Name: American Airlines CEO Shares Thoughts About Recent Troubles
Uploaded: 2018-02-02
Duration: 4 min 38 s
Description: Doug Parker says that the company has transformed, but the culture is still evolving.

Doug you've been talking a lot about leadership these days and about promoting good leadership habits with your American Airlines employees. What's your goal? What are you trying to do here? We're trying to make America as great as possible as we can be. We have huge assets and we have a business that's been transformed but the culture hasn't been transformed. And that holds us back. The way to get things done is to have leaders who understand their job is to be out there supporting the team, giving the team the tools they need, letting them know that what they do is incredibly important because it is, letting them know that it's appreciated, letting them know that when they do their jobs well they've made a huge difference in the world for a lot of people, and they go home at the end of the day feeling fulfilled. That all comes together to be the right thing for our team, but also the right thing for our customers and where we need to go as we head forward. And that all starts with leadership. So specifically you've been talking a lot about building a culture of trust with employees and customers, and developing caring leaders. How are you going about that? It's one thing to try and build trust with a group of people. It's completely different to regain trust where you've lost it, and that takes a lot of time. The way we do that, we have to just do trustworthy things, over and over and over again every day. But is this whole trust thing coming up and the caring leaders also coming up because of, Recent incidents that were somewhat contentious between American Airlines flight attendants and some customers, accusations about racial discrimination. Is that also part of your motivation here? Not at all. Almost every case, we've put the employee in an incredibly difficult situation because of rules that we have in place. And it's the rules that are the problem, not the people. And we need to work to make sure that we don't put people in those situations. And as we do more and more of that, again, trust gets stronger. Do you think that the core culture of American needs to be changed? I think it needed to be changed, and I think we're in the middle of changing it. There was a lot of history there, and that history remains, and we can't wipe it out, so it takes time We make huge progress over the next few years. I expect we'll continue to make progress in the coming years. We're never gonna be done with this. This is a journey that will never have an end. We need to keep working on it forever. But we're making huge progress. I'm just wondering. Have you talked to Warren Buffett? About any of this? Not just because he's one of your biggest shareholders, but he has a very good reputation when it comes to dealing with trust issues and protecting a companies reputation. I've had a conversation with him, yes. He's a brilliant person as we all know, but it's I think in large part their interest in American Airlines was around. What you describe. That is they see what we're trying to do and is consistent with the core values of Berkshire Companies and they're excited about that. What advice did Buffet give you? What, I mean, just what did he say? Much more reinforcement of, you know, listening to what we're talking about and saying it sounds like you're on the right track and keep it up. So it was more reinforcement than anything new But it's really important reenforcement. You've said you want to make culture, American Airlines competitive advantage, what do you mean by that? When we find something that really draws customers from one airline to the other will quickly be match. But culture isn't easy to match if you can build it in the right way And it has a huge impact on the customer experience. So, like I say, already we've seen and heard from our customers that our teams engagement and their ability to serve our customers has been improved as we've been able to work on the culture. And I think as we continue to do so. We get to a point where people actually look to American. I prefer to fly American because the people there are better. What about for you personally as you've been going through this new focus on leadership, what would you say would be the most important thing that you've learned through all of this? I think the biggest one is listening. So much of really being a leader is really taking the time to listen to your team. We tend to as corporations come through and tell people here's this new great efficiency thing we've come up with. Where instead if you just flip that around and say go talk to your team and say what do we do that frustrates you? What is it about what we're doing today that makes no sense to you? And they'll tell you the same thing that the consultants are going to come in and tell you eventually. But it will be theirs and get them involved in the process. So we're working a lot more on listening and making sure that we have leaders that take the time to do that. It's hard to do sometimes in an airline. And it's not the culture. That has been prevalent in the old days, but one that we're working on today. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

American Airlines CEO Shares Thoughts About Recent Troubles

Leadership

Doug Parker says that the company has transformed, but the culture is still evolving.