The Pursuit of WOW/Peters 153-166

165 SOUTHWEST: We hire attitudes. Colleen Barrett is executive vice president for customers. (It's revealing title; she began at Southwest as a secretary in 1971.) Barrett told us that the airlines looks for "listening, caring, smiling, saying "thank-you,' and being warm" - in the people it hires for accounting as much as in reservation agents and flight attendants.

 

166 Southwest's Herb Kelleher, trained as a lawyer, can dissect a balance sheet with the best of them. But he understands that sustaining advantage comes from a relentless focus on the intangibles.