America’s dream of getting a transcontinental railroad is lastly speedily heading down the tracks, with Union Pacific planning to accumulate Norfolk Southern—two of the nation’s largest railroad firms—in a $85 billion deal. For Jim Vena, the CEO of Union Pacific, this deal is simply the newest a part of a 40-year climb up the railroad ladder.
Vena received his begin within the late Nineteen Seventies as a teenage laborer at Canadian Nationwide (CN) railway—possible incomes only a few {dollars} an hour. Over time, he labored his method up within the subject to brakeman, conductor, locomotive engineer, trainmaster, and superintendent.
And he’s persistently advised the following era of employees the key to having success like his isn’t in an MBA or discovering an excellent mentor: It’s grit, curiosity and angle.
Simply yesterday, he shared his easy profession recommendation for Gen Z: “Keep curious, embrace challenges and at all times lean in.”
Studying the ability of laborious work and perseverance touring throughout North America is one thing that possible grew to become invaluable to Vena as soon as he jumped over to the company advertising and marketing and gross sales divisions of CN. By 2013, he had been promoted to chief working officer earlier than retiring in 2016.
However after being known as out of retirement to function Union Pacific’s COO in 2019 and being named CEO in 2023, he echoed:
“From a really younger age, I discovered the significance of grit. I do know railroading firsthand… I spent many nights away from residence, with an unpredictable schedule, in unrelenting climate and excessive situations,” he wrote to his new colleagues.
“You may depend on me to be frank, considerate, nimble and resilient. I gained’t mince phrases when the reality should be spoken. I’ll ask plenty of you—and I’ll demand much more from myself.”
Fortune reached out to Union Pacific for remark.
Angle over aptitude for achievement
Vena’s view that having the correct mindset can do wonders on one’s profession is one thing that different prime executives have harked on as invaluable recommendation for Gen Z.
That features Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who stated that controlling one’s angle could make a “massive distinction” on the trail to success.
“An embarrassing quantity of how effectively you do, notably in your twenties, has to do with angle,” Jassy advised LinkedIn.
For Cisco’s chief govt within the U.Ok., Sarah Walker, having a very good angle is the No. 1 green-flag trait she seems out for in the case of hiring and promotions: “You can not train constructive attitudes and engagement and power,” she advised Fortune.
Even Walker’s predecessor, David Meads beforehand echoed to Fortune that “EQ is at the very least as necessary as IQ.” The now EMEA chief at Cisco confused: “You want that EQ to have the ability to learn the room and perceive what’s being stated by what’s not being stated.”
Holding the frontline employee in thoughts
Vena at all times had a railroad firm on the prime of his paystub—with a complete compensation package deal reaching over $17 million final 12 months alone, in keeping with the AFL-CIO. Nonetheless, sticking to the business that he is aware of has performed to his benefit as a pacesetter. In reality, by no means forgetting his roots and making selections with these on the entrance traces on the tracks has been certainly one of his precedence mindset.
Shortly after turning into CEO, he acknowledged that he needed to show Union Pacific into a company targeted on down-top choice making.
“You may’t have 9 ranges—from the CEO to the individuals who really do the work—and count on that the message is obvious, the selections are made clear and there isn’t some hiccup. … I wish to drive it in order that we’ve method much less layers,” he stated throughout Union Pacific’s third-quarter 2023 earnings name.
“I would like selections to be made on the native degree — and the decrease the extent, the higher,” Vena added to Progressive Railroading in 2024.
It’s a mantra that’s shared by many enterprise leaders, together with one which’s been discovered from billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
In an interview earlier this 12 months, Coursera CEO Greg Hart advised Fortune that his time working with Bezos helped him perceive the worth of trusting worker selections.
“Pushing selections down as near the shopper as attainable was actually one thing that I discovered from Jeff,” Hart stated. “The less selections that must go to the CEO, the sooner the group will transfer.”
For Vena, probably the most selections that come throughout his desk, the higher. In spite of everything, in his expertise one of the best insights don’t come from the boardroom, however fairly the rails.
