The Miner Corporation Is “Dancing with Elephants”
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Fortune Small Business featured Miner in the September 2004 edition. The article, “Dancing with Elephants”, explored what small businesses could learn from behemoths such as Dell, GE, and Southwest.
The Miner Executive team recently attended a Southwest Airlines session with consultant Rita Baily. The session focused on Southwest’s University for People. According to Baily, “Competitors can copy everything else: the planes, the pricing, the no-frills style, but the secret weapon is the people”. She further stated that “if people don’t have a sense of identity, then it becomes just a job.” The session culminated in a tour of Southwest University for People where new recruits are sent for orientation and indoctrination into Southwest’s culture.
Immediately following the team’s from the best practices session at Southwest Airlines, “Phil Miner, CEO of Miner, returned home and established Miner U. The Miner U facility is located in New Braunfels, Texas and has a similar goal as Southwest Airlines. [Miner] wants to impart to his 70 employees a sense of company history. He wants to make sure, for example, that employees know that Safeway is an honored customer that has stuck with the company from the beginning. Exhibit A at Miner U is a Remington Model 1 typewriter that Miner’s father used during the early lean and hungry years. ‘It’s a reminder of our roots and of how far we’ve come,’ says Miner.”
Information taken from Fortune Small Business September 2004
The Miner Executive team recently attended a Southwest Airlines session with consultant Rita Baily. The session focused on Southwest’s University for People. According to Baily, “Competitors can copy everything else: the planes, the pricing, the no-frills style, but the secret weapon is the people”. She further stated that “if people don’t have a sense of identity, then it becomes just a job.” The session culminated in a tour of Southwest University for People where new recruits are sent for orientation and indoctrination into Southwest’s culture.
Immediately following the team’s from the best practices session at Southwest Airlines, “Phil Miner, CEO of Miner, returned home and established Miner U. The Miner U facility is located in New Braunfels, Texas and has a similar goal as Southwest Airlines. [Miner] wants to impart to his 70 employees a sense of company history. He wants to make sure, for example, that employees know that Safeway is an honored customer that has stuck with the company from the beginning. Exhibit A at Miner U is a Remington Model 1 typewriter that Miner’s father used during the early lean and hungry years. ‘It’s a reminder of our roots and of how far we’ve come,’ says Miner.”
Information taken from Fortune Small Business September 2004
