Hire for Attitude, Teach Skills Later

This lesson was espoused by Herb Kelleher, cofounder, Chairman Emeritus, and former CEO of Southwest Airlines. He must have applied it well because Southwest Airlines grew quickly in its early years, hiring thousands of people a year. Not only did Herb’s company hire them quickly, but it also hired them well. Southwest is consistently named among the top five Most Admired Corporations in America in Fortune magazine’s annual poll.

Basically, what the phrase “hire for attitude, teach skills later” means is that you can forget what the person you’re hiring knows how to do because you need to focus on who he or she is. After all, assuming your potential hire is of reasonable intelligence, you can teach him the skills he needs to learn the job. What you can’t teach him is attitude — that is, how he’ll react to adversity, how he’ll get along with his peers, and most importantly, where you and many other companies are concerned, how he’ll treat your customers.