Episode 5: Ryan Turnley - Leadership Is A Muscle

We explore how a small-town work ethic, early mentorship, and a bias for action shaped Ryan Turnley’s path from CPG problem-solver to Leader. The throughline: calm beats chaos, empower your people, and build systems that let others thrive.

• early lessons in work ethic and customer service
• pivotal college choices and career entry into CPG
• first big project wins and learning from setbacks
• shifting from tactics to strategy with retailers
• building analytics and cost-to-serve visibility
• leading through layoffs, recessions, and COVID
• empowering teams, clearing priorities, staying calm
• learning what not to do as a manager
• serving community as EMT and applying it at work
• owning your career path and finding mentors

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Transcript

Nathan 0:39

Ryan's Turnley is a testament to hard work, resilience, and a commitment to continuous growth. Beyond his corporate achievements, he also serves his community as a firefighter in EMT, a true example of leadership both in and out of the workplace. All right, so today with me, we've got Ryan Turnley, and super excited to have you with us today. I know we have worked together in the past. So really good to see you. I'm excited to talk to you, learn more about more of your journey through your career, and even since we have worked together previously. But would love to start out, talk to us about kind of your background and what you do today, where you kind of started your career, what got you into that space, and what are some of the things you've learned along the way.

Early Work Ethic And First Mentor

Ryan 1:28

Yeah, thanks, Nathan. I I gotta thank you for uh and and of course congratulate you on this medium. Um when I saw that that great guy, uh Nathan, had a podcast and had a book coming out. I was like, okay, this is someone I want to hear about uh uh more from. I always enjoyed time working with you, always had a smile on your face, always pleasant to be around. And that that that kind of positivity kind of rubs off on people. I don't care what anyone says. I you know, I probably fall a little bit more on the curmudgeon side of the fence. Uh, but at the end of the day, positivity definitely is contagious. So really just congratulations. I'll jump into my career um and you know, a little bit about me. I grew up uh in northern Ohio in a little town called Norwalk. Um really like 16,000 people, uh suburban in Norwalk proper, but rural outside. I grew up uh you know healthily middle class. I didn't want for anything, but I wasn't, I wouldn't say spoiled by any stretch of imagination. Parents instilled a very deep work ethic. It came from their roots, you know. Um, my dad worked hard lots of hours at the auto plant. My mother uh instilled um side by side with him uh a uh work ethic of just, you know, uh the best thing I can tell you is it came from the farm. And, you know, uh by the time I was eight, I was push mowing uh my next door neighbor's um property, who happened to be a former owner of a very large construction firm in northern Ohio, uh road construction, uh concrete paving, that kind of thing. And uh he uh saw something in me. Of course, he was uh you know up there in age a little bit, but you know, taught me that you know I had to charge a certain amount to take care of my equipment and to make a profit and all that, and all those basic business building blocks. And so I started in earnest doing that. Uh, you know, I I don't think I was that well of a student. I certainly I think I had the ability, but my focus has always been a challenge. I I had my hands on a lot of different things at a young age, and that's still true to this day. At the end of the day, um, you know, I was working at McDonald's as my first W-2 job, for example, working at a steakhouse at night, always busy, always popping around. And I had an active social life. So um for whatever reason, I've I've always just been going 20 different directions at a million miles an hour.

Nathan 4:15

Um how do you think that has impacted you today? Because it sounds like a lot of resilience from that you built up, but also some really early, almost mentorship from the gentleman next door, right? And learning some things that most people wouldn't learn at that kind of age, as far as how to really think about business in a bigger way. But what are some of the other things that have really you feel like you took away from all of that just really early on?

Ryan 4:42

Uh a deep sense of uh of uh responsibility, a deep sense of customer service, um, and doing the job the right, even when you didn't want to get up and do it, you know, like I lament that you know our the younger generations, you know, um may not have that same opportunity or haven't had it early enough because you know, at in in the early 90s, that was pretty, that wasn't all that uncommon uh to have that kind of work ethic. It you know, you had less video games, less less computer, and more, you know, out in the street playing and drinking from the the garden hose and that kind of thing. So I I think that set me up. I I was kind of an odd duck if you look back. You know, I was, you know, people always made fun of me. Oh, you're going out and cutting grass. I bought my first piece of equipment and I was in the seventh grade. I think I bought a riding lawnmower from the profits of pushing lots of acres for a long time. And why wouldn't you spend that on, you know, a toy or something? But it gave me a uh or you know, a video game system or what whatever it was when I was in the eighth grade. Uh, but it gave me a deep sense of you know trying to continuously uh better the situation and grow um in a very, very ground root level, you know. Um in retrospect, I was talking to what would have been a uh mid-level CEO. Uh that that construction company's probably pushing a billion dollars right now. I had the the fortunate um situation where he's my next door neighbor, you know, and it was more than just working for him, you know. He'd come over and hang out with my parents uh in the backyard. We had fires in the backyard all the time, come over, socialize with my parents, and that that gave me a lot of extra time around him. And I think it it uh in retrospect, uh, you know, I was thinking, what kind of mentors have I had? And they're all around us. We just may not realize it.

Nathan 6:48

Yep, I 100% agree with that because I think a lot of the things you got to see from him or hear from him and learn, that's impressive. And and that's not something that's super common. Um, but like you mentioned earlier, you know, a lot of us probably in those 90s were doing a lot of these kind of jobs and really building up and doing that because I had a very similar experience in that nature. So very interesting. But I love the thought of these mentors almost being kind of surrounding you. And what do you look back on and say, oh, what did I learn here and how did that shape who I am? And then taking that and saying, Oh, what am I doing for those around me today? What can I kind of pass on?

Entering CPG And First Big Win

PepsiCo, Promotions, And The Recession

Hard Lessons In Management Style

Building Strategy And Analytics At Nestlé

Ryan 7:28

I, you know, so uh fast forward I graduate high school uh and I had uh, you know, I had ambitions to go to uh landscape architecture school. Um, and I had the the draw to go to farming too. So there's Ohio State AIT in Wooster, Ohio. Um, and then then football actually took over my thought process in kind of in the middle of my making decision on college. I I'm five foot ten. At the time I was a lot bigger and I played defensive tackle. I was probably like 260 pounds, and I had it in my mind that I was gonna work myself up to the Ohio State University, but I got an offer from the Urbana University, and so I went to Urbana University on three quarters of a ride, half football, half uh quarter academics. And um uh so I went there and very quickly realized going from a you know bigger fish in a smaller pond to being in a bigger pond, being a very small fish when it came to you know my my colleagues, and I made the decision to start working um and leaving football. Uh at least, you know, I wasn't gonna make it the NFL. I certainly wasn't gonna make it Division I football. And so uh I kind of had a career pivot, if you will. Um, I was uh uh majoring in uh I believe it was liberal arts because they didn't have a poli sci program there. And I worked at Walmart over that next year, um, but I then transferred to Ohio State University. At the time I was at Walmart, I met my uh my my former wife uh whom uh moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. And so the second year of my college, I spent the entire uh year driving down to Cincinnati every weekend, working, working night shift at Walmart and Columbus, uh work taking evening classes, going and sleeping during the day, rinse repeat. That was kind of a tough existence, but nonetheless made it work. But ultimately uh trans um transferred down to the University of Cincinnati. Um, and you know, the long-term career path at that point was I was gonna go to law school. That was kind of that was the path. I had uh worked for senators DeWine and Voinovich uh that year as an intern in their uh Social Security uh joint casework office in Columbus, and I found out that I absolutely hated the nuances of uh the reality of government. When I transferred to the University of Cincinnati, I kept my major in poli sci because I was so close to graduating, and then I uh took all business selectives my senior year, heavy and accounting, business, general business, uh any any kind of business course I could get in. Now, all the while uh I I had um I had worked at Fifth Third Bank when I moved to Columb, uh Cincinnati. And after a year and a half working through uh 9-11 in the mortgage department, just knocking my socks off, I was informed, yes, congratulations, you are graduating. You want a career job, you're gonna take a significant pay cut. And I'm like, oh, I but I have a degree now, this is the way it is. Um, because I was going from a commission job to a salary job and potentially, and so I started looking at other opportunities, and I kind of fell into the CPG world with Sarah Lee Foods, and so I had a big opportunity. I came in, I had a wonderful first boss, couldn't ask for a better one. Um, and in fact, I still work with her uh in of sorts. Uh she is one of my uh one of the folks that works on my team. Um, she calls on her at uh I hold now. So I've been in a few meetings, and so you know, they often say uh CPG is is very, very, very tight group, and it certainly is because you come across the same people over and over again. So um, so I fell into CPG and I absolutely loved it. That that boss, that's that for that probably first real mentor uh professionally, I would say, just set me up for success. She got out of my way once I had my basic training, gave me some runway, and you know, offered me opportunities. And I was a go-getter, you know. I I had had a probably from that that work ethic that had been uh kind of ingrained in me in my youth, I took on a very blah project. It was a deductions uh reduction project, basically. And what had happened is all these firms had been doing kind of their own thing. And when they merged them, as we know in mergers and acquisitions, there's a lot of churn with the people, they didn't stay, processes got dropped off, and we had like a three and a half million dollar bucket, and in in that business, that was a lot of money, but it just had unexplained, right? So I I that was my first official project ever. Um, you know, up till then I'd been working retail, and you know, it's a little bit different, you know, scene and and what your your your tactical objectives are. So I I kind of created a project team with my team. Um, I sat on the team uh and you know my colleagues didn't want to do this, you know, they had their own deductions and they just weren't into it. So I said, let me take a look, let me help. And what we were able to do is take that deduction balance down less than $300,000 from $3 million. Unfortunately, the CEO of our company decided uh she needed the company to to relocate to Chicago. Uh and so while I was offered a position, I was right in the middle of my MBA. I think I mentioned um, you know, I'd started my MBA there in in this area. And um so I wanted to see that through. So I took a uh a job with a non-CPG company uh here in town uh called Luxotica, which is a manufacturer of glass for those who don't know glassware, uh like uh Pearl Vision, lens crafters, those kind of brands, and they're vertically integrated as well. That was uh that was really fun. Uh and but it wasn't ultimately um really what I wanted to do. And so I was uh at the Bob uh uh maybe two years in, I just finished my MBA and was offered a position with PepsiCo um in play in demand planning. And that was like kind of another aspect of planning. So you get in the theme here. I made the production side, I work with demand planning, uh, and then I had the opportunity to go to demand planning, and so I planned uh point of sale um kind of like displays and things a lot at that time. There was a lot of cardboard display, less probably NCAP, but more full stack, especially in the Gatorade side and Tropicana and certainly um the Quaker side. And so that's what I did uh for the Kroger business. And I was able to kind of be on the ground floor of some uh new movements and promotions at Kroger. Um, what I learned from that is it's fun to win. It's fun to, it's really fun to be able to take a challenge and make it a win across the um entire spectrum, both the customer and your own organization. And that opened up the door to have more strategic conversations um with the retailer in that in before I was more tactically inclined, right? So, how do we do things better, both short-term, long time term? How do we plan better? Um, how do we integrate better? And and I really enjoyed that. For all of that, um, 2008, um, we also know was a pretty low market time for CPG because stores went clear clean store. We're walking into a recession that we had never really experienced that kind of strength, at least in my generation. And uh I I for the first time in my life I'd been laid off. And what that taught me is uh you don't own your job. Um and all you can do is continuously provide value and uh you know at the end of the day, um that gave me a lot of security in knowing that nothing is secure, right? So kind of kind of zen, if you will, like so it calms it it's helped calm my mind over my career, right? Like I had great leadership there too. Um people that really stuck their neck out for me and and let me uh jump in and succeed. So I learned a lot there, did some consulting for a little bit, some small business consulting for about nine months, and then I went to Mead West Vaco. Uh and uh that's the paper manufacturer company, I think they're Sanford now, probably owned by Newell, um, I believe. Um, and we did paper, so like uh Mead Five Star, the Trapper Keeper, those kind of things. And I was involved in demand planning, and I walked in it right at the end of back to school. Um, and that was a different company, um, very, very blue-collar company. Leadership was very blue-collar, and as such, I learned probably my first time what not to be as a manager. Um, we ran into a situation where uh we forecasted for an event and the phasing was off by about a week. Now we as as we know, this happens in planning, this happens in retail execution. Ads flip by a day, that kind of thing. Yeah, it was a mistake. We get it, we learn and move on. I was brought into an office and told I will never make another mistake like that again in demand planning or else. But I I learned at that point in time that there is a way to treat people, there's a way not to treat people. Uh, there is a way to address things if there is a gap, and there is a way not to address things. And so that was a learning experience as well. Record then keys are comes calling, and and it was a shock to the system because it was so entrepreneurial. Yet, you know, I I'd come up in probably traditional CPG, a lot more blue blood CPG. And one of the first things that kind of resonated with me, I was working on the team in the supply chain, and and we we kind of imbibed that Steve Jobs pirates mentality, right? Like, just go make it happen. And I love that mentality. Like um, it offered me an opportunity. I I came in as a single contributor, and within two months, I was leading top five grocery, and I had a team of five analysts and an intern, and we were doing some major things, delivering months, quarter, um, you know, making things happen that uh that I'd never experienced the speed. Because I if if anything I learned from Rocket is the speed to market. I had some great leaders at Racket and some not so great leaders at Racket. Again, mixed bag. Uh, I'd say that what I learned from uh Racket uh to do right is that you know empower your people. I think that was a great lesson that we learned from Racket. I think the lesson I learned and not to do is make sure that you have your people's back. And you should always lighten the load for your your folks. Um that servant leader mindset that I have that I learned that a lot from you know the likes of Simon Sinek and uh you know others that have wrote in that space, you know, the leaders eat glass. I read that book and it really resonated with me. Like, take care of your people. And so I well, I really I really enjoyed Wreck It, but it I was offered the opportunity to go to Nestle uh and do some of the same things I've done at Wreck It, but start from scratch, so build from top down. And I tend to like to build new processes and new new uh mechanisms of doing different things, and and that worked well at Nestle. We went from being kind of a transactional partner on the water side with Kroger uh to being more of a um strategic partner and went from like that tactical, yeah, you're not executing to best in class, was able to pilot some programs uh with them, such as VR and and uh really springboarded my career. I I went from that program to leading our e-commerce team um from a supply chain perspective, along with the supermarket channel. And then it was kind of and and this, and this, and this. Um, I you know, I I added data analytics because I was tired of our rudimentary way of measuring things. I wanted better visualization. So I created cost to serve scorecard just just flat on my own machine. Well, you know, I'm no IT expert, but having something that valuable sitting on my machine was a little risky. So we were able to democratize it, moved it to the cloud, and then got internal feedback and and buy-in to hey, this is the the mechanism backbone of how we're gonna operate our business and measure it. Um, and I now have been it uh in that role in various capacities uh for the last 11 years. That kind of brings me to today. Um, I think um when I think about um some of the things I've been able to do, you know, in becoming an expert, I've also been able to branch out a little bit. Um, one of the things that I learned from COVID, you know, going through all the continuous changes, I think I'm pretty adept to change. I'm pretty adept to transformation and reinventing things over and over again. We've gone through transformations, we've gone through COVID one, two, and three. We've gone through, you know, um spinning off private into private equity, you know, merging into a public traded company again. And uh so those opportunities uh let beget themselves to, you know, during COVID, for example. Um, once things kind of calm down a little bit, I was able to um kind of explore some other areas that I had always wanted to do. And no one ever no one grows up saying, hey, I want to be a supply chain executive when I grow up. It's a fireman, it's a policeman. Well, I had an unfortunate uh incident uh in the community I was living in. Someone um was walking by my house and coded in front of my driveway. Uh, and I sat and watched as the fire department worked on on that person and and took her to the hospital. And I said, Darn it, I'm tired of not being able to provide help to somebody, like give it back to the community. You know, you get so focused on your career that you know that becomes it, and then there's not much energy for anything else. So I had been wanting to do it forever. Uh, I applied to a fire department in my area, um, passed my agility test, got hired, and um started working as a fireman. Um, started first as an EMT, got my license, started working as an EMT and then got my fire cards. Um, and then um that uh started as a volunteer position and then it has kind of morphed to, you know, now I'm I'm a paid uh on the EMS side, and uh that's how I get back to the community.

Nathan 24:20

So that is awesome. Really trying to step out and learn something different that is completely outside of what you've ever done, right? Um thinking corporate world and now on the this medical side of really giving back and helping others. I think that's an incredible thing to really kind of branch out and start to learn and help.

Ryan 24:41

Yeah, and and I think I would never have done that had I not been given the opportunity, uh, and that that that begets it um to some of the great mentors I've had at uh Nestle. Um I I had my my boss got um um retired uh four years ago, but he just kind of like, hey, you want to go look at that? Look at that, write your own job description. And in doing so, it's branched me out so much more than just the uh shipments and things like that. I've been able to dive into efficiencies and process improvement and you know, things that really build the organization. It's not just a cost thing, it's a profitability thing, and it's a capability thing for our organization, right? Had I not had the the the runway given to me to be able to explore those things, and the cops is, hey, you can figure it out, I wouldn't be there. Same thing with the fire DMS. You know, that was just another another way, and that mindset at work um that was was gifted to me by my leaders and things like that opened it opened that uh path up to me.

Nathan 26:01

So that is awesome. I want to dive a little bit deeper on a couple of leaders that you've talked about, right? And I think the one really caught my attention was I want to go back to the early one. Sarah Lee, you talked about a really good leader that you had there, and you mentioned something that kind of caught my attention. You said she just kind of got out of the way. Can you expand on why that made her a good leader for you?

Adapting Through Change And COVID

Ryan 26:28

She knew my capabilities, right? She knew the capabilities, and it she knew. I know at that time she knew that confidence was only thing that I really needed at that point, right? So it I I think back to a situation where we were calling, I was calling my first customer. You know, I'm I'm 23 years old, you know, jittery. And we had a customer to go to. It was H E B. And I had to go down, and you know, she was going with me, and I got a call at the airport. Yep, I'm not gonna be able to make it. Weather, I I can't get out. I half suspect that that was all by design, right? And and you know, that kind of set the tone. Like, if that's the scariest thing I'm ever gonna do and do do by myself, I think I'll be okay. And and the meeting went well, um, from my perspective, and I didn't get any blowback, so I can only assume and then only set things up for okay, um, you can do this. And and the other piece of that is I I often think about celebrities and I often think about like levels of the organization. I feel comfortable whether I'm meeting with the CEO of a company or our own C-suite sitting down to a with a Target top to top, or you know, an Amazon top to top or tar uh Kroger top to top. I feel as comfortable in those situations as I do talking with my analysts. And it's all about talking to people, knowing your audience, right? Um, and I think that bit of confidence she gave me as a junior, I was technically a manager, but really just uh when I think about a just a junior analyst, um set the stage for me to uh have success down the road, you know.

Nathan 28:23

I love that because I think it's important for leaders, right? As you're leading a team to remember, and I've talked about this with other leaders as well, is that you have to remember that you aren't meant to do it all. And when you do, you actually take away growth opportunities for others that are on your team. And in this scenario, because I think that's a great example of this, in that she trusted you to do that, she trusted you to do the job, and you were successful in that, which actually lightens her load, but gives you opportunities to grow and be comfortable and grow in that confidence that you needed to help you actually proceed through even bigger things within your career.

Answering The Call: EMT And Fire Service

Ryan 29:06

And I think that scales too. I don't care what level you're at. I I am a doer, so sometimes I can get um, you know, if I do a 360 myself, I can get mired into the details. And that, you know, who does it better than yourself? Well, you have if you're not developing a team and developing more use, then you you're not you're not succeeding in the grand scheme of things. Correct. So, you know, and it comes up because that's my general, you know, I'm I'm a blue-collar, proudly a blue-collar base person. I I grew up blue-collar. Um, love my family, love my parents, but that's my roots. So I often have to to say, okay, you don't have to do it all. You can kind of direct and and and and so. And again, this comes up all the time. We always have, you know, we have to move fast agile. It's important to, you know, kind of make sure that you're spreading that to other people so they can see success. And you want at the end of the day, the day, my happiest day is when I have one of my team members recognized for what they're doing. I also make it absolutely clear in projects that a lot of times projects, you know, I may be presenting, yeah, it's my project, but there's a lot of work that went in in the nuts and bolts, and getting there could not be possible without your team. And I make sure that that's that's regularly a part of my practices.

Nathan 30:45

Yeah, that goes along with something you said a little bit later, right? And empowering your people and giving them those the credit where it is needed so that they can understand the impact that they've had, but also giving them those tools to do the things that they need to do, getting out of their way, empowering them and letting them do it. I want to touch on a couple of things that you had mentioned from a little bit more challenging experience, things that you learned from that. And you talked about making sure to have your people's back and lighten their load. Can you talk about a little bit of those challenging pieces that really helped you understand those two components?

Ryan 31:25

Yeah, it's funny. When I came into RecadVin Keyser, I remember the story all the time. One of the managers uh was a good colleague of mine in the sales side, mentioned to me that you know there's going to be a lot of priorities. And he mentioned a parable that he had heard somewhere about uh within our own company walls where someone had uh was getting just task saturated with a million different priorities, right? And that person was kind of getting dragged down, and their manager said, Oh, let me see your priorities. Okay, that's not a priority, that's not a priority, and that's uh priority. Here's the focus. They weren't doing it for them, they were just helping them clear their mind. Yes. Um, and I think uh one of the things I've learned um on the fire side that that that unconsciously I've learned on the business side too is calmness in the eye of a of a uh a um incident, whether it be a fire incident or a a business incident or you know, a crisis is the key to getting out of that crisis. All chaos does is breed more chaos, and you're not gonna get to your goals. So I I think um as we relate your quote uh back to your question, I think that was a key learning for me.

Nathan 32:55

I like that because I think I've heard that a lot even today, right? Within the organization that I sit today, I get from my leadership is you're always so calm through things. And I that is something that I get credit for because I've had a lot of those same type of understandings that come to life. And it is probably from some of our time in when we work together in that organization, to where it I like how you said it, chaos just breeds chaos, and it will all work out. Like you have to stay calm, you have to work through the things, get the stuff done, and in the end it'll be fine. And that's where you know on the CPG side, like your fire side. I don't want to even touch that from a medic and side. But when it comes to CPG, I don't have anybody on the operating table, it's not a major deal, right? I can it's fine. We'll work through it, we'll get things done. Exactly.

Ryan 33:49

It's just exactly name your widget, right?

Nathan 33:53

But I love that that where you mentioned like the chaos brings chaos. So just calm down, work through it, everything will be fine. And in the end, you can look back and say, how did we get to that point? And how do we avoid some of those things and make it smoother in the long run?

Ryan 34:10

And I think that again, that that's not my general nature. My nature, I'm a little bit fiery guy. You know that about me. I can I can get impassioned, but as I've matured over the years, I I've noticed that you know what you impart on your team can affect their mood and how they operate, right? Yes. Um, so it's important to be that duck on a pond, right? You might below the surface be paddling like hell, but above the surface is called cool and calm. So yes. Again, that is that is a learned treat that I I that I have to move myself to every day, right? Um is not in my nature. I grew up with a I love my father, but he can get riled up pretty easily. And so that's my that's my nature. Um, my education and upbringing, and meant the mentors around me have brought me to where I am now.

Nathan 35:15

That is awesome. Um, one of the questions I had for you is, you know, as a leader, I'm sure you've been through some trainings about leadership throughout your career. Have there been any that really stand out to you that were really good ones? Or are you really more on the job? Just would love to understand from a training perspective, how has that come to life for you from a leadership?

Calm Over Chaos: Priority And Focus

Ryan 35:40

So it's interesting, and you you you can probably relate to this in the supply chain world, formal training. Um, I feel like when I came into the CPG world in 2022 or 20, I wish it was 2022 in some respects, 2002. Um, there was a lot more formal training uh organizations. I mean, I came in Sarah Lee, they had a training department. I haven't seen a training department in a company, a true training department, uh, probably in 16, 17 years. To the fact that the first SAP instance I ran, you had to be certified on SAP before they would let you go. Now it's here you go. Um, so I I think as companies have become leaner, less formalized occurs, and it's more incumbent on yourself to kind of pick up leadership uh training and opportunities. So mine has been a lot of a lot of podcasts. Um I mentioned Simon Seneck before, you know, reading. Uh um I'm failing. Um John Gordon is one that I I listen to a lot, you know, leadership. Um the 20 uh there's a book, 21 Rules of Uh Leadership. I I can't think of the name of the author. His name is John, too. I I can't think of the last name. He's very he's so it kind of started that way. John Maxwell perhaps. Yeah, thank you. John Maxwell.

Nathan 37:18

The Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, I think. I've read that one. It's actually a very good one. I think the the whole thing, I like to have this conversation with each leader that I talk to because one of the things that I want some of the younger folks out there who may be listening, or people who are trying to get into leadership, to understand and feel free to say something different if you disagree. But I want them to really kind of understand that don't rely on your organization to train you to be a leader. Some of it is gonna come from doing, but others is having really good mentors that can help you through them. Other things are you going out and doing some research and trying to figure out what that looks like through some of these books, through some of these podcasts that are available. But just don't rely on, because I I know when I was younger, it's like, oh, well, they're gonna train me to be this leader, right? I was a I was a manager like 21 years old, 20 years old, something like that. And you know, you kind of have that in your mind, oh, they're gonna train me. That is not the case. And and I think really as you head into those leadership positions or want to become a leader, it's on you to really develop yourself and to find some people who can help you that have been in those situations.

Training Yourself To Lead

Ryan 38:30

Yeah, I I can't agree anymore. Like the days of a company giving you a pre prescribed, you know, leadership training and development program, yeah, they still exist in some orgs, but it's it's few and far between, as I as I've, you know, and and I'm not by any means a job hopper, but I've worked in several organizations and I've just seen the genesis. You have to take the ownership of it, even to your to the extent of owning your career. There's no most companies, there's no prescribed notion that you're gonna go from here to here to here. Here's your steps, do them, check off a box, and then get there. It just doesn't exist that way. Um, one of the things I I've always had informal leader um uh mentors. I never had one mentor that said, Hey, I'm gonna be your mentor, and I I talk to them, and it's a mentor program with uh an outline and uh hey, you graduated from this program. No, it's it's conversations, right? It's deep personal conversations, it's keeping those lines alive. You know, I can think of my chief supply chain officer at Sarah Lee, uh EVP of planning, um, you know, runs a consultancy now, uh IBP2. Um, these are all folks that I I still connect with from time to time, um, just uh you know bounce things off of. And uh it's less formal nowadays, uh, with some of these folks because it's been 20 plus years since I worked for them, but it you still can pick the phone up or send a message and hey, how are you doing? Yeah, you know, um little things like that. You know, I think uh thinking that you're gonna solve everything on your own is another fable of a very young manager. Like you have all the you don't you don't you have the basic knowledge and keys, and you know relationships are still the main way to you know kind of network the right way to get the answers you need. Um, you know, I work in an organization where we technically fall in transportation. Well, I don't know a darn thing about transportation. So, you know, at 46 now, I'm you know leveraging their expertise, you know, when we run into uh situations and I'm solving those uh some opportunities that would fall traditionally in transportation, but it's because I'm leveraging the relationships and the knowledge to say, okay, this is what you need to look at, that kind of thing. Um, because you you're not gonna know everything about every discipline you ever touch.

Nathan 41:18

Yep, absolutely. So as we wrap up, I want to hit you with a couple of rapid reflection questions. So let's talk about as much as you're comfortable sharing, what is your what you would consider your biggest failure as a leader?

Ryan 41:35

My biggest failure as a leader was very young when I was a leader. Um, and it was um not keeping cool when things got tough. I I touched on that earlier, right? I yeah, that was my biggest failure as a leader. Um, keeping your crew calm and collected is absolutely essential. Um and I think to a certain extent, when you're young, you got a little bit of ego. Oh, it's what I did. No, and that's not the mission. Your charge is your mission. And so, you know, I I learned from that really quickly and made the pivots necessary. It was just immaturity and leadership and and and growth. And immaturity is not a bad thing. Every one of us goes through a uh a point of immaturity, it's all relative, right? Like, so learning from that and you know, trying to set people up for success and keeping the mindset that leaders do eat last, and your charge is your most important thing. Absolutely. I think that was the big pivot.

Nathan 42:45

Gotta flip side of that. Biggest success or the thing that you're most proud of as a leader.

Ryan 42:51

Um, I saw a LinkedIn post the other day. Um, and not necessarily this role in itself, but I saw someone that was promoted to VP who started as an analyst with me. And I thought, okay, my biggest overall success is seeing other people succeed, right? Whatever that might be. And success is different for every person. It might be getting home at at 5 p.m. and being completely washed of your work and uh and fulfilled and things like that. For others, it might be career advancement, just seeing people succeed, you know, is is what I love love to see. Um and particularly people, there's certain parts of the organization where people kind of get like shoe born into a uh situation or a concept or uh that person is X, Y, or Z. One in particular, um uh on one of my teams was a rock star from the very beginning. I could see it, was able to bring that person to my team, and they prove me right. And they continue to grow, and they're very happy in their role um as as they operate right now. Uh, and so seeing people where they want to be, wherever that is, they may be completely happy being on my team as an analyst, they may be completely happy being on the team as a manager, they may want something else. So helping them go get, you know, again, it's blocking and tackling and bulldozing obstacles out of the way of your people as much as you can. Certainly, they have to do some of that lifting themselves, but um helping them get those obstacles out is is what I really enjoy.

Nathan 44:41

Excellent. Two last questions. Thinking about if you could go back and tell your younger self something that you would love to have known then. Let's start with leadership. Is there anything that you would give yourself advice on as a leader that you wish you would have known then that you know now?

Owning Your Career And Mentorship

Ryan 45:03

I think being quick to get your ideas out without listening to your team's ideas can be potentially detrimental. And I think it's important to have open dialogue uh when you conceive solutions. Now, it doesn't mean that that dialogue won't ultimately lead to your original idea, but as clear as you can see a solution to a problem, there are always tweaks to that problem, uh, solution set that can be put in. So don't undervalue the input of your team. Um, probably again, that younger, more I have to have all the answers at all times. Um thought process, you become a manager when you don't really know what managing really is, can get in the way. I think that would be my advice to uh my my old self or my younger self.

Nathan 46:04

Excellent. Love that. Last question, same type of question, but instead of as a leadership advice, think about your career journey. What do you wish you would have known when you were younger for your career?

Ryan 46:17

I think it kind of kind of points back to your earlier question, which was it's not prescribed for you, right? You have to take ownership of that that journey. And the only person that's going to have your ultimate path understood is you. Um let me back up. The only way you're going to get where you want to go is having that clear understanding and taking the right steps. No one's gonna hand it to you. Um one's going to say, hey, you complete this step, you do this, you're gonna get whatever role you want or wherever you want to be. Um you do that, you always have to perform, right? It's uh one piece of advice I got is always provide value. So I always try to provide outsized value, but you own um your end path, so you've got to take care of the relationships that will get you there. It is relationship-based, certainly performance-based to a certain extent, but definitely relationship-based.

Nathan 47:26

Mine was um the power of networking. I wish I would have known that sooner because to your point, it's about the relationships that you build and um where how how that influences where you go. So love that. Any last thoughts for those who may be listening about leadership?

Ryan 47:44

I think leadership um is a muscle. And such as a muscle, you have to continue to try to build it. Things change. We're dealing with different generations. What motivates the Gen X's of the world will not resonate with the millennials, which will not resonate with whatever generations coming up. Um, but don't discount those new generations because they can bring quality aspects to your overall organization. Think of things in different ways that you may not have thought of. Yes. Um, and I think I think if you keep that in mind and help mentor those younger generations on what you do know that you can bring to their table, I think we're you'll build a strong organization and strong team.

Failures, Wins, And Team Growth

Nathan 48:30

What an incredible conversation with Ryan Turnley. I really loved hearing how his journey from mowing lawns in small town Ohio to leading major initiatives at companies like Sara Lee, PepsiCo, and Nestle was built on a foundation of hard work, resilience, and a deep sense of responsibility. Ryan's insights on leadership really stood out, empowering your people, staying calm through chaos and always focusing on service, whether that's in business or giving back to the community as a firefighter in EMT. You reminded us that leadership isn't about doing it all yourself. It's about creating space for others to grow and succeed. Thank you for listening. Thank you for showing up for your own growth. If Ryan's story resonated with you, I hope you'll come back for future episodes and hear from even more leaders. If this episode inspired you, share it with someone who needs encouragement today. And remember, trust your gut, be kind, lead with purpose, and never underestimate your impact. Until next time, I'm Nathaniel Norker, and this is Life and Leadership Story.