From Worst to First: Behind the Scenes of Continental's Remarkable Comeback

Chapter 14. Why You Just Read This Book

Remember the story about the ambulance in the valley that I told you in Chapter 5?

It speaks volumes about what it costs not to do some of those things managers like to decide are too expensive—what it costs not to change the oil in an engine, what it costs not to put first-class seats in an airplane or food on the flight. What it costs not to put cheese on the pizza.

But you know, I didn't make up that story. I read it in 1961 in Approach, a Navy aviation safety magazine. And I never forgot it.

The entire point of my writing this book is that maybe one of the examples I've given here, one of the stories I've told, will have the same effect.

This book contains as many stories as I can think of to illustrate why Continental Airlines is so successful. My hope is that in reading at least one of these stories, someone quickly learns a lesson it took me years to learn and that person might take some other broken company, or a broken division, or a broken store, or a broken family for that matter, and help to make it work. 1 want to tell you how it worked here—how it worked for Gordon Bethune and Continental Airlines. Then you can take what applies to you and make it work for you.

So let me capsulize what I've told you—or at least what I think I've told you. I'll kind of run through the chapters, and I'll remind you of what I said. And if your boss or your boyfriend says you really ought to read this book but you hate it, you can just read this chapter ...