Clarity From the Chaos

I feel compelled to share a recollection that changed everything between myself and my former employer, Express Scripts.??

Business historians will someday catalogue Express Scripts (ESI) and its journey through the decades. Different stages for sure and still prospering today as part of the Evernorth group of companies owned by CIGNA. ESI was founded in 1986 with the vision of a greater good and prosperity. Surrounded by people with an amazingly resilient will to succeed, I worked there for nearly 20 years. Solving complex problems should be our legacy.?

The story unfolds in Brainerd Minnesota, about three hours north of Minneapolis. As part of the ESI leadership team, I, along with approximately 35 others, were summoned to a Conference Center for a strategic planning off-site. We recently made two significant acquisitions, so our management team was a blend of native ESI veterans and new members joining the team.?

We all arrived the evening before for some light socializing, food, and beverages. It was quite congenial and broke the proverbial ice for the next two days of more serious and thought-provoking discussions and debates.?

Morning arrives, and the conference is slated to begin promptly at 8 am CT.?

As we walk through the Tavern into the meeting space we are greeted by a fine and friendly gentleman putting things back in place from the night before. He has his 4” Sony TV turned on as he sweeps the Tavern floor. I met up with him at about 7:55 CT. He had stopped what he was doing and moved towards the TV for a closer look and then said out loud: “some darn plane ran into the World Trade Center”.??Well, that was certainly an attention grabber but at the time categorized as a big mistake by a small plane. Certainly, no bad intentions. Wrong. You now know what day it was, what year it was and what happened next. Another plane, horrific intentions and?the rest being historydoes not do the event justice.?

Plan B ensued. The agenda for our meeting was off-track and we went into damage control setting up a quasi-command center in North Country. We had locations all over the country and at the time approximately 12,500 employees. The entire senior leadership team was together, but far-far away from our facilities and teams. And families for that matter.?

We began checking in with everyone and were very concerned that none of our colleagues or their respective loved ones were in harm’s way. There was so much to address. Transportation for people and prescriptions were paramount. Core to our business was getting necessary pharmaceuticals in the hands of millions of Americans in every corner of the country. We had plenty of things to figure out quickly and in as orderly manner as we could muster. We went to work.

At approximately 11:30 AM CT our head of Human Resources, a new member of our management team, a wonderful person and dedicated professional grabs the microphone. She makes the following declaration, and I paraphrase: “Due to the terrible stress and anxiety our team is experiencing across all of our sites, I will be authorizing all site leaders to shut down our facilities at lunchtime. This will enable all to be with their families at this uncertain and frightening time”. I looked around, and no one was really surprised. These were unchartered times and being home with family seemed righteous. The body language was as numb as it had been since about 8 am CT.?

The microphone was quickly passed to our founder and CEO. I’ll never forget his first words: “Au Contraire”. He continued and again I think my memory of what he said serves me well. “Please if any of our people need to check in with loved ones to ensure their safety, we are to do anything we can to assist them. But this is not when we go home. We are an integral part of the healthcare delivery system in this country. And this is when we roll up our sleeves and get to work. We don’t go home. We go to work. There are countless people across the country that are dependent on the prescriptions we send to them and processes we manage. Now let’s figure out how we best operate with the situation and limitations in front of us”.

Such clarity and mission at a time of fright and chaos. I’ll never forget it nor the effect it had on my personal relationship with Express Scripts, the enterprise. I’m a communications guy and an observer of corporate cultures that are driven by values, mission’s, visions, statements of purpose and every other imaginable attempt to adorn conference room walls with the right stuff. The range of effectiveness for such declarations are all over the map. There is talk the talk, and then there is walk the talk. Don’t we all know.?

With all of us aligned and energized we stayed focused. One amazing effort worth sharing: Our largest facility which served the Department of Defense was in Tempe, Arizona. All national transportation was shut down. No trains, planes, overnight delivery. Zero. Well, we had a facility full of hourly workers that were the backbone of our operation and a lifeline for thousands of men and women in uniform and their families. Payroll would normally be processed out of town and overnighted for delivery to the facility. That wasn’t going to happen. These outstanding team members were dependent on their checks. We were quite aware of that.?

An executive on our team raised his hand. He arranged for our Minneapolis office to print the payroll and then volunteered to personally drive it to Tempe. That is a 25-hour drive so that our team would not feel the hardships of a delay in their checks and all the ramifications that could be associated with that. Where is that addressed on a conference room wall??

We stayed at the conference center for another two days and made arrangements to contract multiple busses to get us all back to our homes. I was on the bus to St. Louis full of my colleagues from corporate headquarters. All in this was about an 11-hour drive. For the first 5 hours the back of the bus was the CEO’s conference room. Different people being asked to join him to talk logistics, humanity and problem solving. It was truly invigorating to observe and be part of.

Then with about 2-3 hours left in the drive, we pull into a convenience store. We all stretch our legs and here comes the CEO with a few cases of beer and some munchies. We board the bus and now above all of us is a small screen and being projected is the movie?Remember the Titans.?We bought the DVD.?

There was nothing party-like about the rest of the trip. We all knew we were entering unknown and frightening times as a Nation. A few cold ones and a good movie helped. And so did the camaraderie of these people with this purpose.????

Larry P. Zarin