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Jason P. Carroll
But you've got to dig deeper. You've got to figure out what's going on in the emotional undercurrents of your organization and your people, your teams, your cultures. There's so much perspective taking needed for us to effectively lead others.
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Narrator
Welcome to the Leadership Initiative, where we explore the art and science of leadership through thought provoking conversations with experts, thought leaders, and changemakers. Whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting out on your leadership journey, this podcast is designed to provide you with the tools and inspiration you need to lead with purpose and make a meaningful difference.
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Jen Knox Shanahan
Hello and welcome to the Leadership Initiative podcast. We are here today with Jason P Carroll. Jason is the founder of Aptive Index, a behavioral intelligence platform helping leaders hire better, lead smarter, and build teams where people thrive. Powered by psychometric science and AI. A Ted speaker and certified Dare to Lead facilitator trained by Doctor Brené Brown. Jason brings the science of human behavior and the art of courageous leadership into a single compounding system.
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Jen Knox Shanahan
He scaled his previous company from 20 million to 80 million. There a successful exit and credits every bit of it to getting the people, decisions right. Welcome, Jason.
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Jason P. Carroll
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
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Jen Knox Shanahan
Thank you so much for being here.
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Jason P. Carroll
Yeah, happy to be here.
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Jen Knox Shanahan
Well, we really appreciate you taking the time to speak with our audience today. And our audience comprises students, alumni, industry professionals. And with that in mind, we'd love to know a little bit more about your background from your words. So if you could tell us a little bit about your background as a leader and how you came to be where you are.
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Jason P. Carroll
Sure. I'll I'll start off with the self-deprecating. I am your, stereotypical entrepreneur. Dropped out of college, and try to, you know, pave my own way, as a struggling salesperson at first. But, it's actually a good part of my story, because the first real job job I had, a career job I had was, a lucrative sales position, but it was like the worst toxic culture that I've even heard of.
00;02;17;11 - 00;02;43;16
Jason P. Carroll
But I didn't know anything else until I made a career switch and saw a fantastic culture, under this leader called, Nicole Collins, amazing leader out of Austin, Texas. And just totally shifted my perspective. And I was just like, hey, culture, is it the taking care of people is how we succeed in business. And that learning really followed me throughout my career, at a couple of startups.
00;02;43;16 - 00;03;02;02
Jason P. Carroll
And then I was, part of a company, I guess, an entrepreneur more than an entrepreneur, brought on to this company called champion that had been around for 33 years, but it had really grown stagnant. So they had grown up to 20 million, which is a good amount of revenue. But had been sitting there for 15 years, like half of their existence.
00;03;02;05 - 00;03;19;27
Jason P. Carroll
So I was charged with disrupting and pushing the envelope, blah, blah, blah. And thankfully things worked out really well. So I was there for seven years and we grew from 20 to 80 million. So before the revenue and just about 7 or 8 times to the profit, and then had a successful exit at the end of 2020.
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Jen Knox Shanahan
Amazing. And, I really want to dig in more to how you, you did that, more granularly. But before we get there, I'm curious, what is one of the hardest lessons you had to learn as a leader along your journey?
00;03;35;05 - 00;04;00;06
Jason P. Carroll
I would say it was at that last company and champion that the learning was essentially that success can be the most dangerous form of failure, because it masks all the things that might be going on that are still broken. So what I mean is, a lot of the success at champion did have to do with me and the culture I built, right?
00;04;00;06 - 00;04;19;11
Jason P. Carroll
Because again, it came back to people. But a lot of that growth was in spite of me as well. I was making mistakes in leadership. I lacked a lot of self-awareness. I lacked awareness of some of the people on my team, especially in the executive team and just some of the mismatches and ways we were butting heads.
00;04;19;13 - 00;04;43;13
Jason P. Carroll
And even when I first started digging into some of the, awareness, I did some overcorrection, which I'm sure you've heard from some of your leaders. And so that was there's a lot of learning opportunity that really I need to start with myself, and be able to, to front the mistakes that I was making, you know, with without shame and all that other stuff that comes along with that.
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Jason P. Carroll
It was the only way to really grow.
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Jen Knox Shanahan
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. How can leaders better understand what truly motivates the people that they lead?
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Jason P. Carroll
I mean, I, I do believe it comes back to self-awareness first. I think most of us walk around not really knowing what our own motivators are and our own needs are, like, what's really driving my behavior? Like, how do I stay engaged? What gives me energy versus what drains me? And then once I understand that about myself and I start exploring that in other people, I'm able to see that we're actually we can be radically different.
00;05;25;26 - 00;05;46;29
Jason P. Carroll
And that sounds like a no brainer. But so many of us leaders walk through our day to day treating other people the way we think they I, you know, the way
Load full transcript
that we want to be treated. What you mean, to be fair, is the golden rule. And it's not it's not the worst idea, but true leadership to leadership is the like the platinum rule.
00;05;46;29 - 00;06;03;25
Jason P. Carroll
It's leveling it up. It's it's learning what what drives and motivates other people. How do I lead them the way they want to be a leader? Even if it's completely outside the realm of what I would want. How do I learn that about others? And then effectively do that?
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Jen Knox Shanahan
Yeah. I think figuring out that we are motivated by different things in of itself is a huge step. And then once we figure that out, it's okay. Now what do we do? Like how do we actually cater to these different motivations, styles and the different things people need at different times in their lives as well? I'm curious if, you could give me a little bit more insight, just kind of as a a follow up to that question into, maybe how you tackle that, how how you have, connected with somebody who maybe has a different motivation.
00;06;43;02 - 00;07;05;10
Jason P. Carroll
Yeah. Yeah. I'll say so. I don't know if you've heard the term psychometrics just basically like fancy, scientific personality tests. Right? So, like, think you know, which Hogwarts house are you? But, you know, actually make it scientific. So I got I got introduced to the psychometrics back in 2016, and that changed the game for me.
00;07;05;10 - 00;07;31;08
Jason P. Carroll
And I really started seeing what how we were wired. And we're talking real kind of like ethereal right now. But practically the biggest learning was with my colleague at the time. I was the head of the company, the president, my he was really my VP of ops. I ended up promoting admin to CFO, and we were, you know, if you looked at like, the charts that come from the psychometrics, we're a mirror opposites of one another.
00;07;31;10 - 00;07;44;20
Jason P. Carroll
Like, everything that motivated me was the thing that would drive him nuts. So he, you know, he looked at me and he's like, this is like some wild car guy who's going to jump out of the plane with no parachute. And I'm looking at him like you're a stick in the mud. You're not going to try anything new.
00;07;44;22 - 00;08;22;02
Jason P. Carroll
You just want to do things the way they've always been done. And and that's a real tension. I think a lot of us have encountered that, like the, the push pull kind of dynamic, the pace at which we want to move the, the risk appetite that we have. And so what I had to kind of come and reckon with was if I'm ever going to effectively move this thing forward, you know, and in my way, you know, like, even even if I'm being selfish, like, to do what I want to do, the only way that will ever happen is if I can get buy in by not catering to is kind of the wrong
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Jason P. Carroll
word, because it sounds like a negative, but, adapting to the styles of the people on my team. So
with my CFO, I'd realized, like, he's risk averse. And actually, that's a good thing. So. So let me let me use him to tap the brakes on my, you know, jumping out of the plane type of, impulsivity and actually, like, show him that I value that.
00;08;50;15 - 00;09;04;17
Jason P. Carroll
Like, let me empower him and say, hey, I actually really appreciate and need your different perspective, your risk aversion. And as we started moving that direction, things really started to shift and change in really positive ways.
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Jen Knox Shanahan
Thank you so much for that example. Going back a little bit, really thinking about a lot of the folks that are listening who are emerging leaders, or in new leadership roles. What mindset shifts are essential when moving from that individual contributor to leadership role? I think you've already touched on this, but I'm just wondering if there is anything that you would add here.
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Jason P. Carroll
I mean, you know, I don't know that I'd add too much without overwhelming and like, know yourself and try your best to know others. I guess the piece that I would layer into Know Yourself is that it's really hard work. Yeah, most of us believe we're self-aware. Most of us are not self-aware. That's just statistical fact right.
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Jason P. Carroll
Yeah. I think Doctor Tosha Urich is did an actual study on this. And it's something like 90% of people think they're self-aware and like maybe 10 to 15% actually are because all we all we do is think about self-awareness as like, oh, well, I recognize my behaviors, but like, that's just data on a spreadsheet. It doesn't do anybody any good.
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Jason P. Carroll
We have to figure out what the impact of those behaviors are on others, and figure out what's driving those behaviors. If we actually want to change, which means we have to confront the hard stuff, we have to realize, like, I'm nowhere near perfect, and some of the stuff that I'm doing is actually hurting others and hurting the organization.
00;10;36;14 - 00;10;52;29
Jason P. Carroll
And it's really easy to get by as an individual contributor. When those things are happening. We step in leadership. That's when you're kind of cut wide open and those those things start to really have a bigger effect.
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Jen Knox Shanahan
Absolutely. Yeah. The spotlight is on. I'm curious, what separates leaders who are able to cultivate this high trust environment? Amongst those they lead versus, the leaders, that are leading and they're seeing disengagement or, you know, fear of of actually showing up authentically, authentically from the people that they're leading, things like that.
00;11;20;02 - 00;11;38;14
Jason P. Carroll
Yeah. I mean, I'll say this a little bit tongue in cheek just for humor, but there's there's some reality behind it. I think the leaders that step up and end up being more successful than the others are the ones who I, you know, read Brené Brown or or Patrick Clancy on, you know, some of the people that aren't it's not like Simon Sinek.
00;11;38;14 - 00;12;00;20
Jason P. Carroll
Great. You know, like, Jim Collins awesome stuff. You know, they're talking about strategy and business. That's excellent. But you've got to dig deeper. You've got to figure out what's going on in the emotional undercurrents of your organization and your people, your teams, your cultures. And that's where the stuff that Bernie really hits on, you know, Dare to Lead is probably her best book.
00;12;00;20 - 00;12;23;01
Jason P. Carroll
That's more like business focused. And it just exposes that there's there's so much perspective taking needed for us to effectively lead others. And there's so much going on that's just hidden from reports and, even engagement surveys. There's so much more that we have to dig into.
00;12;23;03 - 00;12;23;23
Jen Knox Shanahan
Absolutely.
00;12;23;23 - 00;12;29;10
Jason P. Carroll
So if you're listening, go read Rene Brown.
00;12;29;12 - 00;12;52;28
Jen Knox Shanahan
I love it, I love it, yes. And and I think that that's, particularly important now as we see so much development with AI and, I'm curious about your perspective on AI and how to work with the AI. It's becoming a larger part of decision making in organizations. So how can leaders balance data driven insights with human judgment and empathy?
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Jen Knox Shanahan
The things that Rene Brown speaks about.
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Jason P. Carroll
Yeah, there's I mean, there's AI conversation. So it's a broad I mean, we're not we're not talking about productivity, writing faster emails like my my overall approach to AI is to ask myself whether or not what I'm doing with AI is making me smarter, dumber. Yeah, but but like, I think you're you're more touching on the especially kind of in the leadership and the people realm of are we amplifying human judgment, or are we trying to replace it and then starting to make decisions based on a robot's interpretation?
00;13;35;09 - 00;14;07;20
Jason P. Carroll
And I think that's a huge issue that people are facing. I mean, you submit a resume, most likely 90% of it was written by AI, and almost assuredly it's being scanned by AI before it ever has a human. Well, that's a big problem for both the candidate and the company. And then you start going to the rest of the chain, and, you know, I can play a really heavy role that can be really damaging.
00;14;07;22 - 00;14;34;26
Jason P. Carroll
So overall, a big question is, is the way we're embracing AI empowering people? Is it really like like you said, like I kind of reiterated, is it amplifying human judgment? And so, you know, the my whole existence now is actually that, like having built an AI that that's what it's for. And it's not to demonize other users.
00;14;34;29 - 00;14;48;20
Jason P. Carroll
I just think it's we see a lot of businesses making the wrong call with AI,
just replacing people thinking, oh, with that, profit will come and we'll create new jobs. And that is putting the cart before the horse. I think,
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Jen Knox Shanahan
There's a lot of urgency around wanting to adopt it. And, yeah, we're we're learning a lot. But I love what you say about, you know, actually leveraging it to build these things. And I'm, I'm curious, building off of that, conflicts are inevitably going to happen in teams. And, I'm wondering how you approach, team conflict and, the work you do, how how you, how you think about team conflict and, dealing with that.
00;15;23;08 - 00;15;51;27
Jason P. Carroll
Yeah. I mean, it's hard for me to escape the world I live in now, which is in behavioral data. And because my own human intuition is much, much lower than I used to think that it was. So, and I, I just feel like I'm clueless, oftentimes without objective data. And, and so I kind of approach conflict in that, in the idea of behavioral tendencies and behavioral drives.
00;15;52;00 - 00;16;20;03
Jason P. Carroll
So often, if not most of the time, I see conflict as just a misfiring of our own motivational needs. Like, you know, making it personal, like my, my wife has a high, high emotional resonance. Her capacity for that is high. And that's not because she's a she. The data shows that there's no correlation with emotional resonance and gender or anything like that just so happens.
00;16;20;06 - 00;16;45;15
Jason P. Carroll
Right? She like her emotional cup is is huge. And and then when it gets occupied in that space like she's feeling it and it's swirling around and I'm I compartmentalize her I and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. It's just when we have conflict that one kind of motivating drive. Can really have us firing on different planes.
00;16;45;17 - 00;17;17;10
Jason P. Carroll
And so recognizing that in each other, taking perspective is pretty much always the first step in resolving conflict. And even if you don't have the data, what I'm really saying is it kind of goes back to Brené stuff. It's empathy is what is this? What is this person experiencing that I don't understand? And I'm willing to hear that perspective and have it move me, at least in the sense that, like, I can understand where they're coming from.
00;17;17;12 - 00;17;28;07
Jason P. Carroll
Doesn't mean I'm going to change my mind. But I if I cannot for perspective, take and have empathy as there's just there's no chance I sort of walk away.
00;17;28;10 - 00;17;50;20
Jen Knox Shanahan
I'm building off of that a little bit. I'm wondering if you have any practical advice. Because I feel like a lot of people have very good intentions to do these things. Maybe even, a certain amount of awareness that we discuss in the classroom, for instance. But then in a situation, it can be a lot more difficult to deploy.
00;17;50;22 - 00;18;09;04
Jen Knox Shanahan
This kind of, perspective. So I'm just curious, do you have any thoughts on that or any advice for people who are kind of newer to this journey of self-awareness, like true self-awareness and connecting with others and building empathy at the workplace?
00;18;09;06 - 00;18;39;08
Jason P. Carroll
Yeah. Learn to recognize your inflection point. And here's what I mean by that. Like whenever you're anytime conflict happens or something that's like adversity, the first part of our brain that that hits is our like not evolved millions year old lizard brain amygdala. Right. And like we are now in toddler mode. Yeah. And if you're if you're in toddler mode and you stay in then you're screwed up.
00;18;39;10 - 00;19;00;12
Jason P. Carroll
There's no there's no. So if you recognize what happens in your body, maybe you're, you know, your chest tightens, or maybe your breath increases. Like whatever it is, learn to recognize that and realize that this is your inflection point and you get to make a choice, a choice to take a step back, and come up with what that looks like.
00;19;00;12 - 00;19;34;28
Jason P. Carroll
Maybe you use like there's some like, really cool breathing techniques or like, I forget who taught me this, but like, if you rub two fingers together and just focus on the ridges of your fingerprints, it takes your brain away from whatever the heightened emotion is, and it kind of brings you back into your body. You know, if you're at work and you're you're you just got pissed off at some coworker boss, just close the laptop, like, do some, like, make some action that disrupts that lizard brain task.
00;19;35;01 - 00;19;45;05
Jason P. Carroll
So that you can take that step back and go, okay, what's actually going on here? How do I engage my my thinking brain? How do I take perspective.
00;19;45;10 - 00;19;46;01
Jen Knox Shanahan
00;19;46;04 - 00;19;54;00
Jason P. Carroll
And approach this differently because we're, we're, we're going to go to in our automatic state every time and our automatic state is going to fail us.
00;19;54;02 - 00;20;05;10
Jen Knox Shanahan
Yeah. Thank you for that. That that offers so much. Yes. I one that I really like is, you know, schedule the email for later. Yeah. Now you can go back and read it or send it to yourself and see if you.
00;20;05;10 - 00;20;11;15
Jason P. Carroll
Really want to say, oh, I read it an hour later. Do like, oh yeah, how would I I'm not going to send that.
00;20;11;17 - 00;20;26;25
Jen Knox Shanahan
Yeah. So if you could give one piece of leadership advice to college students and emerging professionals preparing for their first leadership role, what would it be?
00;20;26;28 - 00;21;00;12
Jason P. Carroll
Gosh, I, I just feel like it's it's going to come back to the self awareness. College years are when you really start figuring out your your true north. And I can't tell you how many people I encounter every single week that when we kind of look at their like personality data, their, their like wiring and motivators and their career up to this point, that they just sit there
and go, why did I do this?
00;21;00;14 - 00;21;20;02
Jason P. Carroll
I think why did I go into business finance when like, I, I hate every second of it. Like, you know, I can be successful for six months, but then I just I'm miserable, drained. It's not giving me life. Or why don't I go into sales like I was told to follow the money that sales is great for, you know, get your commission check.
00;21;20;04 - 00;21;44;21
Jason P. Carroll
But I hate it. And so it it is hard though because our parents tell us what to go. Our professors obviously are they're there for their purpose and agenda and there's, area of expertise. So you gotta figure out a way to, to just understand yourself better and what's going to motivate you long term. Know your purpose and know your, you know, your drives.
00;21;44;24 - 00;21;50;26
Jen Knox Shanahan
Yeah. Yeah. Great advice. And it can be scary. And it's okay, you know?
00;21;50;29 - 00;21;52;22
Jason P. Carroll
Incredibly. Yeah.
00;21;52;24 - 00;22;05;29
Jen Knox Shanahan
Yeah. Looking ahead, 5 to 10 years, what leadership capability do you believe will be most critical for success in general? For leaders across the board.
00;22;06;02 - 00;22;32;22
Jason P. Carroll
I understanding people. Where we're getting the AI is going to take over a lot. And it's going to do a lot of replacing of humans. It's going to attempt to replace human judgment, over the next couple of years with the way things are accelerating, the influx, they're going to be companies are going to be just stupid, and they're going to be stripping out a lot of the human element.
00;22;32;24 - 00;22;55;12
Jason P. Carroll
And, and we're going to wake up, either gradually or like one of those big light bulb moments and just go, wow, we have just absolutely tanked our cultures and our our leadership, and we have no idea who our people are and what motivates them. So I think that folks, that, I mean, learn how to use AI, right?
00;22;55;12 - 00;23;03;20
Jason P. Carroll
If you don't know how to do good prompting, you're going to get left behind. But aside from that, stay honed in on understanding people.
00;23;03;23 - 00;23;09;05
Jen Knox Shanahan
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It seems as though it's going to be a huge differentiator. Yeah.
00;23;09;08 - 00;23;11;19
Jason P. Carroll
Yeah, I think so.
00;23;11;22 - 00;23;38;01
Jen Knox Shanahan
Okay. So thank you for for all of this, this insight. And, I feel like there's so many, practical ideas that you've shared with us as well. I'm curious if there's anything that I didn't ask that you would like to share, about your journey, about your business or, anything that you just like to share in terms of advice.
00;23;38;03 - 00;24;00;29
Jason P. Carroll
Nothing. Nothing big comes to mind. You know, we're talking about a tough subject matter. Yeah. Understanding yourself. Self-awareness is not easy. A lot of it comes through adversity. And, of course, adversity is not easy. It's. That's the whole bird. But I think most of us would if we looked back at the adversity that we faced.
00;24;01;01 - 00;24;21;00
Jason P. Carroll
And I don't mean trauma. I mean, run the mill adversity. I don't think most people would take it back. I think most people are like, okay, I learned what I needed to learn. And so I just kind of parallel that together. We we're going to constantly hit the wall, and we have to look at those things as learning moments.
00;24;21;02 - 00;24;40;17
Jason P. Carroll
We have to first look in the mirror. It's really tempting to blame circumstance, environment, politics and professors, whatever, or our adversity, but I think looking in the mirror is going to be the most difficult but most powerful first move, as we're working through stuff like that.
00;24;40;20 - 00;24;52;13
Jen Knox Shanahan
Yeah. Beautifully said. Do you do you recommend a particular practice for that? The journal is there is there a particular way that you would approach that from a, individual perspective? I'm just curious.
00;24;52;16 - 00;24;55;13
Jason P. Carroll
I'm the wrong guy to ask. I'm allergic to allergic.
00;24;55;13 - 00;24;55;23
Jen Knox Shanahan
To.
00;24;55;25 - 00;25;10;16
Jason P. Carroll
Process oriented? Yeah, I just don't. Yeah. I don't have self-discipline. If I don't know if I'm interested in something, I'd be completely checked out. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we have therapists. Good. Go to therapy. All right.
00;25;10;19 - 00;25;26;21
Jen Knox Shanahan
Well, good luck a lot of ways. You're right. Yeah. I'll just like looking at that journey squarely. And, you know, you can. You can do that in a moment. You can reflect, you can talk. Yeah. There's so many different paths. Like you were saying in the beginning, so many different motivators.
00;25;26;23 - 00;25;28;02
Jason P. Carroll
For sure.
00;25;28;05 - 00;25;40;04
Jen Knox Shanahan
Well, thank you so much, Jason P Carroll, for your time today. And, we really appreciate all the wisdom and, thank you for being on the Fisher Leadership Initiative podcast.
00;25;40;06 - 00;25;42;01
Jason P. Carroll
Thanks for having me.
00;25;42;04 - 00;26;00;13
Narrator
Thanks again for listening. This podcast is presented by the Max M Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University. For more episodes, find us on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or podcast. OSU Edu forward slash leadership initiative. See you next time.