From Technician to Senior VP: Jason Carpenter's Journey

Summary

In this conversation, Christopher Swing interviews Jason Carpenter, the Senior Vice President of Operations at Vantage, discussing his journey from an entry-level technician to a senior leadership role. They explore key milestones in Jason's career, the challenges of leadership, and the importance of management philosophy centered around customer focus. The discussion also delves into building high-performing teams, the role of family in the workplace, and the significance of feedback and accountability in leadership. Jason shares valuable insights on personal development and the proactive approach needed for career growth.

Takeaways

Jason started as an entry-level technician and worked his way up.
A strong work ethic and willingness to learn are crucial for career advancement.
Customer focus should be the highest priority in any organization.
Building high-performing teams requires a culture of accountability and support.
Feedback should be constructive and aimed at growth, not punitive.
Leadership involves investing in people and their development.
Navigating team dynamics can be challenging, especially with varying experience levels.
Creating a family-like culture in the workplace fosters support and connection.
Proactive engagement in career aspirations is essential for growth.
Understanding the impact of decisions on patients is vital in healthcare operations.

Sound Bites

"I had the work ethic of a farm kid."
"You have to drive value."
"A family is your support structure."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Gratitude
04:41 Key Milestones in Jason's Career
09:25 Transitioning from Peer to Leader
21:49 Building Teams in a Growing Organization
27:56 Cultural Impact on Team Dynamics
34:40 Balancing Accountability and Empathy
40:47 Pride in Achievements
46:40 The Family vs. Team Dynamic

Faithful - https://faithful.buzzsprout.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61571226598690

Please feel free to check out the organizations that support us:

Vantage Surgical Solutions - https://vantage.healthcare/
Vantage Surgical Solutions Careers - https://vantage.healthcare/careers/
Chris Contact Info - https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherswing/

And the ones we support:

Missions:
Developing Kids Ghana - https://developingkidsghana.com/
Eastern Dominican Christian Mission - https://easterndominican.org/
Broadway Christian Church - https://broadwaycc.churchcenter.com/home/
57/70 Task Force:  https://5770taskforce.org/

Transcript

Christopher Swing (00:00)
Welcome to Faithful, the podcast where we explore the intersection of leadership, faith, and impact. I'm your host, Christopher Swing, president and CEO of Vantage Surgical Solutions. Through thoughtful conversations with business leaders, missionaries, and change makers, we uncover the principles that guide their work and connect them to timeless wisdom. In season one, we're diving into the foundational organizations and experiences that shape my own leadership journey. Whether you're a leader in business,

faith or your community, this conversation is packed with inspiration and practical wisdom. Thank you for joining me on this journey of discovering how faith and leadership intersect in meaningful ways. Let's dive into the episode.

Christopher Swing (00:44)
welcome back to Faithful. Today I have probably one of the most special people in the world to me, my right hand and the senior vice president of operations at Vantage. Jason joined the company in 1999, which is a few days before I did, because I didn't join until January of 2012. But what's really interesting about his story and what I really connect with,

when I first joined Vantage, as well as I think a lot of people in the world will connect with is that he started in our entry level technical role within the organization and worked his way up to basically being my right hand. And that's an interesting avenue that he took in order to get that done. And you hear about it from time to time, people that accomplish that.

Jason Carpenter (01:12)
Thanks

Christopher Swing (01:32)
I can just tell you that from my experience with Jason, through the many years that we've worked together, he's the most capable of challenging me on just about everything because he's done so many different roles within the organization. But I think more of what he challenges me on is what's right for our customers, what's right for our employees.

And I think that's what's caused us to have such an amazing relationship through the years. so without a doubt, one of my favorite people in the whole world, Jason, welcome to the show, my man.

Jason Carpenter (02:05)
Thanks for having me.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Christopher Swing (02:09)
So I mean, it would be insane to not start out some sort of a leadership oriented podcast taking us all the way back to 1999 and you know, what caused you to want to join the organization? Which is a funny story that I think I know they answer to. And then, you know, what were your very first impressions and and what

Is the company like today comparative to say 1999?

Jason Carpenter (02:36)
Sure, that's a very loaded question, but happy to answer that. So I just finished my degree at Eastern Illinois University, kind of unconventional degree in zoology.

Christopher Swing (02:38)
Hahaha

Jason Carpenter (02:50)
got my degree, was really wanting to get into the Department of Natural Resources or kind of like a lab based thing to use my degree. And it was just really, the market was really tough at the time and you didn't have access to, know, like all these websites and stuff to find all these opportunities. So back in the nineties, there were newspapers. So I was flipping through, I was actually working at

My

landscaping, my part-time landscaping job and student teaching at my old high school, just trying to figure out what my next steps were, was flipping through the classifieds, saw this thing that said, looking for people with medical and biology backgrounds, which was few and far between, right? And so I sent my resume, not really knowing where this place was, it was kind of a blind, blind ad. I think it was run through like,

a temporary staffing agency or something like that. got a call back, had kind of a preliminary interview there and then went today. I was like, where is this? And they were like Effingham, Illinois. I was familiar with Effingham because Janice, my wife, who we were dating at the time was from there.

So went, met everybody, kind of learned about the position. It was a very different business than I expected. Super unique, kind of hard to wrap your arms around. And ended up getting, getting call back, had a secondary interview and came in and that, that surgical coordinator role.

I think I was the eighth one at that time from a field perspective and six of us were in Effingham and I think one was in Tennessee and one was in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is still our longest tenured employee at the organization. And he was first first satellite technician. They called us technicians at that time

I came in a lot of the training was on VHS tapes and a three ring binder. first week did lot of anatomy and learning about different pieces of equipment. And we had a training manager at the time so he kind of worked in and out. He was also out in the field quite a bit.

I

would say by the end of my first week, the manager came in and said, hey, we need you to go do YAG laser procedures next week. I had not even heard of such a thing at that point. I was like, okay, I'm good with that, but I need to learn it and figure it out. I was scared to death and kind of went out and got baptized by fire a little bit, but in a no risk

way. So that's really kind of what launched my career there. And what's really different, like I said, what's really different about it today is our training is a lot more evolved.

The business has shifted significantly from then and we look at things a lot differently and the number of people we have on board is vastly, vastly larger than when I started.

Christopher Swing (05:53)
So when you responded to this ad in the newspaper, mean, did you ever have any idea that 25 years later, you'd still be working at the same

Jason Carpenter (06:01)
Absolutely not. I figured I was riding it out a couple years, getting my feet wet and you know just getting some experience under my belt and a little bit of a resume builder and push on some somewhere else.

Christopher Swing (06:14)
So tell me, what are some of the key steps that you made, obviously starting out as a technician, making it all the way to the Senior Vice President of Operations for the organization? What were some of those key milestones or positions that you held along the way that really prepared you for the next steps?

Jason Carpenter (06:32)
so I think a lot of it was some of the experiences I had, first of all, to kind of progress into those steps. One, with it being a, my personal background, grew up in a small town on a farm.

hard work was instilled in us from a very young age. So when I got my first professional position, I had the work ethic of a farm kid. So wanted to learn how to do things right, wanted to do it right every time, wanted to be dependable.

wanted to be respectful to those around me. And I think that kind of started the whole thing rolling because I gained a lot of credibility within the organization in a very short amount of time, just by the way I conducted myself and my willingness to learn, which is something I like to do anyway. But when I got into that position, some of the...

or into that coordinator position some of the things that took other people coming into the organization a little longer to grasp like anatomy and physiology and like how things merged together with the equipment side of things. Like all that caught on really quickly for me. So it was more of figuring out like how the service worked and how all that kind of came together.

I

Starting and servicing a few accounts locally Dennis Dators who and your guest last week mentioned, know as being a significant player is He was the one that kind of kickstarted me if you will I was serving some of the servicing some of the local accounts He recognized that we kind of hit it off from just my upbringing too and

When we got our first high volume account in Missouri, going back to the 90s, like our our significant case volume in a day back then was like 10 cases. That was insane amount of cases. I think our contracts at that point, our minimum contract was a three case minimum. So three procedures. So when you went somewhere with 10, it was like, oh my gosh, what an amazing day.

So Dennis closes this deal in the boot hills of rural Missouri with a practice that was doing

20 when I started down there it was 20 cases on the Thursday and like 20 cases on a on a Friday when Dennis brought that up in a meeting we used to have little ops meetings We all were looking at him like that's insane that doesn't happen So when we launched that account the training the guy who trained me the training manager actually went down I kind of started that account when he came back He was like hey Dennis wants you to come down there and and work that account. That's a two-way

room

thing which we didn't do a lot of that then and I was like well am I ready for that and he's like well Dennis wants people dependable because this is like the first you know this is our first big thing so that's really kind of what kick-started my whole experience in terms of gaining traction to do something different so I got down there I had the advantage of

over people that were senior to me in the organization because I got to see 40 cases in two days and they weren't seeing 40 cases in three weeks. know, so I caught on really quickly there learning from not only Dennis, Dennis had a significant presence there as it started, but Dr. Jones,

from West Plains and his scrub tech, Brendan Williams, kind of took me under their wing and taught me.

ophthalmology, kind of the ins and outs of stuff that wasn't in any of our basic training modules and those kind of things and really evolved the way I saw how cases worked, how the surgery worked, how to interact with people because I had to not only interact with them but they were very heavily patient focused.

They made us engage in the patient care portion of it. It was just a very well-rounded education I got from the on-the-job training, really. It really propelled me forward. As I was doing that and learning from them, like I said, Dennis had a really heavy presence. I would see him every time we'd go.

we'd out to dinner and after I kind of felt like maybe I could do something else in the organization we'd sit down and I'd be like so tell me how the contracts work because we never saw stuff like that you know tell me how those work what's the challenges to get a contract like how long does it take what do you guys do kind of behind the scenes to make that make that work like how do we get to the pricing why do you always say this when we're in the operating room or you're when you're

talking to the doctor or an administrator and really just kind of started gleaming things from him and then just in conversation I was like hey I'd really like to do something different you know and we were starting to grow a little bit but not a lot and he's like well let me go back and talk to Rob that was the manager at the time pan so I came in off the road we traveled really extensively then because there wasn't very many of us

our geography was pretty widespread so I came in on like a Friday and I'm like hey you know look let's talk about me doing something different I don't know if it'll work I said I just don't think I'm I'm equipped to be in the field all the time I think I can be doing something different well we don't want to lose you you know give us a week so I was out on the road for another week and I came back in and they were like hey

So if you can handle the Jones accounts and still do that for us, we're going to bring you in kind of under the supply chain umbrella. You're going to help sales put proposals together because you know how the procedures work. You're going to learn under the materials manager because he needs some help. We're going to give you one employee. So my first team was one lens coordinator and I oversaw the lens consignments, which was a very small.

insignificant thing at that point but that's kind of what got me on the first level I guess of starting to learn how to do some of these things and how to kind of evolve in a position but yeah.

Chris (13:13)
Faithful is proudly sponsored by Vantage Surgical Solutions, where excellence meets innovation in advanced healthcare solutions. With a foundation built on integrity, creativity, and commitment, Vantage empowers leaders to shape the future, just as we explore leadership through faith on the podcast. Vantage Surgical Solutions, standing for excellence, leading advanced healthcare solutions.

Christopher Swing (13:40)
So what were your first leadership challenges? know, even to this day, I think about the fact that, half of your staff are significantly older than us and half of our staff are significantly younger than us. And so, what are some of the challenges of leadership?

Jason Carpenter (13:52)
Okay.

Christopher Swing (14:00)
that arose as you moved up in the organization, especially with some of these people that had already been there, right? I mean, as you mentioned earlier, know, Tagler was here when you got here and has been here the entire time that you've been here. So what are, what are some challenges that come with that?

Jason Carpenter (14:00)
Thank

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So when I got into the materials management role.

I do nothing about materials management. The head of accounting at the time, basically that position came open. I went to the acting president of Vantage at the time and said, hey, I've been doing a lot of this work anyway. I think I can do this role.

At that time it was ran by the accounting department, the supply chain was run by the accounting department. Myron, the guy who was in charge, goes, what do you know about materials management? I'm like, nothing. It's like, what I've learned so far, said,

I've been learning and I've taken all these things in. So he, at that time our offices were split. So Ops was like downstairs and finance and administration was upstairs in the building. Myron comes down and he lays this book, this big thick book down on my desk. And you can still find that in the Effingham office by the way. And it was said materials management. And he's like, here you go.

And so my introduction to materials management was reading through that book, trying to understand the concepts and then pushing what we're doing forward. So my first challenge in my first leadership role was to actually learn what I was going to be leading. So at that time I had the lady that I had with the lens consignment and then we had one other inventory person at that time I think when I started.

So my team was still very small. So it was really learning those things and kind of developing how to interact even with those two people. You know, there wasn't a lot of like team dynamics and stuff I had to deal with at that time. So that was kind of my first hurdle. You mentioned Don, I remember transitioning from that from the field team and getting into that role. And at that time,

Don did all of his ordering and my very first call to Don and he liked me. He goes, what do you know about this? And I was like, I don't know a lot about it Don. I know what you need and I know how to order it for you. And he's like, okay, well don't mess it up.

And that was kind of my first introduction to, this is how I got to please the internal customer. And this was someone that was on my side. So that was kind of the first hurdle. When I moved into managing not only the supply chain side, but then the technical operations of things, that was probably my biggest...

hurdle in my early time of leadership and that was because I was the peer to all those people on that staff. So that's where I started and now I've got oversight of the people that I went into the operating room with and you know hung out with on Fridays when we got our stuff ready and that was a challenge to one kind of gardener little

respect. I mean I had to earn that, show that I earned that position.

And then secondarily, with disciplinary or accountability issues, like how to navigate that because, you know, these were people that I was in the trenches with and now I'm like, hey, you can't do it this way. We need to do it a different way. I don't like how this is being done. I think we can do it more effectively. Well, you don't know what to do. I do because I did the job. you know, that was probably the biggest jump.

supply chain was pretty easy because I didn't have a lot of people, but when I got it all kind of collective and had that peer group, that was a big challenge and really my first big hurdle.

Christopher Swing (17:54)
We've tried to promote quite a few of our internal people and this seems to be the spot where they get hung up is that transition from being a peer to being the supervisor or the manager.

you accomplished that. Like, how is it that you survived that process? I'm not talking about like one person or two people or even three people. mean, even since I've been here, and I guess this shows you how many times that I've failed. We've tried to put what four or five people into that role where they transition from doing to leading. And it seems like every time

whether by our choice or theirs, it's just, it, we've just decided it didn't work. And so how are you successful in that when the average person can't seem to pull it off?

Jason Carpenter (18:44)
And so I would say this, I was probably in that same boat of people that we've seen not be able to transition. However, I had the forethought to kind of recognize that...

in order for me to be successful, I needed to figure out a way. So it was really kind of a hard stop with the group, if that makes sense. So I basically brought everybody into the room and said, look, here's the deal. I worked with you side by side for these last couple of years. I'm now in a different role. The expectations are different.

And it wasn't an ultimatum. It was just like, here's the way it's going to work is,

Love you guys, you're part of my team, we're a collective, but there's gonna be times when we have difficult conversations, there's gonna be times when I make a decision about how we want to run things operationally, you're gonna disagree with it, or just gonna have to professionally disagree on that situation, and you're gonna have to get behind me in March or decide to go the other direction.

Some people took that as okay. And some people took that as I'm going to be the biggest pain in his side that I can be. And I just had to, I had to deal with those things. And I think where we've, what we've seen is a couple things, one willingness to not depart from.

that old camaraderie and be able to differentiate that, which I think that is a skill in itself. And two, I think I had the expectation for myself that I wanted to elevate and continue to elevate. And I think some of the staff that we have given that opportunity to,

have had that fire in the beginning and wasn't understanding of the additional sacrifice and work that went behind that to kind of get that elevation and then therefore.

kind of reverted back to their comfort zone of, well, I'm good here. So I think, and we, and us being what I think are good leaders, didn't want to take away from the organization by.

making them either exit or stay in a position they weren't comfortable with and we let them migrate back into roles that were effective for the organization and drove some happiness for them. I think it's really about the drive and the ability to kind of separate from where you've been and where you wanna go.

Christopher Swing (21:33)
So kind of transitioning to more of your management philosophy, what are some of your core beliefs and principles that guide kind of your management philosophy or, or some would argue create your management philosophy?

Jason Carpenter (21:49)
It's customer first, no matter how you slice it and dice it. And that's both your external ones and your internal ones. That should be your highest priority as a leader. In terms of style, very much a not a micromanager.

Which is what I appreciate about you too. We have kind of have the same philosophy there. We hire and trust the people we hire to do great things. And we need to hold them accountable to it, but we don't need to be standing behind them and telling them every single decision to make. Because as you know, I'm extremely transparent about I want people to figure out where I'm wrong.

because that's the only way we're gonna, that's the only way growth happens is that people point out, here's a deficiency, I think I can change this. Or maybe it's not even a deficiency that we do this pretty well, but I think we can do it differently and get a better result. And if you're a bandager that thinks you're the only one in the room, then you're missing out.

you're never going to be successful because you need the whole room to be actually smarter than you are to run a highly effective team, in my opinion.

Christopher Swing (23:07)
So I'm gonna deviate a little bit here, but when you think about this premise that we're kind of a new company today, we've been bought by private equity, we're operating what I would consider to be significantly differently than we operated as a closely held small private LLC.

A lot of times what I hear these days is...

The teams that got you here aren't necessarily the teams that get you to the next level. And, and I think that's true. We found that in some places, don't you think like the, the mentality, the, you know, the strategy, the, or lack thereof strategy maybe in some places, but I think in general, you know, for the most part, the people that have kind of this growth mindset, they've kind of grown along with us.

Jason Carpenter (23:56)
agreed. think the core group of people that have come along this journey with us are the ones that really drive what we're doing. And I think the new people that we bring on in certain roles just further enhance that.

Christopher Swing (24:09)
I give you a lot of credit for that. Cause even though we have this significant organization and most of the people don't work directly for either one of us at this point, which is a little bit interesting. They all work for us ultimately, but not directly. You know, how do you approach building teams, especially knowing that we're in hyper growth and

what do you kind of believe is the key to creating that real high performing team that can transcend what we are today into where we're going?

Jason Carpenter (24:40)
So this is not gonna be earth shattering leadership knowledge that I'm gonna share with you. I stick to my core principle that I said earlier, let the customer drive the ship. And everybody that I hire, I mean, that's all I hear all the time. I mean, you've been on my calls too. You know, we talk about making an impact.

we're in the healthcare arena. even though we do a lot of things that are probably more logistics and supply chain oriented, our end result is in a healthcare facility that impacts a patient. So.

Everyone on the operations team is like smacked over the head with the philosophy of whatever you're doing, whatever decision you are making throughout the day ultimately impacts a person on the other end of this that is receiving high quality patient care. So that

is the culture that I try to create and we try to create that organizationally too but there's a really, it's easier for me where I'm at because my team ultimately goes to the operating room, right? And all the people that are on my team support that. So they see that and it's easier for me to push that momentum forward from a cultural perspective. And that's really what helps me build

team and that also is what helps me kind of dissect that team later because those people that aren't bought into that philosophy.

really show their colors and float to the surface and they're easily identifiable that this is not a good culture fit. We need to make a change to strengthen the team. Second to that, I would say at this point too, which is an exciting time for us is by building out our new operations leadership team and you were active in that with me is that we have a very diverse set of experiences

Experience that we brought on and we did that purposely to give us new perspective strengths and areas where we had weaknesses and and really focused around that from the team building perspective and even though we're kind of in the infancy stage of of these people coming up to Getting up to speed and and really making an impact You know, I'm really excited about what this is gonna look like moving forward and you know, we

when we were the smaller version of us, we kept it tight knit and we kept it hybridized and we ran lean and we did all the things we needed to do when we were small. And now that we're getting ready to have that expectation of growth and needing to do things differently, I think we've responded to that by thinking differently from a leadership perspective.

Chris (27:24)
Faithful is brought to you by Vantage Surgical Solutions, where we believe in progress through passion. If you're inspired by innovation and excellence in healthcare, we invite you to join our team. At Vantage, we're not just shaping the future of healthcare. We're empowering individuals to make a difference. Visit our careers page to explore opportunities and see if your journey aligns with ours. Vantage Surgical Solutions, where passion meets purpose.

Christopher Swing (27:56)
I mean, I think one of the things that we've done well through the years is that we always use an opportunity to improve ourselves. That might be in that, you know, somebody in South Bend, Indiana leaves us, right. And we look at our footprint and we say, OK, so based on the customers we have today for that particular market, you know, does it make more sense to move them to Michoacca or to, you know, wherever?

Jason Carpenter (28:18)
Thank you.

Christopher Swing (28:22)
You you name it. And we do that throughout the country. I think that the gap filling the, the deep dive into what your needs were from an operations perspective throughout the country. And all those people have the same leadership skills and qualities, right? That we would expect of the next leader of a, you know, significant operations team anywhere running a significant P and L.

But they all come from different places, whether it be logistics, which is huge in our world, even though we're thought of as a healthcare company, know, we're primarily logistics behind the scenes, whether it's military, whether, I mean, we just have a plethora of, you know, even call center and customer service orientation. We just have a plethora of new skill sets in those roles. Then my hope is, that as they grow as a team,

Jason Carpenter (28:58)
All right.

Christopher Swing (29:18)
that they rely on each other to kind of gap fill some of their own personal gaps and create a pretty amazing cohesive operations leadership team, which I think, you know, they've got all the puzzle pieces, right? It's just whether or not they can get them to all fall into place.

Jason Carpenter (29:36)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I would agree with that.

Christopher Swing (29:37)
So one

of the things that I think, we can both agree to because we both been in the, in the situation is that we've both experienced a significant investment from May and Dennis over the years, both in us personally, as well as in us professionally. you know, at times when it probably didn't even make sense. they would invest in us. you know, I remember

being in San Francisco and Dennis making my birthday dinner for one of the shows out there. I mean, it's just a different level. you know, as you think about that, right? Like that made the difference. Like, you know, over our careers, with Vantage, you know, when we struggled to find the, the energy to continue fighting a battle that we didn't want to fight anymore.

Those were the things that I felt like made the difference to where we would always be like, okay, well, we can figure this out.

What, how do we do that for the next generation? Like how do we fill that gap, right? Cause we've created the gap by taking those roles that they probably filled in the past for us. So how do we fill that gap kind of as we look forward, like intentional?

Jason Carpenter (30:50)
Yeah, I...

I agree with everything you're saying. There's been a couple of instances that come to mind where I was at the end of the leadership rope and Dennis pulled me back in and it wasn't in a professional format. was outside the organization, outside the building on their own time.

I

think it's challenging for us as we're so dispersed now.

And I think I don't really have a good answer for you, but I think that is a champ area, kind of a goal and objective for us is to figure out ways to create that virtually as well as, I think we're, I mean, we have the right mindset of what we're doing moving forward too, is that getting us in the field more, not in the capacity of like,

you know supervisor but more peer right like what's going on in the area what's your challenges you know let's go to a meeting together i hope that as we do more of those things it starts to feel for our team like it's not the boss is coming into town it's more of yeah we're gonna get some work done but we're gonna have a solid conversation at dinner about something unrelated

and

and get that sense of next level camaraderie. I think that that's totally achievable. I think we struggle with that now because we have so many things going on and we're so spread out and there's more of us. So our experience is a little different because and the did us were close and we were adjacent to them and there wasn't kind of this outside static going on. we have

of that challenge for us to overcome, I think.

Christopher Swing (32:44)
Yeah. And I mean, I think some of the things we do well, right. Is that just like they, you know, Anne had different ways to describe it, but she really wanted what was best for us, regardless of whether or not being advantage was that. And I think I always felt like that was true. And I think, you know, we need to think through ways to help our team understand that we want what's absolutely best for them. We hope that it's with us, right? I mean.

Jason Carpenter (32:59)
huh.

Mm-hmm.

Christopher Swing (33:14)
There's nothing like losing,

you know, a teammate that is super important to you. But at the same time, you know, we invest in people and if they feel like there's a better place, a better fit for them out there, you know, I want them to be able to do it. The things that are difficult are like, you know, if I go to Nashville and I stay with Anna Dennis, like Dennis gives up and makes breakfast for me in the morning. Like that's, it's really hard to get.

And unfortunately for our employees, none of those people experienced any of that. I would say for the most part. I mean, there's a few of us in our team that spent enough time with Ann and Dennis and made enough difference in what we were trying to accomplish as a company that it was like, I don't know if we unlocked the door to just unbelievable investment is how I would describe it, but

I think that's something we've got to continue to work on as we move forward. So one of the things that came to mind is, you know, and I think you probably do this better than I do primarily because I just really struggle with, um, with feedback in general, not so much in receiving it, but also in giving it what, you know, how do you, how do you balance the needs for accountability with your team?

How do you balance, you know, accountability with empathy? How do you provide feedback? How do you receive feedback? And I know that's a whole lot of things, so I'll kind of let you go at it however you wish, but you know, somewhere along the feedback continuum and, you know, how do you balance accountability with empathy?

Jason Carpenter (34:49)
you

Okay, so I would say I'll start with the feedback side of things. So one of the things that I do a lot with my group is and encourage them to do is collaboration. So we have a bi-weekly leadership meeting that we just talk about development issues, projects.

And it's really open forum. I come in with an agenda of specific things we're going to discuss, but it's really a roundtable.

So what spurs that is some pretty transparent and open dialogue as that's what I lead them with as well. It's like I'm very transparent and all I've had two conversations this week where, you know, it's not.

It's not that disciplinary feel, hopefully, for the staff. It's like, okay, well, you did a really good job here, but this is where you can do a little bit better. Here's how we can handle it differently moving forward and make it a learning thing. that, I'm kind of all over the place here, but that feedback also is the accountability piece. So we've had a...

constructive moving forward discussion.

with a piece of, okay, he recognizes this from a leadership level that I was deficient here. So, you we don't have to talk. That's one of the things that I don't, that I also, it's kind of the Lou Tice investment to excellence thing. Fix it and forget it. you have a challenge, you fix it, you figure out how to do it better next time and you move on from there and not come back to that old, well, do you remember and set

September you forgot to do this this and this and now it's November and it's happened again Well, that doesn't help anybody. It doesn't solve the issue doesn't you know create any? Positivity in the interaction so I do a lot. I just kind of operate on that philosophy of Fix it forget it. Let's move on to the next thing and

back to our kind of the culture thing that I'm trying to cultivate. You know, those people that can accept that feedback, take that feedback, make it constructive feedback, make it effective. Those are the ones that stay and the ones that don't want to buy into that filter this hop. And then it's time to move them to the side and figure out, you know, who comes in and that that role next. So, yeah, the.

I try to create an environment that is collaborative and therefore they all have say in what's happened or how we're doing things. They all have say in the process. So when I call them out on the process of why didn't we do the process, they can't say, you invented the process. don't, you know, it's on you. No, it's on us because we all created this process and we all agreed to the

process. So you've deviated from that. Let's fix it. Let's move on.

Christopher Swing (38:05)
Cool. So how do you think your faith has shaped your management philosophy and or approach to leadership?

Jason Carpenter (38:14)
So I think, well first of all, kind of the golden rule, I treat everybody like how I want to expect to be treated and that's just the basic golden rule philosophy. And I think the other side of it is,

Anne was a good steward of that as well. From the podcast you did with her, that was one of things I appreciated because I saw that evolution in her being with the organization. I saw that change and then she kind of took me on that ride with her.

She's done a lot of things. This is kind going off script a little bit. She's done a lot of things, whether she did it meaningfully or not, that helped mold where I am today and how I think of things and how I've engaged in things throughout my career too. She was the first one to, and she likes to kind of just throw you into the pond. So like my first

first committee I was on for the chamber. She basically came in and said, hey, guess what? You're part of the scholarship committee. And I'm like, what? I didn't know anything about her. She's like, the meeting's on Tuesday. And so, you know, that's how I got into that. The way she always...

would, she came in one to my office one day and said, you're going to a Dale Carnegie public speaking class. I was like, what? And because whenever I'd go to a meeting with her, she was like, you need to, you know, animate yourself a little more. You need to, you know, show your confidence and your voice is too quiet. You need to elevate your voice. So she goes, you know, too much to be sitting there and people not recognize while you're here. So like I did that kind of.

And then I did six years on the school board at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic schools. And she was like, that was my first conversation around that was, she's like, you know what, you're a good leader. You should contribute to the church in that way. And I'm like, well, don't, she was, I was like, what do I know about school board? And she goes, well, you have a kid in school there. So they,

You know, you know what you need to know and that was how I kind of you know merged leadership and faith from that aspect but just seeing the way she

always when someone was in need, reaching out to them, contributing to the community, all those kind of things that she led by example. And that's what I absorbed and took with me too.

Christopher Swing (40:47)
So when you look back at your time advantage, what are you most proud of?

Jason Carpenter (40:51)
Wow. There's a lot of things, honestly. From a selfish perspective, my ability to grow with the organization I've been extremely proud of. It always makes me smile when we hear back from customers that someone's done something amazing.

I love that. That's worth everything to me. The people that we have had on our team that we've helped elevate is another thing I'm always smile about when I see. the fact that what we do makes a difference.

Even though we get tied up sometimes in spreadsheets or schedules or something like that. But at the end, we're helping people. There's no bones about that.

I guess one of the other things in the timeline of things I was proud of was going on that mission trip in 2014. That's really what kind of re-engaged me from a leadership perspective because I went down, participated in that mission and I remember walking out of that operating room one day, just wore out, but I had a smile on my face and I'm like, gosh, that was super rewarding.

As we're walking back to the hotel, I'm mentally slapping myself and saying, well, this is what you do every day. You just do it in the United States. Your end result of your work is what you've done today with your hands. So that's another thing that just kind of ties it together, that timeline of events that I'm proud of.

Christopher Swing (42:21)
So if someone were starting a position entry level or maybe they're even in the middle management role and they really want to grow, like what advice would you give them?

Jason Carpenter (42:32)
Engage and engage people around you. Like search out the skills you don't, search out the people you don't have the skills or background in.

and take in their experience, take in their knowledge. And you can't stop there though. You have to take that and then you like, okay, how do I use this? How do I expand on this? One of my things is you have to put in the time too. that's, guess one of my frustrations as a leader as things have evolved in the workforces.

some

of the younger generation think you should be the senior vice president of operations at month six. Well, was a, you know, it doesn't have to be an arduous process, but it was a process of gaining a set of skills, moving that skill to the next level and transitioning those and figure out how you fit into the model of your organization and how you can best provide value.

that's being dismissed now too. It's like an expectation versus as a person in an organization you have to drive value. You have to show your value and involve in that and you can't just sit back and wait for that promotion. You've got to look for opportunities to seize along the way as well. So it's not a passive

path. It is a proactive and active path to transition into leadership roles.

Christopher Swing (44:05)
Yeah. And I think to add to that, I would just say that don't, don't sit back and think that people know what you want when you think, I really want to grow into this role or that role. Like if you don't tell someone, they don't have any way to know that. And I think so often people sit back and they think, well, so-and-so should know that because I made this random comment this one day about something completely irrelevant to whatever.

you know, we're talking about here. And so I think it's really important that people make their desires known also.

Jason Carpenter (44:39)
100%. I mean, that was the whole precipice to my change. I mentioned to Dennis initially.

which, you know, small organization, family organization, the word travels, but my other two, like, big jumps in the organization was going straight into the office of leadership and saying, you know, I want this role, give me a shot at this. yeah, you just have to, you have to be proactive from that side of it too. yeah, like, if I wouldn't have said anything, I could have been a really good technician, you know?

Christopher Swing (45:13)
Yeah, which is

crazy to think about, right? And you would be phenomenal. I mean, you are today anyways, no Don Tagler, but great, great technician. Sorry for the inside joke, guys. So I want to give you just a random curve ball. And this is one that I struggle with. And you see it in management posts and LinkedIn and stuff every day. And I talked to Ann about it. So you're not completely.

Jason Carpenter (45:15)
Yeah, right, That's true. That's very true.

Christopher Swing (45:39)
field here, you know, right, wrong or indifferent, we call ourselves a family. Sometimes we refer to ourselves as team, but in general, I think, you know, to be brutally honest, like we're more than a team. At least most of us are more than a team. And,

You know, there's a lot of people that say that's the wrong frame of reference for coworkers. That's the wrong frame of rest for reference for your teams. But. You know, I truly believe that if you want to get the best out of people and you want absolutely what's best for them, you're more than a team because a team doesn't want to lose their best horse, right? I mean, a team doesn't want to lose their

most productive employee. And if that's what's best for that person, that's absolutely what we want for them. So what is your take on this idea of calling us a family?

Jason Carpenter (46:40)
I look at it this way. So a family is your support structure, right? And that's what we create. And the other aspect of this as a family, when somebody is down, you lift them up. And I think we do a good job of that too. And yeah, you get that on a team, but there's an emotional buy-in.

with the people that connect with us and want to connect with us and it is family. Like you're concerned about if they're child sick or you're concerned about what's happening behind the scenes and maybe that's bleeding over into the work life and you want to help them address that. And I've seen a number of

things throughout my history with the company that Anne's done, that you've done, that others in the organization have done to lift people up. And I don't think that that is the difference between a family and a team to me is the team kind of stops at the field and the family transcends out.

Christopher Swing (47:52)
Well, I hope you guys were, enjoyed this experience as much as I did. I, I am thankful to have Jason as part of the team and, and family is part of my family. And, I'm sure you're thankful for what he had to share with you all. I know that people end up in these.

situations where they desire to grow, but they really don't know how. And my hope is, is that you can connect with something that we talked about today and Jason's story where he started at the pretty much the lowest rung of the organization and moved to, you know, a C-suite member, a senior leader within our organization. And, and that's not an easy feat. And it's not even, most people aren't even capable of doing it.

But I think most of the people that are probably listening to this are in the middle somewhere in a middle management role or higher and really are just looking for a way to grow out of that. And I think Jason brought a plethora of ideas that, you know, you can raise your hand, you can develop yourself, you can engage in, in telling people what it is that you want to accomplish because without any of that information, it's really difficult to get to the next level. I hope you all.

you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you all very soon. Take care.