Nuts!

I had previously read “Guts!” by Jackie and Kevin Freiberg and loved it. “Guts!” provided briefer descriptions of more companies whereas “Nuts!” focused solely on Southwest Airlines.

The Southwest story is a good one. Their personnel policies are admirable and their dedication to their mission should be a model for any new business. The writing in the text was easy to read and accessible.

I could not connect to this book like I did “Guts!”. I was truly inspired by “Guts!” and perhaps built this one up a little too much in my mind. Since “Nuts!” went into so much detail with Southwest, I would have really wanted to read about how the company managed itself through crises. Minimal internet research uncovered significant safety violations in 2008 (which the text could not have addressed due to the publication date) as well as a machinist's strike in the 1980s during which Herb Kelleher and Colleen Barrett were nearly ousted. Again, the company has been so successful (especially SINCE the strike), I'm interested in how it overcome those obstacles.

“Nuts!” seems too much like a rah-rah party for Southwest. “Guts!”, by contrast, was meant to be briefer overviews of the highlighted companies and explicitly said that it was focusing on the overarching successes of those companies. We all understand that companies sometimes face hardships and sometimes fail. Southwest is no different, yet those were not even mentioned in this text. There's little debate that Southwest's personnel policies have been extremely successful. Thanks to the Freibergs for telling us what they are. Now let's hear how Southwest arrived at them.