In this third episode of ASUG Talks: Candid Career Conversations, season 2, we talk with Jason Sprunk, Global Director, GRM Systems and Operations, Global Revenue Management for Rockwell Automation.
A full transcript follows:
Laurel Nelson-Rowe:
So I am joined today by Jason Sprunk, Global Director, GRM Systems and Operations, Global Revenue Management for Rockwell Automation. Welcome, Jason.
Jason Sprunk:
Hey, Laurel, thanks so much for the opportunity to speak with you today.
Nelson-Rowe:
Thank you. And that title, that is a bit of a long one. Is that the most meaty title that you've ever had?
Sprunk:
Maybe? Yeah, it's kind of, I think, meant to be all-encompassing of the different teams that are under my purview. But yeah, it is a mouthful for sure, and a little bit redundant with the double ‘globals’ there.
Nelson-Rowe:
It's quite impressive. Before we get to the gist of the career conversation, I wanted to take a step back. So tell us a little bit about where you grew up and did that affect what you became as an IT professional?
Sprunk:
Oh, for sure. Yeah. I grew up in a little small, smallish town in northern Ohio, so the Midwest. And I think early on I kind of started to see that I wanted to explore beyond the rural confines of the little town that I grew up in. I got to meet a lot of people early on in my life. One of the first jobs that I had, if you will, was as a paper boy, a newspaper carrier. And that started at age 10. And that kind of gave me an opportunity to meet lots of people and figure out, gosh, people had lots of stories and lots of experiences, and help me see and feel as much of the world and people as I could. And so that kind of did shape a little bit from a career perspective what's kind of driven me and propelled me in different directions.
Nelson-Rowe:
And what type of values and principles from your childhood perhaps contributed to your career and the professional that you've become?
Sprunk:
Thinking about that newspaper job literally be on time folks. Folks didn't get their newspaper and if it wasn't a dry and convenient location, then you heard about it and you kind of learned through the gig that you had to show up and be present and do what was expected.
Other lessons, I think, that came from those experiences were just that being able to adapt communication styles and talk with folks as they are, as they were. I remember experiencing folks that I initially couldn't understand, and so trying to figure out how to communicate effectively and things like that.
Another job in my teens was I did the fast-food gig that I think many folks have done. And that kind of informed a lot from a process perspective how things are done rapidly. No offense to those that have made a career in fast food, but that's not something that I thought would be a really good long-term career for me. So it was a good experience to help me propel into a broader stage, if you will.
Nelson-Rowe:
But you learned the value of process and operations, perhaps long-term lessons that you applied as you began to think about a career in information technology. Did you always want a career in information technology, or did you get that through a circuitous path?
Sprunk:
Yeah, very much circuitous. In fact, as I think about that large hamburger joint, if you will, I learned a lot about process and there were videos to do all the things, flip the burgers and make the fries, and make milkshakes. And it did influence me a little bit about thinking about, gosh, repeatability and process.
But really at the outset I thought I wanted to be a history teacher, and a social studies teacher, and actually went to school to become that. And it was only kind of the career path led me to immediately go into grad school and a little bit of a pivot around informational or instructional technology. I thought I would be in a teaching setting, but with technology at a core. But again, career opportunities kind of presented themselves to take that kind of passion of helping others and teaching folks how to use technology, but in a more corporate setting.
It wasn't necessarily an intentional outcome at the outset, but it was, I think, an outcome of kind of being open to exploring opportunities as they arose or as folks said, hey, you might think about doing this.
Nelson-Rowe:
Do you feel that you are an active career planner, a responsive opportunist, or something of a hybrid in between?
Sprunk:
The plan is the plan until the plan changes, is a motto that I live and share with my team a bit. I had a bit of a plan. As I said, I had a plan to be a teacher. That plan didn't really come to fruition. I did spend about a year in a school district as part of my practicum and learned that there was some really interesting, neat parts of that job and some that wasn't of appeal. But from a career planning perspective, I would say I've had a plan, but the plan always hasn't worked out to the design. And I've learned a little bit to be open to taking risks. And when something presents itself or somebody says, or a friend says, or a boss says, a manager says, you should really think about doing this. So those happen too. And I think in all cases, I've learned a lot. I've been challenged and it again has helped me kind of think about being open, especially if the opportunity in front of me isn't necessarily to the plan that I thought I had in my mind.
Nelson-Rowe:
Taking a little bit of a risk anyway. What was your first job related to IT and to SAP solutions in particular?
Sprunk:
The funny thing is not really a job, but in elementary school I went to a really small parochial school and we had just gotten these fancy new computers. They were TRS-80s and I had just gotten my own at home. And so I was busy programming and basic and watching little characters on the screen bounce around and all that fun stuff. So I was asked to help the teacher in fifth grade teach basic programming on these TRS-80s in my little school, in my little town in Ohio. So that was kind of the first, I guess, unofficial or informal job in college. I helped out with our networking services and the computer services stuff on campus. I got to pull the first CAT 5 cable in the universities.
And then I kind of found a side gig helping professors incorporate technology into their classrooms. That turned into a little bit of more of a monetary gig, which then led to, again, another side gig while in college, being a systems operator on an HP 3000 mainframe. So the technology thing was kind of a side gig for me while I was pursuing the formal education stuff. And it only kind of crystallized after I finished undergrad and grad school that I decided to go kind of full steam into the corporate world, not the education world.
Nelson-Rowe:
So in the corporate world and in the SAP world, I'm going to ask you your first lightning round question to challenge our guests to recap their IT careers in two minutes or less. So what are the highlights of that career that you've had so far in information technology and SAP solutions?
Sprunk:
Yeah, 30 plus countries, countless Go-Lives, countless upgrades, hundreds of team members, tons of challenges, lots of long weekends with Go-Lives and upgrades and such, tons of learning, tons of frustration and challenges with technology. But all in all just a super exciting kind of, I'd say, unpredictable at times set of opportunities that have presented themselves. I'm not a super frequent job hopper. I've only really been with three companies over the, I guess, 30-year career if you will--mostly big, big companies and new challenges, but have been able to find those new challenges within the confines of those companies.
Nelson-Rowe:
Good recap. What's been your favorite job role or responsibility so far?
Sprunk:
Yeah, because I've always been kind of at the intersection of people, process and technology, usually focused on enterprise transformation or more simply, how can companies help people use the technology better? Oftentimes, me and my teams are placed in unique spots where sometimes I live in IT, sometimes I've lived in HR, I'm in a different part of the org these days.
But the favorite job, I think, was a particular moment in time with just a wonderful team. We all kind of could close our eyes and know exactly where each other was. We all knew what each other's favorite candy bar was. We all supported each other. We were acting as internal consultants for a bigger organization, and we had high demand of our internal consultancy.
So it was just a really fun time. Stable, pretty predictable in terms of the technology challenges, but not too much chaos from a macro perspective. I also recollect there's always some things you don't like. The traffic at the time stunk, but otherwise the team was great. And it's not to say my team isn't great now, but there was just a meshing and a teaming that was just kind of one of those super great moments in time.
Nelson-Rowe:
So it's about the people, but it sounds like it was also about the candy bars. How did you get to know about the favorite candy bar? Did you absolutely need candy bars?
Sprunk:
Well, I mean, one of my mentors, and she was my boss at the time, she really took great efforts to know each person on a personal level. And I learned from her that when you manage people... And there's a difference for sure between managing and leading folks, leading is an outcome of folks when they respect you and they know where you're going. But as you get to be a better manager, I learned: a. you can't manage each person the same, and b. the more you know and understand what motivates a person and you can help them in their ups and downs and their career progressions and all that. But one of the things she shared is something simple as just knowing each person's favorite candy bar. Because if you know what their favorite candy bar is, if they're having a bad day, get them the candy bar. If they're having a great day, get them a candy bar to thank them for what they've done, which is one of those little kind of managerial life hacks that stuck with me. Now you might ask, do I know everybody's favorite candy bar right now? I don't. I endeavor to. But yeah, that was one of those really good lessons along the way.
Nelson-Rowe:
And knowing the individual and what might motivate them even on a very small scale. What about that most challenging role, responsibility, project, job, over the course of your career so far?
Sprunk:
One particular role comes to mind and there's a general theme when folks find out I wasn't always really a technology person. I was intending to be a history teacher. It creates a little bit of intrigue, sometimes resistance: Well who is this guy that's going to come in and what does he know about this or that or the other? I mean, that was a long time ago, I guess.
But the one super-challenging role was this recovery team that I mentioned, this kind of: "Hey, we need you to lead this team. There's a particular business function capability that's not working as we thought it should. It's not hitting the mark in terms of the business outcome and values. The team has high turnover, the team is not energized or not engaged, just so we need you to get in there."
And it was one of those unplanned things for me. So it was challenging in that I didn't see myself doing it. I did it because those around me encouraged me. They said, “Look, you really need to do this to stretch yourself, demonstrate your skills, but also you’ll look back and be thankful for navigating that challenge.” And they were right. I mean, what it did is because it was kind of a super technical role in a space that I didn't know much about, it helped me learn. But it also helped give visibility to the ability to manage through some technical challenges, manage through difficult stakeholder situations. And it really did open up doors from a career progression standpoint in my own journey that probably wouldn't have been open if I hadn't been pushed into that role.
Nelson-Rowe:
So build confidence as well?
Sprunk:
For sure. I think many folks can find themselves in roles where they say, “Gosh, how did I get here? And am I really equipped to do this?” Sometimes it's called the imposter syndrome, things like that. And I think anyone at times can feel that. I know I surely have. And I think what I've learned along the way is lean into that a little bit, kind of lean into that self-doubt to motivate me, myself. But also sometimes you just got to fake it till you make it and not let on that you might not know exactly what you're doing at any moment in time, but as long as you're open to adapt. And what I said before about the plan is the plan until the plan changes. You might have a great trajectory and then you learn more data or learn some more things and you have to kind of revise.
Nelson-Rowe:
Great. What's been your best career or professional decision to date and what went into that decision making?
Sprunk:
Well, interesting thing, and there's two that come to mind. I mentioned that I've not really hopped a lot of jobs, but one of the opportunities that came about, gosh, over 15 years ago, and I'm still in Milwaukee as a result of it, but I was helping out with an ASUG endeavor. I've long been a volunteer with ASUG and my sort of area of focus is around organizational change management training and super users and those kinds of things. And I'd spent 10 years doing that kind of work with, like I said, countless Go-Lives. And there was a company early on in their journey around transformation and SAP deployments. And they asked for some help. They had heard me speak at an ASUG session and they'd asked for some help around establishing a super user program and kind of reframing some change management stuff. And ultimately that volunteer help, that connection with a company, led to an offer of a job like, "Hey, you helped us a little bit. You shared some of your experiences. We think you might actually be really good to help us in our continued journey."
And, I mean, that, it precipitated an unplanned move from Chicago to Milwaukee. And so here I am some 16 years later still in Milwaukee kind of as a direct result of that ASUG sharing of my own experiences and then an unexpected career door opening as a result.
Nelson-Rowe:
You were needed and valued.
Sprunk:
Yeah.
Nelson-Rowe:
Is there anything in your career, your professional times and places, that you'd like to do over? And if so, why?
Sprunk:
Well, I think sometimes stress of the unknown can manifest itself. And just being impatient, at least for me, I'm driven, I like to get things accomplished, move quickly. I think sometimes when the plan around you changes and you have no control of that plan, it can create stress. So I think being open to being a little bit patient to let things unfold is probably a good thing. I think especially in the technology realm where sometimes there's decisions that are made well beyond your control or sphere of influence around, “Hey, we're going a different direction with the platform.” Or, “Hey we're not going to do that upgrade. We're going to actually just ride on this bus until as long as we can.” Or just other things like that. And so I think retrospectively just being patient kind of influences the situation and maybe recognizing when the situation or the decisions are so fixed that they can't be changed. So it's just kind of, again, a patience and perseverance to try different angles of influence and then recognizing when's enough enough.
Nelson-Rowe:
When it's out of your control and you got to move on. What job, if any, did you want and you never got it? And what was that lesson learned?
Sprunk:
Yeah, I used to think the world was a super big place and I've learned that it really is not. And it's not because, well, you can travel anywhere, but also, for me, you figure out the people are pretty much wired in a similar way. And for a while there I thought that I wanted to go to a different organization because they just had a lot of appeal to me and I put my hat in the ring and didn't get it and then that organization changed their focus and it was like, oh that's a good thing. I didn't get that. And then I was asked a couple years later to consider doing that change again and ah, my gut just said no, my gut said not a good thing. So I guess the moral of that for me is sometimes things on the surface of it look like they might be a really great move but listening to your gut and kind of checking around and makes it a different outcome.
And I guess the other point of the world is not as big of a place as it once seemed--the SAP community or SAP practitioners is actually pretty small. I found that I've been in the SAP ecosystem for just about 26 or so years and you cross paths somewhat repeatedly or regularly with folks that are working on the same thing or doing the same thing as you might be doing in your own shop. So I've kind of learned it's important to keep constructive relationships. It's good to have a network. The broader SAP global community really isn't that big.
Nelson-Rowe:
It's fascinating because the portfolio of solutions at SAP is quite large, quite wide, broad, but the community of experts, I've heard it before is, it's not a closed community but it's a smaller-than-you-might anticipate community. You've expressed appreciation through the conversation so far for training, education, development and contributed to that. What type of education training has been essential to your professional career?
Sprunk:
One, I learned that in order to be a technical expert, it's hard to be a technical expert if you're not a business process expert. Said differently, when you think about supporting a business function, I mean technology exists to make the business more effective, to make the folks that are running the business more effective to ultimately generate more income or have a bigger impact for the purpose of the business. And the technology's all about enabling that. I kind of have an opinion now that you can't be the best technology practitioner if you don't have a pretty good or ideally really good understanding of the business process, the business function, the business system that you're working on supporting. And so through my career, finding opportunities to learn the business process and ideally teach the business process because I do believe if you can teach it, it does demonstrate that you figured out how to master it.
Because you get these questions from folks; they'll ask you questions that stump you and you’ve got to go figure them out and you get smarter. So business process training, that business acumen, is kind of one thing that comes to mind.
The other one, from more of a “how” perspective. “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” have been one of those, I'd say, centerpieces of formal education for me. I became a seven habits, Franklin Covey facilitator because I wanted to be able to walk the walk and talk the talk there. But that seven habits curriculum helped find that there are things that are in your control and then you find that there's sometimes things that are not in your sphere of control. They're not in your sphere of influence. They're simply beyond anything that you can immediately or directly affect. I think the primary piece from Seven Habits is kind of know where you want to go. This notion of first things first, where do you want to get to. Have a bit of a plan in a strategic sense.
Nelson-Rowe:
That's great. And you're a continual learner, I can tell that. You mentioned at least one mentor. Is there a particular piece of advice that a mentor imparted to you over the course of your career that's had a great impact and longevity?
Sprunk:
I've had a number of really good mentors through the years, and I'd say they've been organic mentors in that they've naturally occurred, they've not been sought out like a mentor-mentee relationship. I find sometimes when those things are tried to be constructed unnaturally, they don't work so well. So my mentors have usually been colleagues or managers or just other folks in organizations. I'd say the best pieces of advice that I've gotten have to do with being challenged and taking risks. You really don't get to stand still. If you stand still, the world around you evolves. So effectively as the world around you evolves, if you're not evolving too, you're actually getting behind. So this notion of there's no standing still, you're either growing or you're regressing, came from some of those mentor conversations.
I'm always be open to risk. You got to continue to read and explore and learn. I've been super lucky to be able to have the autonomy to continue to innovate with my team. So we do lots of stuff these days with some good technologies and some APIs and some data algorithms and other stuff. And all of those outcomes are because I was taught to take risks and to continue to read and try to innovate and stay ahead of the pace of change around you.
Nelson-Rowe:
So your next lightning round question, you've kind of danced around it and hinted at it, but if you could synthesize those three things that you've learned from being in IT and working with SAP systems that people should know.
Sprunk:
Plan for change and then don't be surprised when your planned changes don't happen, but changes happens anyway. So change is a constant, everybody says this, I don't know if the pace of change is any more extreme or faster than it's ever been. I wasn't here 100 years ago, so I assume it's faster. It feels faster for sure, but maybe it's just the way it is. Lean into the change.
I think today I would add the best data wins the game. Data for me has emerged as the blood of any organization or any machine or any game you're going to play or business pursuit you're going to have. And I've come to the point where I believe that those with the best data will win the game. Whatever game's being played, whatever business pursuit or revenue attainment goals, data wins. And so I think in today's world, focusing on data and how to acquire the data or assimilate the data, consume the data, apply the data, super important.
Lastly, it's all about the people and the teams that you're a part of or around. I'd say surround yourself, nurture and grow the best team that you can. If you nurture and grow the best team that you can, you'll have the best outcomes. So I really believe that finding ways to grow, nurture, recruit, retain, inspire folks around you, your team, super important.
Nelson-Rowe:
Clearly, you're inspirational and passionate, but why are you so passionate about what you do?
Sprunk:
I like to make things simpler and better for the space that I'm working on. My general approach is if I'm asked to do something or if I'm working on a particular part of an org or a thing, I want to leave it better than I found it. I want to make it better so that I can look back and say, "Ah, that was the clutter, that was the mess in the room. It's neater now." It doesn't mean it's perfect, it just is better than I found it. So I'm always motivated to help and make things better than the state that I found them in.
Nelson-Rowe:
Is there a certain situation or a certain achievement, a certain point of progress in your professional life, that you are most proud of? And if so, why?
Sprunk:
That's a tough one. I mean, there's been a few roles through the years that I'm super proud of what we were able to accomplish, some roles that pushed me to learn and do things differently. The role that I'm in these days was another one of those outcomes of doing something that I didn't think I wanted to do, doing something that I really had never thought about doing. But I've landed in a role that puts me into a business function. So I'm not in IT but I use technology and I innovate with technology and my team develops technology every single day in partnership with IT, but working on a business thing. So I'd say super proud of being able to pivot into an adjacent, some would say completely different line of work and going a little bit deep in terms of expertise on a particular business function. I wouldn't have kind of thought I would've done that, but it's working out really, really well.
Nelson-Rowe:
And you took your own advice to heart, learn the business, gain business acumen. If you could change one thing or a few things about information technology and SAP products and solutions, what would that be?
Sprunk:
Well, I think being patient to recognize that things are always evolving. So I think for those that may have been in technology a while, you've seen the transition from mainframe to client server. You've seen the transition from disparate systems into ERP is a way to go. You've seen now a transition into a world of composable APIs and best of breed and things like that. So I'd say the advice there is to be patient and have a vision for what success looks like. I used to think that the big cruise ship model was the way to go. In other words, you had these big focus teams focused on the ERP system, whether it was an implementation of the ERP system or an upgrade of the ERP system, but it was kind of like you had the single big cruise ship with these ports of calls and the ports of calls were like Go-Lives.
The sea isn't filled with just one cruise ship. It's filled with all kinds of boats. There's all kinds of different systems and some boats are big, some boats are swollen, they all got to sail at the same time. Sometimes you got salt water, you got fresh water. So the world is a lot more complex than it used to be. So I'd say for me, thinking about the water is kind of like the data or the APIs that kind of connects everything and kind of just reframing and being fluid or flexible with what was once a rigid mindset.
Certainly today it's proven that you've got to have different systems. Some of these systems can be really purpose-built and do something really, really well. Got to have a really good core ERP at the center of it. And most importantly, you've got to have a way to consume all that data to make sense of everything.
Nelson-Rowe:
What are the most helpful resources that you've used either from ASUG, from SAP, or from other organizations?
Sprunk:
Well, maybe it's not necessarily a resource, it's the connection. It's the networking. From literally the first year of my SAP career up until current days, I've been able to use the network within ASUG to find folks who have done what I'm trying to do, to talk about what I'm trying to do, to share what I've done, to hear what others have done. So the biggest feature or capability of the ASUG product, if you will, has been the ability to just connect with others who are in the same trench that I find myself in. Because it's sometimes really comforting to know that somebody's done this before. Somebody else has figured out how to navigate or dig out of this trench or make their way through the stormy waters. So for me, the community and the networking aspects of ASUG have been instrumental.
Nelson-Rowe:
And toward what's made you successful in your career, what are the three best pieces of advice that you'd give to those who are either contemplating a career in IT and SAP, maybe ready for a pivot or well along?
Sprunk:
I think it goes back to kind of the business thing. Learn the business process. Understand the end to end. Don't just be kind of the tech geek. Be a deep expert in a particular line of business. Find some business practitioners that might not be as technically savvy as you are and share and kind of ideate together. But I think again, really getting into the business and understanding how the business that you're a part of works and once you have that sort of end-to-end understanding, it helps, I think, reframe how you approach the technology side of your job.
Nelson-Rowe:
Think differently from the business perspective. Okay. Jason, we've come to that last question and are you ready for it? If you could have one superpower to be better at what you do now or better at points throughout your career and even more successful than you've already been, what would that super power be?
Sprunk:
That's a tough one and I thought a little bit about it. I think maybe time travel, time travel to kind of pop forward, maybe pop back. I think recognizing that none of us are perfect, we're all human. Then there's times that I think if we had the chance to maybe slow down or reframe things, we'd have conversations a little bit differently or we'd maybe give different advice or maybe we'd thank somebody in a different way in terms of the impact that they'd had on our lives or our careers. So I think the superpower of time travel would be really cool.
A hundred years from now or 200 years from now, you kind of wonder how all of these innovations and quantum computing and differences in travel and modalities and all that fun stuff, you kind of wonder how it all is going to shake out. And for me, I've got the three boys and I want the world to be a better place and a funner place and a simpler place and a thriving place. So you kind of wonder for me what that will all look like. So I guess the superpower there is some time travel.
Nelson-Rowe:
Time travel. And who knows, it might happen in some way, shape, or form. Great idea. So thank you, Jason, for joining us here at ASUG Talks. Your candid career conversation was great, and I hope our audience will enjoy it as well. And we'll talk again soon. Thank you for participating in ASUG Talks, Jason.
Sprunk:
Laurel, thank you very much again for the opportunity to speak with you and I had a great time. Thank you.