I want to work with Idris Jala………

Most of us may be unaware about this interesting personality Idris Jala. Idris Jala led the state-controlled Malaysia Airlines from brink of bankruptcy to record breaking profits. Now he wants to become what he calls a “five star value carrier”.

When Idris Jala became CEO at Malaysia Airlines, his goal was to keep the carrier flying. Now he wants to create a new breed of air services. Much has happened in his three years of intervention. Malaysia airlines, the southeast Asian country’s national carrier, was less than four months away from running out of cash when Jala took charge,in December 2005. In such a short notice he had no chance to change the organization culture and structure. The whole process would have taken a year’s time. At the same time he has to deal with inadequate yield management, an inefficient network, and poor cost control.

He straightforward attacked the anomalies in profit and loss statement (P&L). In his first board meeting he asked members “If you have to control the costs, you just go and cut the costs. If your network is inefficient, get rid of routes that are bleeding cash. And if you have problem with low yield, fix the yield.” What else you can expect from a man with no prior experience in airlines industries comes, studies P&L statement for one hour and next hour calls its board and picks up the problem. He even went to the extent of selling off of airlines headquarters for Rs. 191 crore that helped him to run the industry for 20 more days.

Then he made the turnaround plan for airlines public. Publishing helped the industry to build a winning coalition not only with the government but also with other stakeholders, like unions, the staff, and the public. Being upfront about P&L and making it all transparent were very important to bringing coalition together. With a bit of stability coming up in two months he set up small labs where he insisted on asking the experts to work on problems and come up with fast and sustainable results that can be implemented. The labs worked on profitable routes and business solutions. Today, the industry has individual P&L statement for each route-by day, by month, by flight number all data counting up to 160,000 P&Ls, which he receives everyday on his blackberry sharp at 5pm.

For any work that seems to be impossible to you, provides you an opportunity. First of all, you must believe deep inside that it can be done. If the leader does not believe in the journey, then it cannot begin. The leader is no one special; to be a leader you do not need followers. If one becomes leader of his own ideas then there would be people to follow you, support you and encourage you. A leader is like someone who cuts a clearing in dense tropical jungle. Everyone else is under the canopy, where they cannot see the sky and it is very depressing. The leader has to bring people over to that clearing, into the space where innovation begins. The single biggest thing a leader brings to a turnaround is hope.

The industry achieved the profits that they estimated to earn by 2008 in 2007 itself. So they have started dreaming big innovations. I want to be part of this industry where your innovations get reflected in P&L statement, where all dare to live their dreams.