A couple of months after the statement of corporate purpose and values was finished, Riley and Irwin toured all of the company's outlying terminals, bouncing along in the company motor home. (They now meet at least once a quarter with all 150 or so drivers.) Riley's basic message was that his job would no longer be to push employees, but rather to make it easier for them to push themselves. "We want you to be happy," he told them. "We want you to get to the point where 95% of you wouldn't consider quitting."
He also vowed to wipe out incentive systems that are so unfair that employees feel driven to cheat -- no more focusing on the sheer volume of work at the expense of examining how it is done. "The better systems you give employees, the more they increase their effort," he says. "Cutting out frustration is what enables people to work harder. And it is my job to do just that."
Late last fall Riley used pallet jacks, the electric lifts used to move cargo around loading docks, to test his new theory. R. J. Conlon, the night operations manager, had been complaining for months that the dock workers needed more pallet jacks. But it wasn't worth trying to convince Riley. "If you couldn't show how the pallet jacks would contribute directly to the company's growth, you'd have a hard time getting by me," Riley says. But in November, still hearing grumbling, Riley simply spent $60,000 to lease 30 additional pallet jacks. "I felt it was going to create happiness among our dockpeople," he says. "How much is that worth? I think it's incalculable."
The pallet jacks brought benefits he hadn't anticipated. Under the bonus system, dock workers without pallet jacks couldn't earn as much money because they couldn't move the heavier skids. Fights often erupted. Or workers would have to stop in the middle of building a pallet to chase around a pallet jack. And as Latzko points out, "When you are frustrated, you treat the freight with less regard." Having their own jacks gave workers a sense of ownership.
Turnover had been worst among the dock workers. Now, it has nearly ceased, Epstein reports. And the dock supervisors are relieved that they don't have to spend their time refereeing between bickering employees. "When you improve a system by 10%, you get 1,000% improvement throughout the company," Riley says. "If you throw people money, they won't be happier for long. They'll be happy until they figure out how to spend it."
"It's a real simple change in philosophy," Mike Irwin says. "Instead of saying, 'Let's get them to do it, and if we can't, let's just get somebody else,' it's 'Why don't we see if there's a problem with the system."
Riley is moving quickly. He has eliminated the company's grading system. He has installed radios, air conditioners, and cassette decks in the new trucks. For a time, he made it his job to meet with his New Jersey drivers every Monday at 6:30 a.m. at the local diner. He would nod and take notes as they told him their problems. That deep hole in the yard is catching our landing gear. Can you look into the union's new dental plan? Riley tries not to take their complaints personally. "I don't assume they mean it that way anymore," he says. And firing people, as Marilyn Montorio puts it, is a "a no-no around here. People handle people now. They don't just get angry. They are dealing with each other."
Which is not to say that Walter Riley has given up on his big plans. He's still after growth. "This may cost us short term," he says, "but next year profits will double." Then he catches himself shooting from the hip. He now knows when he is acting impulsively. "Or maybe," he adds, "it will happen the year after that."
Riley still pushes the company, but there is a more tempered quality to it. "We are giving it our all, but we're doing what's realistic," Crawford says. "Walter has really calmed down."
Riley forces himself to slow down and listen to problems before trying to solve them. "That new employee who was supposed to start today didn't show up or call -- what should I do?" Crawford asks. "Maybe she couldn't call," Riley suggests. Even Crawford raises her eyebrows, surprised that he is willing to go that far. "I never expected him to say that," she admits.
But even if Riley is wrong, he's not going back to his old ways. As the management meeting ends, he slips his brown leather jacket over his white V-neck sweater -- the one he always wears, with the G.O.D. insignia -- walks down the steps and across the loading dock. It is only 6 p.m. In a few hours the place will be stuffed with pallets.
Riley speaks forgivingly of his father, who now runs a courier service nearby. "My father didn't know how to change his beliefs about himself or about people," he says. "I'm doing that. I feel loved by a lot of people. I feel more of everything."
He pauses for a moment, turning to look back at the terminal bays, still calm before the nightly storm. "This feels good," he says. Then he catches himself again. "More than that," Walter Riley adds, "it feels right."
