Page 8 - June 2020 Track N Times

OPERATIONS UPDATES

Operational Excellence Coins

Congratulations to the following
employees recognized with an
Operational Excellence Coin!

Tanner Polomny, Superintendent RG412 was nominated by Scott Diercks for the Director’s Coin Rail Grinding for
Quarter 1 2020

I am delighted to extend my congratulations and honor you by bestowing you with the first ever RG Division Di-
rector’s Operational Excellence Coin for your exemplary display of safety leadership.

Early into 2020, Tanner was with his Asst. Supt working to understand the knowledge of each employee on his ma-
chine. During this exchange, Tanner had an idea on how to better represent Operations Field Personnel in an up-
coming safety meeting by ensuring those responsible for safety would play a more active role in the conversation.
Previous startup meetings exemplified the traditional classroom setup where a teacher would lecture while stu-
dents would quietly receive the message. Tanner envisioned collaborating with his crew and peers to gather feed-
back prior to the meeting to increase the level of the Operations Team engagement. “Each person would stand in
front of everyone and talk and then ask if there were any questions. All you would see was blank faces. So, with
that going through my head that’s when I decided to create a list. I wanted to kind of put everyone on the spot so
I could raise some heads in the room and start a legitimate conversation working towards solutions to our every-
day problems out in the field.”
Tanner developed a document of issues and concerns with is crew and peers to drive the conversation. “I had a
big list that I eventually slimmed down. I can’t remember who it was from the railroad that came up to me after
the meeting and said, Tanner you could have warned us a little bit. I smiled and said no this was the point of it. I
felt like we got way better results than we ever have.”

No matter how inspiring or influential we believe ourselves to be, until it translates into actual results in the real
world, it’s not leadership. Just good intentions. Tanner’s actions drove others into action to engage in the safety
conversation and raised our employees’ overall safety awareness. This is what I want solid leaders do. As Tanner
puts it, “We are the backbone of the company and are out here to work. Everyone wants to hear the solutions to
their everyday issues or concerns, so we are putting pens and paper in these guys hands to make those accountable
to not lose sight of the big picture.”
Well done Tanner!

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