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Author: Charlotte Wylde

June 24, 2026 | 4 Mins Read

The Mindset Behind Siemens’ Service Success

June 24, 2026 | 4 Mins Read

The Mindset Behind Siemens’ Service Success

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UNSCRIPTED — EPISODE 370 • SERVICE STRATEGY

Brad Haeberle, EVP of Services for Smart Infrastructure Buildings at Siemens, joins Sarah Nicastro for a sharp, experience-led conversation on what it really takes to build a service business — not just run a service organization.

Most service organizations are focused on optimizing their own operations. The ones pulling ahead are optimizing their customers’ businesses. That distinction sits at the heart of everything Brad Haeberle talks about in this episode — and it’s informed by nearly two decades of navigating the full arc of service maturity at Siemens.

Brad is the Executive Vice President of Services for Smart Infrastructure Buildings at Siemens, a role that puts him at the intersection of scale, digital transformation, and the relentless pressure to grow above market. He met Sarah at Field Service Next West in San Diego, where his keynote sparked a conversation that this episode picks up in full.

Service Is a People Business - First and Foremost

ore anything else, Brad returns to a foundational truth: the most durable competitive advantage in service isn’t technology. It’s having the right people with the right attitude. Competitors can close a technology gap faster than most leaders expect. A genuinely engaged, customer-centred team is far harder to replicate.

He’s equally clear that mindset isn’t just a leadership principle — it’s a practice. Every meeting, every review, every strategic decision gets filtered through one question: if I were sitting in the customer’s shoes, would I care about this? That discipline, applied consistently, is what keeps a service organization from becoming too inward-looking.

He also makes a point that leaders often overlook: don’t take it all too seriously. Celebrate effort, not just outcomes. Build in the fun. People want to win — but they also want to enjoy the journey.

“The most competitive advantage you can have by far is the right people with the right attitude. You can build the next technology, and they’ll catch that pretty quickly. But if you have the right people and that right attitude, it’s really hard for competition to overcome that.” — Brad Haeberle

From Optimizing Operations to Optimizing Customer Outcomes

Brad draws a clean line between two fundamentally different mindsets. Optimizing your own business — first-time fix rates, response times, internal cost efficiency — is table stakes. The companies that are winning are the ones asking a harder question: how does the work we do help our customers’ businesses run better?

He traces this shift to a formative moment during the 2008 financial crisis, when customers called asking to cut 20–30% from their contracts — and Siemens didn’t have a good answer, because the value they were delivering was task-based, not outcome-based. That experience permanently changed his approach.

The starting point, he explains, is deceptively simple: know your customer’s KPIs. Not the KPIs you’re measuring for them, but the KPIs they’re using to run their business. Then ask which of those you can actually impact — and which new services could expand that impact further.

“Customers can’t tell you what they want. They can tell you their problems. That’s a very big difference.” — Brad Haeberle

Building a Service Business, Not Just a Service Organization

The distinction Brad draws between a service organization and a service business is one of the sharpest frameworks in the episode. An organization manages what exists. A business hunts for what’s next — new revenue streams, new markets, new capabilities that didn’t exist before.

For leaders in organizations that haven’t yet made this shift, Brad’s advice is practical and sequential: start by identifying what customers are already paying for that you could deliver better. Then ask what you could offer that doesn’t exist in the market yet. And don’t underestimate the value of recurring revenue as a business case argument to leadership — it’s a stabilizer that product-centric organizations consistently undervalue.

One telling indicator of a team that has truly crossed the threshold: they have a dedicated service salesforce. Until that happens, Brad says, the transition isn’t complete.

Digital as a Force Multiplier — Not Just an Enabler

Brad is enthusiastic about AI and digital transformation, but clear-eyed about what it means in practice. Technology has always been part of Siemens’ service evolution. The difference now is speed — capabilities that seemed years away are arriving in months.

He sees the most compelling opportunity at the intersection of digital capability and a very specific customer pain: workforce aging. His customers are losing experienced talent at a rate they can’t backfill. If Siemens can supplement that gap through digital services — providing outcomes that aging workforces can no longer reliably deliver themselves — that’s not just a service offering. That’s a strategic lifeline.

The mindset he brings to all of it: take enough calculated bets. Not every one will work. The goal is to keep moving, keep learning, and build enough wins across the portfolio to hit the targets that matter.

Follow Sarah on LinkedIn for daily insights, behind-the-scenes reflections, and the conversations shaping the future of service.

Connect with Sarah Nicastro on LinkedIn

Follow Future of Field Service on LinkedIn for new articles, podcast episodes, and event updates as they go live.

Follow Future of Field Service

Subscribe to The INSIDER — our monthly newsletter with exclusive content you won’t find anywhere else.

Subscribe to The INSIDER

Know a service leader who deserves recognition? Nominations for the Stand Out 50 leadership awards are open.

Nominate a Stand Out 50 Leader

Join us at Future of Field Service Live London on 24 September. A day of conversation, insight, and community with service leaders across industries. Register here.

Stay Connected

Subscribe to The INSIDER, our exclusive monthly newsletter, and get a first look at what’s new, what’s next, and what’s only shared with our inner circle.

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator and Editor in Chief, Future of Field Service

One of the themes that has come up repeatedly in conversations throughout my career is how many people serendipitously end up in field service. That includes myself – I wrote about my foray into field service here.

The elusiveness of how to describe the vast potential within the breadth of industries that make up ‘field service’ is a massive challenge. This challenge at least in part explains how rarely these careers are modeled to young talent and how often individuals “land” in field service without ever even knowing it existed.

On last week’s episode of Frontline UNSCRIPTED, Marina George, a Field Service Engineer at Oxford Instruments, she shared her own story that perfectly illustrates the narrow view of career paths we offer to students and young adults. As a child, Marina wanted to be a doctor. She loved science, and in her mind, as it is for so many young people interested in science, healthcare represented the obvious path.

"There really only seemed to be one career trajectory available with my love of science, which is being a doctor," she reflected. This summarizes well the way we generalize entire fields that represent hundreds of career paths into one of a handful of options kids know to consider or select for their future.

Years later, after pursuing undergraduate research, earning a PhD, completing a postdoctoral fellowship, and managing advanced microscopy technologies, Marina discovered field service.

A technology provider she had built a relationship with while setting up a laboratory suggested she consider a role within their business. Until that moment, Marina hadn't realized that a career existed that would allow her to combine her passion for science, technology, problem-solving, and helping people.

That conversation changed everything.

Today, she spends her days supporting researchers and scientists using some of the most advanced imaging technology available—while building relationships with customers and helping shape future product innovation.

Her story emphasizes an important question: How do we change the reality that much of the talent we seek aren’t aware that careers in field service exist?

The Visibility Problem: Painting a Narrow View of Career Opportunities

When we ask children what they want to be when they grow up, the answers tend to be remarkably consistent: doctor, teacher, firefighter, police officer, athlete, veterinarian.

There's nothing wrong with any of those careers. But they represent only a tiny fraction of the opportunities available. The challenge is how we help young people also see the diverse careers that sit adjacent to those familiar professions.

As Marina pointed out, every iconic profession has an entire ecosystem of supporting roles behind it. "I feel like all the careers that we see are these different icons, and kids don't realize that they have a whole team supporting them as well," she said. "Doctors, nurses; lawyers, paralegals—there are all of these extra careers that are part of that one piece."

Field service is an example of this that reaches across countless industries.

A student interested in science may never learn that they could spend their career installing, maintaining, troubleshooting, and optimizing cutting-edge scientific equipment. Someone fascinated by technology may never discover a role that combines technical expertise with customer engagement, travel, problem-solving, and innovation.

Yet these are precisely the types of careers many organizations are struggling immensely to fill.

I don’t have the answers on how, but I do believe that to adequately address talent shortages and create workforce sustainability, we need to expand awareness. We need to help young people understand not only the professions they recognize, but the countless opportunities that exist around them.

The Frontline Role: Technical Skills are Just the Start

What’s so interesting about Marina's story isn’t just how she found field service, but also what she discovered once she got there.

Like many people entering technical roles, she expected technology to be the primary focus. What she didn't anticipate was how much of her success would depend on relationships. "The biggest part that I love about my role is building that relationship with the customer," she said.

Working with highly sophisticated microscopy systems, Marina often finds herself spending hours alongside researchers in laboratories, helping them solve problems, navigate challenges, and maximize the value of their equipment.

Those interactions create something far more valuable than transactional support; they create trust. And trust creates insight.

Because field service engineers are often present during critical moments, they hear things customers don't always share through formal channels. "They really tell you what they want," Marina explained. "There's something special about that in-person, face-to-face human connection."

It's a reminder that while organizations continue investing in customer experience programs, surveys, and analytics, some of the richest customer intelligence still comes from the people closest to the customer.

The frontline doesn't just solve problems, they intimately understand them in a way that can help refine, improve, and expand your business if you harness that knowledge.

The Simplest Advice That Unlocks The Human Side of Field Service

While Marina has come to really enjoy and value customer relationships, she first had to overcome a challenge many frontline professionals face: developing confidence in customer interactions.

She admitted that when she first entered the role, the technical side felt comfortable. The human side felt less certain. She worried about how to communicate with customers. How to handle difficult conversations. How to interact with senior leaders and highly accomplished researchers.

The advice she received from leadership was surprisingly simple. "Just be yourself," she said was the encouragement she received.

At first glance, maybe that advice could seem almost too simplistic. But the more I interact with professionals across all levels of organizations and within various industries, the more I believe that authenticity is one of the most powerful relational skills anyone can develop.

Customers don't expect perfection. They expect honesty. They expect empathy. They expect someone who listens. We are best equipped to exhibit those characteristics when we aren’t expending energy trying to perform our role in the way we believe we’re supposed to, but are empowered to fulfill our role as our genuine selves.  

Marina described how transformative it was to stop viewing interactions as performances and instead approach them as conversations between people. "Remembering that they're just people as well" became a mindset that helped her build confidence, whether she was working with researchers, executives, or laboratory leaders.

We know that today’s demands of the frontline extend far beyond technical skills; in fact, most leaders I speak with agree that the most impactful frontline capabilities are fundamentally human. Marina’s story about the advice she received and how it gave her the confidence she needed to build such deep customer relationships should prompt leaders to consider the value of trusting the talent you’ve chosen to do the job you’ve chosen them to do in a way that fits who they are.

What’s the Future of Career Growth in Field Service?

Another topic Marina and I explored was one that continues to surface across the industry: career progression. Historically, field service careers followed a fairly predictable path. Engineer becomes supervisor, supervisor becomes manager, manager becomes director, and so on.

But today's workforce increasingly wants progression and growth, which makes that traditional path an issue. Some talent wants a path to growth but don’t necessarily want to move into leadership, and organizations can’t simply promote everyone to a sea of leaders.

Marina believes organizations are missing opportunities if they fail to create broader career pathways for frontline talent. After all, field service professionals develop unique expertise that combines rich technical knowledge with an immersion in real-world operating environments and deep customer intimacy.

"Field service engineers are with the product every day," Marina said. "They're seeing things maybe the factory hasn't even seen."

That knowledge can create tremendous value across organizations—in product development, quality, applications, customer success, training, innovation, and beyond.

The challenge isn't finding career paths, but rather intentionally creating them—and adapting the organization to a model where frontline talent is farmed to various parts of the business rather than expected to stay in that role for 10, 15, 20 years (which simply isn’t realistic today).

The Opportunity Ahead

What I appreciated most about Marina's perspective is how her personal understanding of what field service is and what it represents to the business mirrors what we discuss often from a business standpoint:

Field service isn't simply about fixing equipment. It's about enabling outcomes. It's about building trust. It's about helping customers achieve what they're trying to accomplish.

Through this lens, the opportunity that exists for service businesses is exciting, but so too is the incredible potential for fulfilling careers. The challenge is articulating that potential and finding new ways to help talent see all that field service offers.

Because somewhere right now is a student just like Marina once was who also loves science, technology, problem-solving, and helping people but who has never heard of field service.

Yes, that is one of our biggest challenges, but it’s also one of our greatest opportunities.

Stay Connected

Subscribe to The INSIDER, our exclusive monthly newsletter, and get a first look at what’s new, what’s next, and what’s only shared with our inner circle.

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FRONTLINE UNSCRIPTED — EPISODE 4

Marina George, Field Service Engineer at Oxford Instruments and the first female guest on Frontline UNSCRIPTED, shares an unconventional path into the industry — and what it reveals about the talent service organizations are still leaving on the table.

Marina George didn’t grow up dreaming of field service. She wanted to be a doctor — a career path that felt, for most of her childhood and education, like the only option for someone who loved science as much as she did.

By the time she reached her PhD in chemistry at Baylor University, that picture had already started to change. She fell in love with research. Then with microscopy. Then, almost by accident, with the technology itself — light microscopes, electron microscopes, anything she could get her hands on. It was a vendor relationship during her postdoc, and a mentor who saw something in her she hadn’t yet recognized, that opened the door to field service as a genuine career path.

Today, Marina is a Field Service Engineer at Oxford Instruments — and the first woman Sarah has interviewed across four episodes of Frontline UNSCRIPTED. Her story is a compelling argument for why service organizations need to widen the aperture on where great talent might come from.

The Career Path Nobody Shows You

One of the most resonant threads in this conversation is how little visibility field service has as a career option for young people. As Sarah puts it, most six-year-olds can name maybe ten careers when asked what they want to be when they grow up — and field service is rarely one of them.

Marina’s own path is proof of how much opportunity sits just outside that narrow frame. She didn’t abandon her love of science when she stepped away from medicine — she found a role that let her stay close to cutting-edge technology, work directly with researchers and physicians, and build the kind of human connection that academia, for all its rigor, didn’t offer her.

“I feel like all the careers that we see are these different icons, and kids don’t realize that they have a whole team supporting them as well.” — Marina George

What the Frontline Knows That Surveys Can’t Capture

Marina services large microscopes, often in dark rooms during sensitive moments for the customer. That setting, she says, creates a kind of vulnerability — customers tell her things directly that would never surface cleanly in a voice-of-customer survey.

It led her to an idea worth sitting with: a “voice of the field service engineer” survey, run alongside the standard customer survey. If a customer is a detractor but the engineer felt the interaction went well, that gap is valuable information — the kind of nuance that rarely reaches the C-suite through traditional channels.

She already puts this into practice informally. When a customer pushes a product to its limits and shares ideas for what could be better, Marina captures it and feeds it directly to product and project management — sometimes with data the customer has volunteered unprompted. It is frontline insight working exactly as it should: informing the business, not just completing the job.

Being the First Woman in the Room

When Sarah noted that Marina was the first female guest across four Frontline UNSCRIPTED episodes, Marina’s response was clear: in her experience, it hasn’t been a disadvantage. Customers trust her. She brings a kind heart and genuine listening to every interaction. And within her business unit at Oxford Instruments, she’s far from alone — one of her mentors has been with the company for more than fifteen years.

Her experience is a useful data point in a broader conversation the industry continues to have about representation — not because it resolves the conversation, but because it adds a real, specific perspective to it.

The Advice That Changed Everything: Just Be Yourself

Marina arrived in field service with deep technical expertise and very little instinct for what she calls the “soft skills” side of the role. She was shy. She didn’t know how to act with customers, or what she was supposed to say.

The advice that unlocked everything was disarmingly simple: stop performing. Show up as a person, listen first, and follow through on the plan. That, she says, is the entire skill set required — and it’s one anyone can build.

“If you just come to the customer as yourself, like another human being… anybody could be a field service engineer with those skills.” — Marina George

Career Growth Shouldn’t Mean Only One Path

Marina and Sarah spend real time on a challenge facing the entire industry: the traditional route from field service engineer to supervisor to manager to director no longer fits how today’s talent wants to grow — and not everyone is suited to people leadership.

Marina’s view is that the frontline should be treated as a talent pipeline into many parts of the business, not just management. Engineers who understand a product intimately could move into quality control. Those who absorb customer ideas could move into product development. Others might shift laterally into application specialist roles, helping customers get more from the technology they already have.

For organizations serious about retention, the lesson is straightforward: talent will not stay still simply because the org chart hasn’t changed in a decade. The options have to be real.

A Practice Worth Borrowing

Marina closes the conversation with a personal ritual: each year between Christmas and New Year’s, she writes down ten things that went well — across career, relationships, and hobbies — before setting any goals for the year ahead. It’s a deliberate shift away from the deficit-thinking of typical resolutions, and toward building more of what already works.

It’s a fitting closing note for a conversation that, throughout, makes the case for looking at career paths — and the people who walk them — with a wider lens.

Follow Sarah on LinkedIn for daily insights, behind-the-scenes reflections, and the conversations shaping the future of service.

Connect with Sarah Nicastro on LinkedIn

Follow Future of Field Service on LinkedIn for new articles, podcast episodes, and event updates as they go live.

Follow Future of Field Service

Subscribe to The INSIDER — our monthly newsletter with exclusive content you won’t find anywhere else.

Subscribe to The INSIDER

Know a service leader who deserves recognition? Nominations for the Stand Out 50 leadership awards are open.

Nominate a Stand Out 50 Leader

Join us at Future of Field Service Live London on 24 September. A day of conversation, insight, and community with service leaders across industries. Register here.

Stay Connected

Subscribe to The INSIDER, our exclusive monthly newsletter, and get a first look at what’s new, what’s next, and what’s only shared with our inner circle.

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The Top 5 Community-Sourced Takeaways from Future of Field Service Live NYC

June 15, 2026 | 6 Mins Read

The Top 5 Community-Sourced Takeaways from Future of Field Service Live NYC

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator and Editor in Chief, Future of Field Service

On last week’s podcast, I shared a summary of our first Live event since 2024 which took place at the beautiful Glasshouse Chelsea in NYC on June 2nd. In catching up after the event, I’ve been humbled by the wonderful feedback we’ve received from those who joined us for the day.

These events, while intimate, take a tremendous amount of effort to plan and execute. At the height of the stressful moments, I’ve questioned myself – is this really worth it? Reading LinkedIn posts, receiving emails, and reviewing post-event survey responses reminds me the answer to that question is an emphatic yes.

If you’ve never joined one of our events, it’s hard for me to describe how special they are – and it’s the leaders to who join us, to speak and to engage, that make that the reality. The energy from the day in New York and the response we received from those who joined us has sparked massive excitement for the planning of our London event (September 24th). More on that soon, but for now here are five of the top community-sourced takeaways from NYC.

#1: Technology Alone Can’t Power the Future of Service

Natalia Shuman, President and CEO of MISTRAS Group, and one of our NYC speakers, shared the following on LinkedIn: “One theme stood out throughout the day: the service organizations that will succeed in the years ahead are those that can effectively connect strategy, technology, and people. Whether the discussion centered on AI, workforce development, customer experience, or operational excellence, the message was consistent—technology alone is not the answer. Success comes from combining innovation with strong execution and empowered teams.”

I spoke in my opening keynote about the need to modernize our mindset around technology from viewing it as an enabler (which has been the historic thinking) to viewing it as a multiplier (more aligned with not only what today’s tools can do, but the impact organizations must seek). While I believe this is important, to Natalia’s point, it’s even more crucial for leaders to really and truly understand that no matter how capable a tech stack they invest in, it cannot and will not alone achieve what they need to achieve.

Natalia’s humble view on the necessity and value of both customer listening and frontline input was one I not only respect and admire, but that more leaders would be well-served to embrace. The future of service will be owned by companies who intimately understand what their customers value, who can successfully rally crucial talent to deliver that value, and who deploy technology to amplify value delivered beyond what’s possible with human talent alone.

#2: AI is a Present-Day Business Imperative (But Not a Strategy)

Tim LaHaie, Jr., Director of Operations at Torque by Ryder, shared a summary on LinkedIn in which he echoed Natalia’s point above. He said, “Leading through change requires more than technology. Successful transformation depends on aligning people, processes, and strategy while maintaining a strong focus on customer outcomes.”

He also dug into the AI aspect of technology more specifically, sharing that “AI is no longer a future discussion, it’s a present-day business conversation. The focus is shifting from experimentation to delivering measurable value for technicians, customers, and organizations.”

In an AI Think Tank with Nick Vandivere, Chief Innovation Officer at IFS Nexus Black, we had a lively discussion among the entire group around AI myths and missteps. One we discussed is that while many leaders are reporting they’re being told to “go do AI,” AI is not at all a strategy – it’s a tool to serve your strategy.

The discussion made very apparent Tim’s point above – that AI is a must-have present-day business mandate, but also that it isn’t a panacea, and it won’t magically solve your problems or realize your potential.

#3: The Growth Potential in Service is Massive

After lunch, Dave Clement and Eric Flato of Simon-Kucher ran a workshop on how to best leverage frontline superpower as a growth lever. The session, based in part on the findings of our joint research, highlighted the growth potential that exists across service industries.

Dave shared after, “My key takeaway across all the speakers was that many field service organizations are sitting on a tremendous growth opportunity that's already in front of customers every day - the technician. The challenge isn't finding opportunities; it's building the systems to capture them.”

Tim LaHaie agreed in his summary, saying, “The role of frontline technicians continues to expand. Organizations are increasingly recognizing their impact not only on service delivery but also on customer relationships, revenue growth, and long-term business success.”

The discussion in the room centered around what the best mechanisms are not only to capture the opportunities that exist, but to adequately and appropriately encourage, motivate, and incentivize the frontline to engage in this way. One key point that was made was that this works best when the organization is truly invested in the customers’ best interest and desired outcomes versus simply looking for short-term results. This is an excellent point to underscore, both in terms of what will drive true and lasting impact as well as what will be most palatable for the frontline to rally behind.

#4: We’re So Much Stronger Together

One of my favorite pieces of feedback that I’ve received after almost every Future of Field Service event is, “I feel so much less alone after hearing today that so many others are grappling with the same challenges.” The sense of camaraderie that surfaces is such a gift of these days and each event reminds me of the power of community.

Sheri Pelish, Chief Operating Officer at BFC Solutions, mentioned this in an email she sent to me following the event. She said, “I’d just like to take a quick moment to thank you for a great event. It far exceeded my expectations, in terms of not only content but connectedness. It’s rare, and a tremendous gift, to stand in a room with leaders who face the exact same challenges you do. I walked away with growth strategies, thoughts on how to better connect with my field technician team, and a perspective on how we can and should leverage AI within our business. I’m grateful and sincerely, nice job designing an impactful, relevant, and inspirational day.”

I appreciated this message deeply because it articulates really well what I’ve found hard to describe about what takes place at these events. No one can expect to leave with a blueprint for exactly how to go and solve every problem, but the realization you aren’t alone, the connections made, the points that re-energize and inspire you to go back and dig in with renewed gusto – I have been honored to witness those moments unfolding in real-time and it’s one of my proudest accomplishments.

#5: Service Organizations Must Seek Inspiration Outside Their Own Industry

All of the feedback we’ve received has pointed out the benefit of spending time learning from organizations outside your own industry – and I think this practice is especially important for today’s service leaders.

There was a point in time where being the best in your industry was enough – but today’s customers are influenced by experiences not only across industries, but from business to consumer, from professional to personal. There’s no more acceptance of offering the best “X” industry experience; you must level up.

Tanya Singh, CCO of Biotronics 3D and Co-Founder of the FemTech Healthcare Network, emphasizes this in the summary she shared on LinkedIn. She said, “It was fantastic to reconnect with familiar faces, meet new industry peers, and engage in thought-provoking discussions around leadership, AI, service transformation, and the future of customer experience. The speaker line-up was exceptional, featuring honest conversations, practical insights, and perspectives that challenged conventional thinking while remaining grounded in real-world experience. One of the aspects I value most about events like this is the opportunity to step outside our own industries and learn from leaders facing similar challenges from completely different perspectives.”

Another sincere thank you to those who joined us in NYC – and for those who took the time to share your takeaways on social, to send a personal note, or to share feedback through our survey. I am so appreciative of you making this community what it is!

Next up: London! If you’d like to join us there, you can register here.

Stay Connected

Subscribe to The INSIDER, our exclusive monthly newsletter, and get a first look at what’s new, what’s next, and what’s only shared with our inner circle.

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Highlights from Future of Field Service Live NYC

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Highlights from Future of Field Service Live NYC

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UNSCRIPTED — EPISODE 369 • EVENT RECAP

In this solo episode, host Sarah Nicastro recaps the Future of Field Service Live event in New York City — surfacing the key moments, sharpest insights, and ideas worth carrying back from a day spent with some of the most forward-thinking service leaders in the industry.

There is still no real substitute for in-person community. That’s the takeaway Sarah Nicastro returns to time and again after the Future of Field Service Live events — and the New York City edition, the first FoFS Live since 2024, was no exception.

Held at Glass House Chelsea on a sunny morning with three walls of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan, the event brought together a select group of senior service leaders for a full day of sessions, conversations, and the kind of candid debate that only happens when you take people out of their inboxes and put them in the same room.

This solo episode is Sarah’s recap of the day — five sessions, five sets of insights worth bringing back to your organization.

Leading People Through Change Starts With Understanding What Motivates Them

The day opened with keynote speaker Sarah Aviram — author of The Scenic Route and a speaker who has worked across 12 countries in twelve months — setting the tone with a question that sounds simple but rarely gets the attention it deserves: why do you do your job?

Her point wasn’t philosophical. It was practical. If you can’t answer that question for yourself and for the people who report to you, you’re not equipped to lead them through change. Aviram’s remotivation method — built on six core drivers of fulfillment at work — gave the room a framework for thinking about motivation that goes well beyond the surface. Her distinction between freedom and agency was a particular standout: more freedom, she argued, doesn’t automatically produce more fulfillment. The right kind of agency does.

“If you don’t understand what truly motivates the people around you, you will not be able to effectively lead them through change.” — Sarah Aviram

Customer Intimacy Isn’t a Strategy. It’s a Commitment.

Natalia Schuman, President and CEO of MISTRAS Group — recently named Frost & Sullivan’s 2026 Global NDT Field Inspection Services Company of the Year — joined Sarah for a conversation about what it actually takes to deliver award-winning customer outcomes.

Her answer was rooted in something deceptively simple: listening. When Natalia stepped into the role in early 2025, she spent her first ninety days talking to a hundred customers. Not to pitch, not to reassure — to listen. That discipline shaped every strategic decision that followed.

She also spoke to the underutilized power of frontline knowledge — a theme that ran through the entire day. The technicians closest to customers hold a wealth of insight that many organizations never tap. And when it comes to digital transformation, Natalia was clear: it’s not a shift away from human skills. It’s the combination of both that creates genuine differentiation. Her guiding principle for the organization’s evolution? Not revolution — evolution. Moving at a pace customers can navigate alongside you.

Are You Measuring What Actually Matters?

Matt Tice, VP of Global Services at QuidelOrtho, built on his earlier UNSCRIPTED conversation with a session on what it takes to reposition service as a competitive edge. His insights were grounded, direct, and earned.

One of his sharpest observations: in service, the metrics we watch most closely aren’t always the ones that tell us the truth. At QuidelOrtho, that meant moving away from transactional NPS — where strong service relationships were masking a more complex reality — toward customer effort and satisfaction scores that gave lower numbers but far more actionable data.

Matt also reinforced a point he’s made before: data gives you credibility. Storytelling creates urgency. You need both to drive executive buy-in. And when you’re making the case for investment, don’t just show what you’ll gain. Show the cost of doing nothing. Model the gap. Make inaction visible.

The Frontline Is a Commercial Asset. Most Organizations Aren’t Using It That Way.

Dave Clement and Eric Flato from Simon Kucher led the afternoon workshop, anchored in joint research on commercial growth opportunities in field service. Their central argument: despite more pressure than ever to drive revenue, many organizations are sitting on an underutilized asset in their frontline technicians — and don’t realize it.

The workshop covered where service growth potential sits and what stands in the way of realizing it, the different approaches organizations are taking to technician enablement and incentives, and practical tactics for helping field teams identify and influence revenue opportunities in the moment.

A question from the audience connected the session back to Natalia’s morning keynote: the best way to motivate technicians to engage in growth is to frame it around customer outcomes. When the goal is genuinely to serve the customer well, it fits naturally with how technicians already see their role. When it’s purely about the numbers, it doesn’t.

Three AI Myths Worth Retiring

Nick Vandeveer, Chief Innovation Officer at IFS Nexus Black, closed the day with a think tank designed to cut through the noise on AI. Three myths, three honest conversations.

Myth one: AI is a strategy. It isn’t. AI serves the business strategy you already have. Leaders being told to “go do AI” without a clear strategic foundation are setting themselves up to fail.

Myth two: AI is a panacea. Once you identify a problem and look carefully at what it would take to solve it, some aspects of the solution may be AI — and some may be process changes, organizational shifts, or other tools entirely.

Myth three: data readiness is a prerequisite before you can begin. This one was the most nuanced. Nick was clear that advances in LLMs have made it possible to do more with unstructured data than was true even recently. But — and this matters — that does not mean the state of your data is irrelevant. You can work in parallel. You cannot afford to ignore it.

The day ended with drinks, views, and the kind of conversations that continue long after the formal agenda wraps. The next FoFS Live event takes place in London on September 24.

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Leading Without Losing Yourself

June 10, 2026 | 4 Mins Read

Leading Without Losing Yourself

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UNSCRIPTED — EPISODE 368 • LEADERSHIP

Dr. Lisa Ann Ferlita — VP of Service, Americas at Oxford Instruments and author of The Weight of Leadership: Leading Without Losing Yourself — joins Sarah Nicastro for a raw, honest conversation about what it really costs to lead, and how to do it without losing who you are in the process.

What if the path to greater leadership impact starts with looking in the mirror? That is the premise of Dr. Lisa Ann Ferlita’s new book — and the thread running through every part of this conversation.

Lisa has worked across 129 countries, served ten years in the Air Force, and built a career through resilience, adaptability, and a willingness to reflect that most leaders never quite find the time for. Her book, The Weight of Leadership: Leading Without Losing Yourself, is the result: raw, honest, and grounded in lived experience rather than corporate theory. This isn’t a book about what worked at Google or Amazon. It’s about what it actually feels like to lead — and what it costs.

Becoming: Leadership Starts With Survival

The book is structured around four sections — Becoming, Leading, Rebuilding, and Legacy — and Lisa walks Sarah through a key insight from each.

Becoming starts at the beginning. Lisa grew up with a single mother working hard at IBM in an era when most women held administrative roles. Her brother, her school, the adults around her — everyone was carrying weight. And so, early on, she learned to carry her own. Leadership, for Lisa, didn’t come from being born with certain traits. It came from survival.

What she discovered through years of working across cultures — particularly the contrast between the fast-paced decisiveness of American business culture and the more human, relationship-centred approach she encountered elsewhere — shaped her view that becoming a leader is, at its core, about becoming human.

Becoming a leader is really about becoming human.” — Dr. Lisa Ann Ferlita

Leading: The Weight You Don’t Expect

In the Leading section, Lisa reflects on a phase many service leaders will recognise — stepping into a role and immediately trying to perform a version of leadership you think is expected of you. Controlling the journey. Measuring the outputs. Always being on.

She describes the loneliness of leadership, the constant self-questioning, and the slow realisation that the things she thought defined great leadership — authority, titles, metrics — were actually getting in the way. Her three pillars of leadership emerged from that reckoning: empowering people, making sure they are heard, and creating genuine inclusion. Not because they’re the right things to say, but because she had lived the cost of the alternative.

Rebuilding: When Your Body Starts to Talk

The Rebuilding section is, by Lisa’s own account, the most emotional and most raw part of the book. She describes a moment at a conference — surrounded by energy, struggling to take another step, legs heavy, exhausted in a way that went beyond tiredness — where her body simply said enough.

She had been sleeping three to four hours a night. Travelling constantly. Always on. And at some point, she looked in a hotel mirror and didn’t recognise herself.

Rebuilding is about what came next. Not a dramatic reinvention, but a gradual, difficult process of asking what strength actually means — physically, mentally, and in the way you show up for others. Her insight here is quietly powerful: why carry the weight of leadership alone when spreading it helps others grow and develop?

Titles mean nothing if you’re losing yourself.” — Dr. Lisa Ann Ferlita

Legacy: What Kind of Leader Do You Want to Leave Behind?

The final section asks a question that doesn’t come up often enough in leadership conversations: what do you actually want to leave behind?

For Lisa, the answer has nothing to do with titles or accolades. When people used to tell her they wanted to be just like her, her response was: you don’t. Not because her journey wasn’t worth it, but because she now understands what it cost — and she wants something different for the people coming up behind her.

Her vision of legacy is simple: leaders who are seen, heard, and don’t have to lose themselves to succeed. Leaders who tell their team members that their weekends matter. Leaders who give people the space to be human at work, not just productive.

What Next-Generation Leadership Actually Looks Like

Sarah and Lisa also explore what leadership transformation looks like in practice — and where most leaders go wrong. Lisa’s answer: reverse engineering. Too many leaders start with the KPIs and work backward to the people. She argues it needs to go the other way. Build the relationships. Create the psychological safety. Leave your door open. And then the metrics will follow.

She points to a timeless principle from Total Quality Management that she still lives by today: do what you say, say what you did, and prove it. In an era of constant change and evolving expectations, the leaders who earn trust are the ones who follow through — and who say so honestly when they can’t.

The book, The Weight of Leadership: Leading Without Losing Yourself, is available now on Amazon in Kindle, hardcover, and paperback. Connect with Dr. Lisa Ann Ferlita at drlisaferlita.com.

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Service Organizations Can’t Win the Talent War Without Strategic Employer Branding

June 4, 2026 | 4 Mins Read

Service Organizations Can’t Win the Talent War Without Strategic Employer Branding

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Strategic consultant Marta Riggins joins Sarah Nicastro to explore why employer branding is one of the most underutilized levers in field service — and what leaders can do right now to start winning the talent war.

Frontline industries need to hire 250,000 people a month just to keep pace with retirements. And yet 87% of frontline workers aren’t sure the culture their company markets even applies to them.

That’s not a recruiting problem. That’s a branding problem.

In this episode of UNSCRIPTED, Sarah Nicastro sits down with Marta Riggins — strategic consultant and former employer brand leader at Instacart, LinkedIn, and Pandora Music — for a candid, practical conversation about what service organizations stand to gain from thinking more intentionally about employer branding. Marta brings a refreshing perspective: this isn’t a nice-to-have marketing exercise. It’s a direct lever for attracting and retaining the frontline talent your business depends on.

What Employer Branding Actually Means — And Why It’s Urgent Now

At its core, employer branding is about perception: is this a good place to work? It’s closely tied to employee engagement and retention — because your engaged employees are your best brand ambassadors. You can’t market your way to being an employer of choice if the reality inside the organization doesn’t back it up.

Marta draws on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to explain what candidates across every generation, industry, and geography want from work today. The list is consistent: competitive pay, work-life balance and flexibility, job security, and the opportunity to keep learning. Flexibility, in particular, is rising fast — 40% of candidates will accept up to a 5% pay cut just to have more agency over when and how they work.

For service organizations, this is both a challenge and a genuine opportunity. Job security is something frontline industries can offer that many sectors currently cannot. That’s a story worth telling.

“Whoever brands themselves as ‘frontline first’ is going to win in this space. I think this industry has such an incredible opportunity to rebrand as an amazing future path for people.” — Marta Riggins

Building an EVP That’s Grounded in Reality

The employee value proposition (EVP) is the articulation of what employees get in exchange for giving the organization their talent, skills, and energy every day. Done well, it gets everyone singing from the same songbook — reminding long-tenured employees why the organization is special, and helping candidates understand why they should care before they’ve even interviewed.

But Marta is clear: it has to be authentic. You can tell a story that isn’t true, but people will simply leave. Her approach is to back every brand statement with at least four data points — policy details, cultural examples, benefit specifics — that prove the claim. Aspirational is fine; fictional is not.

To find the real story, she interviews stakeholders across geographies, levels, and tenure, asking two simple questions: why did you first join, and why have you stayed? The answers, she says, reveal threads of genuine cultural advantage that no career site or benefits guide could ever capture on its own.

The Frontline Disconnect — and How to Close It

The conversation takes a particularly resonant turn when Sarah and Marta dig into the reality that so many frontline employees feel disconnected from the company culture marketed to the rest of the workforce. Historically, this wasn’t intentional exclusion — it was simply that what was working kept working, and organizations never stopped to ask whether it applied to everyone.

The fix, Marta argues, is often simpler than it seems:

  • Extend the lifespan of existing programs so frontline workers have access — a community service day becomes a community service month
  • Bring executives to the field rather than skipping those markets on roadshows
  • Broaden recognition programs — like president’s club — to include top performers across all functions, not just sales
  • Pilot flexibility models — even small experiments signal that the organization is willing to evolve

Culture Fit Is Out. Culture Add Is In.

One of the most memorable moments in the episode is Marta’s mission to ban the term “culture fit” from the hiring conversation. Her argument is straightforward: fit is exclusionary. When we ask whether someone “fits,” we tend to default to subjective, often unconscious bias about who looks or feels familiar.

Culture add flips the question. Does this person bring something we don’t already have? Do they expand our thinking, our perspective, our capability? It’s a small language shift with significant implications for how service organizations build the diverse, resilient teams they need for the future.

The Opportunity Is Right There

Throughout the conversation, both Sarah and Marta return to the same theme: the potential here is enormous, and it’s largely untapped. Service industries offer stability, purpose, variety, and genuine career progression — but too few organizations are telling that story in a way that resonates with the people they need to reach.

The organizations that figure this out first — that brand themselves as frontline first, that build EVPs grounded in what people actually want, and that extend their culture to every level of the workforce — won’t just fill open roles. They’ll build the kind of teams that make everything else possible.

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7 Levers You May Be Missing to Get Ahead in the Frontline Talent War

June 1, 2026 | 8 Mins Read

7 Levers You May Be Missing to Get Ahead in the Frontline Talent War

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator and Editor in Chief, Future of Field Service

On last week’s podcast, I welcomed Marta Riggins, a strategic employer branding consultant who formerly held roles at Instacart, LinkedIn, and Pandora Music, to explore why employer branding matters so much for service leaders today and why she’s passionate about the opportunity for organizations to pave the way as “frontline-first.”

It’s clear that attracting, hiring, and retaining the next generation of frontline talent is one of the biggest challenges field service industries face. Marta shared some excellent advice on why, within your industry, it’s a must to consider the role employer branding plays, accurately assess your approach, and make adjustments to improve your position in the quest for tomorrow’s talent.

But as a resource that reaches across industries, I think there’s also something to consider around how field service as a whole creates an elevator pitch that succinctly explains what this unique collection of industries is, so that the ability to express the wealth of career paths within it becomes easier and resonates better. A couple of years ago my husband and I watched Halt and Catch Fire on AMC; one of the main characters made the statement that, “modern society sits on a foundation of services that we take for granted.”

I thought, wow, that simple phrase summarizes quite well what field service is and the important role it plays in our society. While each organization must consider how it positions itself as an employer of choice in its specific industry, influencing young people on the breadth of opportunity in field services will require a better understanding of the broader context. While an individualistic approach is necessary, greater collaboration on a collective identity I believe would be beneficial to create more momentum in youth visualizing the potential we all know exists.

With that food for thought shared, let’s get into some of the insights that Marta shared on last week’s podcast. Here I’ve curated seven levers we discussed that I believe many organizations may be underutilizing (or even missing altogether).

Lever #1: Understand the Importance of Perception

As you’ve heard, perception is everything. And while that isn’t entirely true as it relates to employer branding (which we’ll get into in Lever #2), how your company is perceived is crucial to your ability to attract talent. Is your brand presence confusing or clear? Boring or exciting? Fresh or outdated? What impression do you believe your ideal talent would have if they looked at your website, read a job description, or visited your company’s social media?

These are important questions to reflect on, and I’d surmise for many of you reading this should prompt action. One characteristic Marta stresses is personality, “The best employer branding really speaks to the personality of your company and even your industry.” She shared the example of Lunchbox  from the restaurant industry, explaining how well it represents its space and reminding that it’s helpful to be playful, fun, unique.  

Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Marta explains how that factors in when creating the story of your employer brand. “It kind of goes back to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs where you're really looking at the progression of what draws people in: Am I going to get paid? Do I have compensation (basic) needs met? Then, do I have benefits that help with my health and my well-being? Is there stability? Is there flexibility? Am I learning something new?”

Lever #2: Recognize Your Employer Brand is Inextricably Linked to Employee Engagement

While you want to be creative in your employer branding, you also want to tell a story rooted in reality. “You could tell a story that's not true, but it will just create a revolving door,” says Marta. “You want to be creative and fun and even aspirational yet grounded in reality. What are the things that fundamentally are true in your culture or your work environment that you can speak to? There might be things that are aspirational where you know you're shifting but aren’t fully baked, and you can hint to those, but you can't go all in if it's not there.”

This means that you must reconcile the connection between the pitch of your employer brand and the reality of your employee experience and engagement. Otherwise you can tell a great story that doesn’t yield any lasting results. And this may cause some real reflection on changes that need to be made around the employee value proposition and employee experience, but to truly address this looming challenge that process, if required, is a necessity.

Marta suggests ensuring that as you develop your brand story, you have facts to support the picture you’re painting. “A good way to make sure that your branding is grounded in reality is to have data points. The way that I do branding is I'll write statements and I'll write copy, and then I make sure I can have multiple data points backing up what I'm saying,” she explains. “So, for instance, if I say we really value well-being at this company and time off, then I better back up what the policy is – what time off looks like, if there are shutdowns, what the benefits are, or tangible examples of how it’s present in the culture. That is one surefire way to make sure that you keep the employer brand story authentic to who you are.”

Lever #3: Turn Inward for Inspiration

One of the best sources of inspiration for your brand story is the employees you already have, across functions and levels of seniority. “I like to interview stakeholders when I develop this messaging. People from all different aspects of the company, geographies, levels, tenures. I like to ask people about why they joined and, if they’ve been there awhile, why they’ve stayed,” describes Marta. “Through this process you start to get interesting themes. I like to ask people, what do you think your unique cultural advantage is? What's unique to your company that I can't see on a career site or won’t read about in a benefit guide. You uncover these incredible stories that really speak to the culture.”

Lever #4: Don’t Ignore What the Talent You Want Wants

What today’s talent prioritizes may looks much different than what you’re accustomed to accommodating or tailoring to, but it’s to the organization’s detriment to ignore the realities of what’s important today. “Looking at the top value propositions that matter to candidates across generations, industries, and geographies, pay is number one. Number two is work/life balance and flexibility – flexibility is really the name of the game right now,” explains Marta.

Flexibility has been an area where many service businesses have defaulted to the reasons it’s difficult to provide rather than the potential solutions for how to offer more options and autonomy. But it’s an area that is increasingly important to address – and I believe that with the options available to organizations today, it’s a matter of unwillingness versus inability to do so.

Marta makes an important point that flexibility isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition or doesn’t need to look a certain way – there are many options for offering more control if you’re willing to think outside the box. “Flexibility can be agency over where you work or the hours that you work, the times that you work. It's not a specific demand so much as any agency you can give to people. It's about control if you go back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs again,” she explains. “There has been an increase of data 40% of employees will take up to a 5% pay cut just to have some sort of flexibility over their schedule.”

Job security is another high-ranking desire that many businesses seeking frontline talent are well-positioned to highlight. “Especially in the US, the job markets have been unstable. I think that's something that service industries can absolutely offer that a lot of industries cannot right now, and that is something to market,” Marta emphasizes.  

Lever #5: Closely Consider Your Frontline Culture

As we discussed above, the employee experience needs to live up to the employer brand story – and many businesses are most at risk for falling short on that promise with their inability to effectively extend their company culture to field employees.

“87% of frontline workers aren't sure if the culture their company is marketing or talking about on their career site even applies to them, which I think is sad,” shares Marta. “And then 50% say that they don't feel they're even thought of or communicated to. I think these stats point to a massive opportunity to be frontline-first; to not only brand as such but be intentional about extending the culture to those employees.”

There are small and large ways to do so, and I’d recommend tuning in to Tetra Pak’s story to get some inspiration. It’s important not to underestimate the impact of really foundational efforts – better communication, consistent touchpoints, more listening, fostering connection among teams and to the business’s mission.

It’s well worth the time and effort to thoughtfully consider what the experience of your frontline teams feels like and where it’s leaving something to be desired. Filling those gaps not only will help you to improve engagement and retention but will help you in your quest to attract new talent as well.

Don’t overlook the impact of recognition – something that in many instances is reserved only for top sales efforts or executive-level positions. “I have clients with a president's club that’s not just for salespeople. It includes people who are cultural champions, people from finance and HR and all different parts of the business to attend. It has a great impact and, again, it's really just being intentional about extending existing programs and policies and recognition to all your workforce,” says Marta.

Lever #6: Ramp Up Creativity & Lean in to Change

Now is not the time to play it safe, to stay rooted in “what’s always worked,” or to stay married to overly firm beliefs about what “isn’t possible.” Rather, now is the time to be willing to shake things up, to take calculated risks, and to introduce a healthy dose of creativity into the process.

“There are stats that frontline industries would need to hire 250,000 people a month just to keep up with the rate of retirement. So, I think there's no choice but to change,” emphasizes Marta. “There's no profit without engagement and people. The industry is facing a talent scarcity in a real way, but I find that so exciting because I think this industry has such an incredible opportunity to rebrand as an amazing future path for people.”

Lever #7: Hire Marketing Talent to Level Up Your Approach

My discussion with Marta made me realize that in many instances, what’s lacking in creating the brand story to set yourself apart or ensuring that story resonates aesthetically and across the best channels is the specific skill set that marketers and consultants can bring. There are unique knowledge and aptitude that, when applied, make a remarkable difference in the outcome – and, in turn, make a meaningful difference in impact.

So perhaps another important lever to consider is where and how you might augment your existing skillset to help you in re-energizing your process, reconsidering your story, or reimagining your approach.

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Mental Health Awareness Matters Now More Than Ever – A Personal Reflection from Sarah Nicastro

May 20, 2026 | 3 Mins Read

Mental Health Awareness Matters Now More Than Ever – A Personal Reflection from Sarah Nicastro

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UNSCRIPTED — EPISODE 366 • MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH

In this solo episode of UNSCRIPTED, Sarah steps out of her comfort zone to share her own mental health journey and what it has taught her about leadership, vulnerability, and creating workplaces where it’s truly okay not to be okay.

Every May, Future of Field Service marks Mental Health Awareness Month with a dedicated episode of UNSCRIPTED. This year is different. Instead of inviting an expert or thought leader to guide the conversation, Sarah is the conversation.

It’s a solo episode — raw, honest, and more personal than anything she’s recorded before. Sarah opens up about growing up with instability and emotional neglect, living with complex PTSD, ADHD, and anxiety, and navigating the PTSD that followed her son Evan’s Type 1 diabetes diagnosis at age three. She also shares that this particular month has been an especially difficult one: a dear loved one was recently diagnosed with glioblastoma, a terminal brain cancer.

She shares none of this for sympathy. She shares it because she believes the most powerful thing any of us can do — as leaders, colleagues, and human beings — is to show up honestly. And to remind those around us that the people who appear to have it all together are often carrying more than we know.

What This Episode Covers

Sarah organizes her reflections into two areas: personal truths and practical guidance for leaders and organizations.

On the personal side, she explores:

  • Why vulnerability is harder than it sounds — and why it matters anyway
  • The hidden cost of masking: how pretending you’re okay drains the energy you need to actually get there
  • Why people who are struggling are the least equipped to ask for help — and why “I wish they’d just asked” misses the point entirely
  • How overfunctioning can mask burnout before it becomes a crisis
  • Why crying at work should be normalized, not penalized

For leaders and organizations, she addresses:

  • The isolation challenge in field service — and why connection has to be intentional
  • Why mental health cannot be a once-a-year conversation
  • How the direct leader relationship is the single most important factor in psychological safety
  • Why some standard mental health resources carry stigma — and how to think creatively about what actually helps
  • How to be proactive, not just reactive, when it comes to team wellbeing

“People who are struggling with their mental health are the least likely and the least equipped to ask for help. When I hear someone say, ‘I wish they would just have asked for help,’ I know as someone who has struggled that the person making that statement certainly never has.”

Why This Episode, Why Now

Sarah has always believed that the phrase “it’s okay not to be okay” can only become a reality if we get more comfortable being uncomfortable — whether that’s having the courage to be vulnerable about our own struggles, or making the genuine effort to create a safe space for others to share theirs.

This episode is her effort to do both. It won’t be easy listening in places. But that’s exactly why it matters.

Related Podcasts

If this episode resonated with you, these conversations go deeper on mental health, wellbeing, and what great leadership looks like in practice:

Building Mental Strength as a Leader

Smashing Stigma Around Mental Health — Prioritizing Well-Being at Work

The Power of Mattering — Zach Mercurio

Making Mental Health a Focus in Service Leadership

Other Resources

If you or someone you know needs support, the following organizations offer guidance, resources, and help across different regions:

NAMI — National Alliance on Mental Illness (US)

Center for Workplace Mental Health (US)

Mental Health UK

Samaritans (UK & Ireland)

Mental Health Europe

United for Global Mental Health

Global Mental Health Action Network

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Subscribe to The INSIDER, our exclusive monthly newsletter, and get a first look at what’s new, what’s next, and what’s only shared with our inner circle.

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UNSCRIPTED Episode 365

Sarah Aviram on why your relationship to change matters more than the change itself.

Most change initiatives are built around process. New systems, new structures, new reporting lines. And most of them underestimate the same thing: the human being on the other side of the change.

In Episode 365 of UNSCRIPTED, Sarah Nicastro sits down with Sarah Aviram — keynote speaker, leadership coach, and author of the upcoming book The Scenic Route — for a conversation that gets to the heart of why change is hard, and what leaders can do differently.

Sarah's perspective is shaped by an experience few could claim. In 2018, she pitched her CEO a field research study into the future of remote work — and spent the next twelve months working across 12 different countries. What began as a professional experiment became something far more personal: a deep exploration of identity, resilience, and what it means to adapt.

The conversation covers a lot of ground — from the six core drivers of human motivation to the Portuguese concept of saudade, a bittersweet longing for something that may never be. Sarah shares why flamenco dancers don't peak until their 40s, what a Buddhist monk in Thailand taught her about releasing identity, and why the most sophisticated change management strategy will always fall short if people aren't emotionally on board first.

For service leaders navigating organizational transformation, digital shifts, or simply the relentless pace of change that defines this industry right now, there is a lot to take away from this episode. Not frameworks to implement, but questions worth sitting with.

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