Celebrating Successes

K: Your Mother “done well!” I think your whole approach to leading and motivating People is about love. Don’t you send out thousands of letters every year to your People, celebrating their successes and praising them for their efforts? That sounds pretty loving to me.

C: I guess it is, but I never did that all by myself. We have a small Internal Customer Care Team that, together with my personal staff, helps the Executive Office keep track of every Employee’s birthday, Company anniversary, the birth of children, and other important events. This Team makes sure that cards go out for nearly every occasion. Our office sends out more than 100,000 cards annually. Many of our Officers hand-write several thousand notes each year. Besides being loving, we know this is meaningful to our People, because we hear from them if we miss something significant in their lives, like the high school graduation of one of their kids. We just believe in accentuating the positive and celebrating People’s successes.

To sustain our Company Culture, we cheer People on all the time. We celebrate little things, big things—we celebrate everything! Although we do have some formal celebrations, a lot of them are informal, spontaneous celebrations that cost little or no money. For example, just giving People chocolates when something good has happened can make them feel like you’ve given them a million dollars. What’s important is the fact that you’re honoring them and acknowledging that what they do makes a positive difference. In the process, you are making heroes out of them. You are letting them know that you love them for their efforts and you want everybody to celebrate their success.

K: That’s why I think you and I are soul mates, Colleen, because that’s one of my core beliefs, too. If someone said to me, “Ken, from now on you can’t teach anything you have taught or written about in the past except one thing; what do you want to hold onto?” I know exactly what it would be. I would want to continue to share the belief that the key to developing people and creating great organizations is to catch people doing things right and accentuate the positive by praising them.¹ It’s all about celebrating a success that someone or a team has had. Celebrating successes has been a key part of my own leadership for a long time.

One other thing that’s important about your philosophy, Colleen, is that you don’t praise your People just for showing up; you celebrate specific things they have done. As Spencer Johnson and I emphasized in The One Minute Manager®, when it comes to One Minute Praisings, just wandering around and telling people, “Thanks for your effort,” without being specific, has little meaning. But when you say to a woman who reports to you, “I just read your operational analysis report, and let me tell you, it was so clear. I loved the recommendations you made, particularly the cost-cutting suggestions. They will not only help us contain our costs, but also improve our efficiency”—that person will know you’re sincere and really know what she is doing. The same approach works at home. “Alec, your mother showed me your report card. Three As and two Bs. Way to go! That’s a real improvement from last semester.”

C: We also try to make any cheering of People timely—as close to the event or performance as possible. I know that is another important element of a One Minute Praising.

K: It sure is. If a long time elapses between when someone does something right and when it is noticed, the praising loses its luster.

C: People hate waiting until their annual performance review to get all the good news or bad news.

K: Colleen, tell me: If you lead with love, how do you handle bad news—when someone is doing something wrong?

C: That’s where another kind of love comes in. Some call it “tough love” because it may look like you are being tough. But I think sometimes the most loving thing you can do is to be straight with People when they are getting off course. Let me give you some examples:

• I had to let a personal staff member go because she did not display Golden Rule behavior with her peers. She played well “up” the ladder, so to speak, but not as well with folks she perceived to be at or below her position level. Her skills were top notch—it took two people to replace her—and it was very difficult for me. But it obviously had to be done.

• One of my best friends at work, who was also an exemplary Employee, had very little respect for her new boss and was becoming a different person from the one I had admired and loved. In a challenging conversation, I had to let her know that her supervisor would be staying in place for at least a couple of years and that if she couldn’t find a way to recapture her once-positive attitude and make it work with him, she needed to leave.

• I’ve often had to tell good friends that I couldn’t write them letters of recommendation or that I couldn’t intercede regarding disciplinary action because my review of the facts didn’t warrant those favors.

• Like most Leaders, I’ve been in a position over the years of having to support involuntary terminations due to circumstances. But in several cases I have been able to continue close personal relationships with these same folks after they left Southwest.

K: It sounds like you certainly don’t let poor behavior or performance go unnoticed.

C: Absolutely not. And it’s never easy or pleasant. But after dealing with it, if the person is still part of our Team, I watch him or her closely so that, as soon as possible, I can catch that person doing something right. I prefer praising and celebrating successes to dealing with problems.