If you attended The Go-Giver Retreat held this past April in West Palm Beach, Florida you listened with awe as Southwest Airlines’ President Emeritus, Colleen Barrett (presented moments earlier with the 3rd Annual Go-Giver Lifetime Achievement Award) delighted the audience with her take on the principles that can make any person or company hugely successful.

An added bonus was having Southwest’s Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Herb Kelleher there, too.

Both Colleen and Herb made themselves totally available and accessible to everyone. They were two of the kindest people I’ve ever personally met, and as authentic as can be.

Stories about Herb and Colleen, as well as the extraordinary customer service provided by their team are legendary. Just recently I again witnessed one of their gate agents going above and beyond to help a customer in a way that is simply not done on other airlines. At least not consistently, as a natural way of being.

Two stories I love can both be found in the classic, Nuts!: Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, written by Kevin & Jackie Freiberg and published in 1996.

I think the reason I so enjoy these stories is because they both run so contrary to what the majority of people think is necessary to succeed in business.

The first has to do with their pilots. In so many companies there is such an “arms length” relationship between company leadership and employees. Here’s a brief passage, from the above-mentioned book, that illustrates the Southwest difference:

Southwest pilots see the cockpit as their offices. And out of these offices, they are running a business in which hundreds of daily decisions affect the health and well-being of the company, as well as their profit-sharing. Captain Yeaton says, “This is the first job I’ve had where the company actually encourages the pilot to get involved, to think. We get periodicals and memos on fuel burn and conservation all the time.

“I was at {another airline} before this, and fuel burn was irrelevant to us. It should have been a factor, but it wasn’t, because the relationship between management and pilots wasn’t very good. There were a lot of opportunities to save money over there, but it didn’t happen because people didn’t care.”

This is one of many examples that illustrates how the genuine and authentic caring of the leadership for their team members also helps Southwest be the uber-profitable company it is year after year after year, and in an industry notorious for losing money.

Next post, we’ll look at the second story; an example of character — the type that earns the respect and trust of those one leads, and greatly increases the profitability of the company.