Why is it so hard to take the wisdom that we gain from our most meaningful personal experiences and translate them into good practice at the workplace? Most of the time we accept that is just the way the world of work operates. As a result, the company culture sputters along with its impersonal systems.

I challenge individuals to think differently. Personal lessons do not have to stay within our private borders. In fact, they are a fountain out of which flows our public creativity.

During the 1980s I founded an economic development and human rights agency in El Salvador, Guatemala, and surrounding countries. Many of the tools I use in leadership workshops or company boardrooms today evolved from group dynamics I experienced with peasant farmers in a corn field. And when I was working as an investment banker several years ago, I often drew on the mistakes and successes of my seed capital experiments with village economies. Obviously, the context and scale change, but the core of what really matters to people translates.

In that light, I read a fascinating interview this past week with David Neeleman, the CEO and founder of JetBlue. Neeleman tells the Harvard Business Review (March 2005) how deeply his business philosophy was shaped by a church community service experience in the slums of Brazil. While still a college student, Neeleman took two years off from his studies to go on a mission that required him to live with the desperately poor. The lessons he learned in the favelas, Neeleman reports, today provide the inspiration for his airline's corporate culture.

For starters, Neeleman was troubled by the vast inequities of privilege and poverty he saw firsthand in Brazil. Note that JetBlue today tries to eliminate stark differences that affect how customers are treated. The airline offers only one class of seats. In fact, the seats that have the most legroom are the situated at the back for those people who have to get off the plane last. In-flight services as well are offered to all customers with equal attention. In return, JetBlue enjoys an unusual depth of customer loyalty. Respect for the individual customer evidently shines through.

Neeleman reinforces that same egalitarian spirit in the corporate office. No one enjoys reserved parking, and the coffee served at the office is the same kind that attendants are served at the employee lounge at airports. Whenever Neeleman takes a business flight on JetBlue, he jumps in and serves drinks and nuts with the flight crew.

Neeleman also seeks to create opportunities for JetBlue employees to support each other. He set up a crisis fund for JetBlue employees that goes beyond standard corporate health benefits. Every worker can donate voluntarily from their paycheck to the JetBlue Crewmember Crisis Fund. Funds are disbursed to employees when a crisis strikes - an elderly parent falls suddenly ill and a worker needs childcare to take care of an urgent situation.

Neeleman sums up how all of these practices impact JetBlue's corporate culture better than I could ever do: "When employees know they're coming to a great job where they get full benefits - and that if something terrible happens to them the other employees will help them out - they do their best work, and they serve their customers well."

Neeleman inspires us to bring the best of who we are to the workplace so that we can bring more soul to our company culture.

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