Live the vision
To get his company to live his vision each day, Woolsey borrowed
from the world of the airplane cockpit.
Each day, Million Air’s leaders pick one of the company’s 20 core
beliefs surrounding its mission, vision and values. The selected
belief is written out in a several-paragraph definition, packaged
with an example of an employee living the belief at Million Air and
then e-mailed to the approximately 1,500 employees nationwide.
Woolsey calls it Million Air’s “Daily Takeoff Briefing,” and says it’s
similar to the checklists that pilots have to go through prior to
takeoff and landing.
“As a pilot, you do 15 takeoffs and landings every day in the same
type of aircraft for the rest of your life,” he says. “You think pilots
can’t memorize the 32 switches they have to flip? They can do that
with their eyes closed. But they read a checklist every single time
because the checklist makes sure they didn’t forget a switch.
Occasionally, you’ll read off the list and go, ‘Oh, wow. OK, now it’s
on.’ It’s no different for us.”
The e-mail is sent out early each morning so that employees
encounter it when they first arrive for the day.
“Whether you’re the CFO, a pilot, mechanic, receptionist, the first
thing you do when you come to work each day is pick up our daily
takeoff, read about one of these values and how we want to make
that come alive today. Or you’ll see an example of someone living
those values from one of our locations.”
The ability to keep employees in touch with the rest of the organization is crucial to a culture taking root. By broadcasting examples of the culture in action, Million Air gives its top performers a
chance to set the pace for the entire organization.
“We’ve found that this is really a good way to keep your organization alive,” Woolsey says. “It’s better than just having your vision,
mission and values on a wall plaque. We talk to our employees
about daily communication. It keeps everybody in alignment. It’s
like a daily booster shot of our culture, and it prevents leaks.
“If you could walk in to any department store or fast-food chain
and ask them to tell you a story of great customer service, then
asked them if it has happened at any other location, they probably
couldn’t tell you. At Million Air, everyone really feels like they
know each other because of these stories.”
Once everyone is living the vision, the next step is to grow by
using the vision. Woolsey says the growth portion is an ongoing
process and a phase into which Million Air has only recently started moving. The company has 32 franchise locations, compared
with 27 when Woolsey’s cultural rebuilding started.
“Once we really felt like we built the organization, the product, service and culture the way we wanted to, then we could take that financially viable way and grow the organization,” he says. “Six years later,
we’re just now starting to enter the growth stage.”
But it all started back at step one. Without defining where he
wanted to take Million Air from the outset, Woolsey says he would
not have arrived in 2009 with a growing company. Or if he did, it
likely would have been by chance.
“A lot of organizations seem to live a strategy of, ‘That’s what has
worked for us,’” he says. “‘These are the things that didn’t work for us;
this is what did work,’ and they sort of land on a strategy by accident.
I really thought that if we didn’t define it upfront, if we didn’t try to
point everything toward that brand, toward the reputation we wanted, we were just going to get what we got, as opposed to getting what
we designed for.”
HOW TO REACH: Million Air Interlink Inc., (888) 589-9059 or www.millionair.com
