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Author: Charlotte Wylde

August 12, 2026 | 4 Mins Read

The Feminist Plumber Who’s Paying It Forward

August 12, 2026 | 4 Mins Read

The Feminist Plumber Who’s Paying It Forward

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Frontline UNSCRIPTED | Episode 5

Judaline Cassidy, union plumber, nonprofit founder, and CNN Champion for Change, joins Sarah Nicastro for a conversation about resilience, authentic allyship, and what it means to pay it forward in a career that has defined who she is.

Judaline Cassidy grew up in Trinidad and Tobago wanting to be a lawyer and Wonder Woman, in that order. When her great-grandmother passed and university became impossible, she chose the trades, specifically plumbing, on a calculation that would make her laugh telling it today:

“Electrical you get shocked. Plumbing you get wet.”

Thirty years later, she is one of the first women accepted into Plumbers Local 371 in Staten Island, New York, the first woman elected to the Examining Board of Plumbers Local No. 1, a CNN Champion for Change, an ENR 2025 Award of Excellence recipient, and the founder of Tools and Tiaras, a nonprofit dedicated to showing young girls just how creative, fulfilling, and lucrative a career in the trades can be.

This is Episode 5 of Frontline UNSCRIPTED, and it is one of the most important conversations the series has had.

Nothing Exists That We Use Without People Like Me

Judaline is unapologetic about the pride she takes in her career. When Sarah asks how she shifts the narrative around the trades, her answer is characteristically direct: give her more exposure.

She makes a case for a full rebrand of what plumbing represents. Stop putting plungers on business cards. Start talking about the gas line that cooked your mother’s food, the dental chair, the medical gas at the hospital, the temporary facilities built to protect communities during COVID. Plumbers, she argues, protect the health of nations and most people have simply never been told.

“We protect societies. We have been doing it for a long time. We are just as important as the doctors.” - Judaline Cassidy

The rebranding starts with representation. When Judaline walks into a school with her nails painted and her jewelry on, something shifts for the young girls in the room. They realize the choice is not between being themselves and having a career in the trades. That is a false binary and dismantling it is the work she has built her life around.

You Can Be Whatever You Want and Still Pick Up a Wrench

The Tools and Tiaras name is deliberate. It puts in the same breath the thing young girls are told they have to give up and the thing they’re told they can’t have. Judaline refuses both limits.

She tells the story of visiting a charter school of girls who assumed the trades would require them to stop being girly. She told them to check her Instagram. They did. They came back surprised. That surprise, that moment of seeing themselves reflected in someone who has made it work, is exactly why representation matters so much and why Judaline shows up the way she does.

“You don’t have to choose. If you wanna be that girly girl or if you wanna be that girl who dresses like a tomboy sometimes - you could be all of that and still have the money at the same time.” - Judaline Cassidy

What Authentic Allyship Actually Looks Like

No one gets anywhere alone. Judaline is clear about that and grateful for it. She talks about Brian Tatorra, the man she calls a “malie” (male ally), who saw her passion, spoke to the right people, and opened the door to Plumbers Local 371. But what made him different wasn’t just the professional advocacy. He became her friend. She went to his house. She met his family. She later worked on job sites with his sons.

That is the distinction Judaline draws between transactional allyship and the real thing. Authentic allyship is personal. It is intentional. It means not just opening a door but actually caring what happens once someone walks through it.

On job sites where she was the only woman and no one would speak to her, there was always one person who broke ranks. One person who started talking to her, who made everyone else realize she was funny and a hard worker and completely fine. She calls those people heroes and she challenges the listener: you can be that one. You do not have to follow the crowd.

“There was always one guy, one hero who would start talking to me and made everybody else realize - wow, she’s okay. Why are we not talking to her? And you can be that one if you’re listening.” - Judaline Cassidy

Intentionality Is Not Optional

Throughout the conversation, Judaline returns to a word: intentional. Inclusion does not happen by accident. It requires someone to look at a panel, a post, a room, and ask - is everyone represented here?

She does this herself, consistently. And she challenges service organizations to do the same. The pipeline of diverse frontline talent will not fix itself. Organizations have to create the conditions, the access, the visibility, the allyship, the belonging, that make it possible for people to choose the trades and stay.

Tools and Tiaras is Judaline’s contribution to that. The nonprofit has reached thousands of young girls with the simple, powerful message that a career in the trades can be theirs and it can be filled with pride, community, financial stability, and identity.

Paying it forward, for Judaline, is not a side project. It is the point.

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.

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August 10, 2026 | 7 Mins Read

Is Mentoring an Underutilized Aspect of Your Field Service Workforce Strategy?

August 10, 2026 | 7 Mins Read

Is Mentoring an Underutilized Aspect of Your Field Service Workforce Strategy?

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

We talk a lot about the future of the service workforce. And we’re going to do so again here, because it’s one of the biggest challenges the leaders I speak with face.

While the questions are infinite, we tend to focus on a few specific (and somewhat short-sighted) ones: How do we attract younger generations to careers in service? How do we compete for talent when the skills we need are increasingly scarce?

In last week’s article, I reflected on the reality that, while these questions are certainly important, we need to dive deeper if we want sustainable outcomes. As such, we need to explore questions like how do we retain experienced technicians long enough to transfer their knowledge? How do we create an employee experience compelling enough that people choose to build a career in service rather than simply passing through it?

There are many pieces that will play a role in solving the puzzle, including strong leadership, technology, career pathing, flexible work, better compensation, skills development and more.

But in last week’s UNSCRIPTED conversation with Samantha Campbell, Senior Director of Field Services at Brightstar Lottery and a 2025 Stand Out 50 leader, offered an additional puzzle piece that is both remarkably simple and, perhaps, more strategically significant than we give it credit for: “I don’t think we’re going to recruit our way out of this talent gap. We really have to mentor our way out of it.”

That statement stuck with me.

Because it acknowledges an important truth about the workforce challenge facing field service: we don't just have a talent acquisition problem. We have a talent development, knowledge transfer, belonging, and retention problem.

And mentoring has the potential to address all of those things at once.

Mentoring is More Than Developing Individual Talent

Samantha shared her experiences in mentoring from both sides of the relationship.

Throughout her career, she has had three mentors and a sponsor who profoundly influenced her development. What struck me was how she described those relationships—not simply as sources of advice, but as connections that ultimately gave her greater confidence, empathy, and perspective.

Like many find, those relationships didn't necessarily end when the formal mentoring arrangement did.

Her mentors became people she could continue to call for guidance. Some became friends. In other words, the value wasn't confined to a six-month program or a particular set of objectives.

We can approach mentoring as another box to check in a talent development strategy: Match people together. Establish some goals. Schedule meetings. Complete the program.

But the real power of mentoring is much more human than that.

It's having someone who knows your potential, challenges your thinking, helps you see possibilities you may not see yourself and gives you the confidence to take the next step.

And for field service, where experience and institutional knowledge are so valuable, that relationship can have an impact far beyond the individual.

Mentoring as a Tool for Knowledge Transfer

One of Samantha's most compelling observations was the opportunity for mentoring to serve as a mechanism for both knowledge transfer and confidence building.

One of the most significant challenges with the aging field service workforce is that many experienced employees have decades of knowledge that can't simply be captured in a manual or transferred through an online training course.

They know how to troubleshoot the unusual problem. They know what questions to ask a customer. They understand the nuances of a particular environment. They've developed judgment through years of experience.

The Best Mentoring Isn't Necessarily Top-Down

And that brings me to another lesson from Samantha and I’s discussion.

She shared a really fascinating and I think unique experience, in which she and a colleague were asked to mentor their CEO.

The objective was initially to help the CEO better understand the changing expectations of Millennials and Gen Z in the workplace. But the relationship evolved into something much more meaningful.

They researched what other companies were doing with emerging talent, explored how Brightstar could better leverage that talent and ultimately helped create an employee impact group called Next Gen, which continues today.

The experience reinforced something Samantha considers fundamental to effective mentoring: The best leaders remain curious.

Mentoring isn't simply about an experienced person imparting wisdom to someone with less experience. It can—and perhaps should more often than it does—work in both directions.

That is particularly relevant in field service today. The people closest to the work may have perspectives that leaders desperately need to hear. They may understand changing employee expectations, customer behaviors, or technology adoption in ways that aren't readily visible from the executive level.

A frontline employee doesn't need to have 20 years of experience to have something valuable to teach a leader. When mentoring is viewed in this mutually beneficial lens, there’s even more to gain.

If You Want Mentoring to Work, Prioritize and Protect It

When Samantha was mentoring the CEO, the COVID-19 pandemic began, and she assumed the program would be one of the first things to disappear as the business dealt with unprecedented operational pressure.

Instead, the CEO told them the mentoring session was the most important meeting on his calendar; that it would be protected regardless of what else was happening.

Think about the message that sends.

We talk constantly about employee engagement and whether people feel valued. We ask whether employees feel that their voices matter.

There may be few stronger ways to communicate that than to consistently show up.

If mentoring is always the meeting that gets moved when something “more important” comes along, we're telling people exactly where they sit on the priority list.

Samantha's experience was that protecting that time created loyalty and a deep sense of commitment, and she’s protected that time in the same was in all of her mentoring relationships since.

So there’s an opportunity with mentoring beyond launching a program. By protecting it, treating it as crucial, you send a message about how much you value your employees and their perspectives.

Structure Creates Accountability, Humanity Creates Impact

Samantha has been fortunate to work within a fairly structured mentoring program at Brightstar, and she identified several elements that have made it successful:

  1. Establishing a defined timeframe. For external mentoring relationships, she has found six to nine months to be an effective window. A defined endpoint gives both people the opportunity to establish goals and smaller milestones rather than allowing the relationship to become vague or perpetually deferred.
  2. Brightstar also builds in progress notes, feedback and check-ins that are driven by the mentee.
  3. Confidentiality is established from the beginning. That creates the psychological safety required for people to be honest.

But structure alone isn't enough to make mentoring successful.

Samantha's advice to mentors is remarkably simple: turn off the distractions, listen, and be vulnerable. Her phone isn't in the room during mentoring sessions. She makes a deliberate effort not to jump immediately to an answer. Instead, she tries to help the mentee work through their own logic and arrive at their own conclusions.

That distinction matters. The objective of mentoring isn't to create another version of the mentor. It's to help someone become a stronger version of themselves. And sometimes that means resisting the temptation to solve the problem for them.

Samantha highlighting vulnerability is important, because it’s something I think we underestimate in leadership generally.

She tries to demonstrate it early in mentoring relationships because it gives the other person permission to be honest and open as well.

That makes sense. It's difficult to ask someone to share what they're struggling with, where they lack confidence, or what they don't understand if you’re presenting yourself as someone who has everything figured out.

Mentoring works better when it feels like a human relationship rather than a performance review. And in field service, where many employees are accustomed to being measured primarily by operational outcomes, creating space for that kind of conversation can be especially meaningful.

Mentoring as a Broader Workforce Development Strategy

Perhaps the biggest opportunity for organizations isn't simply what happens between mentor and mentee. It's what happens because of those conversations.

At Brightstar, Samantha shared examples of mentoring relationships contributing to changes in communication across the field, culture, talent development, and career mapping.

Emerging talent gains visibility. Ideas move upward. Leaders gain perspective. Employees see that their experiences can influence the organization.

Brightstar has a process for anonymizing themes emerging from mentoring relationships and sharing those themes among mentors and leaders. That means the organization can learn from what employees are saying without compromising the confidentiality of individual mentoring relationships.

But if multiple mentoring relationships begin surfacing similar themes around communication, career progression, tools, culture or workload, the organization should be listening. Mentoring is an incredibly valuable listening mechanism.

And when employees see that something they raised ultimately contributes to positive change—even if their name is never attached to it—that creates another layer of value.

The company is listening to us.

That is where mentoring begins to move from an individual development initiative to a broader workforce strategy.

It’s been said by countless leaders on this platform: there is no future of service without people. We simply must undertake the hard work of determining not just how to attract new talent, but how to build fulfilled employees with long careers.

I loved Samantha’s take on the role mentoring can play in this process.  “Mentoring is one of the most human ways we can build a stronger business,” she said.

As we race to keep pace with technology and changing customer expectations, there is a risk that some of the practices that seem less “innovative”—mentoring, coaching, listening, relationship building—get pushed down the priority list.

But perhaps those are precisely the practices we need to protect.

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Mentorship as a Strategic Advantage to Build Stronger Teams & Improve Retention

August 5, 2026 | 4 Mins Read

Mentorship as a Strategic Advantage to Build Stronger Teams & Improve Retention

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Samantha Campbell, Senior Director of Field Services at Brightstar Lottery and 2025 Stand Out 50 leader, joins Sarah Nicastro for a candid conversation about why mentorship is one of the most underutilized strategic tools in service leadership — and what it actually looks like to get it right.

Samantha Campbell is a military wife, mum of two boys under four, and Senior Director of Field Services at Brightstar Lottery — managing field service across EMEA, Latin America, and Asia Pacific for almost 90 customers globally. She has been with Brightstar for nearly twenty years.

She is also one of our 2025 Stand Out 50 leaders, recognized specifically for the role she has played in mentoring emerging talent. This episode is a conversation about what that means in practice — and why mentorship, done well, is one of the most powerful retention and development tools a service leader has.

The Difference Between a Mentor and a Sponsor

Samantha opens with a distinction that catches many leaders off guard: the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. For years, she referred to one of the most influential figures in her career as her mentor. It was only at a leadership training course — where she was asked to raise her hand if she had a sponsor, and didn’t — that she picked up a book called Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor and realized something important.

She already had one.

“I didn’t even realize I had a sponsor. He was advocating for me in a way I didn’t even know was happening until someone would come out of a room and say, ‘I’ve heard about you.’ He was giving me a seat at the table in meetings I shouldn’t necessarily have been in.” — Samantha Campbell

The distinction matters because it changes how people think about who is in their corner and how to cultivate those relationships. Mentors offer guidance and perspective. Sponsors use their influence to open doors, advocate when you’re not in the room, and put you forward for opportunities before you feel ready. Both matter — but they work differently, and too many people don’t realize the difference until after the fact.

Mentoring a CEO During a Pandemic

One of the most striking stories in this episode is the one Samantha almost glosses over: in 2020, she was asked if she would be interested in reverse mentoring her CEO at Brightstar.

Before thinking about it, she said yes.

The brief was to help the CEO better understand millennials and Generation Z and their changing expectations in the workplace. What emerged was far more significant: deep collaborative research, peer learning, and ultimately the creation of Next Gen — an employee impact group designed to ensure future generational voices are heard, which is still running today.

“This is the most important time on my calendar. We will protect this against everything else — no matter what’s going on with the business.” — Brightstar CEO, on maintaining the reverse mentoring sessions through COVID

Samantha’s takeaway from the experience was profound: mentoring is never just top-down. The best leaders stay curious. They remain students, even when — especially when — they are at the top.

Building Mentorship Programs That Actually Work

Samantha is practical and specific about what makes mentoring programs succeed. Bright Star’s structured approach includes outside expert support, thoughtful matching of mentors and mentees, and clear expectations from the start. But structure alone isn’t what makes it work.

What makes it work is genuine human connection. Samantha describes the one-on-one relationships she has built with mentees — learning what matters to them, what they’re worried about, what they want their career to look like — and how that understanding feeds back into how the organization is led and developed.

“If I’m doing half the job that my mentors did for me, I will be happy with that.” — Samantha Campbell

Why Mentorship Is a Retention Strategy

The link between mentorship and retention is one of the clearest threads in this conversation. Employees who feel seen, invested in, and guided — who have someone in their corner who is genuinely interested in their growth — are less likely to leave.

Samantha is direct: recruiting more people only solves one part of the talent problem. Keeping them is where the real work is. And the organizations doing that best are the ones investing in the human relationships that make people feel like they belong somewhere worth staying.

That investment doesn’t have to be complicated. It starts with a conversation, a commitment of time, and a genuine interest in the person sitting across from you.

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.

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

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

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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.

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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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August 3, 2026 | 9 Mins Read

5 Frontline Insights That Should Shape Your Field Service Talent Strategy

August 3, 2026 | 9 Mins Read

5 Frontline Insights That Should Shape Your Field Service Talent Strategy

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

"Getting 300,000 people into a training program is not the same thing as getting 300,000 people into a career."
— Andrew Brown, Founder and CEO of Trades Media LLC

There have been numerous recent headlines about significant investments geared toward addressing the massive need for more skilled workers. Google recently announced a $50 million investment to help prepare more than 300,000 American workers across more than 20 states.

Maggie Johnson, Global Head of Google.org says, “Building and maintaining the infrastructure for America's future requires a massive, coordinated workforce of skilled tradespeople — from the welders and pipefitters securing complex cooling systems, to the electricians and fiber technicians powering advanced network grids. These jobs offer high-wage careers that can support local communities. There are hundreds of thousands of skilled trade roles currently open across the U.S waiting to be filled.”

Around the same time, Meta announced its America’s Workforce Academy (AWA) initiative in which it’ll invest $115 million in the first year. The program, which will launch in Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana, and Texas as the 2026 pilot locations, not only provides free training but also offers a guaranteed job for graduates.

Earlier in 2026, BlackRock’s Future Builders initiative was announced as a $100 million philanthropic initiative to reach 50,000 Americans with training and support to address urgent labor needs and promising to build long-term financial security for workers.

“Throughout our history, tradespeople have built our country,” said Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of BlackRock in the release. “America needs an estimated $10 trillion in infrastructure investment by 2033 to modernize aging systems and build new energy, digital, and AI infrastructure. Capital alone is not enough – people are central to building our nation’s future. By bringing policymakers, corporate leaders and labor champions together, we’re helping ensure this growth delivers shared prosperity and greater economic mobility for more Americans.”

Recruitment is Only One Piece of the Puzzle

While it’s great to see programs like those outlined above being introduced, Andrew Brown, founder and CEO of Trades Media LLC, makes an excellent point in this Contractor Magazine article. He cautions, “Getting 300,000 people into a training program is not the same thing as getting 300,000 people into a career.”

Not only do I agree, but I’d take that point a step further – it isn’t the same as getting 300,000 people into a career, but even if it were – what will we do to keep them there?

BlackRock, Google, Meta and the like have a vested interest in the creation of programs like what’s outlined above. And that’s OK – to the extent they expand awareness of the career potential of many of these roles, in addition to the individuals they’ll directly help, it’s a win/win.

But there’s a sustainability piece of this puzzle that needs to be considered; recruiting more frontline workers only solves one part of the problem – arguably the easier part. Retention – the responsibility of the future employers of this talent - deserves equal, if not more, attention. This is a complex challenge because the expectations and desires of new talent entering the workforce differs from that of the talent aging out.

Companies don’t have an easy task at hand in shaping a strategy not only to create an employee experience that will flow over to the customer experience, but also to keep strong talent engaged, nurtured, and satisfied. But they must.

Tapping into the Voice of the Frontline

While the solution is individual to each organization, I do think there’s a wealth of insight that is often overlooked – the voice of the frontline. If leaders were to want to understand what matters most, what challenges are most difficult, what the organization does especially well, or what is lacking from the employee experience – they could unlock a treasure trove of perspective by simply asking.

This isn’t to say leaders don’t listen to the frontline – I think the good ones do. But when it comes to creating a talent strategy that’s fit for purpose in the future of service work, I think many avoid asking the questions because they’re unsure what to do with the answers. While I can empathize, ignoring the problem won’t make it go away.

In March we introduced a new monthly series of our weekly UNSCRIPTED podcast – Frontline UNSCRIPTED. After years of interviewing service leaders, I’ve learned so much after just a few short months of interviews with frontline talent. And it’s made me realize how much knowledge they hold, not only related to the problems they are responsible for solving each and every day, but that leaders could tap into to determine what’s likely to be successful in keeping employees happy and effective.

Understanding What Matters to Your Target Talent

As I look back through the four episodes we’ve released so far, there are already numerous insights to influence change. Here are five truths shared by our initial guests that send a strong signal to leaders about what matters most (which should influence how the talent strategy evolves):

  • A sense of purpose matters – and it motivates. In episode number one, Phil Manchester, Service Team Lead at AirTight FaciliTech spoke about what he loves most about his work. “I mean, it’s never good that someone has a problem, but it’s always a good feeling when you go in there and help. When they're sweating because it's 95 degrees out or their business is about to shut down, and you go in and you figure out what's wrong and fix it,” he explains. “You’ve made their day – they’re always so happy. You know? And that’s such a good feeling. Like, I didn’t save the world – but I definitely made their day better, which makes me feel better, and it makes me proud of what I’m doing.”

This sense of accomplishment – of making a difference – is appealing. And, as Phil mentions, it doesn’t have to be on the grandest of scales – service keeps the world running in a variety of ways; it’s the sense of fulfillment that comes from helping others that is significant, not necessarily the type of job being done.

  • One-size-fits-all leadership is out. Another really insightful point that came up during my conversation with Phil is the reality that today’s leaders must put in more effort to meet people where they are. In his team lead role, he’s learned a lot about communication preferences and has taken the onus to tailor his approach.

“With the older age group, people are a little bit more blunt a lot of the time, and you can just be straightforward to the point. Like – alright, let’s get off the phone – we don’t need to be talking all day. Which I like. With some of the younger guys, things have to be set a little nicer and maybe tiptoed around a little bit, which is not a problem. Everybody’s just a little different and learning that is the hardest part,” Phil explains. “If you're set in the ways of being too blunt and too honest and just here's your information, bye; it's not going to work for the younger generation. They want they want a little bit more of the why behind things. The younger guys on my team, I tell them to go do something and they ask why; why am I doing that? They don’t know why – so, I’ll show them, we’ll go over it, and I’ll explain why we do what we do. You can take this as someone talking back to you, or you can take it as them wanting to learn. They don’t want to just be told what to do, they want to understand. It presents its challenges, but it’s a good thing – it means they’re hungry for knowledge, and I love that.”

  • A path for growth is crucial. In our second episode, Jacob Brumbelow, a service technician at MaxAir Mechanical, spoke about the fact that having opportunities to grow are something he prioritizes in any career decision. “Growth my number one in terms of what’s important. If there's a ceiling, it’s a no for me,” he says. “In this industry, it feels like there's so many different opportunities for growth to develop myself to be the best me that I can be. And that's something that I really value, and which pulls me forward, that personal growth. Of course, how the company treats their employees, how they value them, matters too. The company I’m at does a great job of making you feel seen, listening to your thoughts and opinions, and including you.”

There’s plenty of data that supports this desire is widely shared. What I think companies should try harder to understand is how progression is a motivating factor. Often leaders assume this drive is a delusional ‘race to the top’ or tied directly to seeking dollars, but in reality, progression offers a sense of achievement, development, and accomplishment. This emotional fulfillment isn’t the only objective, but it would be worthwhile to consider it further.

Further, companies need to determine a path for growth that isn’t dependent on promoting each field engineer to supervisor to manager to director and so forth. Not every frontline employee that desires progression wants to manage a team – and not every service leader who’s been given a team to lead should have been. Quality of leadership is so important in today’s ever-changing landscape; companies need to adapt accordingly.

  • Flexibility and work-life balance need to be reimagined. In our third episode, I spoke with Fernando Ferreyra, Service Engineer for the Technical Solutions Center at QuidelOrtho, who used to be a field engineer and then took his current remote role. “This role has the benefit of work-life balance. Now I get to work from home, which was really appealing to me,” he says. “I was already in this position when my wife decided to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner. Now that I'm working from home, it's easier for her to go back into her career.”

Companies will be well-served to put more time and effort into considering how to leverage today’s digital capabilities to offer greater flexibility to the frontline. Individuals want to feel some autonomy – there are plenty of options to provide that sense in a way that’s aligned to what the company needs to achieve. Tomorrow’s talent will demand it, in my opinion.

  • In the AI era, the impact of the soft (or human) skills of the frontline are magnified. For our fourth episode, I talked with Marina George, who at the time was a Field Service Engineer at Oxford Instruments, about her path into field service and what she’s learned in the role. She came in well-prepared technically, but less so from a soft skills perspective.

“So, I came in, and I know the technical details. And I know how academia works, but everybody has so many different personalities and different goals. There is a really large range of personalities and also priorities from customers,” she says. “The biggest piece of advice that I got was to just be myself. You don't need to perform. You don't need to have a specific way to work with customers. If you just come to the customer as yourself, like another human being and say, okay. Number one, I’m listening. I hear what you're saying. This is our plan. And then following up on the plan. That was really important advice, because in our tool belt we have all of these sophisticated skills, but I wasn’t really sure how to act or what to say.”

Marina’s experience is food for thought when we consider not only the historical tendency to not provide enough soft skills training, but how the frontline role will evolve as a result of AI and automation. I’d venture to guess those human skills become the priority, and companies should be both seeking and supporting talent in ways that align.

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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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July 27, 2026 | 3 Mins Read

Investing in Service-Led Growth

July 27, 2026 | 3 Mins Read

Investing in Service-Led Growth

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

Last week, Otis reported its Q2 earnings. Via LinkedIn, Chair and CEO Judy Marks credited “strong momentum in our service business helped drive a solid second quarter.” She also shared that “as we look to the second half of the year, we are taking a measured approach while remaining confident in the durability of our service-led growth model. Continued investments in service quality, pricing initiatives and digital technology are strengthening execution across our global operations and creating a foundation for sustainable growth and long-term value creation.”

On the company’s website, the news release states that for Q2, net sales were up 7% and organic sales up 6%, driven by service net sales up 11% with organic sales up 9%. In the release, Marks also states, “We remain confident in the long-term growth opportunities across our service portfolio. An aging installed base and our customers' increasing focus on reliability, uptime and service quality are driving favorable demand in both modernization and repair, contributing to drive sustained growth and value creation."

The Delta Between Service Potential and Execution

Reading this news took my mind right back to the findings of the joint research we conducted in late 2025 with Simon-Kucher. That research, worth digging into if you haven’t, illustrated the following:

  • The positive sentiment about the opportunity for service-led growth
  • The gap between the potential that exists and the services being delivered today (only 2% of respondents currently offered outcomes-based services)
  • The challenges that exist in bridging that gap, which range from business identity and digital sophistication to workforce woes and commercial immaturity

That research acted as a springboard for a variety of discussions on the themes throughout, including a series of podcast conversation where leaders across industries weighed in and shared insights from their businesses:

Understanding Common Challenges

While it’s been really interesting to learn more about how different companies approach service-led growth, it’s particularly insightful to understand where the common challenges lie. In a leadership summit at Simon-Kucher’s NYC office in February, the conversation homed in on a major one: defining the field technician’s role in the sales process.

This topic became the premise for a workshop that the Simon-Kucher team ran at our Future of Field Service Live event in NYC in June, again sparking strong engagement from the leaders in attendance and a variety of ideas on what works best (and what won’t work at all). The Simon-Kucher team recently published this article on how to design field service compensation that drives value without breaking trust.

While the role the frontline plays in sales growth is a big decision, it’s far from the only challenge to solve. Foundationally, a business has to agree and align on the service potential and what service-led growth will require and entail. The research also showed how businesses who are lagging in digital sophistication will struggle to achieve growth goals without a modern and capable tech stack in place.

What More Motivation is Needed?

Let’s revisit the quote above from Marks:

We remain confident in the long-term growth opportunities across our service portfolio. An aging installed base and our customers' increasing focus on reliability, uptime and service quality are driving favorable demand in both modernization and repair, contributing to drive sustained growth and value creation.

She speaks directly to what customers are seeking: reliability, uptime, and service quality. Those demands are not unique to Otis’ industry. Nor are the long-term growth opportunities that she references.

I’m not sure what more motivation businesses need to seize the service potential – to invest in service-led growth. While some continue to ponder the opportunities or the path or the play or let strong emotional ties to the business’s product legacy prevent forward progress, companies like Otis are doubling down.

And there are very clear cues in Judy’s wording to what it takes:

  • A measured approach
  • Continued investments
  • Digital technology

See, service growth doesn’t come without proper investment. Of mindset, vision, strategy, digital capabilities, change leadership, workforce development, and so on. The businesses of tomorrow will reap the seeds they are sowing today - what will your service investment yield?

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July 20, 2026 | 4 Mins Read

6 Specific Superpowers of Stand Out Service Leaders

July 20, 2026 | 4 Mins Read

6 Specific Superpowers of Stand Out Service Leaders

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

Last week, Berend Booms of Future of Assets published a podcast with guest Brianna Sylver, author of the book Leading Through Freefall, How Innovators Turn Turbulence into Trust. The episode centered around how leaders can find their superpower(s) and it was excellent food for thought.

Their discussion left me thinking about the superpowers I’ve witnessed among service leaders and what commonalities exist. Of course, each individual person, and leader, has superpowers all their own – leaning into your own unique authenticity I believe is an important superpower in and of itself.

But having spent time with hundreds of service leaders who I respect and admire, there are some other specific superpowers that seem to surface time and again. Or perhaps the better way to put it is that these seem to be practices and behaviors that nurture or even foster their leadership superpowers. In my observation, it’s the following actions that stand-out service leaders not only embrace but honor and protect.

#1: Non-Negotiable Investment in Facetime

These service leaders don’t take part in ride-alongs as a check-box exercise or during a once-a-year PR field trip. Rather, they understand that any leadership superpower they have is cultivated by the relationships built with in-person interactions and the understanding gleaned from spending ample time amongst the real-world experiences and challenges.

#2: Assiduous Problem Solving

Sure, all leaders (at least hypothetically) are problem solving. But service leaders problem solve tirelessly and in a multi-faceted context.

In one of my all-time favorite podcast quotes, retired service leader Tim Spencer said, “Staying put is the same as moving backwards. I tried to find something, always, that needed a fix. And I looked to others to help me figure it out. Then you iterate or innovate on that or find the next business problem to solve. A leader is always on the hunt for the next problem to solve, because every business has a problem somewhere. If you think you don’t, well, there it is.”

This is true in solving customer problems, in solving the challenges your teams face in servicing your customers, and in ensuring technology investments are made that align to the real-world problems that need addressed.

#3: Persistent Perspective

All that problem solving could weigh on someone, right? Not these leaders, they are built differently. There’s a relentless perspective they have; a deep understanding that at the root cause of each problem lies opportunity.

Rather than become burdened by the constant flow of problems to solve, they are energized by what lies beneath. Today’s customer challenges are tomorrow’s value proposition; today’s frontline woe is tomorrow’s chance to improve performance and retention.

#4: Expert Stakeholder Translation

 Service leaders have a unique position of context – intimately understanding business objectives, customer needs, and frontline sentiment. Those who hone expertise in translating among or between those viewpoints see the greatest success.

A leader who can not only articulate customer needs but shed light on how the company could better meet those needs positions service as potential for growth. A leader who can communicate the company’s need for a certain change in terms of a “why” that the frontline grasps yields better acceptance and engagement.

#5: Deeply People-Centric

“Service is a people business,” is a statement that these service leaders not only say but truly believe. Yes, they are looking at how to incorporate AI and embrace the next levels of digital sophistication – but to amplify the talents of their people, not to replace them.

Service leaders know that customers build relationships to and loyalty with individuals, not systems, products, or a brand. They reflect this understanding in how they maintain relationships with their team, how they encourage relationships among teams, and how they empower teams to serve customers with not only efficiency but personality.  

#6: Master Multi-Taskers

Finally, these leaders are master multitaskers. They hold the company objectives and customer view in parallel. They optimize today’s business while owning a vision for the future. They manage today’s workforce while reimagining what tomorrow’s needs. They execute using existing tech stacks while modernizing to better meet today (and tomorrow’s) demands. And so much more!

These reasons (and more) are why we’re proud to celebrate service leaders each year with our Stand Out 50 leadership awards. Nominations close this Friday, July 24th so if you think of a service superhero when you read this article, recognize them today here: https://www.futureoffieldservice.com/stand-out-50/

You can listen to the conversation with Berend and Brianna that inspired this article here.

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July 16, 2026 | 4 Mins Read

Finding Your Leadership Superpower: A Conversation with Brianna Sylver, Sylver Consulting 

July 16, 2026 | 4 Mins Read

Finding Your Leadership Superpower: A Conversation with Brianna Sylver, Sylver Consulting 

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Brianna Sylver, Founder and President of Sylver Consulting, on Assets UNSCRIPTED Episode 6

Change rarely fails because the technology doesn’t work. It fails because the people within the system were never truly brought along. In asset-intensive industries, where implementations are complex, stakes are high, and resistance can be deeply embedded, this distinction matters more than most change programs acknowledge. The question worth asking is not just what needs to change — but what leadership capability does that change demand?

In this episode of Assets UNSCRIPTED, Berend Booms sits down with Brianna Sylver, founder and president of Sylver Consulting and bestselling author of Leading Through Freefall: How Innovators Turn Turbulence Into Trust. With twenty years of consulting experience working with Fortune 500 organizations, Brianna specializes in closing the gap between organizational intent and action — the space where most change initiatives quietly stall.

The conversation explores how to identify your leadership superpower, why every change initiative is both a technical and an adaptive leadership challenge, and how to manage the emotional energy of teams navigating uncertainty. Brianna shares practical frameworks — including the Core Value Offer, Treasure Trash Hope Fear, and assumption-based prototyping — and explains why taking a strategic pause is often the fastest route to meaningful progress. Watch the full episode on YouTube, or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Finding Your Leadership Superpower

Brianna opens with a concept that sits at the heart of her work: the idea that every leader has a unique gift — a superpower — and the job is to find it. Her own is clarity. Not the most obvious leadership trait, perhaps, but one that transformed how she showed up once she recognized it. She describes the Core Value Offer exercise she developed: journaling about moments when you felt most fully yourself, looking for patterns, and landing on the one word that captures what you are uniquely made to give. “That was super eye opening for me,” she reflects, “because not everybody sees it the way that you see it. That is your gift. That is your value.”

The Gap Between Intent and Action

One of the most persistent patterns Brianna observes across organizations is the gap between stated intention and actual behavior. Visions are set, strategies are aligned, goals are communicated — and then the mobilization falls apart. The reason, she argues, is that most organizations rush to address the technical challenges of change and avoid the adaptive ones. The technical challenges are concrete: do you have the budget, the system, the resources? The adaptive challenges are harder: the workflow changes, the process redesigns, the resistance, the fear. In asset management, where technology deployments are frequent and people systems are complex, this distinction is particularly consequential.

Leading the Emotional Energy of Change

Brianna draws on Kubler Ross’s grief curve to explain how people move through change: resistance, anger, bargaining, overwhelm, and eventually acceptance and motivation. Her argument is that leaders need to accept, as a core part of their role, the responsibility to manage this emotional journey — for themselves, their teams, and their stakeholders. “As we start this new initiative, there’s likely to be resistance,” she explains. “How do I proactively be ahead of that resistance? How do I reactively embrace that resistance with grace versus avoidance?”

The Treasure, Trash, Hope, Fear Framework

When an organization faces unwanted change, the instinct is often to move fast. Brianna offers a different approach: a structured thirty-minute team exercise that asks what you want to treasure from what came before, what you want to discard, what you hope the change might unlock, and what you genuinely fear. The power of the exercise lies not in the answers themselves, but in what it creates: space. A moment of deliberate reflection before the rush to action. “It gives you that strategic pause,” she says, “to think about it holistically.”

Keeping Humans in the Loop During AI Transformation

The conversation turns to AI, and Brianna’s view is clear: most organizations are introducing AI as a technical initiative while bypassing the adaptive work entirely. Her recommendation is an assumptions-based prototyping process: map every assumption behind the AI deployment, identify the ones that are both critical to success and uncertain, and build small test-and-learn experiments around those. The goal is not to slow things down but to derisk the implementation and ensure the people who will use it have a genuine voice in how it takes shape. “You are engaging them in the technological revolution instead of just handing it to them,” she says, “and saying now do this.”

“Oftentimes the biggest breakthroughs don’t come from moving faster — they come from taking a strategic pause.” - Brianna Sylver, Founder & President, Sylver Consulting

Assets UNSCRIPTED is the Future of Assets podcast series hosted by Berend Booms. Each episode brings together leaders from across asset-intensive industries for authentic, unscripted conversations on the ideas, challenges, and innovations shaping the future of asset management. New episodes are published on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

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July 13, 2026 | 4 Mins Read

Striking Out: What a 12U Baseball Team Taught Me About Leadership, Failure, and Culture

July 13, 2026 | 4 Mins Read

Striking Out: What a 12U Baseball Team Taught Me About Leadership, Failure, and Culture

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

I’ve just got home from watching my son Evan’s second-to-last baseball game of the season. He’s played soccer/football and basketball for years but decided just last fall to try out baseball – this is his second season, on a 12U team named the Mighty Ducks. Game after game we’ve watched him try with all he’s got to get a hit, but all season long that hit has eluded him.

He’s been walked numerous times (if you’ve not witnessed it, kid-pitch baseball at the 10–12-year-old age isn’t always smooth) but has struck out plenty. Striking out is hard, but I’d argue watching your young son strike out is even harder. Every game he goes in hopeful he’ll make it happen, but thus far he’s not had success (he did have a couple hits his first season, so I’m not quite sure what it’s all about).

As he heads up to bat, I hold my breath hoping for him he cracks one – just one! And tonight, with the season winding down, I was reflecting on a few things.

Staying Positive

One is how I handle “striking out” – how any of us, as individuals, deal with our shortcomings. I’ve been really proud of how Evan has stayed committed, focused, and generally positive.

Last week I recorded a podcast that I’m excited for you to listen to next month (if you didn’t see, we’re taking the month of July off from publishing new episodes) with rockstar union plumber, nonprofit founder, and tradeswoman evangelist Judaline Cassidy. She said to me that one of her mantras is, “today’s no is tomorrow’s yes.” But she was also clear that having that mindset doesn’t mean a no (or a strike out) is easy or doesn’t hurt. It does hurt, but she keeps going.

We talk often about how much there is to learn from failure – but in many instances, that learning isn’t automatic; it requires effort. It’s far easier to blame external factors than it is to look inward. Owning your strike out, reflecting on what you can do differently, and trying just as hard the next time takes character.

The Impact of Strong Leadership

But as I watched Evan’s game unfold tonight, I couldn’t help but think about the impact of how coaches (or leaders) handle failure and what that does to the morale (or culture) of the team. Leadership sets the tone, and the Mighty Ducks coaches have set the bar high.

They’ve stayed steady, offered constructive feedback, and have always maintained a positive tone. They’ve encouraged risk-taking and, when some risks inevitably fail, have celebrated the effort over the outcome – building confidence among these young kids to keep aiming high. Perhaps most importantly to my mama heart, they’ve offered endless, genuine encouragement.

Their leadership has had a ripple effect across the team that has been amazing to watch. These boys cheer each other on at every at-bat; Evan’s teammates have not once shown frustration at his striking out. Even when the bases are loaded and he’s the third out, they tell him good try and give him a high-five. They all do this for one another, celebrating each other’s successes and supporting one another through moments of failure. The result is a team where every individual feels they belong and an environment where everyone is comfortable trying their best.

While we talk a lot about it “being OK to fail,” leadership in action often doesn’t back up the words. In this podcast with Gyner Ozgul, CEO of Fortis Fire and Safety, we explore some of the “untold truths” of service leadership. We discuss the risk of avoiding failure, but also how some leaders inadvertently create more anxiety among the workforce with failure-is-ok platitudes.

Gyner says, “If you don't define the boundaries as a leader for that employee, you may think you're empowering them to go do something cool and, you know, do it on their own and learn. But what you're also doing in parallel is you're creating a lot of anxiety for that person.” Your team needs to know how success is defined, what parameters around failure will be tolerated, and how you’ll support them along the way.

While it’s been challenging for me to see Evan struggle to get a hit this season, it’s been heartwarming to see how the support of strong leadership has helped him grow.

Speaking of strong leadership, one of the initiatives I’ll be putting time into during our podcast sabbatical is the Stand Out 50 Leadership Awards. Nominations are open until July 24th; get yours in before it’s too late!

We’ll announce this year’s winners live from our London event on September 24th – we’ve booked a wonderful venue and will publish the agenda soon; save your spot to join us.

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June 29, 2026 | 5 Mins Read

Service Organization vs. Service Business: The Mindset Distinction that Defines Opportunity

June 29, 2026 | 5 Mins Read

Service Organization vs. Service Business: The Mindset Distinction that Defines Opportunity

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For years, service leaders have focused on optimizing their own operations. Improve response times. Increase first-time fix rates. Drive technician productivity. Improve customer satisfaction scores.

Yes, those priorities remain important—essential, in fact. The challenge is that they are no longer enough.

Not long ago, operational excellence was a competitive differentiator. Today, it's table stakes. Customers expect providers to deliver efficient, reliable service. They expect organizations to leverage technology, improve productivity, and continuously enhance performance.

Businesses who are leading the way in service today and that will excel in the years ahead understand that success doesn’t hinge on who can optimize their own businesses best but is won by those that help their customers optimize theirs.

This topic was the focus of a recent conversation I had with Brad Haeberle, EVP of Services for Smart Infrastructure Buildings at Siemens. Throughout our discussion, Brad shared a perspective that I believe represents an important evolution in how service leaders think about growth, innovation, and value creation.

The Shift from Internal Service Metrics to Delivering Customer Outcomes

One of the most impactful observations Brad shared was how his perspective has evolved over time. Like many service leaders, he spent years focused on optimizing service delivery. But a defining moment during the 2008 financial crisis changed the way he thought about customer value.

As organizations faced budget pressures, customers began asking difficult questions. "What am I actually getting from this contract?" The answers, Brad recognized, often centered on tasks being performed rather than outcomes being achieved.

That experience fundamentally changed his approach.

Today, he believes service organizations need to begin with a different question entirely: "What is the KPI that your customer is using to run their business? And how is that affecting the mission of their business?"

We’ve all heard “outside-in” countless times, and it sounds simple. But many service organizations still spend the majority of their time discussing internal metrics. Utilization. First-time fix. SLA compliance. Cost reduction. Productivity.

Again, these metrics matter. But customers don't wake up each morning thinking about your utilization rate. They wake up thinking about their own objectives.

They think about reducing costs, improving efficiency, managing workforce challenges, minimizing risk, achieving sustainability goals, or driving revenue growth. The more closely service organizations align their offerings to those priorities, the more indispensable they become.

Customer Centricity Requires Curiosity—And Aligned Action

Another point from our discussion challenged a common assumption about customer-centricity. Organizations often talk about listening to customers, gathering feedback, and responding to requests. Those activities are important. But Brad made an important distinction.

"Customers can't tell you what they want,” he said. “They can tell you their problems."

When you think about the most transformative innovations in any industry, customers rarely design the solution themselves. What they articulate is the challenge.

It’s the responsibility of the service organization to understand those challenges deeply enough to envision new possibilities.

This requires more than surveys or quarterly business reviews. It requires observation. It requires curiosity. And it requires combining customer insight with domain expertise and emerging technological capabilities.

And Brad offered an important reminder as he described how some of the most meaningful innovations emerge from frontline interactions—a technician solving a customer problem in a unique way or a salesperson recognizing an unmet need.

Those moments may not immediately appear groundbreaking. But when organizations create mechanisms to capture, scale, and refine those ideas, they often become the foundation for entirely new service offerings.

The Difference Between a Service Organization and a Service Business

While I often use the terms service organization and service business interchangeably, Brad’s insights illustrate the clear difference between the two.

A service organization focuses on delivering services efficiently.

A service business focuses on creating growth through services.

The difference is significant, first in mindset and then in the results that follow.

Organizations focused solely on operational delivery often spend most of their energy improving existing offerings.

Service businesses are constantly looking beyond what exists today.

They ask questions such as:

  • What customer challenges remain unsolved?
  • What adjacent opportunities exist?
  • How can we create entirely new sources of value?
  • What markets could we serve differently?

As Brad explained, sustainable growth requires organizations to continuously place calculated bets on new ideas and opportunities. Growth doesn't happen by maintaining the status quo.

It comes from identifying opportunities that competitors haven't recognized yet and creating solutions that help customers achieve better outcomes. That mindset becomes increasingly important as technology accelerates and customer expectations continue to evolve.

Digital Is Most Powerful When It Multiplies Human Expertise

No conversation about the future of service would be complete without discussing digital transformation. And for service businesses, the next era of digital intelligence offers an expanded opportunity to scale customer outcomes.

Brad views digital as a multiplier. At Siemens, significant effort has gone into building digital capabilities that allow teams to monitor systems remotely, analyze performance, identify issues proactively, and generate recommendations before a technician ever arrives onsite.

Instead of spending valuable time gathering information and diagnosing issues, technicians can focus on solving problems and creating value. As Brad described it, technicians increasingly arrive onsite already knowing where issues exist and what actions are most likely to resolve them.

The result is faster outcomes for customers and more impactful work for employees.

Staying Relevant Requires Constant Learning

Perhaps my favorite part of the conversation came toward the end when we discussed change fatigue.

Every organization is navigating tremendous transformation right now. AI is evolving rapidly. Customer expectations continue to rise. Business models are shifting. And leaders are under pressure to keep moving forward.

Brad acknowledged that maintaining momentum isn't always easy. But he also shared a perspective that I believe is critical for service leaders: Organizations that continue learning are organizations that continue growing.

That learning doesn't happen exclusively through formal programs or strategic planning sessions. It happens through customer conversations. It happens through peer discussions. It happens through industry events. It happens through experimentation. And sometimes it happens by simply paying attention to ideas that originate outside your own industry.

Throughout our conversation, one theme remained consistent: curiosity creates opportunity. Organizations that stay curious are more likely to spot emerging trends, identify unmet customer needs, and recognize new paths for growth.

The organizations that will thrive in the years ahead will be those that combine operational excellence with deep customer understanding.

They will move beyond optimizing their own businesses and focus on helping customers optimize theirs.

Because in a world where operational excellence is increasingly expected, creating customer outcomes—not simply delivering service—becomes the true competitive advantage.

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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.

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