“What a pilot sees in an hour, management won’t see in a week. Management sending emails and letters is all very nice, but 90% of them don’t get read. They get deleted. I talk to passengers in lounges and ask where we can improve and how we can make them more comfortable. They may be very basic questions, but the feedback delivers a lot.”
By all accounts, Borghetti’s strategy appears to be working. Investors will find out when he delivers the company’s full-year results in late August.
About this time last year, the company reported a net loss after tax of $67.8 million for the 12 months to June 30, 2011. This result included $36 million in unrealised foreign exchange losses due to the rising Australian dollar. But for the half year to December 31, 2011, Virgin Australia reported a statutory net profit after tax of $51.8 million, up 118% on the prior corresponding period. Total revenue for the six-month period increased by 18% to $2 billion.
The right staff
Borghetti is also fussy about who he hires.
“I would rather employ someone without a degree, but who has a lot of energy, passion and a can-do attitude than someone who’s got 10 degrees, lacks personality and lacks any form of urgency,” he says. “Because you can’t teach those skills. You can teach technical skills, but you can’t always teach people about character.
“If I’m employing someone in senior management, I will never read a person’s CV until I’ve made up my mind. The reason is everybody’s CV looks brilliant – they’re geniuses. Have you ever read a bad CV? I would rather talk to prospective employees face-to-face. If you think there’s something there, then you go back and look at the CV. I put a lot of emphasis on a person’s character and attitude. You can tell when someone has the right attitude and that’s what I want.”
The gospel according to John Borghetti
Q: What is the one thing a leader should never say or do?
A: A leader should never say: “It can’t be done”. A leader should never become complacent.
Q: What elements are critical to achieving change?
A: Vision, belief and communication. When I arrived, I had the vision, but how was I going to make it work? You have to be able to sell a story. And the only way you can sell it is with honesty and conviction. If the board, management and staff see you are confident and you believe in the story, they will generally come along in the same direction.
Q: What makes a workforce productive or more productive?
A: Strong leadership. You have to lead from the front, by example. You should never tell or ask anybody to do something that you haven’t done yourself. The moment you do that, you lose touch with reality. There’s only three things staff have to do to make a customer happy. They have to look people in the eye, smile and call them by their name. Those three things will hide a multitude of errors.
Q: What important qualities do you look for in your direct reports?
A: Urgency, attitude, decisiveness and an ability to lead people.
Q: What is your favourite source of leadership inspiration and ideas?
A: Life in general. I learn from as many people as I can. I learn from mistakes. I don’t have a mentor. One person can’t get everything right all the time.
Q: What was the worst moment of your career?
A: September 11, 2001. I was with Qantas and two of our staff died when the planes hit the buildings in New York. Qantas also had planes in American airspace at the time of the attacks, and were ordered to land at the nearest airfields. Ansett was about to go broke at the time, so we had been working long hours in case it did. I was awoken to be told of the terrorist attacks. I turned on the TV to see shocking pictures; the worst nightmare. It was surreal. All these things going through your head at the one time. Terrible.
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