Organizational Development Theory and Practices
JetBlue Airways is a company which has embraced the OD theory and allowed OD's vision of emotional intelligence, value proposition, positive reinforcement, and change through improvement and culture to drive much of its results over the past years. The airline industry is one in which external influences have had an unbelievable impact on the bottom line of all of the companies that fly. Thus, it may defy imagination at first that in an industry of barely controlled daily chaos, Jet Blue has found a way to make OD work to control that chaos. Interestingly, in 2010, JetBlue was one of only three domestic airlines to turn a profit, and their CEO, David Barger, is the lowest-paid CEO among the 10 largest publicly traded U.S. airlines in 2010. (Potkewitz) Doing research online, use a GoogleTM, BingTM, or other search-engine-style search, and find case analyses or articles discussing JetBlue's OD approach. Start the week by reviewing this article, "An Extraordinary Stumble At JetBlue," found at http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_10/b4024004.htm. After the crisis, CEO Neeleman was terminated and Barger was put in his place. The company has grown since Barger's implementation. Their focus on organizational development, and company values and culture, continues to this day, which is why it is not a surprise to see that JetBlue Airways was one of the main case studies presented at the 2011 Customer Experience Strategies Summit in Toronto, where Vicky Stennes, VP of Inflight Experience presented on their inside-out approach to motivating employees by creating a customer-service-centric business model.
We'll begin with these questions:
1. How does a company with an OD approach differ from one without that approach?
2. Which company would you prefer to work for - one with an OD approach or one without?
3. Do OD companies offer a higher value proposition to their customers than non-OD companies? And if so, why don't all companies take this approach?