People will lead a company, not managers

Desire and passion can move any company from worst to first. If you don’t believe that, just sit down and listen to Gordon Bethune for a couple of minutes.
Bethune, the former chief executive and chairman of Continental Airlines, said during his keynote address at Yokogawa’s Technology Fair and 2008 User Conference today in Houston he was able to take a company on the brink of shutting its doors to being the top airline and one of the top companies in the world.
“When I started working for Continental, the board came to me and asked me what the company should do,” Bethune said. “I came up with a plan.”
Managers are the airline managed the company, and employees did not think about being the best, but rather just coming in and punching the clock.
“We decided to write a business plan that had four parts. It was called the Go Forward Plan. The four parts centered on product, financial, people and product integrity,” he said.
In short, he said a company has to play to its strengths.
“We had three flights a day going from Greensborough, NC to Greenville, SC,” Bethune said. “Why would you want to do that?” He asked. Instead, “we put our product in places where people wanted to buy it. You have to focus on the customer and what they want to buy.”
The company had to figure out what its strengths were and also what its customers wanted.
“What do passengers want?” Bethune asked. “They want to get safely from point A to point B on time with their underwear. We had to get to the top of the reliability charts.”
Just as important, he added, was people had to enjoy coming to work every day.
“You need to invest in employees to get the needed results in the workplace. Treat employees with dignity and respect. Everyday there is a communication about what is happening at the company or about what is happening in the industry.”
David Johnson, president and chief executive at Yokogawa Corporation of America, also talked about the communication issue during his keynote at the user group meeting.
The reason, he said, we are able to grow at the pace we are at is because the company is truly listening to its customers.
“Tell us what you are looking for, tell us what you need. We are going to design and build. We need your information.”
The company is continuing its quest to become the number one global automation supplier by 2010.
When I started with Yokogawa in 1988, we had about 90% or our sales were in Japan. You look at the organization today, 53% of Yokogawa’s sales are outside Japan. “I am not Nostradamus, but by 2010, we will have 80% of our business in industrial automation will be outside of Japan.”