Please give a round Malcolm to my guest
and tell Young Joc it Rick Norman.

Well thank you Barry and

May for omitted to tell you that she
actually is in turn with our company for

a couple of years now so
it's great to see you here and some other.

Norfolk Southern folks around as well and
thanks for

the introduction and
I am delighted to be here I thought.

That I would come down it's always a
pleasure to come back to Georgia Tech and

I thought I'd come down and try and chat
today for a few minutes about some things

that I think are important
about not just our business but

any business and important in terms of
the way that you think about this so

for those of you expectant civil engineers
who are thinking that we have a long

conversation about civil engineering in
the railroad we can do that later this is

going to be much more of
a business frame discussion if you

will and the title I chose because
it's something we're thinking a lot

about these days is our core
culture our corporate culture.

And part of that goes in fact to this
saying which I have half joking that

my goal is to shake every every
employee's hand in Norfolk Southern and

by best guesses I'm probably about
a third of the way there but

we have a lot of folks out there.

When I think about corporate
culture my personal

thinking about that has
really evolved over

a long time now I think you mentioned
I began as a co-op with one of

our predecessors the Southern Railway that
was in one thousand nine hundred seventy.

Which seems I mean unimaginably long ago.

And to me and to confirm for
most of you who clearly weren't born and

then back then the earth's crust
in fact was still warm and

and Georgia Tech students had to take
something called drown proofing and if you

ever want to hear about that anyone of
my vintage can tell you all about it but

I went to work for the railroad I was very
fortunate I was a kid who loved trains and

so my life story has been one
of the mince good fortune

all the way through it in almost
every dimension knock on wood and

I have obviously a wonderful job for
a wonderful company today but

when you go to work for a company and
really when it's the only company of any

size that you've ever worked for you don't
really think that much about culture

the corporate culture what is a corporate
culture and how do you define it and

how do you think about it and in fact
I was having a conversation this is

a long time ago about this whole subject
when we were beginning to think more and

more about it about gee what's
our corporate culture at

Norfolk Southern And
I said you know I really don't know

I could not tell you today what
our corporate culture is and

this guy was a consultant said well that's
easy we have a saying it wasn't a fish

who figured out there was water right
it's just the environment you live in but

it turns out and I've come to
believe this more and more and

more that it's tremendously important
in terms of the success particularly

the success over a longer term of any any

corporation any company any enterprise
of any size and we have thought and

thought more about it my
thinking has evolved on it and

what we have done is
set out over a period.

I guess seven or

eight years now to very consciously think
about who we are as a company and what I.

Values are and
how we go about talking about ballet and

creating the right corporate culture and
what I want to do for

just a couple of minutes is
talk about that journey and

journey is one of the by
the way in a lot of

how many of you are in business education
a business education program right.

That's it well good good you get you hear
all this terrible gobbledygook right

you start talking about
synergistic integration and

you know just stuff and let me just
say this if you're in a class and

you hear that your eyes glaze over
that's the appropriate response.

But it turns out that all of this stuff

some of the some of that you pull
out is really important and real and

as I say we have started down this
journey a word that is used way

too much but in fact is somewhat
accurate of thinking about and

trying to avoid in our
corporate culture so

let me go way back if you work for
a railroad it is the railroad culture for

many years many many years was
defined by the fact that we.

Often thought of after the military as the
second great wave of organizations with

far flung and
geographically operations and

because of that because we came after the
military it should come as no surprise to

you that as the railroads really evolved
and took off was which was in the middle

of the one nine hundred century in
the late one thousand nine hundred three

a lot of the people who ran will roads
were generals were former generals and

in fact we have row after row portraits
of all these generals on both sides who

who ran small roads and so

a lot of the operations and a lot of
the thinking behind them was driven by.

Military thinking and that's that's
not inappropriate because we're

organizations that even
today have to live by rules

we have to have very
structured environments and

we have to live by rules because
if you don't live by rules and

you don't follow the rules
extraordinarily bad things can happen and

I'll give you an example
the LACMA gothic crude oil

train derailment up in Canada which killed
fifty some people was just a terrible

tragedy and it's very clear
that you had a case of someone

not complying with the operating rules so
that's the stuff that can happen so

you have you have an organization
set up by the military and

which you have to live by rules
you have to have discipline.

For those folks who don't follow the rules
in fact you ultimately can't tolerate

them in the organization but at the same
time you have to have an environment and

almost what I would call it and
a spree on the part of your people to

get the work done because they are not
particularly an operating division and

I came up in the operating division
they're not easy places to work all

the time the railroad is a twenty
four seven right outdoor sport

we have twenty some thousand
miles of operating well load.

It think of it as twenty thousand
model assembly line out of doors and

we run you know we run all the time
in all kinds of conditions and

we expect a significant amount
from the folks that work force and

it's a great business in that people who
go to work for the railroad in general

our theory is if you stay three years
you're going to make a career of it and

a lot of people stay because it's a very
interesting business it kind of sucks you

in and it's you know it's there a lot of
activity there's a lot of complexity and

you're out there doing stuff that's a.

Port that makes a difference for you know
the economy for our country as well as for

our company so
we had a very going back ten years or so

we had a very performance oriented
organisation very very focused on safety.

And very much along the lines of we
expect compliance we will watch for

compliance we do a lot of rules checks and
rules test and

we will run it in a very
very disciplined way and

that was our culture and it did very well
for us our companies been successful for

a long long time well I became C.E.O..

About seven and a half years ago and
when I became C.E.O.

We kind of in a started in
a different direction but

we started to have a conversation about
who we are and our value system and

we're we wanted the company to go as
a senior senior team and out of that

company out of that conversation rather
came to something called the Spirit values

S P R I T safety right performance.

Integrity respect innovation and
teamwork and

we said those will be our Those are our
core values and I will tell you the inside

story of this we actually we came
up with these these words and

these initials and I was looking at them
and I said you know if we had one more

I we could spell spirit and somebody said
well what about innovation you know and

I said great and that's how we
got spirit values they couldn't

otherwise I think it was a spree and
that just wasn't quite as good and.

But we started the problem Kate them and
try as hard as we could to

promulgated them in a lot of different
ways certainly by talking about them

certainly by trying to do everything
that we could we be senior.

To to left that wall and

you'll hear a lot of phrases in business
about the shadow of a leader and you know.

Lacking the talk and all of that and then
in turns out they're all true you know

I was a parent that equally have a very
strange job in the sense that I have

become aware I became aware very quickly
a lot of people watch me all the time it's

kind of unnerving right you know but they
do they do they just you know they watch

what I do they watch what I say that watch
where I go and as a result it's a great

opportunity right in some ways but
it also is as I say somewhat unnerving.

But we started promulgating these
values we started promulgating them.

Out through revising redoing it
took staking a long time and

it's still an imperfect process our hope
reform and surprise will process annually

to incorporate you know incorporate
some of these values into

how we appraise people's performance in
the company started to doing some really.

Things that were counter-cultural
we started to say you know

from now on we're not going to promote
the people who are necessarily you know

the people who are getting
the job done and of and

of Senates we're going to promote the
people who are getting the job done but

who embody the right values and
there was a change force.

In the past particularly operating
division which is about eighty five

percent of our company would promote
people who got a great job done and

you know the fact that there were extra
shipments of body bags going out on

a regular basis to him didn't
matter didn't matter so

we started to change that and so
that it was rocking along and

it seemed to be good and
the chief operating officer who.

Our chief operating officer has got
a marked man you know who is the hero of

the story by the way and I and
will say you know we're we got this thing.

This thing's going in the right direction
and to some extent I think it was but.

It was it turns out that wow every one of
the you could rack up to anybody in our

company I think any almost anyone and
say Tell me what the Spirit values are and

they were to rattle them off right but
they didn't

there were a lot of people were saying
Yeah but you know you're saying it but

that's not where we are that's not
what this company is really about and

this was the one home to us in a very real
way about two and a half years ago now.

And it's part of openness and
part of our These things I have a.

Place on our website something called Ask
quick where anybody in the company and I

think we have I think we have Twitter like
limits on the characters of a few more but

than honored forty but anyway anybody in
the company can ask me any question they

want and they send them in I
thought at first I might do a blog

I was persuaded that was a really
bad idea and and it would have been.

But we put this ask quick thing out and so
the first thought was Will anybody send

a question in or will I get like a hundred
and then no more are what I have and

it turns out no they keep on coming
all the time which is a really useful

good thing because I kind of allows me
to hear the voice of a lot of people and

most of the questions come from

I said about eighty five percent of
our company is operating division

it turns out about eighty five percent
of our company is also in a union.

And most of the questions most all the
questions come from people who are what we

call agreement employees and
they range from G. Can you help me do this

as an individual to why on earth
isn't the company doing that right.

And to the extent that they're public and
I come up with an answer and

we post the answers on the web page and
it's all good and people like it.

But I got an ass quick about safety.

And I'll digress for
a minute about safety in our company.

We the readers are inherently not
a particularly friendly environment

to work in there's a lot of stuff out
there that's you know heavy hard to handle

with out in all kinds of weather
all kinds of working environments

all kinds of footing lots of
moving the Quitman right.

All around you and.

It's as I say it's got inherently
It's got a risk out there and

a company many years ago twenty five
twenty six years ago now we were

you know we were having about five or
six injuries for

two hundred thousand report what
they call reportable injuries and

they're This is defined by
the government of so many injuries per

two hundred thousand man hours and
that's why if you get out in the world and

you start looking at statistics around
safety and things like that the that's

the accepted number which two hundred
thousand man hours and so we were

walking along at five or six and we were
cage Lee winning the industry award for

the safest place and it's called was
called the Hellman gold medal and

everybody kept track of statistics in
the end every year who had the safest big

railroad won the Herman gold medal and a
company went down a path about twenty five

or twenty six years ago working with Du
Pont who is kind of the gold standard of

safety in a lot of industries and we
drove that number down a brown one OK and

it just went steadily down and
the good news is that's a lot let's

fewer people getting hurt
right on the company and

the better news was every other railroad
saw it happening and followed it stamped.

In terms of the techniques and
that we were using but

we won the Helmand gold medal for
twenty four consecutive

years now this is kind of you know

Joe Dimaggio kind of territory this
was I used to say that they were

tired of the word unprecedented after
fifteen years nobody ever won it for

more than four in a row we won the thing
for twenty four but it created a certain

set of issues and I'll talk about them
in a second Anyway I get an ass quick

from a guy in agreement employees a
yardmaster in Asheville North Carolina and

he says if we ever thought about
behavioral science using behavioral

science at Norfolk Southern to
to take us to the next step

in terms of employee safety and remember
we are totally focused on safety right.

And I thought well I'm not aware of it and

I sent this email on to Mark Mannion
our chief operating officer and

he wasn't aware of it and
he said let's let's explore this and

we happen to know what firm the name
firm is already Daniels incorporated.

Through some other interactions and
we said let's bring them in and let's

talk about this and talk about our safety
process when we bring our Daniels in and

the first thing they say is Well we we be
very interested in working with you and

we may be able to help you but
the first thing we've got to do

is do a survey do an employee survey
to see what's really going on well.

What's the downside this is this is not
a trick question what's the downside

of doing an employee survey.

You feel like you've got to do something
about the results right you know you

don't want to just do it and say yeah we
saw that but we you know we threw it away.

So we kind of held our breath a little
bit my Mark said let's do this or.

And we sent these folks out and

they did a lot of focus groups out in
folks in the union folks not in the union

all across the aisle in the operating
partment out at various locations and.

Did it online survey focus groups all that
we got to know back with the results and

the know what was this thick and
if I can sum it up.

Essentially it was a whole bunch of people
and the big message that came out of it

was we love our jobs we
really like the railroaders

people a den of five themselves
including me as railroaders but

we think you guys have it totally wrong
in terms of managing the company.

OK And the interesting thing about it it
wasn't a lot of rants it was all right you

know you morons you know blah blah blah it
was all about the way we treated people.

And the way that they felt
that they were valued and

the way that we managed
around things like safety.

And it was it was really interesting
I was near an interesting it was.

It was more than interesting.

And so we had a conversation Marc and
I had a conversation about this thing and

keep in mind this was two thousand and
eleven we were on our way to record

results and we were on our way to
our best safety year ever OK so

resonant like we thought things were
broken and in fact it would have

been very very easy to say bunch of
malcontents right we just have to get

the wrong group if we got the other crowd
they would have said how great we are.

And and Mark said.

And I fully agreed and
supported He said no

we're going to fix this this is
not the kind of company we want.

And so.
We embarked on this journey which we

are now two some years into
bringing these people in

to talk about behavior and talk about
behaviors across the company and

it's absolutely fascinating stuff because
it's all it's it's so easy right.

Not easy a big point it's so
simple it's all of the stuff

that you learned in theory
at your mother's knee right

positive reinforcement when you see
people doing good things right.

Get out there and tell them and
don't just say at a boy or at a girl or

at a guy or whatever you want to say tell
them specifically what it is you did

a great job of handling that switch you
know I really like the way that you

did this task and here are the reasons
why and keep up with positive

reinforcement and when you see something
wrong correct it but have a conversation

about it as to why it's the wrong
thing to do and if you have issues and

you have to use you know discipline you
use it you don't not handle things but

you focus on conversation
interaction with employees and

positive reinforcement right
what they call our Plus I mean.

Right how easy how easy can it get.

But it wasn't the one we did business I
tell you the interactions we had with

folks were mostly Hey why did you do
that wrong it was very really thanks for

doing a good job in doing X. Y.
and Z. right in fact it was.

Countercultural for a lot of us.

And so what do we do when we hired up we
signed up with our Daniels We have trying

all of our and all of our management
in operations and in fact we sold.

Results were so encouraging so
positive we're now doing it across

all of Norfolk Southern and
we are now actually in the process of

even put sending our union employees
to have to training sessions.

Now.

How do we feel about it so
far we feel really really really good but

the evidence is still anecdotal but
there are great they're just hundreds and

hundreds of great stories out there you
know one of my favorites is we had a union

local chairman local representative
who's a conductor and

he was out on a crew he and an engineer
and he had been known for having

an attitude about things and I think he'd
been dismissed once and came back and.

We we do we do these rule
checks with people out

what the are in the railroad business
is in the bushes right unannounced

watching people and they were out on
a we had a couple of employees and

they were doing a rule check and
they were watching this crew and

they watched them at one location
they went down the railroad and

they got to the next location and here
comes this crew and this this this little

Chairman this is an elaborate e-mail
he's writing to the division manager and

he says you know I saw him coming and I
thought no what on earth are they going to

say and they got up there and they started
saying you know you did this at the last

stop and that was that was exactly
the way you're supposed to do it and

they kind of went down the list
of everything they he'd done and

told him why he had done well with it and

they got to one thing at the end and
they said Now we noticed you did this and

you know this could really get
you in trouble if you did it for

the following reasons and

he wrote an e-mail in the end e-mail
ended that with him saying you know for

the first time ever and this guy has
been out there a long time I thought

these people were trying to help me
keep my job rather than get much out and

we're seeing you know all kinds of
this kind of thing and we move.

Away from what we called
the gotcha mentality.

So so you know as you do this and
we're two years into it

the first thing that everybody says is
Well gee this is quite right you know and

in Chattanooga these will shop
there's a lot of that going on and

everybody's listening to trying to listen
to everybody about how is the best way to

do this but you know when you've got one
hundred one hundred eighty years old

you know I was there really
a lot of us were and.

So there's this enormous kind of gee
this is better but is this going to last

you know show me how this is going to
how this is going to sustain itself so

there's a lot of skepticism that we
have to overcome some of which we have

interesting Lee enough the first thing
we did and it sent a very powerful

message the organization and
you can't discount the idea the symbolic

gestures is the every day news people
came back to us in the survey and

they said we could not find one
person out there who had anything

good to say about the Herman
gold medal the safety award and

we kind of knew that Mark and I both had
talked about the fact that this thing it

become a millstone around our neck and
I would get e-mails occasionally isn't it

true that you me personally make more
money if we win the Herman gold medal and

there was this perception that we were
doing it to win the award rather than to

keep people safe and so
I called up my peers the C.E.O.'s and.

The other big companies and

I said you know we just feel like this
thing is outlived its usefulness and

we're we want to out we don't
want to do it anymore and

interestingly enough two of
the three within one minute had

said we're completely there and the third
said let me talk to one person in and

he called me back right away unsaid.

We're out to and we shut the thing
now after all these years and

that sent a really really important signal
to our employees that we were serious

about safety and about doing things
differently now let me tell you kind of

the downsides one downside which we
were told is expect your safety record

to get a little worse and in fact it has
it hasn't gotten materially worse and

in most ways major indicators it's fine
but we had so much pressure on people

about safety that we knew that we
had things happening out there that

weren't being reported one being reported
by the employees that two had happened.

And we also knew that we every year or
two we'd find a manager who was covering

something up and had to deal with that and
we dealt with it every time but

people didn't see that so we think safety
gets even better from here forward but.

It'll be a process the second thing
that's really the hardest thing is

how do you how do I know
five years from now

that we're still doing this that we
have it in grained in our culture and

the interesting thing is the eighty I
people have tools just and very simple

tools in terms of conversations and
organized ways of thinking about and

reporting on what you're doing in terms of
positive reinforcement and they seem to

be very effective and so kind of
the bottom line on this culture stuff and

trying to change culture is
usually where you want to go and

the ways you want to get
there are really simple right

it's simple minded stuff this
is not complex psychiatry but

it's not easy in fact it's really hard and
it takes a lot of work and

it takes a long time but as you go out
all of you who are students here and

a lot of you will be entrepreneurs and

hopefully spark start small organizations
that get bigger and a lot of you.

Go to work for
big companies it is at the end of the day

other than the purely the fundamentals of
the business in my opinion it's the single

biggest determinant of who succeeds
over the long term and who fails so

that's my simple parable for
the day OK All right.

I'm exhausted but I'm more than
willing to have a drink of water and

take questions about anything that
you would like to talk about or

have I stunned you all into submission.

No applause required I do want to talk
about civil engineering at the roar.

There's one back there
thank you by the way and

this is a guilty secret I never practiced
a day of civil engineering in my life

I got out they were on a dollar civil
engineers that's how I got my co-op job I

went straight into a management program
it was very useful it was great stuff.

But I didn't I didn't do it yeah I
don't even remember what it is so

this is not about civil engineering
actually graduate from U.C.

Knoxville so
I work it would Pacific downtown So

how do you communicate to
a manager early that doesn't have.

A feed of response can you hear me

not not completely You worked at G.P.
downtown OK and

have some luncheon from talk unfortunately
not a civil engineer and wants out OK.

So how do you communicate dissatisfaction

in the way you've been treated by
a manager that doesn't have a feeder

you know is coming to meet sometimes
it's hard to have better skosh.

But it's an important discussion so

you know it's a fair it's a discussion
that's fraught with peril.

In some ways right.

We.

We actually early on.

Right before this started we we
have taught a course to a lot of

what I describe as lower middle
level managers called crucial

conversations and
it was really a course for people to

understand how to have a conversation
with someone about difficult issues.

I thought you were agreeing with me or
trying to hold me down or something OK.

But but those are different those are very
difficult conversations to have and.

The best thing I always believe the best
thing you can do if you ever and I have

an issue with someone that works for you
or that you work for is go is go have that

conversation and just say you know you can
always do it in a respectful way and you

have to kind of think through how they're
going to respond to it but I have never.

There are people that just one
respond well to anything but

that's the minority of people you go in
and you just say look this is something

I think is an issue and I just want
to have the conversation with you and

then lay out your issues in
a factual non emotional basis and

see where it goes and that's all you can
do right and they but those conversations

happen in a business like ours they're
happening all the time all over and

what you hope what I hope is that as
this culture change is pushed down

through the organization it's allowing
people to have those conversations in

a very different way than they
were than they were before and

it's also rewarding the people
who are keep good at their

job right but are also seen as people
who can have that kind of dialogue and

lead employees rather than hit them with
a stick to make them what they were.

That's a really soft vague answer so.

Yeah.

But just because you.

Don't see your lover more consideration.

About integration I was one of you.

Could you talk a lot about some.

Of the programs we can see.

So there are two different things right.

If ation is there are there
in finance in which I think

innovation in some sense is just more
built into the working environment I'll

give you a great example of that in our
company we have a large significant

number of locomotive maintenance
facilities and car maintenance facilities.

All across the railroad and
they are effectively shops.

And so in a shop environment where and
we have a lot of people who go to work

in those environments because that's they
like to work on those kinds of things they

like to work on equipment right I mean
you know you go to one of our shops and

you look at you know the vehicles in
the parking lot near a lot of people who

are mechanics by nature who go to work
there and I think that that's much more

if you allow it and don't repress
it those those folks are much more

oriented towards figuring out
a better way to do a process so and

the and the issue you have with people
like shops like that is how do you

standardize work and how do you get
innovation spread out across road but

we have done a lot of work in thinking
about innovation and it's a very

difficult subject to foster we
have actually set up we had.

An Innovation Council and we did a lot
to promote people sending in their ideas

we've now taken that out and
kind of made it more of a regional thing.

And we try very hard to foster
anyone who thinks a has

a good idea send it to us and
let us take a look at it we do not and

we've had a lot of debate about this we
don't get financial incentives for people

to people with good ideas and there's
some argument that maybe we should but

I'm not I think we've convinced ourselves
that it doesn't we don't think it would

spur all a lot more thinking that
most people once they realize that

we're open to thinking about a better
way to do things and willing to look

at it they're more than willing to offer
their ideas and in fact I will tell you

we've got more good ideas since we
started the culture change the behavioral

initiatives then we did before by
a long shot because they know when

people are willing to listen we actually
have you know we've had groups of.

Of like train crews right people
in you know in the crafts and

they've gone out we've had teams of people
go out and they've actually figured out

how to improve customer service and
reduce the overtime they get but

they see that as a win because
the customer gets better service and

they understand the importance of that and
that's something we talk about all

the time in our company is
the importance of customer service but

it's a very difficult thing to foster it
particularly in another line organization

an innovative environment and
I think the best way ultimately you foster

an open environment risk taking
is is is a different issue.

We you know I had that conversation with
people on a fairly frequent basis about

don't you know we're more than willing
to take educated risks right if we know.

What the potential is and we know what
where the potential problems are and

we understand the magnitude
of the risk and

we think that it's a reasonable bet to
take we'll take that bet interestingly

enough and our going to zation I think
will up because of our history and

where we've been over the years people
don't necessarily believe that and

I think maybe that's true of
a lot of interest industries but

you know I'm an example of someone.

I was put in charge of
a little operation years ago

that was a big corporate risk and
it didn't work out

at all I mean I'm kind of I tell people
I'm the living embodiment of someone.

You know a corporation who
took a good size risk and

it didn't work but everybody knew.

What could happen and
it had fact the worst happened and

you know it worked out OK so
they should take heart from that but

both are very difficult to deal with and

I think it goes hand in hand with
culture at the end of the day.

I'm not no we don't you know.

And people think we do and we kind of keep
saying no we didn't punish you know what

we do you get that right now we don't
we don't a plaid stupidity right.

I think that's a graceful way of saying
that but if somebody is taking a risk

a smart risk you know and and takes it
with the knowledge of everybody else and

it doesn't work it doesn't work
that's fine we got it right and

we say Go try again yeah now we you know
one of the I forget their strikes five or

six stages of a you know a project in like

number five is punishment of the innocent
yeah and we try to stay away from that.

So our son.

You can use it if you are you take I
was curious it's always a possibility

of being a C.E.O. How do you
possibly answer all those emails.

Were a thousand.

Terribly slow I will let them bunch up for
like two months and then put a flood of

them out it that look I didn't come here
to be made feel made to feel guilty.

And I do but it's hard it's it and but

now there are some number of them that
just go to someone and they take you know

it take it's a personal issue they'll
go to H.R. and they'll deal with it or

something like that and then I kind
of let them by I mean e-mail is

the curse of my life I know I'm like well
you all get funny I get about one hundred.

And.

I was just curious Lewis if you're
going to promote any body here and

all the emails My How do you possibly
answer all those emails well as I say

there are two things about One is I
read a bunch and I get answers in for

you know their cause a lot of questions
come in that I don't know the full answer

or a draft something I
want people look at but

the other thing is to some extent if
you do you do what's important to you

right and I do think at the end of the day
so even I'm not as good as I should be

these are important and I get a lot of
positive feedback and in the field and

I go out in the field as much
as I can saying we really like

people say I really like that week's
page thing I learn a lot from it and

you get that kind of feedback you
say well that's really important and

I'll go ahead and do it now but
yeah email is just horrible.

I guess form and force you can.

I was wondering do you often see core
values as vig words listed on your

company's website yeah have you seen
Spirit actually impact your organization

as a set of core values now you
see embodied an organization.

You know.

You tried to.

Let me answer that in a roundabout way.

When when when you have
the job that I have right

you operate in a perpetual ball.

You if you are insulated
in a thousand ways from

a lot of stuff it gets
very hazy very quickly and

I learned very early after
getting this job that the one

question that I would never get
a straight answer to was how am I doing

right you're doing great right that's
kind of the stock answer it's not

quite that bad I do have people who come
in and tell me very politely that I am.

I'm wrong.

But looking to see how it how
it is impacting the company

you have to look at it really a lot of
anecdotal evidence and then try and

talk to as many people as you can.

I look upon the as I said the values and
the culture of the corporation

they're not something that makes
a difference in in a quarterly.

Income Statement right they're not
necessarily even things that make

a difference in one year what you want for
those values is

the right attitude and a culture that
sustains youth over the long term

of positivism The other thing that
you want out of the culture and

this is a big deal for us and particularly
talking with all of you is you want to

create a culture where people who come
into it like to be there right and

the people who work for you like to be
there I always say you know you're going

to spend if if either of you really want
to get depressed go go home this is.

Go back and compute how much of your
life you're going to spend work right

it's really kind of a sobering
number you know and

you might as well be happy I
mean my career advice all of us

go find something that makes you
happy because life is way too short.

To get stuck in an environment
where you're where you're unhappy

where you don't feel fulfilled where
you're not working in a in a place that

mirrors your values and you're not
working with people you like right and

that's a big part of
this culture thing and

if you look at our company we have
thirty thousand employees give or take.

A third of them wrong in our company
seven years ago so we have been

growing through and we still have some to
go and enormous generational turnover.

Not only in our business but
in a lot of American business and

if you think about it makes sense I was
hired in the one nine hundred seventy S.

That was the last great wave of hiring in
the real world business in the eighty's

and ninety's and really to some extent
you know up until two thousand was a time

of consolidation and downsizing so now we
have this enormous generational turnover

and quite frankly to attract
folks like all of you.

You know to bring you in because you look
at let you know that many most of you

today if they if we went through you know
that the nine hundred seventy Georgia Tech

curriculum and explained to you that
you all had to take Brown proofing and

that included getting thrown in a pool
with your hands tied behind your back for

fifteen minutes a lot of you might say you
know there are other universities where I

don't have to do that right but
you are going to have a lot of great.

Choices in terms of employment and we
want our culture to be the kind of place

where you come and you say you know this
is it this is this is an interesting place

to work the work is good I like the people
and I can have a career here right.

The philosophy of leadership that.

It here and in our program is.

The creation of a much more just caring
and sustainable organization and

I'm convinced by your talk about
the jesting caring that you're

doing inwardly with your interface and
when I was wondering about

the extension of your culture to
your other stakeholders and was

pleasantly informed by looking at
the Internet while you were talking

about your work with the National Fish and
National Fish and Wildlife Yeah.

You know if you received last
the gifts the organization tends

to give to you causes in your community so

can you tell us a little bit about
RA you engage in those kinds of

behaviors beyond beyond you know
urbanization about well let me say from

a sustainable standpoint right if
you look at us on a broad basis and.

Quickly from and I have something of
a penchant for environmental causes

I'm on the Virginia Nature Conservancy
board the Chesapeake Bay Foundation So

one reason we give to
those causes is the C.E.O.

can direct corporate giving some
extent and I'm unashamed about it.

But.

From an environmentalist sustainable
standpoint we kind of ride that we embody

you know from a brand global
sustainability perspective we embody kind

of the really good and the things you
don't talk about so much right the really

good is we're the people who take trucks
off the highway we're the people that move

freight in a more sustainable basis
than any other mode right one

gallon of diesel fuel moves a ton
of freight for one hundred and.

Eighty miles maybe up to five hundred so
it's a great new story and

a lot of environmental
organizations really indorse

really transportations of salt
right that's really good in it

it's terrific twenty five percent
of our business is hauling coal.

Not so good although it's really
profitable and we personally love it so.

And excuse other than it's really
profitable as we have what's called

a common carrier for those of you don't
know there are laws that govern a calm

the common carrier it's a common carrier
statute and because we're a common carrier

if a customer calls us up and
says I have a call of coral and I need for

you to ship it come get it we can argue
with them about the price but we cannot

refuse to go get it right we under the law
have to haul everything that's not

a big deal for court because we wrap
coal as I said but it's a huge deal for

us in hauling something like chlorine
right which is a really big risk for

us so but to me that's the issue
of sustainability it just it

kind of goes hand in hand with everything
else that you're trying to do we go we

cover twenty states right we go through
all these communities and it's incumbent

upon us to be a good neighbor in those
communities and it's incumbent upon us

as a big company not only to give
money away ourselves but to encourage

bless you a lot of giving on
the part of our employees so

we have a big corporate matching program
for gifts and we encourage you know.

I was I was slightly late today because
I was at a United Way luncheon and

in Norfolk You know we
encourage our people to be

active on boards of civic organizations
and things like that that's just part

to me that's just part of
the deal of being a big company

is you need to do those things that's
part of you know the broader you know.

There's this there's this.

Kind of discussion which you can all
have in business class about you know

what is the riddle of a corporation Well
the primary role is to reduce produce

returns for your shareholders but
there's a whole lot more out there and

you've got to have some kind of balance
until you know activists show up and

then you say no our only mission
in life is to produce returns for

our shareholders and
that makes out OK yeah OK

one last last very last Good afternoon
Mr Morgan Connell first year civil

engineering student first year first year
yeah Bush I didn't hear the do engineering

excellence it's the path to the top I
can just say I mean my parents medically

I had a conversation with someone today
at this you watch who was out working for

a visa in San Francisco but
she got a civil engineering degree

and it is in this was the father and he
said she got to something he said she got

to something called Sorrels engineering
and she said well I don't really want

to do this and he said that's fine but
you're going to finish your degree but

let me assure you serious engineering
I thought was a lot of fun so

when you get there don't lose hope OK.

Thanks What's the biggest challenge that
you fees on a daily basis is a C.E.O.

What are some of the toughest choices
that you feel you've had to make.

I have a.

Let me tell you how I describe my job.

I was remember I was a kid up trains
I have a fabulous job and I was.

Extraordinarily blessed and
lucky to get it and anyone who is a C.E.O.

of a major company who doesn't
tell you right up front how

they were extraordinarily fortunate
to get there they're not telling you

everything because it's you've got to be
in the right time at the right place.

In the right age and you've got to work
hard you've got to do all that stuff but

so I'm extraordinarily fortunate to have
it and most of the time I have a great

time I'm having a great time now I have a
great time when I get out on the road and

see all the folks right
wherever wherever they are.

And so eighty ninety percent
of time I have I have I have

the world's best job and then they pay me
just hideous amounts of money to do it.

Until I mean stupid money
in some very real sense and

I cash the checks and
it's all works out really well.

And then ten to twenty percent of
time they don't pay me enough right.

But there's nothing systematically.

That I don't.

You know I just know every
time I'm going to dread it or

that's going to be
particularly difficult or

hard to do it's hard let me say
it's very hard to manage your time.

And to manage your life right and

to make sure that you're paying attention
not only to all of your responsibilities

at the job which are never ending right
but paying attention to family and

paying attention to things the other
things that in a very real sense

are more important but
you can lose sight of that very quickly so

that's a very difficult thing to do there
are things that I find less fun and

interesting I've had for
those of you who a lot in the business

world you know we really you know every
company releases quarterly earnings and

then you have a lot of conversation with
analysts you know I've been through thirty

some quarters right now I can't tell you
have enjoyed one of them even good or

bad you know either good or bad and then
there are moments of abject terror when

you're the business starts to go south
very quickly or something like that but

that's not that's I don't think of
my job that way as what's the harm.

It is our most difficult thing to
do there are difficult decisions

that come up they don't come up every
day but the deal is you make them and

you move forward right and nobody bats a
thousand but I'm I am paid a lot of money

to try to have a very high batting average
that's that's the nature of it you know.

And the the best in the very
best thing at all and

with this the very best
thing about my job.

And I'm not sure I do it very well all
the time but I try very hard to do

is that I am the person who represents
all the great people at our company.

And if I can go out and do that well
then I'm doing a pretty good job for no.

Thank you that was the last question for
YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.