If you go to work for an organization like many do, just for money, we're going to just have a disconnect.

You have to have some core principles of who you are and who you are not.

What are yours as a leader?

One that I try to carry with.

Me every place is Stanhowel, a pharmaceutical powerhouse over 25 years at Giants like Johnson Johnson, Merck, Novartis, Crystal, Meyer Schwebb and now leading the charge over at Wedgwood.

But his true passion here lies in unlocking the power of organizational engagement and empowerment.

How did your path lead you to so many big brands?

When I got out of the milit, I was just looking for work.

I didn't know anything about the pharmaceutical industry at that time.

Can you share what you learned in the military?

And what I learned in the military is motivation is temporary.

You really want to grow as a business leader and increase your value and worth and really understand business.

You have to.

That's leadership.

And then the last thing I would say one of the things that we should all convey as leaders is.

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Welcome back to lead the team with number one best selling author and in demand corporate trainer Ben Fanning.

On this podcast, the world's most innovative senior leaders share their top success strategies to motivate your direct reports, cultivate your top leaders and accelerate your career.

Let's get started.

Here's Ben.

Hey there everybody.

Welcome back to Leading the team.

Listen.

Imagine leading global operations through economic storms and industry revolutions.

Today we're joined by Stan Howell, a pharmaceutical powerhouse that's done just that with over 25 years at Giants like Johnson and Johnson, Merck, Novartis, Bristol, Meyer Squibb.

And now leading the charge over at Wedgwood, the largest US veterinary compounding pharmacy stands a master of transforming organizations.

He specializes in everything from small and large molecules to cell therapy and medical devices.

But building lean customer focused supply chains that deliver results.

While that is his sweet spot.

But his true passion here lies in unlocking the power of organizational engagement and empowerment.

And we're about to dive into his strategies for building high performing teams, driving growth and navigating challenges.

Get ready to learn from the leader who knows how to ignite potential at every level.

Welcome to lead the team, Stan.

Thanks Ben.

Really, really great intro.

I got to make sure I get the recording of that.

Yeah, okay.

You can play it over and over, but it's so easy.

It's funny.

Like looking at LinkedIn, doing our research, it's like you see all these big brands jumping out and organizations ask you right out of the gate.

I mean, what's it been like working for so many global brands?

Did you start out in college or like I want to go work for the best of the best or just like how did your path lead you to sort of working on all those large scale big brands?

Well, yeah, it was interesting because I actually came out of the military, so I went into the military, then actually went back to college.

But when I got out of the military I was just looking for work and Johnson A.

Johnson was hiring and I didn't know anything about the pharmaceutical industry at that time and I signed up to be an operator, a pick pack operator on the back of a packaging line.

I just needed to make some money to take care of my family after leaving the military.

And over the years my, my career has just gone in, in different places throughout the pharmaceutical industry.

And so it was not a plan it.

And I think that's one of the big things I would say about my.

To anyone.

I think we all have these visions of what we want to do, but getting into getting certain opportunities can take you almost anywhere in your career if you're open to it.

Well, well, thank you for your service, of course.

In the military.

Can you share what you learned in the military, what your experience was there and how it.

How it.

Like what?

Like a key lesson or two that maybe sort of transferred over maybe in a surprising way to your role as a leader.

Yeah, I think the big thing and the reason I, one of the big reasons I went into the military, my father was like, hey, you need to get some discipline in your life.

And that's what the military gave me.

Right.

Really.

And so I was someone that was always motivated by things.

Right.

And motivation is temporary.

And what I learned in the military is this discipline and passion for what you do is really important.

And I think those are two traits that I really have taken throughout my career.

Being really disciplined and focused in delivering results for the company, our patients, and doing the right things by our employees and then just having passion for what you do, what you wake up and do every day.

And so I got that from.

I got that foundation, really, from the military.

Well, so I'm trying to imagine this road.

So you're military to J and J.

And then it's like, boom, boom, boom, boom.

You're.

It seems like from just looking at LinkedIn, like her career accelerated.

It seemed like it got like you got that flywheel going and then you started rolling up.

What was, what was going on in your career?

What were you doing to get that dang thing moving like that?

Well, so I'll tell you a quick story.

And I actually got stuck in my career as a supervisor.

And it's probably like what you talk about feedback from leaders, right?

And so I had a leader said, hey, you're a really great supervisor and we can't do without you and we really need you in this role, like, basically forever.

So I'm in this role being a super.

I'm a supervisor.

It's a year, year and a half, but I'm seeing friends and colleagues doing different things and they're moving to different departments, getting cross functional opportunities, getting promoted.

But I'm a great supervisor.

Really kind of stuck in that.

In that one role.

And so I had a mentor that told me, like, hey, you gotta.

You gotta move around.

If you really wanna grow as a business leader and increase your value and worth and really understand business, you can't stay stuck in one position.

And so you gotta move around.

And that was probably the best advice that I've ever had.

And so, again, if you look at the resume you looked at, look at LinkedIn, it's done many things because I put myself in positions really to grow as a leader and as an individual.

But that was through really great mentoring.

It was through people taking a chance with me and putting me in situations where it was a pretty quick study, but I needed to learn the business.

And I think one of the things that I've always brought into each experience is a capability around leadership, a capability around driving results and excellence.

And so that's always given me a little cushion as I've gone into these different businesses and modalities to learn, but also perform at the same time.

So good and a really wise note for leaders there.

It's like you want to become.

And they're like, seth Godin wrote this book, Linchpin, about being like the best employee, delivering the most value.

But there is a shadow side of that.

Like your business or the leaders become so dependent on you in that role.

Like, no, we can't really stand.

We can't have Stan go to another role.

Who's going to do his job?

And you're looking back, do you feel like there wasn't somebody ready to like step up into that role or we're just, just.

I mean, how do you, how do you perceive, like looking back, how do you perceive that you got yourself into that place where you felt stuck?

Yeah, that's a really great question.

Yeah, I think especially early in my career, I wanted to be the expert.

I wanted to be the guy, like the go to guy.

Right.

So probably wasn't so much focus on developing my team and someone to succeed me in that type of way.

And I think that's probably where some of that feedback came.

But I think the learning from that is that in any role that you have, any type of leadership role, one of the key responsibilities that you have is developing that next level of the organization.

So you have to have a succession plan in place.

You need to make sure that you have a really good, solid organization behind you so you're not the one that everyone depends on so that you can go on vacation, you can take time off and spend time with your family.

Because if you don't, then you are, you are that person.

Yeah.

And so that was a big learning early in my career.

It feel, on one hand, it feels good to be needed and like you had this sense of job security.

Right.

When the economy is fluctuating, business needs me.

But then the long, playing the long game is like, I'm not, I may not get my opportunity because they need me here because there's no one to take my role.

And I love kind of thinking long term and short term at the same time.

Like, that might do it.

Now you, you kind of, it seems like you were niched in stuff for humans and now you're like, hey, what about the pet world?

Like, what was the, what was that jump?

What are you thinking?

And why make that jump when you'd already clock so many wins on the human healthcare side?

Yeah, I think it's just a different and a new challenge for me.

Right.

And so knowing that the human health care side of the business, it's almost 20, 28, 30 years on that side of the business.

And now to bring that expertise to Wedgwood and to provide the same type of supply chain excellence, operational excellence, where we're able to get, you know, product to customers in time and the right products and all those other good things to do that for pet owners and animals and to really drive health Care on the pet side and the animal side is just a different challenge.

And at the end of the day, it's all humanity.

And so at the end of the day, when I hang it all up, I'd like to be able to say that I was able to help humans and pets.

Right.

And the people that love and take care of them.

So were you a passionate, like, pelt lover or like, what, like you're talking about.

And we had discussed in my house all the time about our.

We have a shih Tzu.

And I'm like, our shih tzu is not a human, but our shih tzu feels like a human.

Yeah.

Sitting on the furniture.

And.

And my wife's like, well, he's not a human, but basically we treat him as.

So, yeah.

So we have this debate.

But for you, I mean, how do you think about that?

Because you say humanity and you're.

And like, I'm just curious, like, culturally, inside Wedgewood, how are you thinking about pets and humanity sort of merged as one if you did.

Yeah, I mean, like, pets.

I.

I don't own a pet today.

I haven't have it in the past.

I'm a pet grandfather, if you will.

But, like, a lot of family members have pets and.

And you know, a pet is.

Is a companion.

Right.

And it's a very important part of our society.

And just like, it's just like a human.

Like, we treat pets and animals in the same fashion that we treat each other.

And so it's a part.

Important part of our society, an important part of how we operate and with the companionship.

So I don't really distinguish a difference in now doing what I do for pets than what I did for humans.

Pets need health care, and they need to be, well, just like humans.

And so at the end of the day, it's the same thing.

You're just dealing with a different species.

I love that art.

And I really am not as familiar with this, but are like, I know when you're like, you're working with American as ours, Bristol Myers, there's a lot of regulation on supply chain, like how you're moving it.

It's regulated.

There's got to be a lot of red tape around that, around that world.

Is it the same in medical or medicine compounding, or is it not as tight in terms of.

Well, it depends.

Right.

There's some parts of animal health care which is regulated by the fda, just like human healthcare.

And then they're on a different side of the business.

It's a little less Regulated.

But there are regulations that are mostly state regulations.

And so we have to comply to the state regulations and the states that we operate in and sell.

So it's a complicated web, but definitely it's a regulated industry ensuring that we're producing the right level and the highest level of quality for pets and animals.

So I would say it's different, but the focus on compliance is absolutely the same.

Do you have a favorite story or memorable moment where you guys came through for a pet in some interesting way?

I'm trying to think.

So I've been.

I've been at Wedgewood for 50 days now.

So what I can share is what we are doing now is really making sure that we have a supply chain that can deliver time to customer, to our pet, pet parents, pet owners.

And.

And we also serve like the equine industry.

Right.

Horses.

And that's.

That's important.

And so time to customer is really important and really making sure that we can get medication to pets and animals in a timely manner.

And so what I would say to you is our focus and my focus at Wedgwood is making sure that we have a supply chain that is absolutely capable of doing that.

Right.

First time, all the time.

Again, no different than on the human health side.

Yeah.

Well, speaking of the human health side, do you have one on the human side that's a favorite you guys are able to come through?

Yeah.

So maybe only after 30 years, I better have one.

Right.

So there are many to pick from, but there might be.

I don't know if there's any kind of regular.

So I'll give you maybe a quick story.

Hopefully I can make this quick.

At Novartis, I was responsible for cell therapy manufacturing and cell therapy is really about if you have a certain cancer type, being able to take individual's T cells and then remanufacturing them or re engineering them and then actually taking that and then re infusing them into a patient to eradicate the cancer.

Right.

So it's a very complicated process.

And we do that for.

We were doing that for pediatrics as well.

Right.

And so there was a case where we had a patient that had cells that didn't look like they were going to be able to make it through the process.

And in cell therapy, that.

That is a individual's last option.

Right.

For surviving.

Like they've gone through two or three iterations of chemotherapy, et cetera.

And so when they come to us, it's like the end.

And so we had a pediatric patient when we looked at the Cells, it didn't look like they were going to work like the process was going to work.

We actually made it work.

And then a year and a half later we were able to have a customer facing moment with the person, with the child and their parent.

And that was really rewarding to the whole organization.

That really what I would say, took that patient's sales through the process and we handheld that thing to make sure that we were going to get that through and have an impact.

And so just to see the impact of your work is certainly inspirational and rewarding.

And it was, it was rewarding to me.

But the folks that actually were in the manufacturing process doing that and to be able to see that you can't even put words or dollar sign on that.

Well, so thinking on that personal level, it sounds like you all were able to share that with your organization in a positive way too.

What did you notice inside the organization when you're able to share that?

Great story.

Yeah.

So I think, and I can speak to Wedgwood in this terms as well.

People are working really hard every day and the manufacturing process is not an easy process in the pharmaceutical industry.

Right.

And so it's very difficult.

And when you're able to see the results of your work and that it has impact and that it's made a difference in someone's life and their family's life.

Right.

And in the case of Wedgwood, a pet's life and their family and the pet owners, that again, you can't put words on that.

And so that is really, if I think about my career, that has been really a hallmark of my career and being able to provide healthcare now to pets as well as in the past, humans and making their lives better.

And I know one of the things that you like to talk about as an executive is engaging and empowering people at all levels of the organization.

Because it just seems like when these big companies, and I work for Honeywell for years too, you do get so darn disconnected from the end customer.

And it doesn't really seem like that would make that much difference, but you take greater care and you're more engaged when you think about that.

And I love the way that, by the way, when you talked about your first shot in the military, you're at Johnson Johnson working on the packaging line and you were thinking about the impact that you were providing right to the end customer and how engaged that was for you.

So I'm curious how you think about that from a pet standpoint and a human standpoint.

Yeah, I think My career has put me in a really unique situation.

Right.

Starting on the shop floor and then moving through management and now leadership.

And so what I do know for certain is that any strategy, any plans that a company has, it has to engage the entire organization.

Like, failure to do so is just failure.

Right.

And so every level of the organization needs to know what their part is in the company's mission.

And so again, at the shop floor, when it.

When I'm.

When I was out there picking and packing, I knew we were getting things to customer.

We had to get things to customers on time.

If I'm in a supervisory or leadership role, I know I'm supervising and managing that group of people to do just that.

Right.

And so forth and so on.

And so you have to gauge every level in the organization into your strategy, into your mission, and they have to really have passion around it.

I talked about this earlier.

If they don't have passion around it, then it's hard to really get them to have the discipline that you want and even in some cases, the motivation.

Again, I don't like to use the word motivation, but nothing really happens and no major transformation.

At least that has happened in my experience.

Without fully engaging every level of the organization and what the company's purpose and mission is and what they're trying to.

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You mentioned passion.

Do you believe passion is something that you're focused on hiring for, or is this something that you really feel like?

Is your job to nurture it inside the organization and instill it?

No, I think passion and discipline, people come with that.

Right.

If, like.

So I can't teach someone.

Well, you can.

You can force someone to be disciplined.

You choose not to do that.

You would like someone to have that and bring that type deal, Right?

Right.

If you don't do your job well, you're out of here.

Okay.

Yeah.

And really, quite frankly, that's important to me.

That's a poor way of managing.

So I do look for discipline and I look for passion.

What I don't look for is someone who tells me that they're highly motivated because again, I believe motivation comes and goes.

And really like discipline and passion are the two things from a character standpoint that I most certainly look for as I look to, you know, look at leaders.

So I know you probably did a lot of hiring, your career.

Yeah.

What do you.

What.

And I don't want to.

I want you to reveal your secret sauce because you're probably going to interview more people now.

But are there questions that you ask that sometimes that seems to be a good way to reveal character, reveal passion.

Result, Discipline.

Well, yeah, I don't know if this hits the mark, but I'll tell you a funny or interesting question.

I ask a lot of people at the end of the interview.

So I'll say, okay, look, end the interview.

Last question.

I've interviewed three or four other people.

You all have the exact same characteristics.

There's nothing.

No, there's nothing that's different.

Right.

I can't distinguish anything different between you.

I need you to go out outside and put a billboard up and tell me why I should hire you versus those other people.

All right.

Those other three people or so.

And I asked that question because I want to see what they think of themselves.

Because when you go into an interview, it's very hard to mess up an interview.

Right.

Like, you're prepped, you're planned, etc.

And so I really, I asked that question to throw them off a little bit, but to get a little bit into their character, how they think about themselves.

And I usually get really interesting answers.

And I get.

I've gotten some really good answers.

And it's really an interesting question that leads to a lot of discussion afterwards.

So what.

What have been some of your favorite responses or more interesting responses that you've gotten on that?

I mean, like, so some people will just say, like, I'm the.

Like, they'll put.

One guy said they would put a Nike sign up and just say, like, I just do it.

I get it done.

Right.

Things of that nature.

Some people go more towards leading the really driving transformation and leading the organization, and they'll come up with concepts and thoughts of that.

I've had people, like, go away and thought about.

They gave me an answer, but then when they send a thank you note, provide a little bit more color to it.

And so it's a fun question, but it does give some insight into how folks think about themselves and how they would potentially operate in the organization.

Yeah, and I'm experiencing that question on another level, too.

It's like one, they're being creative, which is Hard to gauge an interview.

And also probably for a lot of the roles you're hiring for, they're leading others.

And communication, communicating effectively is everything, isn't it?

Yep.

And especially in operations world, where things are changing quickly in the supply chain.

And I like the idea of, hey, there's a problem.

You've got a billboard to communicate to your team to make something happen.

Because people get bombarded by text and emails.

And darn it, when you have a leader that can't use those tools effectively, they might be a genius, everything locked in their brain, but you got to get all these other people to engage on it.

And you may only have a few characters on a text to do it.

And Ben, it also forces them to react to something quickly and unexpected.

And I'm an operations guy.

Right.

And so everything is unexpected in operations, and you got to be able to respond to that, and you need to be able to communicate effectively what's going on at all levels of the organization.

And so it gets into that as well.

When's he, Tommy, when's the time you had an unexpected twist or failure in your career and how did it lead to your success or growth on down the road?

Yeah, so I would say there was a time where I put a team together and it was a really, really good team.

We were doing really good work, but it was in the midst of transformation and really trying to turn the organization around.

And so in those situations, what people tend to focus on is the noise and what's going bad.

Right.

So it's always reporting out on what's bad, how we're trying to fix things.

But we were doing a lot of great things and we didn't.

I wasn't communicating that.

Right.

I wasn't communicating the good and the bad.

And so I was letting.

Letting the organization create my narrative.

Right.

By always just responding to the negative and not highlighting all the good stuff that was happening.

And so at the end of the day, it led to a situation where we had to lay some people off this, that and the other.

And people were very confused because they felt like they were doing great work, really turning the boat around, etc.

But the overall organization didn't see that.

And my learning from that as a leader is you have to create your narrative for your organization.

And that's not always just sharing what's good, because if everything is going well, you need to share the risk as well, because there are risk out there and there will be a surprise and you need the organization to be prepared for that.

But I Think the biggest learning in my career from a failure, and it impacted people, which is.

Was really tough for me.

Really good people that I personally hand selected and hired because I felt like they could do the job and they could, but because we didn't have a strong communication strategy around all the things that we were doing well, while we were trying to turn the ship around, it led to layoffs and things of that nature.

And so as I've moved forward in my career, that is something that I'm very keen and focused on.

Man, I love that.

And that the listeners are picking up on this.

Like you.

Like you're an operations executive.

You're not in pr, but you recognize that to be a great operating executive, you got to be your own PR person, right?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

That goes to the cfo, that goes to the cio.

And I mean, you're here on this darn podcast, right?

People are going to listen to it and they're going to understand your philosophy.

And I think that.

And I'm curious about your perspective.

It sounds like you had this learning in your career, but I think a lot of leaders leave or leaving that to somebody else to create the narrative.

And you might get lucky that the person sees all.

Everything you're doing and they're highlighting it, but you might not get lucky because humans have a.

Tend to have a negativity bias and they might pick on one little thing and lose the forest for the trees.

Yeah, I don't think you.

Again, another learning from that is I can't leave my communication strategy to someone else.

I can have someone help me with communication and communication strategy, but it has to be my narrative, my.

And it's funny, you know, in the positions that I've been in over the years, someone's always creating your talking points and things of that nature.

But if it doesn't sound like me and if it's not me, I'm not doing it.

And I know I drive communication people crazy because I talk in a certain way.

I don't always talk.

The corporate speak, again, I think it's a bit of how I've come up.

And not that corporate speak is wrong, but who I'm usually dealing with is the masses of an organization.

And so I want to feel personable to the organization.

I want to be authentic, certainly conveying the company and the business message, but I have to do it in my way.

And so when I get scripts and things like that, it's red line, it's going back, you know, and.

Well, Stan, I don't think you should say it that way or.

But no, I got to say it stands way because that's the only way that is going to be effective for me.

And I find that I have found that to be effective for those who I lead and the organizations that I've been responsible for.

So.

Good.

So I'm curious, are there is did this way of speaking non corporate speaking.

And I got to get a chuckle because legendary CEO of Honeywell, Dave Cody, he's been on the show twice.

He specifically warned leaders about corporate speak every time.

And you and Dave would get along great on that.

Thinking about did this evolve for you or do you prescribe different frameworks or books or training?

What have you done to sort of find your way through communication?

I think it was an evolution.

And again, I'll share another story.

Stories tend to really connect things.

As a young supervisor, I remember I was, I was watching the plant manager, right, who had a very stern way of doing things.

And so, and I was like, oh well, if I want to be a plant manager one day, I need to do what he's.

He's doing.

So I basically was modeling his behaviors.

And I remember sitting down with him one time and you know, I got a okay performance review.

And he's like, you're way too stern.

You're real way too hard with your employees.

This, that and the other.

And I said, well, I've been like watching you and trying to mimic your behaviors.

And he said to me, stan, you cannot be me.

You can only be yourself.

I don't know that I really understood it at that point what he was saying.

Like, I was actually a little upset that, that he would say that.

But as I've gone on through my career, what I found, what I found is trying to mimic and try to being someone else.

You cannot be the best someone else.

You can only be the best you.

And I think when you communicate, whether it's how you communicate how you work with people, when you do it in an authentic way, in a way that's, that's you people, it resonates with people.

We take ourselves outside of our day to day lives and then we put ourselves in a, in a corporation box for 8, 12, 15, whatever the hours are.

But that doesn't mean that you necessarily need to change fully who you are.

You need to align with company behavior, culture and all that other stuff.

But you gotta, you have to still be yourself.

And so you hear a whole lot of Oregon, a lot of organizations talking about they want to want folks to be their authentic selves And I think this is what we're getting at, to communicate authentically, to work in an authentic way, whether that's having passion, discipline or whatever those things are.

I think when you create that kind of culture, when people are able to do that, they're able to bring their best selves to work.

And that's when you have high performing organizations and high performing teams.

So what's your advice to people who are like, yeah, I like this authenticity piece.

I have not been doing that in my career and frankly, I'm not even sure who I am.

I don't know because maybe if you've been in a, some of this, it might be rolling their eyes.

But literally, if you've been in a, working for a company or a boss for several years, you do start to emulate the boss.

It's hard not to because that's just what you're seeing and it's highly influential.

I'm curious, how, how, how do you think about that?

For people who are still trying?

I think you have to have some core principles, like life principles.

Right.

Of who you are and who you are not.

And that doesn't change with the environment that you go into.

So for, for me, for instance, I won't work for a company that doesn't align with my personal values and beliefs around certain things because we're going to just have a disconnect.

Right.

So I want to work for a company that again, is having impact on society.

That's important for me.

I don't want to work for someone who is a micromanager.

Right.

So all these things you kind of got to think about what are your core principles and then put yourself in a condition that allows you to live out those, those, those values and those principles.

If you go to work for an organization like many do, just for money or just for whatever, you're going to find yourself doing some of the things that we're talking about versus aligning to who you are as a person.

And again, this is where I think the discipline and the passion really come through when you align your core values and principles with the organization.

I love that.

And it requires, the burden is on the individual versus the company to identify what your own principles and values are.

Absolutely.

And I think that some people say, well, I want to go work because I like their corporate values or I like, well, what are, what are yours as a leader?

What are yours?

And I think it's, it requires probably some self reflection and some really thinking about this to really take hold of your career and put Yourself in a great position.

And it sounds like you did just that.

Yeah.

And it's not overnight, right?

Like, and it's still evolving.

Right.

I think there's one of the things that we should all make sure we convey as leaders, that there's no special level or special place where you stop growing and learning and evolving as a leader.

So all these things are evolving.

Principles.

I know one that I try to carry with me.

Every place is to listen, learn and lead.

Right?

Listen, learn, and lead.

I was used to be one of those leaders that always wanted to talk first and I had all the answers.

Right.

And what that does is shuts everyone down.

Right.

Because when the leader talks, okay, I know what you want.

Let me just get behind you.

And we'll just follow.

Right.

And then everyone goes to the water, water cooler and talks about you.

And so I had a buddy that really, I was talking to, and he was talking about, hey, as a leader, we really need to listen first.

And so a principle that I have now is to really try to listen, learn, and understand what people are saying, then lead.

So typically, if I'm in a meeting, I will not be the first person speaking.

If I'm with my team, I may lay out like, hey, we're here to do this, or we need to think through X, Y and Z.

But I'll try to let everyone get their thoughts on the table.

And if I interject, it's really to get understanding.

But I don't get into the leading until everyone has their stuff out on the table.

Because my job as a leader is to take the inputs from a very talented team and bring that together for some kind of outcome or some kind of solution.

So that's when the leading comes in place.

But if you do that in the front of the meeting, you've now disempowered a lot of the folks in that.

In that group.

So good.

And it aligns really well.

Bringing back what you said about empowering and engaging people at all levels.

It's not engaging to be told what to do.

It's engaging to offer your ideas.

And then it's synthesized, it comes out and we're moving together as a team.

And if you're just being told to that like, that can work, it can be effective, but it's not engaging and it's certainly not empowering.

Depends on the people listening to this podcast right now.

I hope you're asking yourself, is my team really engaged?

Like, what does engage look like?

Like, they're showing up, they're offering their ideas they're thinking about work and the team and their discretionary time.

I mean, to me, that's like the golden, the golden path, if that can ever happen.

And Ben, I think you have to create the environment for that.

Right.

So you use the word engaging.

Like, I, I don't ever want to have a team that's not going to debate, argue again, respectfully.

We do it in a respectful way.

But again, this is where the passion comes, comes in.

We have a passion for patients or pets.

Right.

And making sure we're doing the best on their behalf.

So when we get into tough meetings, yeah, it's going to be a tough meeting, but it's a safe space for everyone to be themselves, get air things out.

But we're doing it in a way that is going to be something positive for the end customer and for the business.

And when I've been in environments where you get the head shake, the leader says something and it's a head shake.

That's when you get the worst solutions.

Right.

In the past.

Right.

I've been a victim of that.

So your physical cues.

Yes.

Like, oh, yeah, first person that talk, you start nodding your head.

Everybody else shuts down.

Like, oh, here.

Well, think about it.

If you're a leader and you have a very strong presence and you say, well, this is what we need to do.

And by the way, I've done this for the last 25 years and I know my stuff, blah, blah, blah, well, then what are we talking about?

Why are we here?

Right?

Let's just, let's just go do it.

Versus you can say, hey, look, I do have experience in this area, but I'd like to hear what others think about this.

This is a different context, different than where I've been before.

And I'd like to hear what you're saying.

And I would like to also provide my input and we'll figure out the best solution moving forward.

To me, that's leadership.

What a great place to land the plane on that.

He said to me, that's leadership.

Yeah, I'm with you on that.

So, last thing, you know what, what's a message that you'd like to or a bit of advice that you like to share to put a bubble on this interview.

So I would say a couple things.

I talked about the passion and discipline.

I think you really have to.

And what I would say is for folks really find something that you're passionate about.

Because if you find something that you're passionate about, it will lead you to places that you will never expect and that's been really the story of my career.

I've had passion around healthcare, right?

Like I would say having an impact on society.

And it's led me to have wonderful opportunities and experiences that I never thought I would have.

So.

But it's based on the passion that I've had to really try to have an impact on the world.

And so that's one thing.

Another thing I would say to everyone, what's really important is make sure you have mentors around you.

You need to have really good mentors around you.

I would not be where I am today without people like Willie Dees.

And I need to call him out, who's the president of the Merck manufacturing division.

While I was there, who became my mentor?

He challenged me, he pushed me, he mentored me.

You need people around you that are going to guide you in that type of way and that are going to be instrumental in your life because they've been there and they've done that and they can help you be on, get on the path that you need to be on.

And then the last thing I would say is make sure you have a strong network and you have to have a strong strategic network.

And I'm telling you this as a card holding introvert.

My introvert version is off the scale, but what I have learned through my career is that you have to have a strong network in order to get opportunities as you begin to move up the ladder.

Right.

So we talked about passion and other things, but in leader, as you move up the leadership chain, it's who can you trust, who.

Who has.

Who has loyalty, you know, and all those things become really important because you're dealing with really tough things as you're moving up the ladder.

And so you need to make sure you have a strong strategic network that you can pull on for either to advise you or to work with you through, like, really challenging things or to partner with you on certain assignments.

And I was those for.

For me, those are three things that I would ask everyone that's listening to this podcast to consider amongst many other things.

But those are the three that I think are really important.

Excellent.

Excellent.

And I'm nodding my head yes because I'm on board with it.

Damn good.

Thanks for coming on.

Leave the team today, sir.

All right.

I appreciate it.

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