I saw an interesting topic by Tiger and decided to write about it. It's about a CEO I admire most. Now, I learnt about this guy in my studies and I am pretty sure that most of the CEOs written in Tiger would have made their company share price rise.

Well, not mine. Not at first anyway. This man I am going to share about is called Paul Henry O' Niell. Now Paul O'Niell was the Chairman and CEO of a company called Alcoa from 1987 to 1999. Alcoa is a company which deals with Aluminium for many purposes, such as technology, recycling, mining and fabrication. When Paul O' Neill took over the reins of the company, this was the gist of his speech to shareholders:

"I want to talk to you about worker safety."

The investors sat quietly to see what else he would say. "Every year, Alcoa workers are injured so badly that they miss a day of work. Our safety record is better than the general American workforce, especially considering that our employees work with metals that are 1500 degrees and machines that can rip a man's arm off. But it's not good enough. I intend to make Alcoa the safest company in America. I intend to go for zero injuries."

The board members were shocked. What they had expected to hear was how the new CEO would make profits rise by sharing his plan on profit margins and revenue. They did not expect him to talk about worker safety. At the time, the company performance was declining and this was indeed the last thing they wanted to hear. The situation was aggravated when Paul said that he would prioritise worker safety over profit margins.

"They placed a crazy hippie in charge of the company!", one shareholder exclaimed, echoing the thoughts of many. They rushed out of the meeting and told their brokers to start selling Alcoa shares, causing the price to tank. Despite the negative support, Paul went on with his belief and his plan to focus on worker safety. He believed that workers were at the heart of the company, not profits. Everything a worker got injured, he would be out for days and productivity would fall. He implemented safety Standard Operating Procedures, safety instructions and processes and made sure everyone followed them, including management. He made the incident rate go down (thus decreasing the lost work days). Essentially, he created a safe environment for workers to work in and give their best.

Since Paul Alcoa left the company in 1999, the company has grown five times. As a CEO, he went against the grain by not talking about how he was going to improve productivity or profits. It was another "P" he wanted to focus on. It was the people working for Alcoa. As he focused internally, efficiency took care of itself and the company's value began to grow. What a vision to have! Indeed, what a CEO he was!

Subsequent, Paul O' Niell became the U.S. Secretary of Treasury from 2001-2002. He continued to fight for what he believed in, until he passed away in 2020, at the ripe age of 84.

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