Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.
1 Corinthians 4:2
As mentioned in the earlier post this week, trust and interpersonal relationships are built on the inner core of trustworthiness and personal integrity.
Gordon Bethune demonstrated this when he became CEO of Continental Airlines in 1994. Continental had gained infamy as the worst airline to work for, and they probably had the worst ratings in customer satisfaction. By the time I started flying Continental regularly in 1997 things had changed dramatically. I fell in love with their frequent flier program and found their personnel at every level of my contact to be courteous, helpful and generally proud to be part of that organization. At first, I was curious about the obvious changes in attitudes, so I started informally interviewing Continental personnel. Over the course of seven years I interviewed at least fifty people including, flight attendants, pilots, ticket agents, baggage handlers, and customer service representatives. I would always ask how long the person had worked for Continental. If they had started before 1994, I would say, “So you know what a difference there is between Continental today and the old Continental.” Every time the response would be something like, “It’s like the difference between night and day.” Some would tell me of how they used to hate to admit to people that they worked for Continental. One ticket agent said she would change out of her uniform before she left the terminal and when anyone asked her where she worked, she would just say, “At the airport.” Then I would ask, “So what made the difference between the old Continental and the new Continental.” In every case, 100% of them responded immediately and enthusiastically, “Oh, it was when Gordon Bethune became CEO.”
Bethune promised a bonus to every employee if the company improved their on-time arrival status to a certain level. When they met that goal, there was a question among the top executives about where the money would come from. Someone suggested paying the bonus only to the employees who actually made the flights leave on time, such as flight crews, baggage handlers and boarding agents. Bethune insisted that it was important that every employee feel a part of the team and to build trust in the organization, they had to give the bonus to everyone. He proved his trustworthiness, integrity and honesty by keeping his word.
Another thing Bethune did to build trust within Continental was to take the time to visit one-on-one with as many employees as possible. Once, when I noticed that an employee was taking some unnecessary verbal abuse from another passenger and handling it in a very mature, professional way, I decided to write a compliment on a suggestion card. I asked the agent where to leave the card and invited her to read it before I posted it. Her response was, “Oh, Thank you! Gordon reads every one of these, and the next time he is in this airport, he will probably mention it to me! Even if he does not, it will be noted in my file for my next performance review.”
I started looking for opportunities to write compliments for anyone who ever went beyond the call of duty to help me (and I gave them lots of opportunity!). The cards were in every flight magazine on every flight and visible at every ticket and check-in counter. Before the blank lines for comments, they had these words, “Dear Gordon, here is a way to make Continental better…” I received letters acknowledging receipt of several comments and a few times someone called to let me know they were following up on an action from a comment. I don’t know for sure how they handled all the cards with complaints, but I imagine it was done in such a way as to help the employee improve and not just to chastise or punish them.
Bethune built trust among individuals in the organization based on his character of integrity and trustworthiness and it permeated the entire company. He did not become trustworthy when he became CEO of Continental. It was already a part of his character. That’s why he was able to gain the trust of so many employees so rapidly and move the company to a new level of effectiveness.
© Dr. Larry N. Gay
January 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment