S2E4: Beyond the Classroom: Leaders Discuss the Real-World Impact of UT's EMBA for Global Supply Chain

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Introduction: 0:39

Welcome to the Tennessee on Supply Chain Management podcast. Listen in as co-hosts Ted Stank and Tom Goldsby set sail into the world of end-to-end supply chain management, diving deep into today's most relevant business topics. They'll share insights and pressing industry issues and tackle the challenges keeping supply chain professionals up at night. If you're enjoying the ride, download and subscribe to Tennessee on Supply Chain Management on your favorite podcast platform now.

Tom Goldsby: 1:07

Hello and welcome to another edition of Tennessee on Supply Chain Management. It's great to have you with us. I am your co-host, Tom Goldsby, with Dr. Ted Stank. Happy holidays, Ted. It is the holiday edition, and edition it's peak season around here at Rocky Top, wouldn't you agree?

Ted Stank: 1:24

Yeah, a lot going on, depending on how you define peak season.

Tom Goldsby: 1:33

It's finals week here at UT, we've also got a lot of our executive MBA students on campus, and in fact we're going to visit with some of those folks a little bit later. But let's go ahead and jump into some of the news of the day. Ted, you know we always think that we can just kind of scratch the surface on this. It seems like there's never a shortage of topics to take on.

Ted Stank: 1:55

For those of you who know Tom and I, you know that we always have a lot of things going, so it's usually like maybe 24 hours in advance, I think, because this is a Monday, that we're recording it. We actually started looking at it on Friday, yeah we had the weekend, we thought well, there's not that much stuff going on right now, so you know we'll be really brief on the upfront section and over the weekend, as I started taking notes, yeah, holy crap, there's a lot going on.

Tom Goldsby: 2:17

There's always a lot going on, Ted, so why don't we start off with big economy stuff? You know, Q3 updates to obviously we're in the holiday season. Holiday sales have been reportedly quite brisk. It was a very robust Black Friday, especially online, and then that carried over to Cyber Monday. And now Cyber Monday is not enough. We've got Cyber Week, apparently.

Ted Stank: 2:40

The whole time week is dedicated to it. I'm not going to offend our marketing partners, but really? I mean we used to just look at Black Friday sales, but now the sales are extending beyond Black Friday and Cyber Monday is becoming Cyber Week. But that is the interesting trend is that online sales continue to increase as a percentage of overall sales at a faster pace than overall sales.

Tom Goldsby: 3:04

That's right. I think in-store was up, maybe only a little more than a point. It was just barely online.

Ted Stank: 3:10

I'd last saw 7%.

Tom Goldsby: 3:13

And Cyber Monday was up 6% year over year. Cyber Week was up over 5%. So a lot of stuff, but obviously there was a lot of inventory. It seems like our supply chains thus far have held up pretty well. Inventory is moving, and they say that if you were to take the deflationary factor into effect (and that's probably through some aggressive price discounting that's going on right now) that the sales would be up even more than what they're reporting.

Ted Stank: 3:40

Yeah, inventory levels have stabilized. Seems like we've cleared out the bullwhip effect inventory that we had last year.

Tom Goldsby: 3:47

Things are kind of you know more and more whether we're talking about inventories, we're talking about warehousing, we're talking about transportation. There's a lot more acceptance that maybe we are where we were pre-pandemic, even up a bit, obviously bit.

Ted Stank: 4:00

But this notion of kind of settling down, even though I know transportation. I mean I have long felt like COVID just gave us such huge shocks that the system just went crazy. It's going to take some time for that system to stabilize and even out.

Tom Goldsby: 4:13

Yeah, but spenders keep spending. Credit card balances did exceed a trillion dollars, which is a record in my notes. I said but who cares?

Ted Stank: 4:23

Consumer confidence is up.

Tom Goldsby: 4:24

Yeah, you know, I've learned to stop paying so much attention to consumer sentiment, because I tend to believe what people do more than what they say. But even the consumer sentiment index ticked up a little bit.

Ted Stank: 4:37

Q3 adjusted GDP was 5.2%. Oh, huge. Yeah, I mean we're expecting 1.2% in quarter four and maybe also slow down in the first couple quarters of 2024, but the "soft landing seems to have been saved. I hate to say that because then something will happen.

Tom Goldsby: 4:59

Don't jinx it, Stank. Maybe some of that optimism is attributed to cheaper gas. Gas prices are at the lowest level since 2021.

Ted Stank: 5:08

Food prices are coming down as well. The fact I was just reading about core inflation is at 2%. We're kicking it up to 3.7% is housing. But the Fed is making some noises like they're pretty comfortable with where we are. I have read some banking institutions saying that we could expect perhaps three to four interest rate cuts in 2024.

Tom Goldsby: 5:34

Cuts, huh, wow, and that maybe helps explain why the general stock market's been pretty healthy and showing more positive days than negative.

Ted Stank: 5:42

Yeah, what I've read is inflation cooling, demand, staying relatively healthy. Labor market, which we should probably talk about, seems to have stabilized as well. The jobs report was pretty healthy in November, but that also took into account 47,000 jobs of UAW and Hollywood writers and actors coming back to work, so it wasn't 199,000 seems like a lot and exceeded the 190 that economists were expecting, but also almost 50,000 of that where people are returning to work.

Tom Goldsby: 6:13

Yeah, fair enough. Well, it is the season of giving, but it's also the season of returning, and I did want to talk about a little news item that came across my inbox. The folks at Pitney Bowes do a great job with this box poll to get these pulse reads on last mile logistics and also consumer returns, and they issued a report late last week on returns fraud and it was pretty alarming, frankly. Of course, we're looking at consumer returns here and some of the research we're doing with our advanced supply chain collaborative. But with regard to fraud, it's pervasive. We knew that. But just how pervasive and the general attitudes toward fraud, I think were what was most alarming in this report. If you look generationally hey, I'm going to call you out as a boomer you all are okay. You all are okay with fraudulent returns, 10% of the time, or 10% of the population. We move on to my generation, Gen X. It goes up to darn near 20%.

Ted Stank: 7:15

I've always thought you all were smart.

Tom Goldsby: 7:19

Well then you look at the subsequent generations, Gen Z, millennials. And about a third of Gen Z years and millennials thought that return fraud was acceptable. What do you think of that?

Ted Stank: 7:32

I don't think I can say on the podcast what I think about that. Frankly, that really frightens me, because what does that say about our mors and ethics? And I guess what it says is what you read in the papers and see on TV about our politics, our government, our business leader. I mean so much. I think it's always been us. Maybe what it says is that boomers are lying.

Tom Goldsby: 7:55

Again I say don't believe what they say, believe what they do. But with regard to the report, it spoke of policy abuse, which is bracketing behavior, which I think is pretty common, abusing the returns policies that are so liberal. But meanwhile, when we talk about fraud, it's reporting that an item wasn't delivered when in fact it was and seeking a replacement. It's also reporting returning an empty box or that you know a box full of rocks or what have you, and seeking the refund. We are seeing that a lot more companies today are issuing the instant refund. Just hey, just keep it. But it wouldn't do anything about these returns. Yeah, in certain circumstances, right. So maybe more about that. Hey, just one little touch point on that. They did say if you perform a quick inspection upon the drop off, just a little check on the consumer, that would curb that behavior quite a bit.

Ted Stank: 8:47

So no time. I know you worked a lot in returns management and clearly it's an area that we need to get so much better on.

Tom Goldsby: 8:53

Yeah Well, I think our sophistication is just so low. We're such a level of immaturity. So to the extent we can advance that, hey. Just a couple more areas to touch on before we move on to our guests. You and I pay attention to both the Logistics Manager Index and Purchasing Manager Index. Both of those were down a bit sub 50, which is indicating contraction rather than growth. But the folks with the LMI were keen to point out that even though LMI was about 47, I think, oh, actually it's just 49.4 down from 56. It's a big drop. It is a big drop. They said, hey, we think things are kind of leveling off. They actually indicated a lot of optimism moving into 2024 on that.

Ted Stank: 9:35

Last thing I'd like to bring up, and then I really do want to move on to labor and careers and talent. One of the big things and from a supply chain world current event is what's happening with the Panama Canal.

Tom Goldsby: 9:46

It's a drill.

Ted Stank: 9:47

Yeah, you know you would send me this note that I thought was super interesting For every drop of a foot in the lake level and for the canal that supports, the canals requires keep me right on this 350 less ton of equivalent units of a container ship that can go through.

Tom Goldsby: 10:05

You got to make the load a lot and it's down six feet, which is 2,100 TEUs.

Ted Stank: 10:10

And what there, some ships are doing? Well, actually, we're seeing an increase in the Asia to US east coast trade going through the Suez. Those that are going through the Panama Canal are actually offloading that number of containers on the Pacific side and railing it across and then picking up when they get through the other side, which obviously adds handling, adds cost time, et cetera.

Tom Goldsby: 10:31

Right. As I understand, the rates are heading up through the canal and then also the longer lead time, so there's a lot of hell to pay.

Ted Stank: 10:39

It's really impacting bulk shipping because they're the lowest priority moving through the canal. Several of them have been talking about going around. One of them actually has transit in the Straits of Magellan.

Tom Goldsby: 10:49

And this is peak season, right for South American, Central American transit. So, yeah, very impactful. Hey, one more data point and we'll move on. It's maybe related to the labor issue in the November jobs report. You already touched on that quite a bit, so I think that maybe we can go ahead and move on to our guests. What do you think?

Ted Stank: 11:06

Yeah, one of the things from the big economy standpoint and then let's bring our guests into this is that it seems like labor supply and demand seems to be stabilizing as well. Job quits are down, which means people are staying with their companies, and if you stay with your company, that means hopefully the companies have invested, both from a salary standpoint and a development standpoint. So as we talk development, let's introduce you to our guests. We have, as Tom mentioned, our executive MBA program in global supply chain is currently on campus with us in their fourth residency period and they actually graduate on Friday. I think y'all are going to graduate on Friday.

Tom Goldsby: 11:48

Should we be so presumptuous? Yeah, I think I mean. What fits of strength and courage do we have in store these next couple of days?

Ted Stank: 11:53

Not too much. Ok, all right, it's pretty much all over about the shouting. But three great students in our program for those not familiar with the program, generally speaking, students in our program are at the director above level from our corporate partners. They've generally been out working 15 plus years, so they're pretty sophisticated folks who have been in industry and they dedicate one year of their lives pretty much to this program.

Tom Goldsby: 12:19

It follows the calendar year and I remember teaching in this program back in early January when you all started, and I don't know if it feels like that was a long time ago or just yesterday.

Ted Stank: 12:29

So let's introduce them first and then we'll get their inputs on this. We've got with us Patricia Covington, executive director of global integrated aftermarket with Cummins, Rebecca Perreault, director of global capabilities and compliance with a large CPG company, and Hans von Steiger, director of clinical supply chain management with Pfizer. Welcome everybody. Thanks for taking the time to be with us. We had to get them out of class. We got hall passes for them.

Tom Goldsby: 12:53

We got to get them back right after this.

Ted Stank: 12:55

Let's start off, and I do want to feel like how have you felt about this journey? I would love to take videos of people in the first week of class in January. The body language is amazing. Y'all are not sure who else is in class with. You've got legs crossed, arms crossed, like I'm not sure what I'm in for. And by December they've been on two international residency periods together, spent a lot of time together, and they're all pretty good friends and they give each other a hard time. They're just so much more relaxed. Maybe that's because they know they're getting all this time back. So let's start off with asking each of you how you got into supply chain management as a career. Did you have an educational background in supply chain management? Hans, want to start us off?

Hans von Steiger: 13:38

Sure. So I came into our organization, Pfizer, that is doing contract manufacturing, and this was when Pfizer was dipping its toe into contract manufacturing, the R&D space. We then transitioned to an end-end supply chain within clinical supplies, and being the person who was managing the contract and outsourcing component of it was a natural fit. They actually brought me into supply chain, versus me deciding on it.

Ted Stank: 14:07

Ok, you were drafted, I was drafted.

Tom Goldsby: 14:10

OK, found you, as it did so many of us.

Ted Stank: 14:13

Rebecca.

Rebecca Perreault: 14:14

I came to supply chain accidentally. I did not have an educational background for it. I had a master's degree in medieval history, which is great. But I took a position in my hometown that was for a Halloween costume company made of e-commerce and they had just decided to start doing their own private label manufacturing of their own brands, and they had no idea how to do that. So I was brought in as somebody who could learn fast and capable to just figure out what that meant. I didn't know for those three years that what I was doing was called supply chain.

Rebecca Perreault: 14:46

But in reality I had a window into every single step of the supply chain, from curament to compliance, to manufacturing, to shipping, to logistics, to freight forwarding, the whole chain up and down.

Ted Stank: 14:58

And that happens so much with small to medium-sized enterprises. I always feel like we work predominantly with large, giant multinational corporations, but I always think that a lot of the stuff that we do to have greater impact at the small to medium-sized companies. I have a friend that owns a relatively small refrigeration company, and I was literally having beers with him last Christmas and his shipping manager came in. I was talking to her about what she does, and I'm like you are not a shipping manager, you are an end-to-end supply chain manager, you are an entire supply chain. Which she then went back to him and said you need to change my title and give me more money. Patricia, how about you?

Patricia Covington: 15:38

See, I think this is one other thing Rebecca and I have in common. I too was an accident, but the best one that probably ever happened. I got my undergrad in accounting, but I was curious enough and my company started up our largest distribution center in the town I was living in, and I took the job as a materials planner and there were things that needed to be improved that I fell in love with.

Patricia Covington: 16:02

So my curiosity, my passion, my like for data, my love for data even at the time Not big data, but it was about connecting the dots. And the more I could figure out how to connect the dots, the more I fell in love with planning, and then logistics, and then it just continued to go on and on and on. So there are so many elements of supply chain that that's what has really caused me to stay put in there.

Ted Stank: 16:30

And y'all are not alone, by the way. I have had very little formal educational background in supply chain or logistics, nothing at the undergraduate or master's level, and although I was an engineer, and then even my PhD is in marketing and distribution from University of Georgia and frankly the coursework was way more marketing than it was distribution. I kind of learned that working with my advisor and who really was a logistics professor. So you're not alone.

Tom Goldsby: 16:58

Supply chain is something that finds us, and we all love it and that presumably ultimately brought you to this program. Can you talk a little bit about what brought you to this program and maybe some of the growth that you've experienced over the course of the past 12 months?

Hans von Steiger: 17:13

Sure, so I was actually here trying to recruit people for supply chain Okay. I was participating in the speed networking. Speed networking. Great experience, I couldn't recommend it strongly enough. There were some breakout sessions. One of the breakout sessions was describing what things looked like in the program and latched onto it and thought that would be great. Looked into it a little more and here I am.

Ted Stank: 17:39

Great, that's a great story.

Rebecca Perreault: 17:43

What brought me to the program is that the company that I work for has a formal sort of nomination process that they go through. Some three people from our company go each year, and so they pick from the top 5% of talent in the company within supply chain and then that goes through a vetting process, and so I was selected for the year, and it was something that I had said that I was interested in, maybe six months prior to being told that I had been selected.

Rebecca Perreault: 18:07

So I didn't know about it at first and then, once I did, I said that it's something I would like to pursue. I like to continue as a student. It feeds me and I need mental stimulation and mental challenge and I need to keep growing, otherwise I could become very complacent. I don't want that. So I was very interested and I was very happy when I was selected and I'm really glad that I did that.

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Great.

Patricia Covington: 18:31

For me, we recruited from the university. Since it's in Knoxville for years and, like Hans, I've had several opportunities to get good talent from here. So as we think about continuous improvement, it's not just in our process, it's also in the people, and so, as a leader in the organization, identifying where you still want to have opportunities to grow and learn and develop, it just made sense that the areas that I wanted to lead in better and grow and develop my leadership. We just thought it's a trusted program, we're partners with the program, it makes sense and so just really super happy to have had that automatic and legacy connection.

Ted Stank: 19:11

And we've got a pipeline of folks in your organization as well who have come through the program, so that's always a great way to do it. So to kind of get back to Tom's question, thinking about where you were in January and where you are today again. We graduate this Friday, December 15th, so it's been almost a full year. I'd like to get really deeply into how your perspectives on the career have changed, how you think you'll be different this come in January, other than not having to do a full time job and a full time MBA as well.

Patricia Covington: 19:47

I'll start by saying I'll go even before starting the program. In the course of the pandemic, I was in the thick of logistics and it was, to say the least, chaotic as it was for a lot of people. And then, after joining the program, really getting to understand and benchmark with private and public organizations that were experiencing the exact same things that I was experiencing. So, having that added network of what I now consider to be family as we share and think about ideas, just that opportunity to have someone outside of my organization to be peer, you know, to have that peer mentoring and peer coaching and benchmarking opportunity with it just informal benchmarking really, really has added a tremendous amount of that.

Ted Stank: 20:36

Yeah, and that is consistent over the years. In fact, I'm a partner to several WhatsApp chains of different classes and it's amazing how they all stay in touch with each other over the years.

Hans von Steiger: 20:49

When I came into this program, one of the things I anticipated was, you know, because this happened in my undergrad I came out looking at things differently, problem thought solving different, approaching problems differently, but you're not sure how that was going to net out at the end of it, and I think I find myself now, at the end of the program, in a space where I'm not anticipated that I have a better appreciation for how to assess culture in a different organization where we're regimented and approach about how to make that assessment and how to drive changes in that culture to optimize how we do business.

Hans von Steiger: 21:24

And that was the piece of it that I knew there would be these tools coming out, but didn't know what they would look like exactly, and that's kind of an example of you know where I ended up.

Ted Stank: 21:31

Yeah that's a great comment you and I talked a little bit on Friday about. I want to get into some of the leadership issues that you learn Again. For those who don't know the Executive MBA and Global Supply Chain Program we have to tell everybody in January this is not master of science and supply chain management. It's not a deep dive into every functional area of the supply chain. It is designed to take folks with a pretty good knowledge base in supply chain already and to integrate you so that your level set across functions but, more importantly, to give you those leadership and financial skills to move into senior leadership positions. Rebecca, what's your take on this?

Rebecca Perreault: 22:08

So for me I think there's been.

Rebecca Perreault: 22:10

I thank you for everyone, right, but for me I think it's a blend of what I was saying the professional and personal thing, so, when I think back to myself, in January, I first of all was anxious to keep up with everyone that I met and anxious to make certain that I was representing our team well, our company well and myself well. And so I just came out of the position of if you want to call it out, the lack of belief in myself, right, and that's been something that has plagued me and I eroded and chipped away at, right, bit by bit for my entire career. And now, when I think of myself, now when I think of, professionally, what this has done for me, what this has done for me is it has made me more. I'm more robust. Here I think the network that we have established has been the greatest benefit, without any disrespect meant to the coursework or the pieces that we've learned right.

Rebecca Perreault: 23:05

The network has given me such a different perspective and such wonderful relationships and the ability to tap into different aspects of those relationships. But the biggest piece for me, my biggest takeaway, is that I'm leaving the year far more convinced of my own capability and my own competence. So I actually have no idea what's entirely going to come next, but I'm 100%, perfectly comfortable with whatever that reality is, because I know that I'll be able to handle it and I'll be able to deliver it.

Ted Stank: 23:40

In that sense, yeah, never underestimate the impact of that cohort effect, the importance of the network that you build. You've got people from across the supply chain, from all different companies. Patricia, you call them family, right? You can call up any one of those people you know. You get a new initiative thrown to you and, like most of us, you have no clue how you're going to go about it. But you say, yeah, I got it, boss, and you walk out and now you have this group of professionals that you can call and say Hans, I know that you've worked in this area. Can you give me some clues about how I should attack that? And that goes with our faculty as well. But we're not naive. I mean, a big part of a program like this is you bring super talented people together and you keep them in a kind of a crucible. For a year we could probably just lock you in a room for the RP and you get a lot out of it. We just have to give you a little structure.

Tom Goldsby: 24:29

I think also there's that international travel element too, which provides some great opportunities to get out of the, you know, rocky tops, a great place to learn and engage. But meanwhile traveling the world brings some great experiences to camaraderie right.

Hans von Steiger: 24:42

To expand upon that a little bit.

Hans von Steiger: 24:44

I mean, I think each one of us here came with you know kind of some expertise in splotching is huge and you have expertise in a small portion of it and by working closely with some of the other people in the class, I was able to gain a much better understanding of pieces of splotching I honestly don't touch. I want planning and logistics, customer- facing side, the warehousing, distribution, pick, pack, ship, inventory control systems. That wasn't my fit, but I understand what their challenges are, how they approach that. It's been a huge learning experience.

Ted Stank: 25:16

One of our old lead faculty who was really instrumental in creating this program guy by the name of Tom Mentzer, sadly passed away. Geez, it's almost 14 years ago now. We literally were sitting on his dock out at Lake Loudoun and we're creating this program, and program we said we wanted a program that sat somewhere between a senior leadership executive MBA and an MS in supply chain, so that we were giving you the skills that come out of a senior leadership or strategic leadership MBA, but also built upon that end to end supply chain knowledge. So, Hans, you're making Tom Mentzer smile down on us right now. Let's get a little bit more into the elements of the course. We created all these deliverables that you've had to do throughout the year and they're designed to be. Tom, you're a lean guy. What is it?

Tom Goldsby: 26:07

That would be, "Genchi genbutsu." Go to where the work is done.

Ted Stank: 26:11

So I mean, a lot of our assignments are designed to, "hey, here's a concept, we're going to talk to you a little bit about the concept, but now you have an assignment to go back to your organization and go and see how it works. I was telling Tom that I have a Navy background in the submarine force. To qualify as an officer of the deck in the submarine, you literally have to go from one end of the sub to the other, identifying different systems, blindfold it, because you might have to do that if power goes out. And this seems to me like what we've created is a similar thing. Go and get your hands on all these different parts of the organization that you like. Hans, that you said you know your area really well. Can you comment on, on, like the OAP in general, which is might want to define an OAP, yeah, the organizational action project, which is a project that each student has to scope and identify and then work through the course of the year?

Patricia Covington: 27:02

I'll start by saying it was a good match for me. My organizational action plan was actually my job, like that was what I've been charged to do, and so integration is never easy.

Patricia Covington: 27:12

One of the biggest benefits that I selfishly got from it is that I essentially and I was fortunate enough to have Ted as my advisor I use him as a consultant. We talked about how often are you meeting with your OAP advisor, and we were on every other week, and it was because I wanted to be able to sort of say here's what's going on, here's what we're thinking, what do you think, and it was just a tremendous benefit. So having the program structured such that it is intended to help you whether it's solving a problem or building a strategy in your existing day-to-day responsibility, that is one of the most valuable pieces for me.

Rebecca Perreault: 27:48

I would agree with that. My OAP is also directly related to what I'm doing all day, every day. And part of that is the choice that you make, right? That's just to teach your choice.

Rebecca Perreault: 27:58

If I can't actually do full-time work plus a full-time EMBA, how do I somehow find ways to synchronize that together, right? So my OAP was a project that I was going to be working on here anyway, but what I would say the course gave to me was a lot more official tools to actually gauge the success at each milestone, which was lacking, and so I think I really appreciated that part of it and I also appreciated the way that there was, just in general, just a lot more structured to the things that you just learn and know instinctively in supply chain. But to try and articulate that outside of the brand, you need some sort of framework, and I think those pieces I took away the most.

Hans von Steiger: 28:43

Yeah, so my OAP was a supply chain integration for acquired companies, and so that's one of my roles at Pfizer. And to learn more about how others have experienced that, I set up interviews with some people inside of Pfizer and outside of Pfizer, and anybody who's been through a corporate integration or an emergency knows it's a very emotional time. So one of the things I think that surprised me the most was, during the interviews, the openness and honesty and almost a part of feel to it, as people told me things that I was surprised that they would even divulge, but it gave me a window into what people are feeling as all this is happening to them. What you need to address first to make sure that they're focused on what you need them to focus on Because, quite honestly, if you don't know if you have a job, you don't know who your boss is going to be, you really don't care that much about which process gets adopted. You don't have people's attention. That's true across everybody I spoke to. How prioritize where you focus your efforts?

Tom Goldsby: 29:44

The OAPs, I think, are such a fascinating part of this program and it's a great way for us as faculty to learn as well. I think we got to call that out. I learned from every, every OAP which I have the opportunity to mentor and and even just observe. Now we try to assert that there's guaranteed payback on the program with the OAP, often inside of the year in which you're in the program. Did we get there? Are we close?

Patricia Covington: 30:11

We did, yeah, fantastic.

Tom Goldsby: 30:14

All right, all right, so we can keep making that assertion, Ted, I guess.

Ted Stank: 30:18

Yeah, and you all mentioned how each of you chose something related to your job, and that is really what it's supposed to be, because of where you are in your careers and the nature of this program. It's not like you quit your job and come here, for, you know, a full-time MBA, and so, to take advantage of that synergy, we want you to be able to choose a project that helps you further something you're doing at your work anyway. I'm going to throw something else at you that I've heard other classes say is a value they've taken away from it Because of your time constraints. This is what others have said. Because of their time constraints, being in the program and being gone for periods of time, they had to push more things to their teams, and it gave them lessons in delegation and also gave them an appreciation for some of the things that their team members could do that they hadn't appreciated before. Did y'all find anything like that?

Patricia Covington: 31:09

I did. I would say, you know, you think, going into the program, you think, okay, I may be able to check in every now and then there was no check-in time especially on the international RPs, no check-in time.

Patricia Covington: 31:21

It sort of forced me not just to have confidence in my team— I always do— but to trust and make and know that it was going to be, that I was not going to be missed. Yeah, and that was just a good signal for me. I was back to work and, all hands on deck, everything was coming and that was really. It was really good. So even more of a reason to continue to focus on that delegation.

Rebecca Perreault: 31:44

I would say delegation is something that I actually think I've done quite well in my career. So people development, and leadership development, and my team feeling empowered is something I'm super passionate about. Something that I get fulfillment from whatever role, and then that's my key role. So I'm not trying to say oh, I'm great, but I'm just saying it wasn't a big shift for me there. But the lesson I learned actually is that my leadership.

Rebecca Perreault: 32:09

So not my team they had no issues, they didn't miss me, they didn't handle everything fine, but my leadership struggled when I would be out.

Ted Stank: 32:17

Interesting.

Rebecca Perreault: 32:18

Because of the way that they lean on me, and so I needed to balance that better throughout the year.

Hans von Steiger: 32:24

For me it was slightly different and I had to manage my own internal guilt about you know. I felt like I'm leaving these guys for ten or twelve days or whatever.

Ted Stank: 32:35

And we work hard in the international art piece, but we have a lot of fun in them as well.

Hans von Steiger: 32:40

But at the same time you're maybe doing very valuable things in those ten days, but you're not with the team.

Ted Stank: 32:44

You're not back with the team.

Hans von Steiger: 32:46

You're not necessarily. At least, I personally felt like, oh, that's time I'm not there for them. But you know, somebody, said to me, "the most important thing you can tell me is that you don't need me here." And I was like, yeah, you know, you're right. It's that you know you feel empowered now and I trust you.

Ted Stank: 33:05

Right.

Hans von Steiger: 33:06

And they actually appreciated that.

Ted Stank: 33:08

Yeah.

Patricia Covington: 33:09

You know, Hans, one thing that makes me think about is visibility. That, in my absence, it gave my team more visibility to others than new leaders, because they had to engage with them. So that's another added value that you know may help suppress the guilt factor.

Ted Stank: 33:27

By the way.

Rebecca Perreault: 33:27

This happened on my team too, yeah.

Ted Stank: 33:29

Because of some of these things, we find that a pretty significant amount of our graduates get promoted within the next year or two. Because of the recognition of the different person that you are coming back.

Tom Goldsby: 33:42

We don't necessarily guarantee that. No, we don't guarantee that. That's the weakness to you. Stop just a little shorter, although, if you want to come back and work with us we have a history of that too.

Ted Stank: 33:49

You all just had Andrea Sordi with you and Thomas Deakins. Let's put a bow on this by asking them a final question. Well, you have a final question, not for you. Oh is that just for me? Okay, and Rebecca, you answered this a bit already, and perhaps Hans and Patricia you have as well. But I'm going to put you a formal question: how will you use what you've learned moving forward? How will you be a different leader than you were a year ago?

Rebecca Perreault: 34:17

I will speak up more, and not just in any sort of confrontational way, also in the ways where I am softer than other leaders. And I will not hide that, the way that I have in my career. I'm not ashamed of that. I'm not ashamed of the style of leadership that I bring to the table. So how I will be a different leader is I will give you a voice to what's already in me.

Ted Stank: 34:43

That's awesome.

Patricia Covington: 34:45

I'm not too different. As we went through the course of the year, there were moments where I would, in the course of my OAP, sort of tell to you here's what I think needs to happen, here's what, and it wouldn't be too far off. It wouldn't be too far off and there would be tools again to Rebecca's point that help you frame it up, and so having more of a voice, but also having access to tools and different thought processes to help others along the journey.

Hans von Steiger: 35:14

Okay, and I'd like to add to that because we've got tools pieces critical, so I'm not going to be a different leader. I evolved over a 12-month period. I am a different leader.

Hans von Steiger: 35:24

Right, and one of the realizations I had is we started to be taught these different tools just how effective they could be, and now it's eye-opening. Part of that was yeah, well, we only got a glimpse of the tools that are out there, and that there are additional tools out there. Here's how you find them. Here's how you build upon what you've gotten and kind of put the whole puzzle together. So that's really how things are going to look different, and you rely on things that others develop versus things that I have.

Ad: 35:52

Yeah, I think.

Ted Stank: 35:53

I've read this. I don't think anyone told me personally. If they did, I can't remember who it was, and I think I've read it one time that the mark of an educated person isn't what you carry around in your head, it's knowing where to go to get the answers.

Tom Goldsby: 36:05

And we hope that you'll look back to Rocky Top from time to time as well. Don't forget about us here.

Ted Stank: 36:09

I'll tell you what you all have warmed this old educator's heart, because everything that you have said about what you've got out of the program is what in my fondest dreams is what I would like students to say they get out of our program. And I'll tell you what. Graduation, particularly the graduation celebration Thursday night, is very bittersweet, because we've gotten to know you all over a and year, and we say goodbye. You're going to look at each other Thursday night and go, "hey, we're not getting together next quarter for 10 days like we have for the last year.

Tom Goldsby: 36:37

And it's like oh wow.

Ted Stank: 36:39

Yeah, it's going to happen. You've got plans. You've got plans, all right. Well, hey, Patricia, Rebecca, Hans, thank you so much for joining us during this time. It's been really great. It's great to have you with us. It's great to have those perspectives out.

Tom Goldsby: 36:52

And in this season of growth and reflection, Ted, I do want to direct a final question to you. A New Year's resolution: you have one for us. What's your area of growth and opportunity?

Ted Stank: 37:04

Yeah, I do have one and, Hans, you're with Pfizer, so there's no disrespect to Pfizer. There have been great partners of ours and great partners of mine personally in life because of what we've had. ut my resolution is that in the year 2024, I don't want to ever step foot in a hospital.

Tom Goldsby: 37:20

Less health care, which is a big buzz folks.

Ted Stank: 37:24

These folks. I joined you all like four days after I had hip surgery. I was so wiped out after that day that we spent a few sessions online. It was like, oh well the spirit of moving along.

Tom Goldsby: 37:34

My resolution is to maybe sign up for a 5K and actually toe the line.

Ted Stank: 37:38

Yeah, People that don't know Tom Goldsby. Tom Goldsby not too long ago finished second in his age class in the Boston Marathon and has since had two partial knee surgeries. So his goal is to get back out on the road.

Tom Goldsby: 37:52

So, yeah, I'm half bionic now, so I shouldn't expect even better things ahead. But hey, let's go ahead and close out on that positive note. And again, thank you very much to our guests today. Very enlightening conversation and I guess this is so long for 2023. Wish everyone a wonderful holiday season, a safe, enjoyable close to 2023 and better things in 24. We look forward to engaging with you. As always, you can reach us at GSCI at utkedu.

Introduction: 38:22

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