt out of your team. But those who remain will be totally committed and accountable. It doesn’t mean others can’t advise or help in other ways, but you don’t want them on the core team if they can’t follow the code. You don’t want to depend on them because by opting out they are more or less admitting they are not dependable to one degree or another.
The code is a reflection of you and will attract those who aspire to the same standards. If you know how to build it, maintain it, and protect it, you will attract only the best players and you will experience the repeated magic of championship results.
In meetings in which you discuss the code, you may wish to talk about great teams that you have been on. What was it like? What were the rules? How did it feel? You can also discuss what you think the benefits of having a code would be.
About the Code of Honor from a former Marine Corps Officer. “In my opinion, it was the code of honor that gave my men and me the courage to operate as a unified team, overcome our own fears, and perform tasks that seemed impossible. Today, in my own business, it is the same code of honor that is core to much of my business and financial success.” Robert Kiyasaki
In the absence of rules, people make up their own
Sometimes the easiest way to avoid upset, collisions and disharmony in any group is to take the time to make sure that everyone is playing by the same rules. The value of a code is that under pressure or during difficult times, when emotions rise, the code prevails, not emotional reactions.
Everyone on the team must know the rules, interpret them in the same way and commit themselves to the code. Otherwise the team can’t win. Sometimes the easiest way to avoid upset, collisions and disharmony in any group is to take the time to make sure that everyone is playing by the same rules.
It is the cornerstone of the culture of any successful organization because it is the physical manifestation of its thoughts, ideals, and philosophies. The number one tool to establish culture is the code of honor.
Developing a code of honor creates accountability and a feeling of support and is a powerful statement of who you are and what your team stands for. It defines you and your goals.
You may wish to discuss instances in which a team had rules and didn’t follow them or didn’t have rules and what the results were.
One of the things a code does is create support and encouragement for one another. It creates an environment in which we push one another to be our best.
Don’t just have people on your team to fill space. Make sure everyone has some unique talent that he or she brings to the position. Also, once you have your code, if prospective team members don’t agree with it, you shouldn’t allow them on your team (unless you decide to change the code).
Here are some qualities of a team player
1. Has energy
2. Has an unstoppable desire to win
3. Is willing to let someone else win (support others and not get recognition)
4. Takes personal responsibility – no blaming or justifying.
5. Willing to submit to the code
6. Unique ability or talent.
Results are always a function of behavior, attitude and conditioning. If you focus on results, you are too late.
Steps for creating a code.
1. Find a sane moment in which to create the code. Don’t wait until the pressure is high, emotions are hot, or a deadline has to be met to do this. Don’t expect to do it in one sitting.
2. Find recurring issues that repeatedly interfere with the performance of the team. This might also entail looking at past mistakes of other teams you’ve been on or anticipating potential problems.
3. Everyone on the team participates. If they create it, they own it.
4. Talk about various ways your team might interact (good and bad) and how everyone would feel about them.
5. As soon as you are able to decide on a rule, write it down and post them (in this case, every member should have a copy they can post at home).
6. Be specific. They must be rules that can be acted on. Don’t be vague.
This is not a mission statement. It is not a list of values. Everyone has different ideas about what those values could mean. If you spell it out as a statement that someone can act on, you don’t run the risk of different interpretations. For example, instead of using the word teamwork, you spell out what you mean. You might then say something like, “the goals of the team come before the goals of the individual.”
The same goes for rules like “Be professional.” How do you define professional? Well, you have to let eveyone talk about what they mean by this. Otherwise, you may end up with many different definitions.
7. Don’t try to legislate moods. You can’t legislate that no one is in a bad mood, but what you can say is, “Don't take out your bad mood on other people.”
8. Make sure the rules are somewhat of a stretch. The code should challenge everyone on the team to be better. This will create an environment in which everyone gives their best. It can be hard to follow the rules, but challenge makes the team rise to the occasion.
9. Don’t get carried away making rules. Shoot for a dozen or less. If you make too many, look for common threads.
10. If someone breaches the code, call it. Just tell them they broke the code. The largest distinction between a good team and bad one is that bad ones don’t say anything when the code is broken. You don’t chastise, you just acknowledge or mention it.
It is not the job of the leader to enforce the code. The entire team enforces it.
Code of Honor for Touchstone Training
1. Make our personal lives and organization a living example of what we teach.
2. Commit to personal development in the areas of service, relationships and spiritual advancement; and to be willing to undergo practices with team members to further these goals.
3. Take full responsibility for problems. If someone else has made a mistake, help them resolve the issue rather than blame them. If it is your mistake, own up to it.
4. We serve to further the mission, not because of what’s in it for us.
5. The service and support of other team members comes above our own interests. Never abandon a team member in need.
6. Never speak ill of team members behind their backs. If we have an issue or problem with another team member, we will speak to them directly in an open, honest, humble and non confrontational way.
7. Keep all agreements and clean up any broken or potentially broken agreements. This includes being on time for everything.
8. Never let personal issues get in the way of the mission.
9. To commit to continual exploration of more effective ways to help people make spiritual advancement
10. To work with and encourage team member’s strengths and not expect everyone to be good at everything.
11. To fully listen to, clearly understand, and carefully consider other team member’s ideas and points of view, and to demonstrate such by reflective listening before replying to them. If we instinctively disagree with another team member, consider their idea more carefully before replying.
12. To encourage members and celebrate successes. Overlook faults and focus on and glorify good qualities.
Blair Singer
How to create a code of honour
The Code of Honor and Professionalism.
Here are some things to consider about bringing professional skills to the table. 90 percent of all new businesses fail in the first five years. And 90 percent of the 10 percent that do survive, fail before the tenth year. Experts belief it is not a lack of money that is the main cause, it is a lack of business skills.
The higher the performance, the higher the tolerances need to be. This means that the more you want to achieve, the more you need a code, and the higher the code must be. Alsothe more you will need good communication skills, relationship skills, managerial skills, etc.
Code of Honor
What is it?
It is a set of simple, powerful rules that govern the internal behavior of any team, organization, family, individual and even nation. The rules determine how we behave toward one another within the team. They are its heart and spirit. They are what people are willing to stand and defend – and be accountable to. A code of honor brings out the best in every person who subscribes to it.
But it goes beyond rules. It is the unwavering discipline of the team itself to enforce those rules. Not to rely on bosses, leaders, administrators, coaches, regulators, parents to enforce them, but to have the team spontaneously support each other in adhering to the code. It is practiced, repeated and drilled in so many instances that it becomes unconsciously embedded in the hearts of the players, The code builds trust, cohesion, and energy.
It is a statement of who you are and what you stand for. It is your values extended into real physical behavior.
My experience, especially with working with devotees living outside the temple, is that unless there is a strong commitment, nothing much gets done; or it takes forever to get it done. Once you make a code, those who cannot or do not want to commit, will opt out of your team. But those who remain will be totally committed and accountable. It doesn’t mean others can’t advise or help in other ways, but you don’t want them on the core team if they can’t follow the code. You don’t want to depend on them because by opting out they are more or less admitting they are not dependable to one degree or another.
The code is a reflection of you and will attract those who aspire to the same standards. If you know how to build it, maintain it, and protect it, you will attract only the best players and you will experience the repeated magic of championship results.
In meetings in which you discuss the code, you may wish to talk about great teams that you have been on. What was it like? What were the rules? How did it feel? You can also discuss what you think the benefits of having a code would be.
About the Code of Honor from a former Marine Corps Officer. “In my opinion, it was the code of honor that gave my men and me the courage to operate as a unified team, overcome our own fears, and perform tasks that seemed impossible. Today, in my own business, it is the same code of honor that is core to much of my business and financial success.” Robert Kiyasaki
In the absence of rules, people make up their own
Sometimes the easiest way to avoid upset, collisions and disharmony in any group is to take the time to make sure that everyone is playing by the same rules. The value of a code is that under pressure or during difficult times, when emotions rise, the code prevails, not emotional reactions.
Everyone on the team must know the rules, interpret them in the same way and commit themselves to the code. Otherwise the team can’t win. Sometimes the easiest way to avoid upset, collisions and disharmony in any group is to take the time to make sure that everyone is playing by the same rules.
It is the cornerstone of the culture of any successful organization because it is the physical manifestation of its thoughts, ideals, and philosophies. The number one tool to establish culture is the code of honor.
Developing a code of honor creates accountability and a feeling of support and is a powerful statement of who you are and what your team stands for. It defines you and your goals.
You may wish to discuss instances in which a team had rules and didn’t follow them or didn’t have rules and what the results were.
One of the things a code does is create support and encouragement for one another. It creates an environment in which we push one another to be our best.
Don’t just have people on your team to fill space. Make sure everyone has some unique talent that he or she brings to the position. Also, once you have your code, if prospective team members don’t agree with it, you shouldn’t allow them on your team (unless you decide to change the code).
Here are some qualities of a team player
1. Has energy
2. Has an unstoppable desire to win
3. Is willing to let someone else win (support others and not get recognition)
4. Takes personal responsibility – no blaming or justifying.
5. Willing to submit to the code
6. Unique ability or talent.
Results are always a function of behavior, attitude and conditioning. If you focus on results, you are too late.
Steps for creating a code.
1. Find a sane moment in which to create the code. Don’t wait until the pressure is high, emotions are hot, or a deadline has to be met to do this. Don’t expect to do it in one sitting.
2. Find recurring issues that repeatedly interfere with the performance of the team. This might also entail looking at past mistakes of other teams you’ve been on or anticipating potential problems.
3. Everyone on the team participates. If they create it, they own it.
4. Talk about various ways your team might interact (good and bad) and how everyone would feel about them.
5. As soon as you are able to decide on a rule, write it down and post them (in this case, every member should have a copy they can post at home).
6. Be specific. They must be rules that can be acted on. Don’t be vague.
This is not a mission statement. It is not a list of values. Everyone has different ideas about what those values could mean. If you spell it out as a statement that someone can act on, you don’t run the risk of different interpretations. For example, instead of using the word teamwork, you spell out what you mean. You might then say something like, “the goals of the team come before the goals of the individual.”
The same goes for rules like “Be professional.” How do you define professional? Well, you have to let eveyone talk about what they mean by this. Otherwise, you may end up with many different definitions.
7. Don’t try to legislate moods. You can’t legislate that no one is in a bad mood, but what you can say is, “Don't take out your bad mood on other people.”
8. Make sure the rules are somewhat of a stretch. The code should challenge everyone on the team to be better. This will create an environment in which everyone gives their best. It can be hard to follow the rules, but challenge makes the team rise to the occasion.
9. Don’t get carried away making rules. Shoot for a dozen or less. If you make too many, look for common threads.
10. If someone breaches the code, call it. Just tell them they broke the code. The largest distinction between a good team and bad one is that bad ones don’t say anything when the code is broken. You don’t chastise, you just acknowledge or mention it.
It is not the job of the leader to enforce the code. The entire team enforces it.
Code of Honor for Touchstone Training
1. Make our personal lives and organization a living example of what we teach.
2. Commit to personal development in the areas of service, relationships and spiritual advancement; and to be willing to undergo practices with team members to further these goals.
3. Take full responsibility for problems. If someone else has made a mistake, help them resolve the issue rather than blame them. If it is your mistake, own up to it.
4. We serve to further the mission, not because of what’s in it for us.
5. The service and support of other team members comes above our own interests. Never abandon a team member in need.
6. Never speak ill of team members behind their backs. If we have an issue or problem with another team member, we will speak to them directly in an open, honest, humble and non confrontational way.
7. Keep all agreements and clean up any broken or potentially broken agreements. This includes being on time for everything.
8. Never let personal issues get in the way of the mission.
9. To commit to continual exploration of more effective ways to help people make spiritual advancement
10. To work with and encourage team member’s strengths and not expect everyone to be good at everything.
11. To fully listen to, clearly understand, and carefully consider other team member’s ideas and points of view, and to demonstrate such by reflective listening before replying to them. If we instinctively disagree with another team member, consider their idea more carefully before replying.
12. To encourage members and celebrate successes. Overlook faults and focus on and glorify good qualities.
Blair Singer
Here are some things to consider about bringing professional skills to the table. 90 percent of all new businesses fail in the first five years. And 90 percent of the 10 percent that do survive, fail before the tenth year. Experts belief it is not a lack of money that is the main cause, it is a lack of business skills.
The higher the performance, the higher the tolerances need to be. This means that the more you want to achieve, the more you need a code, and the higher the code must be. Alsothe more you will need good communication skills, relationship skills, managerial skills, etc.
Code of Honor
What is it?
It is a set of simple, powerful rules that govern the internal behavior of any team, organization, family, individual and even nation. The rules determine how we behave toward one another within the team. They are its heart and spirit. They are what people are willing to stand and defend – and be accountable to. A code of honor brings out the best in every person who subscribes to it.
But it goes beyond rules. It is the unwavering discipline of the team itself to enforce those rules. Not to rely on bosses, leaders, administrators, coaches, regulators, parents to enforce them, but to have the team spontaneously support each other in adhering to the code. It is practiced, repeated and drilled in so many instances that it becomes unconsciously embedded in the hearts of the players, The code builds trust, cohesion, and energy.
It is a statement of who you are and what you stand for. It is your values extended into real physical behavior.
My experience, especially with working with devotees living outside the temple, is that unless there is a strong commitment, nothing much gets done; or it takes forever to get it done. Once you make a code, those who cannot or do not want to commit, will opt out of your team. But those who remain will be totally committed and accountable. It doesn’t mean others can’t advise or help in other ways, but you don’t want them on the core team if they can’t follow the code. You don’t want to depend on them because by opting out they are more or less admitting they are not dependable to one degree or another.
The code is a reflection of you and will attract those who aspire to the same standards. If you know how to build it, maintain it, and protect it, you will attract only the best players and you will experience the repeated magic of championship results.
In meetings in which you discuss the code, you may wish to talk about great teams that you have been on. What was it like? What were the rules? How did it feel? You can also discuss what you think the benefits of having a code would be.
About the Code of Honor from a former Marine Corps Officer. “In my opinion, it was the code of honor that gave my men and me the courage to operate as a unified team, overcome our own fears, and perform tasks that seemed impossible. Today, in my own business, it is the same code of honor that is core to much of my business and financial success.” Robert Kiyasaki
In the absence of rules, people make up their own
Sometimes the easiest way to avoid upset, collisions and disharmony in any group is to take the time to make sure that everyone is playing by the same rules. The value of a code is that under pressure or during difficult times, when emotions rise, the code prevails, not emotional reactions.
Everyone on the team must know the rules, interpret them in the same way and commit themselves to the code. Otherwise the team can’t win. Sometimes the easiest way to avoid upset, collisions and disharmony in any group is to take the time to make sure that everyone is playing by the same rules.
It is the cornerstone of the culture of any successful organization because it is the physical manifestation of its thoughts, ideals, and philosophies. The number one tool to establish culture is the code of honor.
Developing a code of honor creates accountability and a feeling of support and is a powerful statement of who you are and what your team stands for. It defines you and your goals.
You may wish to discuss instances in which a team had rules and didn’t follow them or didn’t have rules and what the results were.
One of the things a code does is create support and encouragement for one another. It creates an environment in which we push one another to be our best.
Don’t just have people on your team to fill space. Make sure everyone has some unique talent that he or she brings to the position. Also, once you have your code, if prospective team members don’t agree with it, you shouldn’t allow them on your team (unless you decide to change the code).
Here are some qualities of a team player
1. Has energy
2. Has an unstoppable desire to win
3. Is willing to let someone else win (support others and not get recognition)
4. Takes personal responsibility – no blaming or justifying.
5. Willing to submit to the code
6. Unique ability or talent.
Results are always a function of behavior, attitude and conditioning. If you focus on results, you are too late.
Steps for creating a code.
1. Find a sane moment in which to create the code. Don’t wait until the pressure is high, emotions are hot, or a deadline has to be met to do this. Don’t expect to do it in one sitting.
2. Find recurring issues that repeatedly interfere with the performance of the team. This might also entail looking at past mistakes of other teams you’ve been on or anticipating potential problems.
3. Everyone on the team participates. If they create it, they own it.
4. Talk about various ways your team might interact (good and bad) and how everyone would feel about them.
5. As soon as you are able to decide on a rule, write it down and post them (in this case, every member should have a copy they can post at home).
6. Be specific. They must be rules that can be acted on. Don’t be vague.
This is not a mission statement. It is not a list of values. Everyone has different ideas about what those values could mean. If you spell it out as a statement that someone can act on, you don’t run the risk of different interpretations. For example, instead of using the word teamwork, you spell out what you mean. You might then say something like, “the goals of the team come before the goals of the individual.”
The same goes for rules like “Be professional.” How do you define professional? Well, you have to let eveyone talk about what they mean by this. Otherwise, you may end up with many different definitions.
7. Don’t try to legislate moods. You can’t legislate that no one is in a bad mood, but what you can say is, “Don't take out your bad mood on other people.”
8. Make sure the rules are somewhat of a stretch. The code should challenge everyone on the team to be better. This will create an environment in which everyone gives their best. It can be hard to follow the rules, but challenge makes the team rise to the occasion.
9. Don’t get carried away making rules. Shoot for a dozen or less. If you make too many, look for common threads.
10. If someone breaches the code, call it. Just tell them they broke the code. The largest distinction between a good team and bad one is that bad ones don’t say anything when the code is broken. You don’t chastise, you just acknowledge or mention it.
It is not the job of the leader to enforce the code. The entire team enforces it.
Code of Honor for Touchstone Training
1. Make our personal lives and organization a living example of what we teach.
2. Commit to personal development in the areas of service, relationships and spiritual advancement; and to be willing to undergo practices with team members to further these goals.
3. Take full responsibility for problems. If someone else has made a mistake, help them resolve the issue rather than blame them. If it is your mistake, own up to it.
4. We serve to further the mission, not because of what’s in it for us.
5. The service and support of other team members comes above our own interests. Never abandon a team member in need.
6. Never speak ill of team members behind their backs. If we have an issue or problem with another team member, we will speak to them directly in an open, honest, humble and non confrontational way.
7. Keep all agreements and clean up any broken or potentially broken agreements. This includes being on time for everything.
8. Never let personal issues get in the way of the mission.
9. To commit to continual exploration of more effective ways to help people make spiritual advancement
10. To work with and encourage team member’s strengths and not expect everyone to be good at everything.
11. To fully listen to, clearly understand, and carefully consider other team member’s ideas and points of view, and to demonstrate such by reflective listening before replying to them. If we instinctively disagree with another team member, consider their idea more carefully before replying.
12. To encourage members and celebrate successes. Overlook faults and focus on and glorify good qualities.
Blair Singer
Look upon defeat as victory
Defeat is numerous in the path to victory. Each defeat that doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger. The trauma and chaos from defeat leaves a scar of your failure and the wisdom of preventing it. Defeat gives enlightenment and the will to keep on fighting.
The path to victory requires numerous defeats, and each defeat you survive is a small victory in itself. People learn through defeat, and it is the greatest learning experience as it will continue to shape and mold your existence. Look upon defeat as victory, a victory in surviving, learning and experiencing defeat.
The path to victory requires numerous defeats, and each defeat you survive is a small victory in itself. People learn through defeat, and it is the greatest learning experience as it will continue to shape and mold your existence. Look upon defeat as victory, a victory in surviving, learning and experiencing defeat.
Failure leads to success
Ironic isn’t it, how failure leads to success. But it is true; for each failure provides a lesson that we will never forget. The more you fail, the closer you are to success. We see failure as a bad thing but only through the most brutal of failures do we see the light of success.
Without failures, how does one improve? Every failure points out mistakes which can be learned from. When we see failure we learn from it; when we learn from it we understand it. When we understand it we change it; when we change it we profit from it. When we profit from it we grasp it. Let failure lead you to success for failure paves the road to it.
Without failures, how does one improve? Every failure points out mistakes which can be learned from. When we see failure we learn from it; when we learn from it we understand it. When we understand it we change it; when we change it we profit from it. When we profit from it we grasp it. Let failure lead you to success for failure paves the road to it.
Lead by examples
For people who are wondering what leadership is, it is to lead by being the embodiment of what you teach and preach. How can one lead and teach without first experiencing it and still practicing it. In the definition of leadership, you need to lead by example. Only then will your teachings be understood and practiced by others. Before leading others, lead yourself.
People always expect other people to change first, but hardly do the ones who expect changes from others will change themselves. That kind of thinking and understanding will only end with failure and disappointment. To truly change others, change yourself first. Change yourself before others in order to preach what you had reached. Only then will others start to change. Do not expect anything you did not work for.
True leadership lies in doing it yourself first before expecting it from others. That is what it means to truly lead.
People always expect other people to change first, but hardly do the ones who expect changes from others will change themselves. That kind of thinking and understanding will only end with failure and disappointment. To truly change others, change yourself first. Change yourself before others in order to preach what you had reached. Only then will others start to change. Do not expect anything you did not work for.
True leadership lies in doing it yourself first before expecting it from others. That is what it means to truly lead.
Character builds the business
Character builds the business for it is what the leader does that will determine the fate of the company. Many hold loose tongue where they are too easy to promise but hardly deliver what was spoken. Some are too careless in their speech that makes them look repulsive. Other promises today and break tomorrow, a curse in the business world and as an individual.
What makes of a business is decided by the leader’s character. Faulty in character leads to a miserable end. Strong in character leads to trust and success. Character is the deciding factor in business for the leader and the employees deal with their clients and customers in a daily basis. Your interaction decides the business, and character is revealed through it.
What makes of a business is decided by the leader’s character. Faulty in character leads to a miserable end. Strong in character leads to trust and success. Character is the deciding factor in business for the leader and the employees deal with their clients and customers in a daily basis. Your interaction decides the business, and character is revealed through it.
A leader leads twice
A leader leads twice, first themselves, and then others. One must lead themselves to gain experience, and then use it to lead with others. The leader becomes a source of empowerment, information, experience and inspiration for the followers.
The leader needs twice the amount of willpower to lead for they are going through thick and thin with their followers, together as one. Nobody is born a leader, but shaped into one. One’s character must be built, and vision felt, for one to rise. You are not only leading others, but yourself as well
The leader needs twice the amount of willpower to lead for they are going through thick and thin with their followers, together as one. Nobody is born a leader, but shaped into one. One’s character must be built, and vision felt, for one to rise. You are not only leading others, but yourself as well
Are you a leader or boss?
Are you a leader or a boss?
That is a question you need to ask yourself to know where you truly stand. They are not the same and are polar opposite of each other. The differences are huge and that can either make or break your business.
A leader is a person who leads by example and guide his/her followers to the vision they are all trying to reach. The leader helps and assists people who needs help and unify them all with an honor code and a noble vision. Responsibilities are shared and no on gets left behind. The leader doesn’t blame but share the responsibilities with others. Ideas are shared and changes happen constantly.
A boss is a person who direct orders and relay what needs to be done. He/she will make the shots but will not assist or pitch in. Blames are constant and responsibilities will be directed at the employees under him/her. They hate changes and like to stick with the old rules and principles. Bosses are old fashion and like to micro manage.
So what are you and which do you believe in? It is up to you to decide what role you want to be. Will you be a leader that leads or a boss that bosses?
By Marketing Deviant
That is a question you need to ask yourself to know where you truly stand. They are not the same and are polar opposite of each other. The differences are huge and that can either make or break your business.
A leader is a person who leads by example and guide his/her followers to the vision they are all trying to reach. The leader helps and assists people who needs help and unify them all with an honor code and a noble vision. Responsibilities are shared and no on gets left behind. The leader doesn’t blame but share the responsibilities with others. Ideas are shared and changes happen constantly.
A boss is a person who direct orders and relay what needs to be done. He/she will make the shots but will not assist or pitch in. Blames are constant and responsibilities will be directed at the employees under him/her. They hate changes and like to stick with the old rules and principles. Bosses are old fashion and like to micro manage.
So what are you and which do you believe in? It is up to you to decide what role you want to be. Will you be a leader that leads or a boss that bosses?
By Marketing Deviant
Code of Honour
In every company there is a code of conduct, but what about a code of honor? Code of conduct regulates the employees physically while the code of honor regulates them psychologically. This should be implemented in every company in order to create a positive atmosphere.
Code of honor had existed for a long time and enforcing it will be beneficial. The code itself establishes loyalty, trust, pride, respect and teamwork. By enforcing the code in your company, unity will prevail. The code builds a stronger bond among employees.
Code of honor is very psychological which makes it very powerful. Many employees lack honor so the code helps establish righteousness that will help benefit the company in many ways (happiness, unity, morale and etc). It is a belief system that will carry on from person to person. Promoting honorable actions from the code creates a positive atmosphere for the company.
The code help promotes a positive atmosphere where people will rely and trust each other with dignity and respect. In most case scenarios, employees lack honor so it is wise to enforce a code of honor for the welfare of the employees and company. A positive atmosphere is very important for it affects morale.
Blair Singer
Code of honor had existed for a long time and enforcing it will be beneficial. The code itself establishes loyalty, trust, pride, respect and teamwork. By enforcing the code in your company, unity will prevail. The code builds a stronger bond among employees.
Code of honor is very psychological which makes it very powerful. Many employees lack honor so the code helps establish righteousness that will help benefit the company in many ways (happiness, unity, morale and etc). It is a belief system that will carry on from person to person. Promoting honorable actions from the code creates a positive atmosphere for the company.
The code help promotes a positive atmosphere where people will rely and trust each other with dignity and respect. In most case scenarios, employees lack honor so it is wise to enforce a code of honor for the welfare of the employees and company. A positive atmosphere is very important for it affects morale.
Blair Singer
Monday, January 3, 2011
Mapping the Values of Organisation
- Organisational culture is the new frontier of competitive advantage, partucularly in a situation where talent is in a short supply. Talented people will always stay to companies that care about their employees and their customers
- Organisational cultures can be changed either by changing the leader or through whole-system change. Failing companies tend to bring in new leader from the outside with a different consciousness and different priorities. Successful companies, tend to promote from within so they can preserve their winning culture.
- The intangible assets of an organisation, such as culture, have a significant impact on the share price of a company. The intangible can represent as much as 65% to 85% of a company's stock price. Therefore, one of the ways to improve your share price is to focus on improving the culture.
- Whatever you focus on and measure gets done. Individual leaders, managers and supervisors are accountable for the culture of their units.
Article by: Richard Barret
Business Needs Scorecard
The 6 Categories of Business Scorecard:
1) Finance
Values and behaviours that have an impact on the bottom line such as a cost reduction, profit, financial stability, etc.
2) Fitness
Values and behaviours that have an impact on performance such as productivity, efficiency, accountability, quality, etc
3) Client Relations
Values and behaviours that have an impact on client relationships such as customer satisfaction, customer collaboration, client focus, etc.
4) Evolution
Values and behaviours that have an impact on the development of new products or services such as innovation, creativity, risk-taking, etc.
5) Culture
Values and behavours that have an impact on the culture of the organisation such as HONESTY, OPEN COMMUNICATION, TRUST, COMMITMENT, etc
6) Social Contribution
Values and behavours that have an impact on the relationship of the organisation to the local community or society at large such as environmental awareness, community involvement, human rights, etc.
Article by: Richard Barret
1) Finance
Values and behaviours that have an impact on the bottom line such as a cost reduction, profit, financial stability, etc.
2) Fitness
Values and behaviours that have an impact on performance such as productivity, efficiency, accountability, quality, etc
3) Client Relations
Values and behaviours that have an impact on client relationships such as customer satisfaction, customer collaboration, client focus, etc.
4) Evolution
Values and behaviours that have an impact on the development of new products or services such as innovation, creativity, risk-taking, etc.
5) Culture
Values and behavours that have an impact on the culture of the organisation such as HONESTY, OPEN COMMUNICATION, TRUST, COMMITMENT, etc
6) Social Contribution
Values and behavours that have an impact on the relationship of the organisation to the local community or society at large such as environmental awareness, community involvement, human rights, etc.
Article by: Richard Barret
Building a Values-Driven Organization
Full-Spectrum Consciousness
To be resilient and remain resilient organizations need to learn how to master every level of consciousness
· They master Level 1 by focusing on financial stability and employee safety
· They master Level 2 by focusing on open communication, respect for individuals, and customer satisfaction
· They master level 3 by focusing on performance, results, and best practices
· They master level 4 by focusing on adaptability, innovation, employee empowerment, and continuous learning
· They master level 5 by developing o cohesive culture based on a shared vision and shared values that create an increased capacity for collective action
· They master level 6 by building strategic alliances with like-minded partners, providing mentoring and coaching for their managers and leaders, and embracing environmental stewardship
· They master level 7 by focusing on social responsibility, ethics, global thinking, and keeping a long-term perspective on their business and its impact on future generations.
by: Richard Barret
To be resilient and remain resilient organizations need to learn how to master every level of consciousness
· They master Level 1 by focusing on financial stability and employee safety
· They master Level 2 by focusing on open communication, respect for individuals, and customer satisfaction
· They master level 3 by focusing on performance, results, and best practices
· They master level 4 by focusing on adaptability, innovation, employee empowerment, and continuous learning
· They master level 5 by developing o cohesive culture based on a shared vision and shared values that create an increased capacity for collective action
· They master level 6 by building strategic alliances with like-minded partners, providing mentoring and coaching for their managers and leaders, and embracing environmental stewardship
· They master level 7 by focusing on social responsibility, ethics, global thinking, and keeping a long-term perspective on their business and its impact on future generations.
by: Richard Barret
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)