welcome to ECE biography siege wisdom for child care leaders my name is Tony D
austinino i’m the founder and CEO of Inspire Care 360 in this series of
exclusive podcast we will meet with tenur and growing leaders in the child care field typically operating medium to
very large childare operations from tens of schools to thousands of schools our
incentive is to learn what has been the path and traits that make outstanding
leaders join us to glean the sage wisdom from these experienced individuals now
let’s get started with ECE biography sage wisdom for child care leaders
[Music] welcome to ECE CEO biography Sage Wisdom
for Early Learning Leaders this is Tony D augustino i am the founder and CEO of
Inspire Care 360 and today’s guest is Dean Papus of the Gartner Schools the
Gartner Schools is an academically focused preschool for children ages 6
weeks to six years of age with a vision of providing nurturing start for
successful futures for children they’re headquartered in Franklin Tennessee however they have schools all throughout
Colorado Illinois Kentucky Ohio Minnesota Tennessee Virginia DC and
Massachusetts dean has served as the CEO for the Gartner Schools for a little bit
over a year since 2024 he also sits on several different company boards as well
as the board of the Gartner School since 2004 dean has also previously led hearing
life as the chief executive officer for a number of years um where they focused
on hearing care throughout the nation in 2016 to 2019 Dean also served as the
chief operating officer of Gold’s Gym where he basically led the evolution of
the membership experience and oversaw the generation of sales revenue services
throughout that organization before joining Golds he spent almost 20 years
at 24-hour fitness during which he grew it from 24 locations to well over 400
clubs dean started his career as a part-time personal trainer held
positions of increasing responsibility throughout his tenure which I think you will learn from this oncoming
podcast dean holds his MBA from the University of California at Los Angeles
and a bachelor’s degree in business management at St mary’s College in California dean and his wife have three
wonderful children and a spoiled English bulldog named Gus so I’d like you to
welcome today to our podcast Dean Papis of the Gardener Schools how you doing
Dean i’m doing great good to be with you and thanks for making some time for us to talk oh gosh thank you for uh coming
on and joining us on the podcast uh we have Dean with Gartner Schools and a few
of you just probably heard from our intro a little bit of his bio that he is running Gartner schools from us and you
know Dean I’m going to get into a few questions about your history and your background and things of that nature um
but just on the outset just give us the highest level about gardener schools yeah I love the gardener school and what
we do i love kids i always have and um you know we provide a a safe and
nurturing environment for children for uh early care and then also early
childhood education and so we see kids from six months to five years primarily
some six-year-olds as well uh who are transitioning to kindergarten and and so
that that’s what we do and we do that in eight states and the District of Columbia awesome and at the end of this
we’ll get a little bit more about you guys but I want to learn more about you in this podcast and you know I tend to
like to start off with a question you know a little bit down the point of in
your earlier your formidable years did you ever see yourself who would end up
being a leader when you were just a kid and was there any kind of indications to you that you might have propensity for
it it’s a great question Tony and I think um I’d be dishonest if I said no you
know and I and I say with all humility that from being a kid in my neighborhood
you know we were we were always out it was a first of all I was so lucky to grow up in a place where there were so
many kids on my block and we were always out playing sports and doing different things and exploring and and um just
having fun outside you know I was barely ever in the house i was always getting in trouble for coming home too late for dinner and and all that and and um I in
doing all of those events and sports and activities I always would be in a in a
position of leadership not not the only one but I would I’d be one of the kids you know on the block that people look
to or or that um you know just had some success with athletics which I think
propelled me at the youngest age to a feeling of hey you know I can I can lead
others and I can be somebody that that others um rally around and so that’s
really where it started for me and and that continued through my formative
years and and high school and being uh captain a co- captain of my football
team and and then uh in baseball as well and and so those were the places that I
thrived and had introductions to leadership at the earliest stage of my life wow you know
when you when you think back about that do you feel that it was something that was just natural about you or was it
something where you just sort of had that energy that you that propelled you
into it well I I haven’t reflected on that at
any length but as you asked me that question I I think I did have a natural
energy for other people i love I’m a people person
i love other people i love interacting with other people and accomplishing
things together and I if I had to guess I would say that others could sense my
honest intention of uh get getting things done for both our sake and I
think that people can tell uh I think all of us have instincts and and we can tell what other people um have in mind
or what their intentions are and uh and mine are and were sincere in wanting to
have fun with others and accomplish things with others and so if I had to I don’t know and I and I won’t claim to
know but if I had to guess I would say it was people sense that energy you know
and I think it’s very interesting I recently sent to my boys who are both in their college years or finishing college
years one of beginning out of college years um I just sent them a TED talk and
it was about likability and it really talked about really sort of the secret sauce in leadership is about likability
when you think about some of the people you surround yourself with when you are
hiring recruiting building teams um how much does likability play into that for
you it’s tremendous and I think that’s by the way that’s great advice and guidance for your sons and so good good
job in uh showing that showing them the way i’m always uh trying to figure that out with my kids too is what do they
what do they need i have three kids two boys and a girl and what do they need that is the same and what do they need
that’s very maybe unique to their kind of personality and talents um but I
think what you hit on there with them with the likability factor is something that’s universal and I think that it is
really critical in my criteria that I use when I’m selecting my my business
partners and it’s as I’ve gained more experience and gone on in in life and in
in business it’s become more important and the reason for that is that I’m I’m
a little bit more selective in what I do professionally with you know less time
remaining uh in my career what I do professionally uh there’s criteria for
that and then who I do it with and I mentioned to you that I love working with people and I and I sincerely do um
and and I love all people uh and if I’m going to go to work with them then there
are some additional criteria and and it has to be somebody who for us to enjoy
ourselves the most and have therefore the best odds of success i look for
somebody who’s friendly smart somebody who’s got a lot of ability to contribute
they have a lot of potential they care about what we’re doing um but they they
do it in a way that has some grace and um demonstrate some EQ and interpersonal
awareness in how they show up and and so that’s that’s uh what I would consider
friendly smart is it doesn’t intimidate or it doesn’t look to kind of uh put you
down for their benefit or for their ego but instead it looks to lift others up
around them and and so knowing when to get big when to get small when to be in
front when to be in back and then having the versatility to be able to do it and so I I look for those things in
especially our executive leadership team and my partners who I’m super lucky to
to work with uh who have that ability so we can we can uh have a lot of success
together but also have a lot of fun and then help help other people who are trying to maybe have our jobs in the
future right get there you know that feels really good it feels really good to help somebody who wants to accomplish
something and and um and that matters a lot to me too is is I want the folks
around me to be super capable and and able to lead the company where it needs to go and I I I want them to be people
who for selfish reasons love helping other people because they just it makes
them feel good and um and so those are the criteria that that matter a lot to me and that I think about when you say
likability yeah and when you know and I’m jumping around here
because sometimes I do this a little chronological but I I think with this thread a little bit you know in your
career did you find yourself in situations because a lot of times we go through situations where we go into an
acquisition next thing we know we have a boss we didn’t choose and vice versa they
have you know you have staff that you didn’t choose and what have you have you
ever found yourself in a situation that I guess you would say is you’re like “Wow this is just not the cultural fit.”
And what were some of the key indicators for you if you did yeah I um I I was in
that situation and that in you know I I’ve learned a lot i’m really glad that
I was to be honest with you as much as I didn’t enjoy being in that situation
from the standpoint of gosh you know I this isn’t what I this isn’t what I want
to be doing and who I want to be doing it with and um and that didn’t feel good um but
I learned so much about what I do want from being in that experience and what
what really made it not for me uh was an inconsistency
in what to what you would expect or what you would experience in going to work um
and having partners who maybe um didn’t show up uh with the same
methodology or principles um or or directionally you know kind of working towards
uh having it be a win-win relationship right for everybody involved and I what
it really cemented for me was that beyond beyond just work you know because this is all just life and people so it’s
impossible to delineate oh this is these are my principles for my personal
relationships versus my work relationships we’re all just people and what it really cemented for me was that
for any relationship to thrive long term and to be sustainable long term it has
to be a win-win relationship everybody has to benefit yeah and um and fundamentally what was not the right
cultural fit for me was that that wasn’t something that was uh generally valued
uh by key key players and and so and you felt that you know you earlier we talked
about how we all have intuition and and you can sense other people’s intentions
and and so when it’s unpredictable or or um when it’s something that uh changes
just too dramatically then uh then trust erodess and and then
when when trust isn’t there then it’s hard to really gosh if we’re going to go do something really hard together that’s
worthwhile um it’s hard to to to go energized in that journey when you’re
not really sure your business partner is is maybe wanting the same things as you you know and you bring up another good
point it’s come up in other podcasts before but it’s something I think is very much at the core of success in
organizations and that is trust and you know for yourself
how you know as leaders we tend to have to be a shepherd of trust
for you how do you tend to get that out to the flock how do you tend to sorry to
use these parables from like but it’s the truth though it is and it’s what and it’s what we all understand so
right I get it so how do you tend to get this out to your partners your teams
people that you have responsibility to as well as they have responsibility to
you how do you get that trust out to them i’d like to I I’m thinking of a
couple of different headlines that over the course of my career have
have evolved for me in terms of my understanding and have led to how I do this today and the first is through
honesty and humility and I attempt to I don’t and by the way
Tony I don’t always get it right and um join the party yeah
um uh but but when I do what I uh what I
accomplish is honesty and humility regardless of my audience regardless of the circumstance
and it is um it is something that I think when I say has has evolved with me
over time um the way I understand it is that the reason I’m more capable of
honesty and humility today uh versus you know at any point up to
now in my career and in my life isn’t because I’m a fundamentally more honest person today it’s because I have more
maturity and maturity has helps you with honesty and humility you realize that we
don’t have to hide we everything we are is visible to and transparent to everybody anyway and uh the only thing
that isn’t immediately transparent is if you know who you are they already know
who you are and if you’re comfortable with it and through honesty and and humility you communicate a
self-awareness to others and that leads to a higher level of trust like okay
this guy uh or woman knows who they are and they’ve got it right and they
already know you’re not perfect uh they just need to know if you know where you aren’t and and so that honesty and
humility is so fundamental for me with regard to trust and then the other is um
is one that comes from competency and character and that’s competency has to
be a lifelong journey of improvement and we you mentioned something earlier about
what you had sent to your sons and that’s a product of you continuing to improve yourself so you can be a better
as a result you’re a better dad to them and in your work as you improve and and
you’re not as good as you were five years ago but or last year but you’re better that means you can contribute
more to the people around you and your competency level goes up so they trust that their odds of success are better
with you uh because your competency continues to improve and therefore your ability to help and support them is
better than it was a year ago and then character is just the you know they they
trust that you are uh even though you’re not always getting it right that you’re always trying to get it right and that
you’re doing things for everybody’s benefit and and for uh the success of
the team or the organization or the family or whatever uh the group is that
you’re a part of and um and so they know that even though you’re not working uh
within maybe each other’s sight or oversight uh on a regular basis that in
absence they’re trusting that you’re doing everything you can for the
collective success of that team and and organization and so that’s um that’s I think the character part of it as well
and so those are the things that honesty and humility and the way we interact with other people and we communicate
being on a continuous improvement journey so we’re always getting better and we can we can contribute more and
then our intentions um are in the right place we’re trying to do what’s best for everyone involved
well substantial and you know you talked about a few things earlier about the
kind of people that you like to focus on hiring friendly but smart kind grace EQ
honesty humility few of these things when when you look at when you’re young
in the very formative years whether it be you know in college or coming out of school or starting your first jobs or
you looked at who your influences were were those characteristics that you felt
that you had some very strong influences back then or these some things that you just were like well I had to pick them
up on my way because I I I didn’t have that resource to me when I was young i I think I had people whether they were uh
teachers coaches family members um my parents uh older brothers ex on where
all of those characteristics that you just mentioned that we’ve talked about so far were represented by uh some in
that group right and I had to aggregate you know and kind of learn as I as I
went um and learn from experiences and and maybe you
know trial a lot of trial and error um and and then get but but mostly uh just
overcome my own shortcomings you know and so but they they all showed me and and had an example of these various
characteristics that were positive examples and then over the course of my own experience um I realized the
significance of these different things and and the benefit of them and I wanted to get better in those areas i noticed
where I was too arrogant you know and I I noticed where I was too limited in my
you know kind of acceptance of um how how to be successful like there was one way and it was my way and and I realized
uh through just that not working um and me doing terrible as a result of that
and and not succeeding and just then life maturity um you know I I realized
how those things were holding me back and then I looked to those people my dad my brothers my sister my coaches um
other professors that I had where I was like “Oh gosh you know that’s that’s so much better than me that’s so much
better than what I do i’m going to do I’m going to borrow that and start trying it.” You know and I did it i’ll give you an example um I was I was in a
class where halfway through the class the professor elicited feedback from the group on how
the semester was going anonymous digital so we all submitted it the next class he
he shared it he showed it and he listed all of the things that were said and some of them weren’t very kind um but he
listed all of them and then he was non-defensive about the feedback and
then he said what he was going to do to improve the second half of the semester
as a result of what was provided for him and I to this day do that once a year with my team i ask for their feedback
like a start stop continue and I then read all the things that were said some
of them not very kind deservedly then I say what I’m going to do and then like halfway through the year I give him a
progress report and and you know at the end of the year I I go back to it when we start the next cycle and the reason I
do that is that his humility and openness and and not def and I’m sure so
many of those comments he could have said “Yeah but so and so,” but he just
in his uh lack of having a need to
explain and just owning it and moving on taught me two things one is that the
cred his credibility went up skyrocketed uh for the whole class and for me by
doing that secondly it was a he role model that when you’re in charge you’re
responsible for things that aren’t your fault as well as things that are or
things that are just happen stance and they’re nobody’s fault and and that’s why his credibility went up and I
realized it and it was nothing that I would ever prior to that experience you
know I would have argued if I thought something was unfairly uh characterized
uh and to to defend myself uh and and it was uh to my own detriment and so like
that’s an example of borrowing from other people’s work translating it to
like how it fits your life and and your ambitions and I did that with uh I was able to do
that with all of those different kind of characters in my life that you mentioned well I I think that’s you know
absolutely uh a wonderful thought process around that because they think of people who might be listening to this
sometimes they’re negotiating with themselves and their brain you know did
I do something wrong or maybe I need to prove myself or yeah it maybe I should
push it under the rug nobody will notice it you know I remember when I was young
uh when I was young you know one of the areas I think I dealt with were some challenges and I won’t make this a therapy session for you but but I
remember when I was playing football you know and a coach you know and he’s like “Why’d you miss this pass?” Yeah every
excuse and he was like “Dogustinino you’re out.” And I’m like “I I was out for the rest of the game.” And I came to
his office after i was like “Why am I out?” And he’s because he goes “You didn’t just you didn’t take responsibility you just blamed you just
didn’t take responsibility and it was a hard cold lesson that he just smacked me
upside the head with now I won’t say I learned everything overnight but me too it was one of those things
where I had to deal with criticism and I think you’re talking about how to be
authentic to push through criticism do you have any was it with you a journey
over time or did you have any aha moments like the one you had with your professor that you were like okay I just
received criticism and prior to this I defended myself now I’m like okay how do
I absorb this because it really probably is going to help me in the long run oh
my gosh absolutely a journey over time and I’ll tell you a journey I’m still on and there are time there are times or
days or circumstances where I don’t you know I’m just not I’m feeling more insecure for whatever reason or I’m just
not having a great I’m just not my best that day or it’s a new situation and and
I don’t already have a bunch of credibility in the bank with this partner or whatever you know like those
are circumstances where it’s more likely for me to feel defensive and not take
the criticism as well as I want to and um and that still and that still happens
i think I’ll always you know be on that journey but I am I am you know in a in a much uh better place than than I was and
the I think the the way that that’s happened is
me just recognizing that we we all have
uh strengths and opportunities and to to think that you’re maybe consistently
only playing to your strengths or showing up you know the right way it’s just not it’s just not a very objective
way of thinking about things and so um it also doesn’t mean that you aren’t
good or capable or talented or well-intentioned
and so I think it’s the the ability to not associate a negative meaning to
taking ownership over a certain situation or circumstance that helps me you know it’s it isn’t
what happened it’s the the story I tell myself about what happened that’s improved and so if before
if I got something wrong or didn’t do my best what it would mean for me is that I
wasn’t as good as maybe I hoped that I was so it was really harder for me to accept that and of course I would get
defensive and fight against it because the alternative was having to admit that I’m not good or as good as I want to be
and so that’s the difference in the story that I tell myself is now at this stage of my life I understand that
there’s going to be times where I I do better than other there’s going to be times where I had the right read and I
made the right path so to speak and there’s going to be another time where I didn’t it doesn’t mean I’m not good it
just means I did wasn’t good i didn’t do as good as I wanted to on that play um and and so that makes it a lot easier it
lowers the threshold in taking ownership because now it does taking ownership doesn’t mean I’m not good um it just
means I didn’t get that situation right and and let me be energized by that to figure out why so I reduce the amount of
times I don’t get it right going forward so I think that’s the that’s the process I I think I have gone through there’s
one other thing that I want to share on this topic yeah that I think might be might be helpful for others is when you
are doing well earlier in your career there’s less of that criticism because
you’re aspiring and because you’re in charge of less and because the degree of
difficulty as a result isn’t as high and so you get used to maybe a higher
success rate and so all of a sudden now you’re in a different role or you know maybe you’re an owner or um maybe you’re
just in in charge of more more uh team members and as a result of that scope
expanding uh your success rate is going to go down and so now you’re having to face the
realization of gosh you know I’m not like this I’m not like the superstar
player on every uh every play or every month or every year i’m not the person
of the of the year uh every year now and um and so that’s a transition you know
you’re like gosh am I I used to be so successful but it’s it’s just that your degree of difficulty has shifted and uh
and sometimes that’s hard psychologically you know you’ve got to adjust to that and um and that’s part of maturity and so that that at at earlier
stages of taking on more responsibility can also get in your way and and so I
just want to share that in case anyone listening might benefit from hearing uh
that progression that I went through no I think it’s really insightful Dean you know for a number of reasons but one
that just resonates with me right out of the gate is a lot of times you know like
child care owners what have you they were successful with having an inh home they went out they started their own and
you know what people just started showing up people started loving what was going on and then they were like
“Hey we’re gonna start doing a few extra schools.” That started working out great and then like “Hey we’re going to franchise.” And no one comes knocking
and then all of a sudden they’re like “Uhoh.” Yeah something’s different and I
must now be a failure no I think what you’re saying is you know those of us who tend to try to progress we we tend
to push our chips in a little bit more and a little bit more sometimes the house is going to win you know
no way too way too often not that I have much experience here but
with that said you know when that when that happens you know the way you know I
think a lot of us do is we we do our best to learn and hopefully not completely retreat from it yes so you
know and I and and I’m I’m flipping the conversation a little bit because you know we got in depth really quick but I
I find your ascension uh interesting because I was just reading some
background on you and it said you started as a personal trainer a parttime trainer and next thing you know you’re
running as the CEO of expanding growing caring facility for putting out the
wonderful next generation generation of kids how the heck does that happen yeah yeah oh my gosh so I’ve been so
fortunate you know I’ve had now roughly a 30-year career and I was a student
athlete start i had a friend who was uh working as a part-time personal trainer
uh this is in I grew up in San Jose California and he was working a 24-hour nautilus at
the time which later became 24-hour fitness this is uh you know 1994 i won’t
I won’t bore you with a story other than to say it immediately gave me an opportunity to recognize that helping
others in whatever small way I contributed to them improving their health and well-being was so rewarding
for me and it energized me and it wasn’t like work and then I I that stayed with
me and is still with me today and then the ability to communicate effectively and maybe uh compel and persuade and
influence and inspire i noticed I I had an uh you know maybe a some natural
talent there that I could cultivate and it allowed me to be successful and the company was growing really fast and I I
spent 20 years there you know and I I had so many incredible opportunities uh
because of how fast the company was growing which which really helped my development but what was true in that organization
uh in industry uh fitness industry was true in my next industry which was hearing care was consumer healthcare uh
was that the the consumer was was better off doing business with us than they
were not in terms of their well-being and that is true uh as I stepped into
hearing care I recognized that uh we had a product and service that not only
helped people to hear and and solved a physical issue but that people who suffer from a hearing loss are people
who end up isolated are people who tend um you know to be maybe uh suffering
from accelerated cognitive decline and the isolation and lack of confidence to
be in public leads them to be sedentary so when you solve for that they kind of come back uh they they reenter
relationships that they had backed out of so they’re not a burden on their loved ones they they’re more active so
just like in the fitness space going to a place of physical uh well-being that was improved the same thing was true
with people who had a hearing loss they had a transformative experience that was
disproportionately meaningful than just the physical ailment same thing with fitness and so the social value was a
common theme and then stepping into leading early childhood education
as meaningful as those were I I don’t know what could be more impactful than a
nurturing environment uh start for our kids that leads to a higher rate of
success in their future i mean that not only for the child him or herself but
but just for society at large and what it means for our future i don’t I don’t
think you can make an argument that there’s much that’s more impactful uh than what we’re doing so it’s also
mission centric and so I I like to I I
like to work hard i like to compete i like to have fun at what we do and I like to accomplish things and I also
want to know that all of that work is being done in an effort that’s good for everybody and that the people who do
business with us whether it is to uh get in better shape or to hear better or to
have a better educational start and foundation for their children that
they’re so much better off uh their value proposition is so strong and they’re so much better off doing
business with us than they otherwise would be because of how valuable our services and products are to them and so
that that I think has been the common theme throughout the industries that I’ve worked in and it is very energizing
for me well you know when you mention it and I I think about it from what you’re
saying you know you you actually have a really great story Dean in the sense
that the entities you’re working for were all about human improvement
because it really was it’s the physical health it’s here i can relate to the hearing thing i was in a rock band for 30 years playing league guitar so
there’s a lot of times where I’m at events and I’m nodding my head i’m like I asked you a question de Austinino why
don’t you answer me because I can’t hear a word you’re saying i don’t know what you said yeah
but with that said though and then us getting into this industry too where the
output is tremendous for our future when when you were making the decision to
decide to sort of make that leap that chasm from the hearing solutions to the
child care solutions was there anything that you were thinking about holding you back or going “Wow this is definitely a
different industry and I should really think about it before I make that leap.” I definitely thought about it for sure
and I was really happy in my previous organization and I was there over five
years and you know we were a national organization and operated in 42 states and we had a really robust uh business
almost 700 clinics um in our company and and so leaving that uh because all of
how good all of that was uh was something that that I absolutely uh
considered ed deeply and and for an extended you know period the reason I
did it anyway is is number one because of how successful the transition was for me from fitness to hearing care in that
it provided an opportunity for accelerated growth for me you know I I found myself in a place after almost 24
25 years in one industry i found myself in a place where a lot of my skills and
experience transferred over with me and were relevant in the new industry and then there was a bunch that wasn’t that
I was just a new student in right and I had to learn and um a lot of that whether it was you know first thing
comes to mind is how you deal with insurance companies and revenue cycle management and billing and all of that
that was not a part of my first uh industry but was very central to this
last industry and so you know I I um I I had to put
myself in a position where I had to humble myself and I had to go be a good student but it helped me grow and
develop not just technically but in being able to engage other people and
get other people to uh to feel good about helping me to learn and so when an
opportunity to step into a different industry came up for me again the affiliation I had with that was
opportunity for growth i can uh I can get myself into a situation where there’s things I’m not going to know and
I can learn those things and I trust the people around me to be uh you know helpful and good teachers because I
trust in the good intentions of people and that’s exactly what’s happened and so I’ve I’ve uh I’ve had a chance to
really learn and grow and and um then independent of that build something with
the gardener school um that that was was
a chance that I didn’t have in my previous organization my previous organization was re really well established when I went there and was
and started leading it and so this is a different stage of growth and so this
isn’t maybe refining and optimizing what someone who came before me built but
this is us uh taking this organization to the next level and and building upon
an incredible entrepreneurial and early stage success that uh my predecessor and
the founder had and did such an incredible job of setting up over 20 years uh setting up this organization uh
to differentiate itself and to and mostly to provide incredible opportunities for for children from six
months to six years and um and now hand the baton to me uh so graciously to now
go and scale that and do that in in more uh states and and in uh more locations
and be able to make it work um and so having a chance to build that next hyperrowth phase of the organization
successfully u was also a great business challenge that appealed to me yeah you
know and there’s something that you just mentioned it was funny because I was about to mention it to you but you talked about entrepreneurship and you
also earlier talked about developing competency you know entrepreneurship and
competency sort of go down different paths at times because you know you’re
going oftent times into areas that you don’t have competency in but when you look at your journey like
you mentioned about you are now really an entrepreneur or entrepreneur leader
with an entrepreneurial team right who’s getting there
when you look at that and we have people who listen in here oftentimes I think that you know a little bit about pushing
your chips in and that are difficult and risks what have you noticed about that’s
different about this role than your previous ones about being an entrepreneur where you you don’t have a
backs stop you don’t have someone there who’s probably gonna catch you because your business has been through that
experience before yeah what I’ve noticed is not having that
backs stop or um not having a more established you
know scaled in terms of scaled organization within with the corresponding infrastructure
is that I I have had to be more of a player coach and I’ve enjoyed it and
love doing it and I I think that this stage company if um
if maybe that isn’t what you want to do which is totally this isn’t a right or wrong this is a more just personal
preference right like if if you are wanting to be more of a player coach uh
and do a lot of the work and be into the details and bottom up build you know
some of the infrastructure people process program that technology that needs to be in place um then it’s
probably not the best place to be but for me uh it’s been energizing
uh what you talked earlier about learning from all of the influences in our lives and or you know which ones
maybe I I learned from i my parents had a a quote in the family that my siblings
and I used to roll our eyes at um but now I’m so happy that they they shared with us they used they used to say that
don’t be afraid of work work should be afraid of you and and I me too i love it
now but I didn’t love it when I was a kid because it usually meant we had to do more chores
but it was very fundamental in what they instilled in us you know my parents were immigrants and came here from Greece and
and had that sort of you know immigrants sensibility and um and I’m so grateful
for that and uh and so coming here and having to do that is not
of there there are days where it’s it’s exhausting of course and and days where I’m like you know have to shake off some
of the adversity that you face but I love it and I love that there is adversity and that there’s tension and
that things are hard and it’s not easy to to build you know it’s not easy to build something and that challenge and
then therefore the the worthwhile ness of the accomplishment uh of building it
i love doing all of that but it is very it is different than my previous organizations that were at a different
scale and therefore had more resources and infrastructure and required
different things of me than this company requires at this point yeah you know and
you bring up some more thoughts that I you know I start to ponder about and it
is one of the things especially with leading teams in an entrepreneurial environment we oftent times sometimes
forget that we’re not the only one on that entrepreneurial journey everybody with you all your teammates
are also there but they’re also looking to you to say “Hey how do we get there how do we how are we getting there?”
when when you have failure failure or setback happen with
teammates that report up to you and I think this is a common thing we all have within our organizations that occur and
you have to help coach them remediate them support them or take them in a
direction that may not be the most positive what to you are the most important
traits when dealing with teammates in that nature when either success hasn’t
occurred objectives haven’t been met focus is not contiguous with where
you’re trying to bring the organization how do you deal with them what kind of traits do you think are important to deal with people like that i think I
think that empathy has to lead your actions i’ll tell you why I say that um
besides what might be obvious the people especially that you work with that I
work with they’re all wanting to do a good job and they care right it isn’t
that you’ve hired somebody i mean if that’s the case we’re have it’s a totally different you know conversation
but that that isn’t the case you we have people who are working really hard and dedicating their talent and their time
at an opportunity cost to them to your company and to your team and they could and it’s an opportunity cost because
they could be dedicating that somewhere else and they’re they’re doing they’ve chosen to to hook their ladder to this
building and and so when things don’t go the way that that they want them to um
it’s disappointing and I and I think that if you show up and I I try to coach myself on this because I have I have
missed on this before when you show up leading with disappointment
about what they didn’t do for you or for the team that can be really painful um
and upsetting for a person and so what I try to lead with is an empathy in
understanding that hey if they could have done better they would have because they definitely want to and so let me
let me try to understand what might be getting in their way and so I like to to
um have a conversation where I really am expanding my understanding beyond the
acknowledgement that it wasn’t a success but instead trying to figure out why maybe it wasn’t a success and how much
of that can I own first to then create some reciprocity you know where they
don’t feel blamed um and they don’t feel like they’re having a finger pointed at them and and being isolated ated um but
instead they feel like hey we’re going to be shoulder-to-shoulder like what I want my teammates when I get it right what I want my team members to feel like
is that when they have failed at something or they have not had a success
stumbled that that’s when I’m the closest to them that I’m shoulder-to-shoulder with them
in those moments and when they’re thriving and succeeding that I am out of out of their way and that is what I try
to accomplish so I try to lead with empathy empathy so they don’t feel like I’m blaming them and then I try to
understand what is maybe uh an external factor or the company’s you know miss or
my miss so I can create some reciprocity there hopefully in them also taking
ownership over what was their miss yeah and you mentioned success
how do you help your team celebrate success when success happens I love
encouraging ing uh celebrating each other and I think role modeling that you
know and and t first of all talking about it saying hey we’re gonna this is going to be fundamental to that we’re
doing too many hard things together to not celebrate and and encourage each other and and so I think as you do it as
the leader invariably people start to to emulate that behavior and then when they
start to celebrate each other um not not
interjecting and thinking that you have to now say something or also compliment
uh or celebrate otherwise uh it’s not as valid and and I think if you can know
when to stay when they start celebrating each other and you can just stay quiet and let them have it uh that exchange as
a team without you being involved then I think that really nurtures a
togetherness and a true uh team spirit and camaraderie and so those are the
state it make sure you’re explicit that it’s important role model it and then
don’t feel like unless you say it too uh it doesn’t have as much validity so give
me if you don’t mind an example if you could share an example of where you guys had a success whether it was just recent
or past year or so and how did you guys celebrate it or let them celebrate it or
how did you know what was something that you felt was a great way to approach it
yeah so we just had we have this list of schools that we identify as our priority
schools and they’re schools that we want to accelerate uh the the growth rate of
and so we we do some extra things you know we we put some extra marketing investment and and um more of the
multi-unit leaders are spending time with these schools and so forth we reevaluate on a quarterly basis um and
for the first time after a year we were able to graduate a couple of those schools just at the end of Q1 so just
end of March last month we were able to graduate a couple of schools from that
list is the first time ever uh because it’s only a year I’ve only been here 15 months and um and they were schools that
had been stuck for a while in terms of their growth rate and and the team not me but the team collectively our
operations leaders mostly the school leadership uh our marketing team working together uh got them unstuck and they
they got growing and they had some great success and so we had we have a monthly
um all hands call our our companywide uh virtual meeting that we have and and on
that virtual meeting this is by the way I’m going to give you an example of me being out of the way too this happened
uh last week and it was the f the first one since I’ve worked here that I wasn’t hosting it because I was on vacation and
so the team had it and I was purposeful about them having it without me and um
and what on in that meeting we celebrated the uh the executive school
directors of these two schools and their teams and had a picture of them talked about in the meeting some of the things
that they did in front of the entire organization um that led to them being
successful and we sent him a nice little gift uh uh
to each of the the schools and the directors and and made a really big deal
about their accomplishment and so in instead of it being something where oh
gosh you know I’m on this list of schools that is maybe identified as not doing as well as we want instead it it
became an opportunity for a lot of accomplishment that then in front of all
of their peers they not only were celebrated but they had a chance to share the best practices that led to
their success so other people could benefit from their experience too that’s awesome that’s great right there you
know and you’re taking some of the things that we talked about with that with
empathy for your people but celebrating your people if you’re you know if we had
new lead you know leaders who are trying to ascend to greater heights who are
listening to this what would you give them as guidance as to your philosophy
around development of your culture h you you have to care about how it
feels to work in your company and then put yourself in the shoes of
people who work in your company to see things from their perspective
um to then understand where you can invest i would apply what I try to do is
apply the same research understanding as we do with our customer and we say you
know voice of the customer and have a consumer journey and optimize it to
build the value proposition i think the first customer that all of
us have are our team members understanding their journey the team
member journey understanding what they want care about just like you want to know what your customer wants cares
about and then optimizing their experience to provide that and to invest in it in whatever responsible way that
you can each year uh making uh increasing the contributions that you make to the team member experience i
think that that not necessarily the results of those investments i think the evidence of that
passion and intent to try to do that for them is what builds the culture and and
so that would be the advice I would give along with don’t give up because there’s going to be times that are tough
quarters that are tough years that are tough and um and as as the degree of
difficulty increases like we talked about earlier and as these these obstacles visit you
uh it’s It’s easy to and a lot of people do uh hang it up at that point in
whatever way they do and that isn’t a criticism that’s that may be the right thing for them to do but but people also
need leaders who won’t um and and who will lead the way forward and overcome those real legitimate obstacles there’s
always real reasons not excuses there’s always real and legitimate reasons why
you can’t be successful and there’s also legitimate reasons why you can and so
understanding the real obstacles not to have them as reasons to not proceed but
to understand what you’re up against so you can overcome it and and be successful anyway that that I think um
passion energy and commitment is is something that I would also want to
underscore well I appreciate you going through that and underscoring it for sure you know we
already blew through an hour i don’t know how it happened so felt like 10 minutes i might I might have been
accused of uh being long minute before you didn’t know what you were getting into actually rather salient points
which I’m very appreciative of because I think we’ve been able to build a really easy conversation on it and me too thank
you no no no problem at all you know I one question before I’ I’d like to ask you a little bit more just to tell us
about gardener a little bit more yeah just one last question if you were to give any you know and this could pair it
to some of the things you’re saying before or just what your thoughts are if you are giving guidance to any other
leaders or operators who want to get to the next level obviously we heard things about not giving up you know being kind
being empathetic celebrating successes things of that nature is there any other you know
thoughts that you have about what it you know what you think it takes to help get
to the next level i just think that I want to I want to reinforce that humility wins you know
that you don’t get to the next level uh by having the answers and by having
arrived and I’ve seen that stop more people’s ascension than anything else it it isn’t a lack of talent it’s not a
lack of IQ it’s it it isn’t um you know anything that is a uh predetermined or
inherent shortcoming it is it’s not having enough humility to keep growing
and learning and to understanding that there’s there’s multiple right ways of
doing things there’s multiple approaches you can learn from all of them and that
uh as as you take an approach where you want to understand better that you know
that you are looking for the right questions to ask for yourself and for the the team members around you you’re
going to you’re going to learn how to connect with people you’re going to learn when to talk when to not you’re
going to learn how to approach certain challenges in given ways all all the things that you won’t learn if you
already have all the answers and so I think I think that being coachable
being committed to your own self-improvement and having the humility to to to be able to accomplish those
things you know that’s that’s the advice I would have and then I always remind myself of on that note that arrogance
repels uh I think humility disarms and confidence attracts and there is
something about a a humble confidence that I think is the most attractive and
sticky type of leadership well great words to you know finalize
with so I appreciate it with Gartner schools what is you know sort of your vision for the future where are you guys
going if there’s anybody listening to this Yeah because I’d love to be part of that you know tell us a little thank you
yeah and thank you for asking me about that i’m so excited so I’ve been here 15 months what we’re doing is my
predecessor and founder Scott Thompson did an incredible job of uh starting this business and and growing it to uh
to something that you know many people wanted to invest in uh 20 plus years later and and so you know he did that
and and uh was able to retire chose to retire uh and the next phase here that
we’re in this um next ownership phase is one of rapid uh hyperrowth and it’s
meant to take what was uh I think a an organization and culture and product
with regard to the the facilities themselves and the service we provide top top scale top end in the indust
industry and expand it to many other places and so what we’re doing is we’re
infilling we want to have at least seven to 10 schools in all the states we operate in and we don’t and so in places
like Colorado and Minnesota and Tennessee and Ohio we’re rapidly growing we’re entering new markets which we did
just starting in December of 2024 in Massachusetts and and we already have three schools open in Boston we’re
opening another one next month and by the end of 26 we should have 8 to 10 schools there and and beyond and um and
so and we’re expanding in in like Northern Virginia uh DC and other uh places but the the uh under underlying
objective is to more than double the store count school count of the
organization and uh to do that by building new schools which is going to be our primary
growth engine and complement that through acquisitions and what we would like to add to our organization are uh
schools that are well established in place and maybe you know we’re also
started in an entrepreneurial way and somebody now wants to maybe retire or
exit the the industry and they’re looking for an an ownership or a company
that can come in and and take over their school that they can trust that they know cares about the children first
families the team members that they’ve probably worked with for years and who want to be a part of our journey going
forward which is to not only provide our offering everywhere but have our
offering be the best place to get early child care education or just child care
if if your child is younger and so you can feel really good about who you’re
you’re handing uh your business off to so we want to grow through building our
own schools adding acquisitions to our organization and we want people who are
maybe considering hey who’s the right buyer for my business maybe I have one
to five schools one to 10 schools and I want to sell it i want it to I want to sell it to a group of people who
genuinely care about all their constituents their children their families their team members um and and
deliver a great service high quality service that’s us and every month and
every quarter we are passionately committed to doing a better job at all
of those things so we deliver better results to to everybody involved with the Gardener School awesome well you
know it looks like you got you hitched your wagon pretty well to a pretty good endeavor and you know I want to say Dean
thank you so much for joining us today uh we went about two minutes over but I hope people can deal with that um but uh
again thank you so much so I do want to conclude and uh not only take the time
to thank Dean and his team because it’s not just him but it’s also his assistant I’ve dealt with a few times and she’s
wonderful uh to get this thing set up for us but I want to thank everybody on here who has joined the ECE CEO
biography Sage Wisdom for Child Care Leaders and hopefully you have an
opportunity to gain some nuggets of interest out of here that can help you get to the next level and don’t hesitate
if you’re out there and you’re interested in different leaders or different people you’d like to participate with bring them to us we’d
love to learn more about those who we might not be in our scope today so thank you everybody and have a wonderful day
you have been listening to ECE biography Sage Wisdom for Child Care Leaders
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