Mar 20, 2019
A fun fact about Gary is that his 10 year old doesn’t ever think
he sleeps because he only sees him when
he is awake and Leslie can’t go to sleep if there are dishes in the
sink!
Leslies journey began with working in advertisement and marketing
with newspapers for 15 years right
out of college. After leaving that career she took a position at a
marketing innovation consultant agency
where she was able to blend strategic thinking and creative
thinking. When she was working on a
campaign for Kellogg for new waffles she felt like her creativity
and skills may be better used
somewhere else. That’s when she got the call from Gary to join him
at Chaplaincy. She felt right at home
and was grateful to be there helping people in need and not having
to come up with new versions of
waffles!
Gary followed the traditional path of accounting background,
accounting and finance, finance analyst, all
the way up to business development but there was always a feeling
that something was missing. He
enjoyed the work and did the work well. His paths crossed with an
entrepreneur who bought and sold
businesses over the years. His latest venture was hospice. At the
time Gary knew nothing about hospice
and that is when he was told that hospice is about bringing dignity
and peace to the end of a life. They
needed a finance person, so he decided to join the team. When he
came on board they had 8 or 9 and
before they knew it they had acquired 15-20. He moved from finance/
accounting to operations.
Chaplaincy does a great job at serving the community with programs
and palliative care.
Leslie’s advice to listeners who are thinking about making a change
or shift in their career is ask yourself
what is the worse thing that can happen if I stay or if I make the
change. Also, listen to your gut.
Lynn Dickerson was a very influential person in Leslie’s life when
she was with the Medesto Newspaper.
What she loved most about her was that she was very firm but fair.
She had high expectations and she
help her accountable. Christopher Turner, who is no longer with us,
also had a wonderful presence that
impacted her about being present and in the moment. He also taught
Leslie about overcoming fear.
Gary’s mother has been a tremendous influence for him. She had a
pretty tough road and her story
shows perseverance. Growing up looking at her story has made him
who he is today. Professionally,
John Graham, a high-level executive asked him one day how much time
he spends critically thinking. He
has thought about that question many times over the course of his
career.
Leslie finds that in order to be productive she needs to carve out
uninterrupted time and use a lot of
self-talk to keep herself focused. She prioritizes her weekly
projects into smaller chunks to stay on
target, otherwise she can find herself getting very overwhelmed.
She also learned to leave margin for
the unexpected things that come up.
Gary works best in increments. He gets the first 5 things done
first, takes a break, then coaches his son,
spends time with him, rests, works out, works more, sleeps and then
starts all over again.
Chaplaincy is highly regulated, so the vision is to be sure that
they are exceeding the regulations and
expectations. Forward thinking as to what is going to happen on the
horizon. 85% of what they do is
paid for by medicare, so looking at where medicare is going for the
agency reimbursement and quality
standards. Making sure they are always staying one step ahead. They
focus on 6 drivers and then plan
their 3 to 5 year goals under those drivers. This last year they
conducted a SWOT Analysis and they used
that to find themes and help them generate goals. Chaplaincy
programs & goals are congruent with the
community.
In order to keep growing as a leader, Leslie’s advice is to keep
learning, growing, stretching. Gary’s
advice is to be curious, ask a lot of questions, be resilient to
failure and spend time critically thinking.