Williams

"Varner encouraged his senior managers, like Williams, to think the same way. Williams was told that his job wasn’t just to keep his head down and run his division—his job was to keep his eyes on the horizon, to scan the environment of his business for new opportunities. Even more important, Varner told Williams to pass this mentality on to everyone who worked for him. The pipeline employees, the engineers, the oil gaugers—all of them needed to look for new deals as they went about their daily work. Everybody was supposed to act like an entrepreneur who worked in the mergers and acquisitions department. “When you get that idea spread among your people, then you’ve got gaugers out there with their eyes open. The ideas come in. If you’ve got a couple of thousand [employees] looking for things, you’re going to get some stuff that comes in that’ll be all right.”"

"Charles Koch and Sterling Varner held quarterly meetings to evaluate how managers like Williams were doing in this regard. Williams was expected to report on his pipeline business and also to bring up new “high-quality investments” that he had spotted in the field. A ritual was formed at these meetings. A manager like Williams would propose the idea for some new investment. And then the questions would begin. Charles Koch’s questions were relentless, seemingly never ending, and the managers understood that they must be prepared to answer all of them. If a manager didn’t have the answers, the topic was dropped until he could return with them."

"Charles Koch and Sterling Varner held quarterly meetings to evaluate how managers like Williams were doing in this regard. Williams was expected to report on his pipeline business and also to bring up new “high-quality investments” that he had spotted in the field. A ritual was formed at these meetings. A manager like Williams would propose the idea for some new investment. And then the questions would begin. Charles Koch’s questions were relentless, seemingly never ending, and the managers understood that they must be prepared to answer all of them. If a manager didn’t have the answers, the topic was dropped until he could return with them."

"Varner encouraged his senior managers, like Williams, to think the same way. Williams was told that his job wasn’t just to keep his head down and run his division—his job was to keep his eyes on the horizon, to scan the environment of his business for new opportunities. Even more important, Varner told Williams to pass this mentality on to everyone who worked for him. The pipeline employees, the engineers, the oil gaugers—all of them needed to look for new deals as they went about their daily work. Everybody was supposed to act like an entrepreneur who worked in the mergers and acquisitions department. “When you get that idea spread among your people, then you’ve got gaugers out there with their eyes open. The ideas come in. If you’ve got a couple of thousand [employees] looking for things, you’re going to get some stuff that comes in that’ll be all right.”"