SMaC Down: Southwest Airlines Changes the Recipe of their Success

A big part of South­west Air­lines’ suc­cess has been based on their obses­sion with their Wheels Up strat­e­gy to get their ​‘planes to spend max­i­mum time in the air. That includ­ed a fun­da­men­tal item on their SMaC list: no assigned seat­ing which slows down the time it takes to get peo­ple on the plane and delays how long it takes to get the plane back in the air.

A Win­ning Formula

If you’re not famil­iar, the SMaC recipe con­cept, devel­oped by Jim Collins’ in his book Great by Choice, is a set of durable oper­at­ing prac­tices that cre­ates a replic­a­ble, con­sis­tent suc­cess formula.

Specif­ic

Method­i­cal

and

Consis­tent.

In his research, Jim Collins found that all great, endur­ing com­pa­nies turn strate­gic con­cepts into real­i­ty using this oper­at­ing code.

These are the core prin­ci­ples that a CEO and their team align around – the guard rails for deci­sion-mak­ing, over decades or gen­er­a­tions of leadership.

In many ways, it’s a lega­cy: the hand­ing down of a list of the major things that you will always or nev­er do in your busi­ness – usu­al­ly because they reflect core aspects of your strat­e­gy or the result of expen­sive lessons along the way.

Chang­ing the Recipe

For over 50 years, South­west has been very dili­gent at stick­ing to their SMAC list, includ­ing it’s open seat policy.

But, accord­ing to this sto­ry in the Wall Street Jour­nal, that’s over. They now want to boost rev­enues – and respond to a chang­ing mar­ket – by offer­ing assigned and pre­mi­um seat­ing for pas­sen­gers who want more legroom and are will­ing to pay for it.

A Rigourous Debate

It would be fas­ci­nat­ing to have dis­cus­sions when South­west decid­ed to one change of their cor­po­rate principles.

This would be the equiv­a­lent, in seri­ous­ness, of Coca-Cola, Dr. Pep­per or Bund­aberg Gin­ger Beer — one of the great Aus­tralian com­pa­nies that we have the plea­sure of work­ing with — chang­ing the recipe of their great­ly loved beverages.

Or Colonel Sanders’ KFC, chang­ing their 11 herbs and spices recipe

Accord­ing to Collins, mak­ing this change isn’t unusu­al. In fact, great com­pa­nies and social enter­pris­es do change their SMaC recipe but no more than about 20% per decade.

The key here is that not that items on the list nev­er change. It’s that change to a core tenet of a busi­ness is nev­er done light­ly and only after rig­or­ous debate.

The Chal­lenge

• Have you defined your SMAC list, yet?
• Or, how can you bet­ter lever­age your exist­ing SMaC list: bring it more to the fore­front and oper­ate more con­sis­tent­ly with it – or update it?

Oth­er Blogs

• Have Your Fig­ured Out Your SMaC Recipe for Success?
• Lever­ag­ing the Flywheel
• The Art of Deci­sion Making

Old­er Podcasts

• The Jim Collins’ SMaC Recipe
• The 20-Mile March: Thrive in Uncertainty