Its ability to see beyond traditional measures of
business performance allowed Southwest Airlines to avoid the rapid
expansion that caused great challenges to even well-known lean
benchmarks (even Toyota fell prey to this temptation, to which the
company attributed safety problems affecting many of its vehicles
that came to light in 2010—a hazard that even mature lean firms can
face, as was cautioned in Going Lean). Instead, Southwest’s strong but
cautious pace has marked its steady advancement;