What's Our Culture?

Recently, I attended a W.R. Berkley Presidents' Meeting in Greenwich, Connecticut. This was the fourth such meeting I've attended since we were acquired by W.R. Berkley Corporation a year ago. The President's Meetings are not a time for entertainment or relaxation. Our meetings begin early in the morning and last all day. These meetings are an integral part of the management process at W. R. Berkley and play an important role in establishing the agendas that are set in each individual Berkley Company

In prior meetings we have focused on "performance gaps" - those lapses between our best intentions and reality, and the need for a sense of urgency in closing those distances in our fast paced world. When our expectations and reality do not agree, we have a performance gap.

Evidence based management was the theme of last month's meeting. In simple terms, this means making decisions based on best logic and evidence, not ideology, obsolete knowledge, "gut feeling", bias or hype.

Next month I'll be back in Greenwich attending a different type of management meeting designed for individuals in leadership roles that are new to the W. R. Berkley organization. One of the topics on the program is "our culture". As part of the advance preparation for the program, I had to describe the culture of American Mining. Since turning in my assignment, I've wondered if my description of our culture would agree with our employees' description. Are we true to our mission statement, "To give our policyholders and other clients the assurance that they are getting a quality, fairly priced product delivered by a friendly staff, emphasizing integrity in every action?"

Let me know what you think. There is no right or wrong answer. Please email me your thoughts.

Chandler F. Cox, Jr.

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A Talk with Toni Shelnutt, Birmingham Office

Toni joined American Mining almost 2 months ago, but she's lived in Alabama her whole life.

What did you do before working here? I handled Self Insured Workers' Comp claims for a long time and prior to that I worked for a Workers' Comp insurance company.

Have you lived in Alabama long? If not, where did you come from/grow up? I've lived in Alabama all my life and grew up in Morris, just north of Birmingham.

Tell us a little about what you do? Workers' compensation has always been a challenge and you never learn it all.  Every day is different, which is great.    

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