American vs Southwest

Key points:

1 Whether supervision should be replaced with systems of accountability and performance measurement? Answer: Coordination benefits from strengthening the role of supervisors while weakening the role of accountability and performance measurement. Systems of accountability and performance measurement, rather than being ideal for horizontally coordinated organizations, actually have unintended negative consequences.

2 Accountability of Front-line employees

Functional accountability in American: encourage employees to look out for themselves and avoid recrimination, rather than focusing on their shared goals

Cross-functional accountability in Southwest: Institute a “team delay” which allows less precise reporting of the cause of the delays, with the goal of diffusing blame and encouraging learning.

3 Accountability of Field managers

Focus on Measurement in American: Managers are afraid to take risks, afraid to let go of their control. All that matters is the numbers, how you achieve them is secondary

Focus on learning in Southwest: The role of headquarters is to be supportive rather than punitive. They care more on information sharing and learning.

4 Supervision

Large supervisory spans of control in American: one supervisor for 30-40 front line workers. Monitoring occurred through impersonal measurement rather than through the personal intervention of supervisors. Other roles include coaching and feedback to front-line workers.

Small supervisory spans of control in Southwest: one supervisor for 8-9 front line workers. Supervisors’ role is primarily to facilitate learning. They all succeed together or fail together. Work as a team using peer pressure.

5 Employee selection

Selection without regard to teamwork in American: They care more on technical skills, interpersonal skills etc.

Selection for teamwork in Southwest: They believe certain critical attitudes could not be readily taught and they choose someone who...