Carol:
Welcome back to the show. Today, we are chatting with a leader who has spent more than two decades moving people in every sense of that phrase. Charles Frazier is the chief executive officer of the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority, CARTA, a role he stepped into in January of 2024. He started in Palm Beach County, Florida, where he was the deputy director of the Palm Transit System. He then led Rock Region METRO in Little Rock, Arkansas as CEO, where his tenure included ridership growth, the agency's first on-demand microtransit service, a jobs access vanpool program, and the agency's first employee recognition program. From there, he went to the Jacksonville Transportation Authority as chief operating officer overseeing transit operations for one of Florida's largest systems before Chattanooga called.
At every agency he's led among the first things he's built were ways for employees and riders to be heard. In Little Rock, that meant the agency's first employee recognition program. In Chattanooga, it means the agency's first Rider Advisory Committee, so the people who actually ride the system have a voice in how it changes, and CARTA's first ever onboard customer satisfaction survey. He and his staff ride the bus to work themselves, and that's because he believes experiencing the service you provide is part of leading it. He's rebuilding what he's called a chronically underfunded foundation, and he's doing it people first.
And with that, Charles, I want to welcome you to the podcast. Thank you for being here.
Charles:
Thank you for having me, and I really appreciate the thoughtfulness and the way you introduced me. I've had really fortune in my life to work at all of these great places with great people, and so thank you for reminding me of all of that.
Carol:
Absolutely. It's impressive, actually. And so Palm Beach to Little Rock, to Jacksonville, and now Chattanooga, four very different communities, four very different systems, and a career that's really covered nearly every seat in the transit agency. So I'd love to start off by just understanding your journey, not only what brought you into transit, but the moves that you made and what led you to make those moves within the agencies.
Charles:
Yeah, thank you for that. And if I may, I would want to go back just to give you a nugget of my upbringing a little bit.
Carol:
Yeah, please.
Charles:
So I grew up in the Pacific Northwest in Anchorage, Alaska as a youngster before my family moved to Spokane, Washington, which is where I would call home. So I'm from the Pacific Northwest.
Carol:
That's where I'm at. That's where I'm at now.
Charles:
Where are you? Where are you?
Carol:
I'm in Vancouver, Washington, which is about three hours south of Seattle.
Charles:
I know exactly where it is. So this would be great. Yeah, so Spokane is where I would call home, actually. That's where my parents both live and that's where I grew up. But I give you that kind of moving around as a youngster, because I think what that did for me as an adult and a leader is it prepared me to be uncomfortable in new situations. And so as we talk about that career journey, that's important. It's something that I had to discover about myself, being able to do that with some comfort. So that's number one.
But also when I was young, I think that that was ... Something happened to me personally, which is I'll share with you here, it's not terrible, but my parents got separated and we didn't have a lot of resources. And so what I'm talking about, it's powdered milk. So what happened is my mom was a working mom and two jobs, and we didn't have all the money we needed. And so by the end of the month, sometimes there was no fresh milk and had to make the powdered milk up.
And at that time in my life I was in junior high school and preparing things for my brothers. I was thinking, "Gosh, I really want to make sure that I don't have to make powdered milk when I grow up and what am I going to become?" And what that did for me is it made me apply myself at school. I understood I needed to be focused and think about this. And I started working my very first job at 15 and a half as soon as I was allowed to do so. And it was at Kentucky Fried Chicken, KFC. KFC. And to be able to take that job, I took the city bus.
And so I can give you these thoughts about mine because I didn't know it at the time, but now as the CEO of a transit agency, reflecting on what that bus did for me as a youngster, it gave me access to opportunity that I couldn't get otherwise. And so if you had asked me at that time, was I going to be a transit professional I would not have said yes. But now that I'm here and looking back, it does give me a touchpoint in time that's important to me. And that's how I operate today is this concept of access to opportunity.
And so to answer your question a little more directly about how I got here, I did start in Palm Beach County, Florida. I worked for the Board of County Commissioners, so the county government, and I started in the Community Services Department. And so imagine this is your Head Start, Veterans Affairs, Senior Services, and the county's providing direct support to the community. And I loved the role. I was in IT at the time, but I loved the role and I loved the mission. And quickly, I was recognized for my energy and I started to be mentored. And so people that took notice of what I was interested in, I kind of became the fix it guy. And so I got moved into the central IT department. And then I got stolen by the facilities director to go work on the jail project or whatever it was. And I think that they were kind of grooming me for this county manager, assistant administrator, something like that.
Before they said, "Okay, we were going to put you in the transit system of the county. We want you to go fix. They got a problem over, go fix this." And that was in 2011, and that started my journey in public transit. And what happened was all of the cylinders were firing. So it was all of this county community services thought process of providing support to the community, lifting them up. And from the transit point of view I was working with all the same people. It was the kids at Head Start that needed to get to class. It was the parents that needed to get to workforce development opportunities. It was the families trying to hold together two cars, but really would be better off if they could just have the one and use transit and save the money.
So that was just a good fit for me. And then all of the skills that I had developed along the way, whether it was IT or project management or security, any of those things, all of those came along. They transitioned with me. So I think that to give you an answer about that journey, that's kind of the way it happened. And I'm very thankful for, number one, for those gifts of ... What's the right, scarcity? Scarcity when I was growing up. I'm thankful for that gift. I look back at it as a gift today. And then I'm thankful for the people that mentored me. And that's one of the reasons I was inspired to maybe come and have some words with you today is it's my way of paying it forward. So for anybody that might find this interesting, and I hope that they do, I'm happy to share the lessons that I have learned and that I continue to learn. I'm telling you, I learn lessons every day. So the journey's not over.
Carol:
Yeah. Yeah. No, that is such an amazing story. I worked at Popeye's when I was in college, so I relate to working at those fast food places. It's interesting that as I hear your story, the through thread that I hear that you said you stick with is access to opportunity. That in everything that you learned, even in the community work, how you translated that and how you see everything that you're doing in transit is creating access to opportunity for people. I love that as kind of a through thread or kind of a motto, if you will, in terms of what you do and why you do what you do.
Charles:
Thank you so much for picking up on that. It is literally, it's why I get out of bed every day now. It's because for the people that we're serving, it literally is access to the job that is going to pay their bills. It's access to the workforce training that is the education that they need to uplift themselves. It's access to healthcare opportunities. It's access to church and worship and the ability to work on your spirituality. So all of these in my mind are opportunities. And so however you might be accessing our services, which is public transit, parking, and we own the Incline funicular, it's a railway on the side of a mountain. However you're doing it, you're accessing some sort of opportunity in life. Thank you.
Carol:
Yeah. No, thank you. So I'm curious, because I know that you've been a deputy of CEO, then you went to COO, and then back to CEO again. And many leaders aren't willing to do that route, if you will, or take a seat back to go to move forward. I'm curious about that move for you and what you learned stepping out of the CEO to the COO and then back into the CEO. What did that opportunity being a COO help redefine or reframe how you show up as a leader when you step back into the CEO role?
Charles:
Yeah, I'm so glad that you asked that question and I hadn't thought about it, but let me tell you this, that when that opportunity presented itself to go work for one of the most amazing leaders in public transit and for that agency, I really had to go through a thought process about what that meant because I was the CEO. And so this was, if you're looking at an org chart, it was a step down. However, for me, the opportunity to expand my experience with technologies I had never had even worked with.
So at that time I'd had public transit, and so that was the big bus and the paratransit vehicles and microtransit. But what I had not worked with yet was a ferry system, which we had in Jacksonville, autonomous vehicles, which JTA was the first rollout of autonomous vehicles. The monorail system, which is old, but nonetheless, a good system there. And then to work with such a stellar team of professionals, it never was to me a demotion to go work with great people.
And so for me, I think, again, so I'm thankful for my parents and grandparents who taught me that it wasn't about the title that was important in a role. And so I think I was able to take on that opportunity without any fear or risk. It was never a negative for me. So yeah, it was one of the most fantastic things. And the thing that I learned, number one, so I learned amazing skills from my peers that I was working with on the executive leadership team. I learned amazing things from one of my mentors, the CEO. But also I learned about myself that I do enjoy being a CEO. And while I enjoyed my time at JTA and would never change what happened there, I also know that my natural fit is to be the leader of the organization. It feels normal and natural to me. So I'm thankful for that too.
Carol:
Yeah. I love that you shared that because one of the first pillars of the People for Leadership Framework I always talk about is leader awareness. And it's this opportunity and this work of really examining yourself and understanding yourself and being reflective around what you're doing and why you're doing it and where you want to go and understanding a vision for the impact that you want to make. And I love that you said that leadership really isn't about a title. And I think sometimes people get so caught up in the title that they lose the thought that being a leader is not just about, like I said, what my title is, but do I have the skills, the knowledge, the capacity to be able to be effective in the role? And I love that what you decided to do was to expand upon that. That helped you to become even more versatile or dynamic as a leader stepping back into a CEO role.
And that some people should think about that, that if they're looking at a trajectory in their career, that the question is, do I have everything that I need in my toolkit, if you will, to be effective in the role that I see myself being in and making moves based on that growth path versus a title path?
Charles:
You nailed it. Exactly. And that's the exact thought process that I went through. And so rather than an org chart, I think my leadership journey is a lattice maybe. And you're a thousand percent right. That's the value proposition that I weighed out, which was what am I going to gain from this experience?
And there's one other thread. I might just plant the seed and maybe it'll come up in our discussion today, but early in my career, I really wanted authority power, meaning I wanted that title of that I was authority power. But I didn't have it for so long that it did teach me to build up my influence, my ability to influence, the skill of influence. And so I think for me, that's why it's not scary. It wasn't scary then, and it won't be scary in the future if I am ever not the CEO. I'm not scared of that. I have an ability to influence. And so I put more weight in that than the title.
Carol:
Yeah. Yes. I love that you brought that up about influence versus authority because I've worked with a lot of leaders over the years and there is this frustration that, "Why aren't people listening to me or doing what I want them to do?" And that's one of the things I always talk about is that you have authority in the title, but it's really about the relationships you build, the influence that you have. Are you building an environment and a space where people want to follow you? Not just because they have to, but because they want to. So I am curious about how do you build that within yourself and how do you build that kind of trust and followship across functions, across personalities, across the different teams, and across the different priorities that you're managing within your organization?
Charles:
Yeah, I mean, there's not an easy answer there.
Carol:
No.
Charles:
I go back to storytelling, if you will. So gosh, I'm going to say this. I'm not a quick learner. I'm not a quick learner. And so it's very difficult for me to read something and digest it and understand it. Usually I need to see it in action. I'm a visual learner. I need to be able to relate to it in a story of some sort, something that's realistic for me. And so because I need that, that's also how I communicate with other people. And so I think to your question, I've had to deal with this many times. So we talked about those movements from different organizations, but also at Palm Beach County I was within four different departments. So four different departments and then four different transit agencies, finding myself with a new group of personalities, don't know me, don't know what I'm about.
And so I think the answer to your question is it's got to start with building trust. And I'm sure you've had lots of conversations about this. Trust is not given, it is earned. And for me, what I've learned is I always try to play the long game with this because for me, trust is built by demonstrating consistency over time. Consistency over time. And so when I'm working with a new team, and it's all the different disciplines, finance and operations and planning and all the groups, my approach is inspire and make sure that we all understand the objective through storytelling. So that's my role. My goal is to establish one objective across the team.
And then for the trust piece of this, I spend a lot of time gaining buy-in for who owns what and what does success look like. And so with those two components, so the components are establish the objective. What are we all here for? Common goal. What does success look like? And who owns those individual components? When I do that, I try to stay in that area of reducing ambiguity. In other words, I want to drill down on those individual tasks, reduce ambiguity, reduce ambiguity, reduce ambiguity. Dr. Carol, you own this. And so that's kind of the way I approach it because I feel like trust increases as ambiguity decreases, if that makes sense.
Carol:
It does.
Charles:
Like certain certainty, right?
Carol:
Yeah. Yeah.
Charles:
So I think that that's kind of my approach. It's almost always the longer road because I've got to tell the story, I've got to make people care about why. But I feel like that's my role to do that.
Carol:
Yeah. Well, and you said something earlier that I really like too, is that you became comfortable with discomfort because we are living in a constantly changing environment. And so to your point, it's hard for certainty to exist nowadays and because there is a lot of change and chaos and ambiguity. But what I love is that you lead with clarity and storytelling. It's what's the objective? What does success look like? Who's going to own it? Let's just have as much clarity as we can for the moment. It may shift, but let's at least get clear about what the objective and where we're going today. But I'm sure because of your upbringing, bringing that back, being comfortable in discomfort allows you to not feel so rigid and locked in. And I'm sure it probably helps your team as things flex and move for you to be like, "No, I got you. We're just going to shift a little bit here. It's okay." So it's not reactive, but you can stay in this proactive move so that people feel that trust and feel that safety with you.
Charles:
I certainly aspire to do that. I am not perfect. And so even the weight of our work, it's a constant pressure for us. And so I do a lot of self-evaluation about how others might be feeling about things. And I try to be cognizant of when I'm going to shift things ... I had to do it today. We have an issue going on and I had to call a quick meeting with the team and I prefaced it with like, "Hey guys, I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry. We don't have time for me to bring you into the conference room and for us to whiteboard this out. We need to react quickly. So let me prepare you. I'm going to put my authority hat on right now, and I'm going to explain to you what I know to be true, and I'm going to give you direction. And I want you to act on it. We're going to own these things, and then we're going to circle back around first part of next week, and we can deconstruct what happened the rest of this week. But I need you to trust that this is the direction we're going to take."
So I don't always have the time to do that storytelling and that lift, but it's constantly on my mind as this, for sure.
Carol:
Yes. But you're still being transparent and open and honest. And that is also fundamental in building trust, that people know that when I can make it happen, great. When I can't, listen, we got to go. We got to rock with it. So I love that. And so with that, I'm curious about when you're under pressure. You walked into CARTA facing real budget constraints, public scrutiny, and a system that some local officials have criticized loudly. That's a lot of noise around one leader to hear.
So I'm curious, what have you learned about leading in the midst of criticism and how do you keep it from hardening you or your team? And how do you stay grounded in your values instead of reacting to all the stuff that's happening around you?
Charles:
All right. Well, let me tell you this, first of all, I don't like admitting that I'm human. I just don't. I don't like it at all. But the reality is I am human, and so are all of the people that I work with, from my chief financial officer to my best bus operator, to the mechanic, to a board member, to a rider, to the elected official, to the union president. At the end of the day, we're all people. And so I do try to give myself a little grace in that I'm human, and I always extend that to others as well. So I think to answer your question, let me reflect on and tell you, I think, what my top three values are first, and then tell you how I try to help myself stay grounded because it is intentional effort because the work that we do is significant. It's hard work, often.
So I'm living, especially now in this role with the things you just described, I live in truth and honesty as the number one value. Truth and honesty. For this board, for myself, for our operators, for our riders, the truth of the matter is that this system was chronically underfunded for 30 years and we have inherited this. And as we try to begin fixing things, and I'm talking putting policies in place and making changes, you mentioned it a little earlier to some of the bus routes and starting to get things teed up. I'm going to live in truth and honesty, number one. So I didn't create this. I'm happy to be here. I own it now, but we're all going to remember how we got here. So that's the first thing. Truth and honesty about the situation and about what we're doing, number one.
Number two, respect. I have had people ... So we got public transit, which is its own thing. We own and operate parking as well. And so the one thing I never do is I never go onto social media because there's someone saying, "Mr. Frazier, you did ... " And getting on me about things. But for me, it's respect. So respect is the big thing. I'm always going to respect people. I'm going to meet them where they are. I expect the same for myself. I expect the same for my employees, our operators, the passengers, everybody.
And then finally, this continuous improvement. I'm not willing to let things just be the way they are and accept that. So those are my values. And so the question I think you're asking me is what keeps me grounded in those values when the going gets tough?
Carol:
There you go.
Charles:
And so here's what it is. I spend time with the people that remind me that I'm human. Let me tell you what I mean. So I ride the bus and I meet the passengers that then tell me their stories about why they're riding the bus and what it means to them. And one story can carry me for weeks on end. Another thing that I do is I go meet with my team. And so in this case, we have this Incline Railway, the maintenance team, they're very gruff guys. They work on the side of a mountain. And when I need some honesty and some ability to step outside of my suit a little bit, I go up there and spend time and we have shop talk and I say, "Hey, listen. Hey, we're dealing with this problem. I'm going to tell you I'm not feeling very good about it." And I might drop a cuss word or two in that, but what I want is I want feedback. Tell me what you're seeing. Am I crazy? Here's the situation. I go to them.
I go to my board members and I call maybe one or two people I go to like, "Hey, I'm struggling here. I'm not feeling good. I don't feel good about this situation" or, "I'm conflicted about a situation." And so I guess what I'm saying is for me, it's the acknowledgement that I'm human. I don't like to do it. I do not like to do it. Let me make clear. It's the acknowledgement that I'm human and that I have those needs. And so I feed those needs when I need to, to protect my values. And then I try to do that for others as well. But yeah, it's difficult. I don't like admitting that I'm not perfect.
Carol:
Well, but I love that before you get too carried away of thinking, you come down from Mount Olympus down to the people to remind yourself that, "Well, maybe I am human" to connect [inaudible 00:29:03] to us.
Charles:
It really is. And I hope it didn't come across like coming off Mount Olympus-
Carol:
No, no, I'm being ...
Charles:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I guess what I want to be able to do is I want to be able to carry the world on my shoulders. And especially as the CEO, I don't have the capacity to solve all the problems or do all the things. And so that's how I stay grounded. I stay grounded with my team and the people at the end of the day.
Carol:
Yeah. Yeah. And I love that you said that, that even though you're the CEO, it's not for you to solve all the problems and that you're inviting the expertise, the opinion, the thought leadership, the insights of the people around you to make informed decisions. So you're not feeling like you're on an island or in isolation or that is all on you. Yeah.
Charles:
I often say to my team, so it's a relatively new team. And I often say that I know a little bit about a lot of things and that's dangerous. And please don't come to me for the HR decision or for the accounting debit, credit decision. We will find ourselves in trouble. I am not an expert in any of these things. I need your expertise. So if things are coming to me for decision making, we're in a danger zone. My process is empower the team to collaborate with each other, go to the internal and external resources that we have, legal counsel, consulting teams, talk through all the issues, and then bring me a consensus. Bring me thumbs up. If you all come in the room and I ask a few pointed questions, if we've got thumbs up around the room, I'm not likely to push back too hard on things because then I know the work has been done. But that's kind of my approach.
Carol:
Yeah, no, I love it. So you mentioned a little bit about, we talked about the changing the route. So I know every route decision you make lands on real people, your writers that you ride with and talk to who depend on it, as you said, for work and school, religion, medical and the like. And this month you're changing service under real budget pressures and you held a public feedback session before finalizing any of it. I'm curious about that process and about making those hard calls that you've had to make and where you had to weigh what was right for your people against what the business needed and how do you make those kind of decisions?
Charles:
Yeah, that's right. And I'm just going to recalibrate your statement just a little bit. So we are making route changes and those are part of a plan. And some of the budget restrictions are related to the resources. It's adjacent to the route changes, but all in the same bucket. But the answer to your question is engagement and communication to the nth degree.
And so you mentioned it in the opening about having established CARTA's first Rider Advisory Committee. In other words, if we're going to be making some changes to this service, the people that we need to engage with first and foremost are the people using the service. And so number one, before we make any changes, let's establish this feedback loop. What you may not know as well, but there's other groups that we created as well. So one of them is the bus operator scheduling group, the routing and scheduling group. So that as we're considering and thinking about making changes, we're going to the people that use the service. We're going to the people that actually provide the service, the bus operators, and getting feedback on the running time, the location of the stops, those things. We're going to the elected officials and the community far in advance, hopefully, and doing enough of that communication to explain why we're doing things.
And at the end of the day, I think that goes back to that core value of truth and honesty. The service that's, in this case, the service that's been on the road are these two ... I'll get into the weeds a little bit with you here. It's these two kind of windy routes that try to hit every single block, and those two individual buses only come every 70 minutes. But what we're doing is we've consolidated and we have a streamlined route that it doesn't go into every single block, but the streamlined route comes every 30 minutes. And we're going to make some investments in those bus stop locations with shelters and covers and bike stations and lighting and connected sidewalks.
So at the end of the day, we've got to be honest about it. It's not the budget reduction that forced the change. It's because we need to be more efficient with the taxpayer dollars that we have. And it's about communicating that at the end of the day, it gets the community to those opportunities faster, gets you to school faster, gets you to work faster. And then don't forget this, please, for all transit. Every transit rider starts or ends their journey as a pedestrian. And so those bus stop improvements are critically important. And what we have here, go back to the underfunding, the chronic underfunding. A stick in the mud is not a place that I want to wait in my suit for the bus. It's not a place that you want to wait or the student or the person getting to the job or anybody else doesn't want to do that.
So we've got to be able to change and talk about those things. So that's what we do at our Rider Advisory Committee. That's what we do with our elected officials. That's what we do with our bus operators. And we're not perfect at it, but that's the intention is to really have those conversations.
Carol:
Gotcha. Okay. I want to talk a little bit about what's next. There's so many things on the horizon. I think about AI, and I know you have a chief innovation officer who has expanded on-demand microtransit and technology is reshaping how riders find and pay for and experience transit. So there's AI, there's next generation of leaders. How are you thinking about preparing them, particularly in a technologically advanced world? And just what other things that you have in store? I mean, you've been in there, like you said, since January 2024. What's next? What's the next level when you think about all of these things coming down the pike for CARTA?
Charles:
I think it's super exciting. I think that by the time this airs, we're in a safe zone, but I'll let you know that we're thinking about innovation in all aspects of what we do. So CARTA is the recipient of a $25 million BUILD grant award that will begin the implementation of autonomous vehicles in our downtown core. So we've got vehicles that are 32 years old, these shuttles. This is going to be an injection to jumpstart this new autonomous vehicle program. And what I want to be clear about, because this is your question, is how does this impact people at the end of the day?
So here's the value proposition for me is all of my employees are my employees. This is my flock of people. And so I feel it's my obligation to prepare them for what's coming anyway, prepare them for what's coming anyway. So these technology changes are coming, whether it's AI, autonomous vehicle, all the cyber stuff, quantum. And it's my responsibility, I see it, to prepare my employees to have long careers after that technology introduces itself. So my approach is making sure that we are not replacing people, that we are providing new skills for our workforce. And so my goal is to upskill everybody and because the technology is going to change and it's our responsibility to make sure our folks are ready. So that's that.
And I've had this conversation with my shuttle operators, with our union. I've sent a note, you know a little bit about the industry, I sent an email to the president, international president of our union, and basically an invitation, "Please, please, I want you to know about this award. Let's work together and not from a place of fear and concern. We've built into the grant a workforce development center. And let's make sure that every single one of our employees is prepared for the future." And so that's my intention. I'm going to deal with eyes wide open on technology.
Carol:
Yeah, that's incredible. One of the things that I often talk about with organizations about when you're thinking about AI readiness is to have that framing conversation, I call it, which is exactly what you're doing, preparing them for what's coming next, talking about how people are going to have careers beyond it. Because it does produce a lot of fear around, "What is this going to mean for me? What is this going to mean for my future?" And could really erode the trust and safety that you may have been building and cultivating within the work group. So being able to say why we're using it and who we're going to be with it and what's our vision and let's have the conversation together is such an important, powerful step to take. And so that's amazing that you're doing that.
Charles:
Well, and again, it's my responsibility to do that. I'm happy to do so. It also takes a few bites at the apple because just because you say it once, I don't think, again, so trust isn't given immediately. And although we have started to develop that rapport, I think that the technology is so daunting and scary to people because that's all we hear in the news cycle is that how AI or especially for transit, autonomous vehicles are going to be replacing folks. I really don't want us making decisions or operating from a point of fear. I want to plan for those things and deal with ... I want to be intentional about what we're doing for folks. I want people to come here and retire with us. I want career folks.
Carol:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, speaking of that trajectory, people coming in and ultimately retiring, what type of things or systems do you have in place for that trajectory, for someone? How are you developing your people as they come in so that they're positioned to be with you until they retire and step into those roles when you and the rest of your team decide to move on to greener pastures?
Charles:
Yeah. Well, first of all, you're going to have to take me out of here, drag me and handcuff me to get me out because I really enjoy my work here. But the answer to your question is twofold. So number one, remember the state of affairs here. We're new to this organization. The organization's been around for 40 years, but chronically underfunded for the last 30 of those 40. And there is not, today it's not a robust workforce development program. However, what this grant award does for us is it builds a permanent workforce development location in one of our locations where we can develop exactly that. And so it's those career paths. I don't care where you start, because like I said, I started at Kentucky Fried Chicken. I'm in the CEO's office now. And so whatever anybody wants to be, I'm here for that.
So you want to start off, it doesn't matter where you're coming in and it doesn't matter where you want to end, but I want to be able to see people through the various parts of their career. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I had a conversation with one of our bus operators. She is getting near retirement age. And I kind of asked her, I'm like, "Hey, are you going to stay longer?" And she's like, "Well, driving the bus, it's hard on my body a little bit." I'm like, "Well, we should talk about that. What do you transition to next that's not on the bus? What does that look like for us?" And so I do think about that a lot, and I think that there are opportunities for us to create for our employees in that way. I want everybody to be here for the long term.
Carol:
Yeah, that's amazing. So my final question for you is, for someone who's led four systems in four states and have seen how it works and seen what breaks and what makes successful leaders in the industry, if you could leave leaders with one shift, one practice, one mindset to be more people forward, what would it be?
Charles:
Oh, that's easy for me. That's easy. You got to go to the people that are doing the work. You got to go to the people that are doing the work. Let me give you three examples. I did one yesterday. We've been having some on-time performance issues in one of our services. And so I went yesterday to the customer service lounge, and I had a conversation with two of the operators. I'm like, "What are you hearing? When people are calling in about this and that, what is it? What are you coming through? And what happened yesterday? And then tell me what happened this morning. Just tell me, feed me." They're the ones doing the work. So I go to them.
In maintenance, and the guys like this when this happens, so I'll put on my maintenance uniform every once in a while and I'll go back and I'll be like, "All right, get me dirty," which they love. And so, "How dirty can we get them this time?" But showing me the constraints of working in a shop environment, there's oil, there's these things, but still they're trying to write the POs on paper with a pen. And they show me, "If we could just have a hardened and I could just talk to it because it's all this technology, why can't I just hey Siri this thing?" Right?
Carol:
Yeah.
Charles:
And then the third example is we had a big payroll issue and something wasn't working out. Went right to the payroll office. How is this information coming to you? What do you think the source of the error is? Because I'm not getting the answers I need from the reports. Tell me what's going on. So it's go to the source of the work. Those are usually the smartest people.
Carol:
And listen to them and think about what you can do.
Charles:
Listen to them. Listen to them. Listen to them, they know what they're doing.
Carol:
That's amazing. Thank you so much, Charles, for taking this time to have this conversation with me. I love how you made going to the people, connecting with them and listening to them part of your operating system, which I think is absolutely amazing. Whether you're riding the bus or getting dirty with your mechanics or whatever it is, to just really connecting to them at that foundation and making sure that too, what we started off earlier talking about, that fundamentally you're creating a system that's giving people access to opportunity. So I just want to thank you for your time and everything that you shared today.
Charles:
Well, thank you. It was a pleasure meeting you. And if you find that there's ways that any of the things that I'm talking about could be helpful for others, reach out, let me know. I'm happy to participate in future things. Maybe we'll get together with a panel of some sort with all of the-
Carol:
I would love that.
Charles:
... cool people that you're talking to. Thank you so much for today. It was great.
Carol:
I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Yes. And listen, for everyone listening, if this conversation resonated with you, share it with a leader who needs to hear it. And you can learn more about our work at thriveaxisgroup.com, and you can always reach out to us at hello@thriveaxisgroup.com. Until next time, keep leading people forward and I'll see you soon.
