On a Mission

The Mormon Way of Doing Business: Leadership and Success Through Faith and Family
by Jeff Benedict, J.D.

What do the CEOs of JetBlue Airways, Dell Computers, Deloitte & Touche, and Madison Square Garden have in common with the CFO of American Express and the former dean of the Harvard Business School? As shown in this one-of-a-kind business book, they are all devout Mormons. They rarely work Sundays, they come home for dinner, and they do chores around the house. Yet they compete very successfully against workaholics who routinely put in seventy- to eighty-hour weeks.

How do they do it?

In The Mormon Way of Doing Business, critically acclaimed author and investigative journalist Jeff Benedict delves into the lives of eight of America's top executives. What emerges from these disarmingly frank and informal profiles is a set of invaluable lessons, values, and ethical guidelines that can help anyone make it to the top-in both business and in life.

JetBlue founder and CEO David Neeleman reveals why he frequently stands in as a flight attendant, baggage handler, and maintenance worker-and how the insights he gains from these roles contribute to JetBlue's competitive edge. Former Madison Square Garden CEO Dave Checketts illustrates the power of persistence with the amazing tale of his years-long campaign to acquire Radio City Music Hall. Harvard Business School dean Kim Clark, wearing an apron while cooking breakfast for his family, demonstrates the importance of not getting caught up with status, money, and power. And other distinguished leaders show how Mormon values-from the prohibition against drinking to tithing to the universal missionary service for young men-are uniquely conducive to forming strong careers.

Packed with riveting, first-hand accounts of tough negotiations, recovery from overwhelming disaster, and the constant struggle to balance the demands of running a large organization with one's duty to family and faith, The Mormon Way of Doing Business will change the way you think about performance, achievement, and the very nature of success.

Chapter 1

"In business situations we get well prepared and we go in undaunted. I don't know if this is unique to the Mormon culture. But we are individuals who have a mission and are absolutely undaunted by it."

-Dave Checketts, former CEO of Madison Square Garden Corp.

"People do a better job if they respect the leader of the company. I learned that on my mission-the value of people and how to truly appreciate them."

-David Neeleman, founder and CEO of JetBlue Airlines

Many JetBlue passengers have had the experience of boarding a plane, finding a seat, and looking up before takeoff to discover a middle-aged man standing at the head of the cabin, wearing a flight attendant's apron and a name tag. "Hi, my name is David Neeleman. And I'm the CEO of JetBlue. I'm here to serve you today and I'm looking forward to meeting each of you before we land."

For the remainder of the flight, Neeleman goes up and down the aisle, distributing snacks, collecting garbage, and making a point to meet every passenger. He also writes down their comments on a small notepad. Although the passengers are complete strangers to Neeleman, he quickly establishes a rapport with them. When the flight lands, Neeleman thanks passengers for flying Jet- Blue and then works with the flight crew to clean the plane and prepare it for its next flight.

No other airline has a CEO who works as a flight attendant just so he can serve his customers and get to know them and their needs better. No other airline has a CEO who works shoulder to shoulder with flight crews in order to appreciate their job better. Neeleman does both no less than once a month and sometimes as often as once a week. For this, he is praised for his business acumen, his devotion to his company, and for maintaining a fingertip feel for the direct needs and desires of his customers and employees.

Service Matters

Each time he works a roundtrip flight, Neeleman performs about ten hours of direct customer service and employee interaction. It's no surprise that the annual national Airline Quality Ratings study, which is based on Transportation Department statistics, routinely ranks JetBlue number one in customer service. "There are so many things you can do as a CEO to set an example," said Neeleman. "If the CEO is down there helping employees tag bags and clean airplanes, employees feel better about going to work. People will go the extra mile for you. They know I'm not sitting in some part of the airplane where I don't want to be talked to. Instead, I hang out with crew members."

Direct service to customers and working in the trenches along- side employees may be unusual concepts for a CEO or business manager. That's simply not the way business is done in corporate America. Neeleman didn't learn this unique approach in business school or by reading some cutting-edge textbook on how to be a successful leader. He developed these habits at a very young age, long before he had any thought of creating an airline.

At nineteen, Neeleman served a full-time mission for the Mormon Church. Upon graduating from high school, all young men in the Mormon Church are encouraged to spend two years as missionaries, which entails teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to strangers and performing service for the poor, the elderly, and the needy. During this time missionaries must completely forgo schooling, employment, entertainment, and dating in order to fully devote all their energy and time to service. They receive no financial compensation, and they are expected to finance as much of their missionary expenses as possible. As teenagers, Mormon youth are encouraged to begin saving for their missions. The Church supplements whatever remaining costs can't be afforded by the missionary or his parents.

"On my mission I learned so many valuable lessons," Neeleman said. "The mission gave me this opportunity to serve and really appreciate people for their contribution."

While on a mission, missionaries are not permitted to return home on holidays or for vacations. Phone calls to friends back home are prohibited. Calls to family are limited to specific holidays. This same opportunity is afforded to young women in the Mormon Church. But just as the Church strongly encourages its young men to serve missions, it strongly encourages its young women to obtain college degrees.

In 2004 the Mormon Church had over 56,000 missionaries serving full-time missions in over 120 nations and island states. Virtually all of the Mormon business executives in this book served full-time missions before starting their business careers. David Neeleman was assigned to Brazil. After spending roughly two months learning Portuguese at the Church's language training center for missionaries in Provo, Utah, Neeleman spent the remainder of his two-year commitment living among poverty-stricken people in Brazil. The conditions were starkly different from the community he grew up in outside Salt Lake City.

Copyright © 2007 by Jeff Benedict

About the Author

Jeff Benedict is an award-winning investigative journalist, a lawyer, and a best-selling author of six books. He is a contributing writer for the Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated and the Hartford Courant. His upcoming book The Mormon Way of Doing Business is based on exclusive interviews with top corporate executives at Dell, JetBlue Airways, Deloitte & Touche USA, American Express, Madison Square Garden Corp., and Harvard Business School, all of whom are Mormons.