Sam Carpenter

29 posts
In 1984, Sam founded Centratel, the number one commercial telephone answering service in the nation, located in Bend, Ore. With a background in engineering and publishing, he is a telephone answering service industry consultant, writer and speaker, and has served as president of several regional and national answering service organizations. Sam is author of the book Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less, published by North Sister Publishing, Inc. in April 2008. He also founded and directs Kashmir Family Aid, a 501C3 non-profit that aids surviving school children of the Northern Pakistan and Azad Kashmir earthquake of October 8, 2005. Originally from upstate New York, and an Oregonian since 1975, he is married to Linda Carpenter. He has a daughter and two grandchildren. He and Linda are also in the process of launching an Internet business that promotes communication between absent adults and their children and grand children. Outside interests include climbing/mountaineering, skiing, cycling, reading, traveling and writing.
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The Simple Tools of Control

In Western culture, the word “control” has an undeserved bad rap. It conjures up the image of a type-A personality gone wild with power, who, headed down the road of personal self-destruction, cuts wide swaths...
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Rank is Nothing; Talent is Everything

“There are three enormous tasks that strategic leaders have to get right” Patraeus said one night in Baghdad. “The first is to get the big ideas right. The second is to communicate the big ideas...
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System Improvement

What about the leader of a typical large, successful company? Most times, these people are not innately special. Beyond their willingness to work hard and an adequate degree of intelligence, their advantage is that they...
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First You Must See. Then You Can Act

The systems insight arrived because I was under enormous mental and physical pressure. Until that late-night revelation, my strategy was to approach life with a bulldog, damn-the-torpedoes, pound-the moles, I’m-so-damn-clever persona. It was a toxic...
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Learning How to Sleep

For any recurring problem, there is a path to sorting things out: Take the inefficient system apart and fix the pieces one by one. Sleep intertwines with numerous other biological, social, and relationship processes, but...
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The Toilet Paper Illustration

As an example of systems-thinking, and at the risk of an awful pun, reaching for a piece of toilet paper is the bottom line.   Toilet paper is a mandatory accessory. It may be the one...
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It’s Just the Way We Do Things Around Here

When the “Shall I do it now or later?” question comes up for a new Centratel staff member, their not-yet-disciplined internal dialogue goes something like this: “What’s the difference if I do this task now...
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Measuring the Body

Here’s an excerpt from Sam Carpenter’s book Work The System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less...        Eight years ago, in the depths of my workplace chaos, I was also dealing with a...
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Gone Missing

Several years ago we had our house remodeled. Immediately after, we “flipped” another house. In both cases, numerous subcontractors, both experienced and inexperienced, did the work.  Linda was the interior designer. I was the general...
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The Tip System

Here is an evaluation system, albeit waggish. It’s about tipping in restaurants, and I’ll preface things by saying I don’t believe a tip is a diner’s obligation. It’s a tip—something extra that one earns if...
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The Cardiovascular Equipment Sign-Up System

Here’s a remove-the-system-altogether scenario. It’s the ultimate in simplifying things. My staff and I take delight in chucking unnecessary Centratel protocols. System-elimination is great to see in personal life, too.  The cardio room at the...
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Losing Key Employees

In my small business, Centratel, each of our half-dozen key management people has had several years of on-the-job experience. Training managers to operate a telephone answering service is a long, drawn-out affair because it is necessary...
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Installing a Preventative System

Sometimes we install a system and it doesn’t do much. We achieve the desired effect by the mere existence of it. At Centratel, we knew a few of our employees spent time “cruising the net”...
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Leader and High Earner

Not too long ago I participated in Cycle Oregon, a weeklong bicycle tour. Seventeen hundred riders pedaled an average of 75 miles each day through remote eastern Oregon. At night we camped in ad hoc...
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Focus on the System, Not the Product

It seems logical the manager’s total efforts should be focused on the product or service itself; that all energy be directed to the work that must be done, the customers who must be found, and...
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Point-Of-Sale: The “Do It Now” Theory

"Why? Because I’m the mommy and I said so." - Anonymous mommy Do it now and let’s get on with whatever is next!  Point-of-sale is a phrase taken from the cash register industry. It describes action...