Your Network Is Your Net Worth by Porter Gale

Author:Porter Gale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

Let People Know You Value Them: Taking Flight

A key to nurturing successful core and secondary circles is to verbally remind those around you or working with you that you value them. At some times in our lives, our core circle will be very influenced by the pursuit of our professional goals. Fred Reid, the founding CEO of Virgin America, had to put his core circle to a test as never before when the start-up airline faced a four-year battle with the Department of Transportation (DOT) to get to launch. “It’s hard to explain how hard the original team worked. It was a four-year, 24/7 adrenaline rush. All the executives took pay cuts and big-time career risks to start the airline,” Reid recalled. “At one point, we were eighteen hours away from not making payroll. Some members of the board wanted us to lay people off. I said, ‘We cannot do that. We have believers here, let’s not make disbelievers of them.’ ” That wasn’t the first nor the last time he would put the needs of the company’s core circle first.

I remember a video, Making of Virgin America, which we shot when I joined the company. The filmmaker said to Reid, “You’ve got some kind of cult here. Every person I interviewed cried because they care so much.” Reid said, “At the core, I cared. You want to give, as you want to get and treat others, as you want to be treated. You don’t have to ask about their families or their dogs, but people can honestly tell when you care. Those people all took a risk to be at the airline.

“After almost four years, the company received yet another tentative disapproval from the DOT. It listed fifty-four conditions, and my resignation was number fifty-two.” Reid recognized that the competitive set was pulling every string to “keep us from flying.” The newest roadblock was that Sir Richard Branson, who is not a U.S. citizen, had hired Reid, and there were claims that Reid might be beholden to foreign interests. Reid laughed at the accusations, but after consulting with the legal department he told his board of directors, “You may not get an airline with me. But if you get me without an airline you’ll lose $480 million and 788 people will lose their jobs.” It was reluctantly decided that Reid would step down, and ultimately the airline received approval for its first flight on August 8, 2007.

“I felt like I had been evicted from the clubhouse. But then I said, it’s not a personal tragedy and it’s not a professional tragedy.” He realized that if he did things right, there was a good chance the airline would succeed. He’d joined Virgin to start an airline, and he had. Although Reid doesn’t think of himself as a religious or spiritual individual, he did say that living in India helped him gain perspective. “I admire the way Buddhists think about acceptance, and sometimes it’s good not to get too attached to things.

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