Personal relationships and time management are principal challenges
Medlin describes his goals as a business leader and his position's challenges. He focused on time management and maintaining personal relationships with clients, coworkers, and others.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with John Medlin, May 24, 1999. Interview I-0076. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JOSEPH MOSNIER:
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Tell me, can you sketch just in a broad way the amount of your time that
it was taking those years when you were CEO attending to the whole range
of regulatory concerns and sort of a general sketch of the ways in which
the bank staffed that issue?
- JOSEPH MOSNIER:
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I always stopped periodically and said, 'Now, who do I work for?' in a
way of ordering priorities and time. Who do I work for? I work for
shareholders. I work for employees. I work for customers. I also work
for the public interest. In terms of allocating my time, I had to stop
and make sure I wasn't neglecting one of these to the exclusion of the
other and try on the one hand to know as many people, I tried to know
everybody in the company. I tried to know as many customers as possible.
I tried to know certain major shareholders and be accessible to certain
shareholders. I've tried to participate in the public arena with the
Governor or the local alderman or the sheriff, whoever was important. It
was possible to delegate obviously a lot of that. People have a way of
wanting to talk to the boss or Chief Executive or headman or who ever it
is when they call in and have a problem and have a need. So it was a
difficult juggling act. You obviously had your family at home too. I
didn't list them in my responsibilities, but they obviously take equal
priority along with all those others of the constituents I mentioned. I
just had to on a given day in a given month in a given year to try to
plan and organize my time so that each one got my time and attention and
effort.