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Intro:
A production of Pioneer Utility Resources.

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StoryConnect, helping communicators discover ideas to shape
their stories and connect with their customers.

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Andy Johns:
What are some tools to fight the fight about doing the way things
have always been?

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That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of The 
StoryConnect Podcast.

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My name is Andy Johns, your host with Pioneer, and I'm joined on
this episode by David Naylor, who is in addition to being the

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CEO at Rayburn Electric Cooperative, he is also the author of
"Status Quo Is Not Company Policy." David,

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thanks so much for joining me.

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David Naylor:
Happy to be here. Thanks, Andy.

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Andy Johns:
So we have enjoyed working with the folks over at Rayburn for
quite a while.

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And when I saw this book came out, I knew that I wanted to have
David on an episode here because I know a

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lot of folks – status quo, sometimes David is just so dang
comfortable, it's hard to shake things up.

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But tell us a little bit about the idea of the book, "Status Quo
Is Not Company Policy."

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David Naylor:
Sure. So I will tell you my natural inclination for reading books
is more like, you know, Calvin and Hobbes and

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[inaudible], but.

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Andy Johns:
All right.

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David Naylor:
This was one that, you know, when an opportunity presented
itself, it was a great opportunity for Rayburn to

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help increase our profile and everything.

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But, you know, "Status Quo Is Not Company Policy," the utility
space is very much an

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industry where you ask a question of why are we doing things a
certain way?

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And the response is because we've always done it that way.

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Andy Johns:
Right.

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David Naylor:
And, you know, when I first took over as CEO here at Rayburn, we
had a lot

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of projects that had to get done, had tight deadlines.

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We'd had three employees who retired, representing 84 years of
experience walking out the door.

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And we just had a lot of challenges that we faced.

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And again, we only had, at that time, about 25 employees.

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And so it was a phrase that really was born out of necessity.

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Just saying practically, guys, we can't keep doing what we've
been doing and meet these deadlines that we have to meet.

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And so "Status Quo Is Not Company Policy," that's where it was
born.

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And then as Rayburn has continued to grow, it's really expanded
and really become part of one of our core values of

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innovation. You know, that just it anchors that.

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And as we continue to add new employees, I mean, that's one of
the things we encourage them to do is, hey, look at what we're

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doing. Does it still make sense?

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And if not, then, hey, let's improve the processes.

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Andy Johns:
Sure. And it was interesting to me, reading through the book, 
full disclosure, I have not finished it yet.

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I know that my boss Anne Harvey had just finished it this week.

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We were talking about it, but in reading through the book, I
expected it to be a lot of kind of high

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minded ideas.

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You know, I've read a lot of leadership books before.

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What I thought was interesting about this book is this is really
the story of Rayburn Electric Cooperative.

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You know, there are employees quoted in here.

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There are board members quoted in here.

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The examples you use, you know, you talk about that growth.

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You've got the chart in, I saw in one of the pages where it
talks about the number of folks hired and the head count going

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up. I mean, this is really a lot more than just a bunch of ideas
from the CEO.

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This is really the story of Rayburn Electric Cooperative.

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David Naylor:
Yeah. And that was really the, I mean, I think that's who Rayburn
is.

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I mean, yeah, I may be the CEO and the face as far as, you know,
where we've been.

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But what makes Rayburn is the employees.

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And, you know, I think, well, I can certainly tell you some of
my ideas and some of my thoughts.

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And, you know, I may have been instrumental in terms of helping
chart the path, if you will.

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Andy Johns:
Sure.

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David Naylor:
It's the employees who have to implement it, and they're the ones
who have to deal with it and have to figure things

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out. And, you know, so their successes are our successes and my
successes are their successes.

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And that's, you know, it's a combination of who Rayburn is.

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I mean, look, at the end of the day, we're here to serve our
members.

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That's our first and foremost priority.

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But the way that gets done is our employees.

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And so, you know, making sure that they were included in the
process and included in, you know, like you

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said, a lot of quotes from them, a lot of quotes from our board.

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You know, this may have been, you know, my initial thought, but
it's

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got a lot of contributions from various folks here who have
really helped to make Rayburn Rayburn.

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Andy Johns:
Yeah, clearly.

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This section here, you talk about, you know, some of the core
values.

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You talk about the Rayburn DNA.

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You mentioned in here, it's so easy to coast, and we know that's
true.

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There's so much the temptation to just stay with the way things
have always been.

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But you talk about Rayburn being a value focused organization
rather than just a project

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focused organization.

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Tell me a little bit about what it means to be value focused
rather than project focused.

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David Naylor:
Yeah. So like I mentioned, when I first took over, we had I mean,
the situation that we had, we were about to

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become a transmission operator as defined by NERC.

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So we had a whole bunch of compliance obligations we had to
meet.

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We had a power supply contract that was about to terminate and
had a hard, fast deadline.

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And so in order to meet all these deadlines, we had to build
about $40 million worth of

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projects between a substation, a couple of short transmission
lines.

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And so we had all these things and projects that had to be done.

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And so what we ended up doing, I mean, we met the deadlines, but
we were hiring employees because we

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needed to get things done.

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And so everything was geared towards those deadlines.

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And what we found was, that's well and good while we're all busy
focused in on a common, you know,

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task and project.

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But when things started to slow down a bit, you start to
realize, wait a minute, I'm not sure that this person really fits

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the culture of what Rayburn is trying to do.

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And you start heading into, well, all right now, I'm trying to
manage – the management process becomes more prevalent, if you

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will. You know, when everybody's looking towards towards a
common goal, you kind of just the management stuff

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kind of gets, you know, shifted towards the back.

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And we recognized that, hey, this is not who we want to be.

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This is not really who we are.

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And we really need to shift our focus and let's focus on these
values.

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And that way the values drive everything that we do, not the
projects.

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And that means, you know, again, our core values are pretty, you
know, I mean, respect, integrity, excellence and innovation.

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Ironically, three out of those four were shared by Enron for
what that's worth.

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Andy Johns:
I don't know that I would put it that way usually, but yeah.

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David Naylor:
Yeah, I mean. I didn't realize that either, but I was brought to
my attention not too long ago, and I thought, well,

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that's interesting, but just.

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Andy Johns:
Turns out that that "integrity" one is a key one.

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David Naylor:
Ironically, innovation is the one that's different.

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But that was, Enron's fourth was communication, and ours is
innovation.

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But, I mean, it just illustrates the point.

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You can have all the values you want; you better walk them, and
you got to walk the walk and talk the talk.

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And so as we shifted from being project focused to value
focused, you know, we wanted to make sure one we're

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walking the walk. We're doing, we're exercising our core values.

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They're not just words upon a wall or on a piece of paper
somewhere.

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This is who we are.

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This is the Rayburn DNA.

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And as we hire people, you know, those are the core values that
we're looking for.

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Those are the traits that we're wanting to make sure that, hey,
we got somebody that, you know, what?

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If there is a questionable thing that pops up, I mean, to follow
along with the Enron thing.

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Hey, they're going to say something.

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Say, "Look, this doesn't line up with who Rayburn is or who I am
personally." And then we say, "Yep, that's absolutely right.

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Let's fix it. Status quo is not company policy.

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Let's take care of it, and stay true to who we are and those
core values."

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Andy Johns:
One of those things in here, especially if you're going to be as
innovative as having, you know, innovation in one of your core

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values there, it talks about mistakes being okay.

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And I like the line in here, "Failure avoidance is not a
productive mindset if you believe in pushing the status quo." And

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I think that's the trap that so many folks fall into.

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The status quo is safe.

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You know, you're not going to get called out for making a
mistake by doing things the way they've always been.

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It's easy to get called out and get in trouble for trying
something that's different.

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So I like that piece in there.

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But I'm sure it's, you know, that's got to be top down.

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And much easier said than done to make sure that everybody feels
like it's okay to make mistakes.

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David Naylor:
Yeah, without a doubt.

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It's a balance. I mean, look, I can't sit here and tell you that
there are certain mistakes that you're like, look, I can't, you

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know, that's just it.

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You're sorry, but that's unavoidable.

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But the reality is, most of the things I mean, look, you reflect
on your own career and how you came up.

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And you recognize that man, you know what?

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I made some mistakes along the way, but I was given the time and
the opportunity to learn from those mistakes, and then improve.

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And so that's really what we're trying to do, what we want to do
is say, "Look, yeah, we don't want you to make mistakes, but we

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recognize that mistakes happen." And really, this is where the
excellence core value comes into play.

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Excellence is not perfection.

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So we're not asking for perfection, but we're asking you to do
is do your best.

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And what we want to happen is your best tomorrow is better than
your best today.

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And it was better than it was than your best was yesterday.

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And so it's continued, you're continuing to grow.

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You're continuing to develop.

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And, you know, again, I mean, if every time you make a mistake,
you know, you got a

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lot of consequences.

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Well, consequences, then also fear starts coming in and, you
know, you've got to have that mentality of, you know,

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complacency just can't.

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We've got to fight complacency.

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And, you know, I'd rather have folks who take that risk and take
that step to try to make an improvement.

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And then we can help rein them in and give them some training if
we need to from there.

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But, you know, again, you've wasted a lot of time, effort and
frankly

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cost if, you know, just because you make a mistake, you're gone.

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I mean, that's just not the mentality that we want to have here.

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Andy Johns:
Right, right.

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Well said. I do want to get into here in just a minute, a little
bit about the art of publishing a book and kind of how that

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process went for you, and even the reasoning why you felt like
it was an important thing to do.

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But before we do that, just to stay a little bit more on the
kind of organizational philosophy piece of it.

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You know, chapter seven of the book you're talking about Winter
Storm Uri, that is a an inflection point, a watershed moment.

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Not just for y'all, for utilities all over Texas and Oklahoma in
particular, but really the whole southeast

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or the southern part of the United States.

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Tell us a little bit about how an event like that kind of brings
things like this into razor sharp focus for you?

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David Naylor:
Well, I mean, I can tell you when you have an event like a Winter
Storm Uri, and so in Rayburn's case, we incurred three years of

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power cost in a five day period.

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And it was, I mean, it was, I mean, there's plenty of articles
and public

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information that's out there on what all that happened.

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But for Rayburn's case, you know, that was a very significant
event.

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And it's amazing how five days out of the year can impact not
only that one year, but it continues to impact how

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we operate and think today.

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And you know, that was again, that was really, like you said, it
was really a watershed moment.

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And of course, you know, one of the things that happened as we,
you know, went through Winter Storm Uri here in Texas is, you

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know, the largest G&T in Texas filed bankruptcy.

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And, you know, that G&T was about three times the size of
Rayburn.

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And, you know, so you don't have the luxury of pulling out the
CEO manual and say, "Well, okay, in the event

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of, you know, we got a winter storm.

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Okay, here's what you do. Steps one, two and three." That's not 
there.

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And so, you know, you're flying by the seat of your pants in a
lot of ways.

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You know, I've got to deal with my board who recognized that, oh
my gosh, we got three years of power cost, cooperative.

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I don't have an investor that can eat that.

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It's going to have to go to the members in some form or fashion
at some point.

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And so we're trying to figure out, you know, have those
conversations.

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So we immediately pivot to having, you know, we have our normal 
monthly board meetings, but also we're having weekly calls.

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"Hey, here's what's an update." You know, we also we brought in
additional counselors or advisors, both financial

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advisors, legal advisors.

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You know, we even had some political and lobbyists that we
brought in, again, trying to solve the problem of, first

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off, you know, let's understand what happened.

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Second, let's figure out, you know, how we're going to meet this
need.

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Not to mention we got, you know, folks saying, "Hey, we got, you
got bills that are due.

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How are you going to pay for them?" That's just the board side
of the things, if you will.

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But in the meantime, I've got all these employees and, you know,
we had hired several employees just a few

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months before this happened.

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And, you know, largest G&T in Texas files for bankruptcy.

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People see that in the news.

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And immediately we pivot and say, "Okay, guys, let's company
meeting.

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Here's what's going on." And so –

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Andy Johns:
Right.

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David Naylor:
You know, we had those meetings about every week as well.

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And I'd just get in front of the group and say, "Guys, here's
what happened.

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Here's what's going on.

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Here's how we're trying to approach that.

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Yes –" you know, I was very up front.

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"We had a G&T that filed bankruptcy.

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I'll be honest with you. I got a bankruptcy filing in front of
me ready, if that's the option that we end up

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deciding. And here's what that would entail on the impact on the
rest of you." But, you know, again, I tell them that

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that's our least objectionable.

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I mean, that's the last resort.

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We don't want to do that.

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And of course, ultimately we ended up being able to do
securitization to meet the, you know, pay those

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bills. So everybody was paid that Rayburn owed.

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Nobody was, I mean, we weren't a penny short anywhere.

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Anyway, that's, I can probably talk more about Winter Storm Uri
than anybody cares to.

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The bottom line is, we don't want to ever go through that again.

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Andy Johns:
Yeah, right. Definitely.

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Well, let me shift gears away from the kind of the content of
the book and the Rayburn story and get into a little bit about

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about writing the book.

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So that's something I've never done.

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I'm assuming this is the first time that you had written one.

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What all kind of surprised you about the process of, you know,
it's kind of intimidating, just all that, those blank pages in

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front of you, finding something to say.

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What surprised you about the book writing process?

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David Naylor:
Yeah. So I'll give a lot of props here to Heidi Scott, the
coauthor.

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And, you know, I will tell you, this was originally going to be,
she was originally going to ghostwrite

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the book. And typical Rayburn fashion, "Status Quo Is Not
Company Policy," as we were working through it, I said, "Look, I

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don't think ghostwriting is going to be the right way to do
this.

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Let's put your name out there and take the credit that you
really, frankly, that you deserve." So, you

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know, this was not on my bucket list, not on something I was
looking to do it.

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Frankly, I think it was a result of Winter Storm Uri.

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I think that's probably where Forbes kind of came across
Rayburn, and ultimately they reached out.

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And, you know, from Rayburn standpoint, this was, again, how do
we increase our profile?

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That was one of the challenges we faced during Uri was nobody
knew who Rayburn was.

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And prior to Uri, frankly, we were comfortable being the best
kept secret in Texas or even the nation.

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But that was you know, that's not the case now.

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But no, Heidi came in and, you know, the initial process, it was
actually really good.

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We just talked.

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She'd ask questions and, you know, she had everything recorded,
and we talked and just.

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And then she talked to the employees and the board members and,
you know, then they saw all the stories kind of started coming

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together. We had a couple of other folks here from, you know,
Gentry Ewing and Chris Anderson

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from Rayburn, who kind of helped part of the team, if you will.

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And, you know, so Heidi came one day, and we kind of put some
big old not

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whiteboards, but sheets of paper on the board, or all around our
board room.

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Here's a story. And then you just start putting pieces together,
and then you start refining the process and go from there.

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I mean, you know, it probably took a little over a year, all
told.

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There's some times there's certainly more fun than others, but,
you know, you work through that.

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And it was very interesting.

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It was definitely a learning experience for me.

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Andy Johns:
Well, you talked about there being a, you know, a hypothetical
CEO's manual, you know, to have a book like this with your name

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on it, kind of telling that Rayburn story to have so many folks 
from the co-op involved and quoted in the text,

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it certainly helps.

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I know when we've talked, you know, your goal, like you said, to
step out from the background and really be one of the preeminent

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G&Ts around the country.

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So I mean, it's a great opportunity in terms of positioning
Rayburn, you know, to have the CEO with a book out talking about

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status quo in terms of communications strategy and position.

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I know it sounds like kind of the opportunity kind of fell your
way, but couldn't have asked for a better opportunity to kind of

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help position Rayburn and yourself as thought leaders in this
space.

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David Naylor:
Yeah. No, it was great.

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I mean, that was definitely a, when I first got the call from
Forbes about doing this, I'm like, I got to talk to my board

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about this. And so that was something that again, you know in
your CEO manual, you know, talking

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to your board about a book is, that's a little not something
that is very common, I would think, or at least not that I found.

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And certainly it wasn't in my CEO manual, but, you know, to the
point we talked about earlier, you know,

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I told them, I said, "Guys, look, this is a, I mean, we're
talking about a way to increase Rayburn's profile.

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While this may not have been on the list of options we had
considered, here's an opportunity that presents itself." And

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frankly, that's one of the things about Rayburn, we like to be
opportunistic.

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And so we took advantage of it.

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And, you know, I guess I'd probably be remiss to say all the
proceeds of the book actually reduce our member rates.

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Andy Johns:
And we talk a lot about storytelling.

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Obviously, the podcast is called StoryConnect.

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The book seems from the sections of it that I've read, I mean,
it seems like a pretty authentic account, especially getting into

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the, you know, the Winter Storm Uri.

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You know, any time that you tell those stories, and you're going
to publish it, and you don't know who all is going to read the

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book. Was some of that uncomfortable sharing some of those
stories or, you know, is it the kind of thing that just comes

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natural and that was a decision to make to go ahead and tell
those stories, get that out there?

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David Naylor:
Well, I mean, I think, you know, at the end of the day, all we
can do is be who we are.

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And, you know, so that's kind of the approach that we took is
guys, look this is our story.

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People may like it. People may not like it, but that's who we
are.

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And I'm not trying to sugarcoat anything.

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I'm not trying to, you know, bad mouth, anything.

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It's just this is who we are.

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And this is what's worked for us.

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And, you know, I think that's the, our day to day.

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It's how we live things here at Rayburn and what we really want
to accomplish.

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That's not to say that we're perfect, not to say we still don't
have challenges, but, you know, it's a process.

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And I think that's really what, you know, that's the whole point
of the book is status quo is not company policy.

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You're always trying to improve and always trying to get better.

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And so hopefully, you know, folks who read it, I mean, maybe can
take a few things from that book and, you know, make it

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applicable to what they've got, whether they're a cooperative,
whether they're somebody else, whether they're in the electric

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utility industry or not.

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That's, you know, I think some of these principles, I think are
applicable regardless, but I think it's certainly been successful

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for us here. And, you know, honestly, I look forward to seeing
where we're going to continue to go.

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Andy Johns:
Yeah. Have you gotten any feedback or have there been any members
or board members or employees or folks around the industry that

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have read it and had any feedback for you or anything?

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David Naylor:
Yeah, I mean, I think it's been pretty well received.

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It's certainly been doing well on Amazon in terms of, I mean,
best sellers in several categories.

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I know several of my managers around my board members, I guess
you'd say, general managers, you know, they bought several of

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them, and they're passing them out to some of their folks.

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I was just at the Texas Electric Cooperatives statewide, their
managers meeting, and

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they asked me to speak on it.

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And then they also want me to speak on it at their director's
conference.

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Of course, I'm doing a podcast here, and I know we've got some
others that I've got lined up as well, but so, you know, it seems

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to be pretty well received.

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You know, I guess the proof's in the pudding.

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And, you know, hopefully we'll actually see folks who say,
"Look, I took this and implemented it.

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And, man, here's what how it took off." I mean, that's really
what you want, right?

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Andy Johns:
Yeah. Yeah. If there's a little less status quo around the around
the electric co-op space, I think that a lot of folks that might

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benefit from that.

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I highlighted a couple of sections that I mentioned earlier
about, you know, mistakes being okay and some of that Rayburn

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DNA. Was there anything else that I missed or that you wanted to
share some any big other takeaways from the book that that you

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want to be sure folks don't miss?

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David Naylor:
You know, I can't necessarily think of any.

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you know, well, I guess the only other thing that I probably
kind of mentioned is, you know, at the end of the day, when it

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comes to what we're trying to do with "Status Quo Is Not Company
Policy" and developing our employees, you know, it really takes

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a commitment. And you're not going to I mean, if you're looking
for a quick fix, I don't think this is a quick fix.

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I mean, I think the what we saw was a culmination of events,
culmination of time.

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It's people who are willing to step up and take responsibility,
take accountability.

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And be willing to, you know, essentially leave a legacy here and
say, "Hey,

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I want to make a difference." And, you know, so it's giving them
that opportunity, and then being committed to that process.

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And not just saying, "Man, you know what?

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I tried this for a couple of weeks.

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It's just not working out." That's not going to work.

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You've got to give it the time.

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You know people go through training.

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You're trying to get them better and better.

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You're expanding their comfort zones, right?

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I mean, what we're comfortable today is great, but I need to be,
if I'm going to grow, my comfort zone has to continue to get

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better or get bigger.

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Andy Johns:
Sure, I think those are wise words.

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Well, David, congratulations.

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I had the book right before this call.

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I had it back between Patrick Lencioni and Simon Sinek on my
bookshelf here.

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So that's not bad company.

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Congratulations for coming out with the book.

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And it is available on Amazon if anybody wants to check it out.

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It's "Status Quo Is Not Company Policy." And I think folks will
enjoy it.

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So congratulations on coming out with the book and thanks for
joining me.

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David Naylor:
I appreciate it. Thank you.

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Andy Johns:
He is David Naylor, CEO at Rayburn Electric Cooperative in Texas.

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I'm your host Andy Johns with Pioneer.

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And until we talk again, keep telling your story.

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Outro:
StoryConnect is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources, a
communications cooperative that is built to share your story.