Johnnie Moore

The Southwest Paradox

Thoughts on what I'm calling The Southwest Paradox - and what it means about a questionable assumption behind many business and other how-to books. This may be a jumping off point for my essay for the More Space project.
Johnnie Moore

Johnnie Moore

I’m Johnnie Moore, and I help people work better together

I think it was Rob Paterson who first got me thinking about what I now call the Southwest Paradox.

There’s Southwest Airlines very successful as an airline for a very long time. Surrounded for quite a lot of that time by a large number of very unsuccessful airlines.

Southwest does not come across as a secretive company. There’s a whole reality TV show showing it warts and all. There’s not much about the way it functions that hasn’t been examined and described. I’d venture that most of what could be made explicit about how Southwest works has been made explicit.

So it’s very interesting that almost no other airline comes anywhere close to Southwest in terms of success.

There seems to be a basic assumption, from B Schools to bookstores, that success is only a matter of modelling something that works, making the process explicit, and copying it. The Southwest Paradox suggests there’s something fundamentally faulty in that assumption.

I might also speculate that the quantity of diet books in shops, and levels of obesity, are positively correlated. And the plethora of books on how to be happy may be an indicator of how unhappy we are – despite there being no shortage of advice on the subject.

For my More Space chapter, I think I may kick off with the Southwest Paradox. Whether I go down the “Simple Ideas, Lightly Held” route or the “Organic Branding” route, I think it’s a good set up.

And comments, questions and sarcastic remarks are welcome…

Share Post

More Posts

Fluke

There’s more potential in each moment than we realise

More Updates

Emotional debt

Releasing the hidden costs of pent up frustrations

Aliveness

Finding the aliveness below the surface of stuck

Johnnie Moore

Action theatre

You may have come across the term security theatre, to describe, as Bruce Schneier puts it, “countermeasures that provide the feeling of security while doing little or nothing actually to

Johnnie Moore

Knowing the Psalm

Here’s a great story from Terry Pearce’s Leading out Loud. Actor Charles Laughton was attending a large family Christmas party. The host asks each guest in turn to recite a

Johnnie Moore

Brutality and civilisation

I saw a documentary last night on the Beeb about the middle ages. Prof Robert Bartlett talked about how power structures changed over five centuries. It was a reminder of

Johnnie Moore

Nagging doubt about the story thing

Seth Godin has done his usual excellent job of provoking thought with All Marketers are Liars. He seems to have a knack for taking an idea dramatising it, and packaging