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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with John Medlin, May 24, 1999. Interview I-0076. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

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:
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:
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.