Needed: A Better Theory of Bureaucracy

I find myself absolutely gobsmacked by the extraordinary difference this week in dealing with three pieces of Southwest Airlines: The flight and airport staff in person, the reservation staff on the phone, and the missing baggage staff.

The airport and flight staff are absolutely focused on getting as many people as possible onto the planes as fast as possible so they can take off as soon as the weather will let them.

The reservations staff are absolutely focused on filling the slots on the planes they think will actually take off with as many people as they can to get people as close to their ultimate destination as they can as soon as possible.

The missing baggage staff are absolutely focused on making it as difficult as possible to file a missing baggage report, on informing people with missing baggage that the last person they talked to misinformed them, and on lying to each other on the phone.

Same shareholders. Same Board of Directors. Same CEO. Very different outcomes indeed…

My neoconservative friends blame this on government regulation: if the FAA were not trying to compile statistics on lost and missing baggage, they say, Southwest’s missing-baggage department would not be trying to massage the baggage statistics but would instead focus on finding baggage and reuniting it with its owners. Color me “unconvinced”…