sarah.nicastro@ifs.com, Author at Future of Field Service

Episode 284

In this episode of the Unscripted Podcast, host Sarah Nicastro gives an update on the upcoming announcement of the Future of Field Service Stand Out 50 leadership awards, a look into plans for Future of Field Service x IFS Unleashed, and a heads up on upcoming research to watch for.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Episode Highlights:

Sarah - 00:00:00:

I just wanted to take the opportunity to fill you in on some of the things that are coming up and to make sure that you know to keep an eye out for the Standout 50 announcement and to hopefully help us in celebrating and acknowledging the hard work that service leaders do and the impact that they're having on so many. And that's true not only of the 50 that we worked hard to select, but everyone that was nominated and even those who were not.

Welcome to the UNSCRIPTED Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Actually, today I'm also the guest or just doing a solo episode. I wanted to record a quick solo. I realize it's been quite a while since I've done so, and there's been some exciting things that myself and the team have been working on, and I thought it would be good to just give our listeners a little bit of an update on some of the things that will be coming up for you to keep an eye out for and just share some of the things that we've been hard at work at that we're really excited about. So for those of you that follow along regularly, you'll know that for the past few years, we've been doing the Future of Field Service live tour. This year, we have had or will have three events. We did our first event in Stockholm, our second event in Cologne, Germany, and we are gearing up for our third event, which will be very different from the others, but I think a whole lot of fun. So we are actually doing sort of an event within the event at IFS Unleashed, which is IFS's global conference taking place in Orlando, October 14th through the 18th at the Marriott World Center. So Future of Field Service has some of its own content and networking opportunities and things like that taking place throughout the week. So we'll be recording two live podcasts on site that you will get to listen to and be able to keep an eye out for. We're hosting three drop-in clinics. So sort of a bit like a roundtable where we're picking certain topics and having a working conversation around those topics in a way that the folks participating can leave with hopefully some good perspective and some actionable insights. And probably the thing I'm most excited for is on October, 17th at the event, we will officially announce the Future of Field Service Standout 50. So hopefully some of you have seen the information on that. It's something that we were promoting at the beginning of summer. So it is a way to acknowledge the hard work and impact service leaders are having within their businesses or their teams, their customers, their companies, and the industry at large. So we had a nomination period where anyone could nominate a leader that they work for, work with, know, etc. And myself, along with Dot Mynahan, who was with Otis Elevator for more than 30 years, running field service, John Carroll, who leads the service council community, and then Dr. Tim Baines, who is the executive director of the advanced services group at Aston Business School. The four of us served as the judges for the awards. So we went through all of the nominations and landed on the top 50. So the Standout 50. And that list will be announced on October 17th live at IFS Unleashed. And some of the folks will be with us in person. Others won't. That'll really just be the official announcement of that list. And then we have a variety of things planned after to recognize and acknowledge those 50 leaders and celebrate the impact that they've had on their teams, their peers, their companies, and the industry. I'm really excited that's coming up. One of the other big projects that we've been doing with, or alongside the Standout 50, is a research report that we will be publishing around the same time. So what we wanted to do is take the opportunity to pick the brains, if you will, of these 50 leaders who have been nominated and selected to represent stellar leadership in service and understand what is on their minds. So when we were thinking about what would we want to ask and how would we want to structure a research piece, I kept coming back in my mind to, you know, when I'm interviewing people. And they talk about sort of these different pillars of what's important to them in service leadership. There's the people, process, technology trifecta that is commonly referred to. So we decided to structure the survey that way. So we have a set of questions around people, process, and technology, and getting their perspective on what is important in each of those categories, a pulse check, if you will, on where they are at in topics that relate to those categories and where their businesses are at, and also taking a look ahead at some of the trends that are top of mind or innovations that are top of mind for them. So we will be alongside announcing the Standout 50. We will be able to share this report that really captures their perspective at this time on what is important. What are the challenges? What are the opportunities? What do they foresee in the future? And use that as a way to share some of their knowledge with our broader audience. I'm really excited for that as well. And that's something that you will be able to find on futurefieldservice.com when it is published. And of course, we'll share. I am personally also very excited for IFS Unleashed. So while we will be doing some of our own content at our event within the event, I will, of course, also be partaking in all of the IFS content and activities throughout the week as well. So there's a great agenda in place. The thing that I'm most excited for is eight-time Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt is giving a keynote. And I'm really excited to hear what he has to say at the IFS Unleashed event in 2022, was it? No, 23. Last year. I can't keep track. The last one that happened, Michael Phelps spoke, and I found his interview so impactful. So I'm really excited for that session. Gary Player, famous golfer, will also be there. And the MIT Center for Information Systems Research is doing an AI readiness program, which I think will be really insightful and helpful for folks that are attending. So I'm excited for that as well. And then perhaps most exciting of all, we are taking the opportunity, since I will be in Orlando, to take the kids to Disney. Eric, Evan, and Ellis are flying down after the event to gear up for some fun and go to Disney. We will be there for Ellis' eighth birthday, which he's excited for. But he has also told me that he is happy we'll be at Disney, but he still wants to have a birthday party when we come home. So I'm pulling double duty on that. But I'm excited to have a week of hard work and a lot of engagement with the Future of Field Service community, with the IFS customer base, and then finish it off with my family coming to join me and having some fun. So it'll be the best of both worlds. So I just wanted to take the opportunity to fill you in on some of the things that are coming up and to make sure that you know to keep an eye out for the Standout 50 announcement and to hopefully help us in celebrating and acknowledging the hard work that service leaders do and the impact that they're having on so many. And that's true, not only of the 50 that we worked hard to select, but everyone that was nominated and even those who were not. I hope you'll keep an eye out for that and also for the research piece that we'll be doing alongside so that you can really think about what's top of mind for these folks and how that compares with what's going on in your brains and in your organizations and in your industries, etc. So if you want to have a look at the IFS Unleashed agenda and just get an idea of what's going on there, if it's something that you might be interested in participating in, you can do that at ifsunleashed.com. Otherwise, the Standout 50 announcement, the Standout 50 research piece will both be available in due time on futureoffieldservice.com. And of course, in the background of all of the exciting work around those initiatives, we are continuing to crank out our weekly articles and this weekly podcast. So those will keep coming as well. As far as UNSCRIPTED goes, you've found us if you're listening to this, which is wonderful. But you can always find the episodes on futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find the video versions on YouTube. And then if you regularly use Apple or Spotify, you can find and subscribe to the podcast there as well so that you don't miss anything. So a lot of fun and exciting things going on. A lot of really good insights and information that will be coming out to our community in the late October timeframe. So I look forward to bringing that all to you and keeping our regularly scheduled programming going in the meantime. I hope you're all well and stay tuned for more soon. You can find anything you need and all the ways to get in touch at futureoffieldservice.com. The podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

A couple of weeks ago I welcomed to the UNSCRIPTED podcast Tim Spencer, VP of North American Operations at Interblock Gaming for what turned out to be one of my favorite conversations to date. Tim is well known in the field service space for the work he’s done innovating within the service function at companies like BUNN, Scientific Games, WMS Gaming, ACCO Brands and Taylor.

What I’ve always appreciated about Tim is that he stands out from many of his peers – older, tenured leaders – in that he has little interest in the status quo. I’ve watched many of his peers speak on stages and belabor the challenges of actually innovating or defend their decisions to continue “doing what’s working” in a variety of areas while Tim gives insights on embracing new technologies, modernizing the talent approach, and finding new ways to meet today’s customer demands.

So, I was excited to welcome him onto the podcast to discuss what, in his view, enables a long-time leader to avoid falling into the warm embrace of the familiar and instead push ahead to continue to evolve. Within our discussion, Tim humbly shared his views on what aspects of service and leadership have stayed the same over his career, what’s changed, and how he’s worked to remain relevant and impactful over his long career.

Valuing What is Timeless

Tim’s insight can be roughly divided into two categories: knowing and valuing what is timeless and keeping pace with change (as a leader and for your business). Number one in the timeless category is the criticality of good communication. “One of the keys to success in service is communication. Always has been. Always will be. Won't ever change,” he emphasizes. “I’ve found that in my career, every challenge I ever had with a customer was resolved one of two ways. Either by better understanding expectations or by better communicating. Or both. So, if I learned what they expected and they learned what I could deliver, we aligned those expectations.”

Effective communication is a building block of any relationship, and the importance of being able to build and nurture relationships is the second timeless skill. “Generally, this effective communication helped to build a good relationship. If the relationship came off the rails, it was because we didn't spend the time we needed on the communication,” says Tim. “And the keys here are timeliness and candor. Again, I've rarely had a customer who said, I hate the bad news you're giving me. Usually what they say is, why didn't you tell me sooner? Maybe I could have reacted. We could have worked something out. We could have done something differently. Timely and honest communication are crucial.”

Customer centricity came up next, and not only in the sense of creating customer intimacy but for obtaining insights to fuel innovation. “When I was very young in my career, the President of our company put me in a sales leadership role for two years to develop my understanding of our customers,” shares Tim. “So, first sales call ever, the customer says, ‘oh boy, another new guy. What are you going to do for me?’ I said, well, I don't know. What do you need? And he said, ‘No salesperson's ever asked me that. They’ve always said, here's what I'm selling.’ That was something I've incorporated since that moment, is to ask my customers, what do you need? What do you need me to do? How can I help you grow your business? How can I change to help you be better? That informs and fuels whatever you need to do next to be successful.”

Tim also shared about the timeless value of learning, especially from peers. “As a leader, if you're not finding a way to reach out to other people and learn and grow by association, you're missing the boat and you're doing yourselves and your customers and your employees a disservice,” he says. “Finding ways to tap into the ideas and thinking of others is a great source of new ideas, valuable connections, and inspiration for innovation.”

Keeping Pace with Change

It might not surprise you that one of the things that’s changed most since Tim’s career began is the use and role of technology in service – and he hasn’t shied away from rolling up his sleeves to understand what’s available, its impact, and to put to good use technology to modernize service in many of the organizations he’s led. “One of most obvious changes over my career is technology,” Tim says. “You know, you think about your grandparents and wonder what changes they saw in technology over time. Well, I'm now one of those grandparents! I spoke about the innovative launch of our first handheld device back in the early 2000s and that was nothing compared to where technology is today.”

With the volume of technological innovation Tim has witnessed, I was curious how he prompted himself to keep pace and determine what investments were best at different points throughout his journey. “I never implemented any technology in any of my roles just for the sake of technology; I did it because I wanted to solve a business problem,” he shares. “I had an issue. I had to solve it. And I looked to others and experts and technology to try to figure it out. Find a solution and try and implement it in my business to make it better. Then you could innovate or iterate on that, innovate and iterate again, or find the next business problem and go find a solution to that. So just always being on the hunt, I guess, for the next problem to solve. Not being complacent, saying, I don't have any problems because that's stupid. Everyone's got a business problem somewhere.”

We also discussed the evolution of the role of service within the business – it’s shift from cost center to profit center and everything that shift has brought about. “I mentioned that I cut my teeth in the manufacturing side of the business. Product companies for a long time made all their money on the product, skinny margins, and gave away the service. And most companies now have figured out that the inverse is actually the key to success. The margin opportunities are in service; the opportunity to really continue with a revenue model that's repetitive, that's on the service side. That's something that's changed a lot over the many, many years that I've been slugging away at it,” Tim reflects.

The one area that Tim and I debated a bit is just how much has changed – or not – when it comes to leadership styles. “I thought about your question on leadership a lot and at first thought, I don't think leadership styles have really changed or evolved. Then I thought, and I thought, and I thought, and finally I said, well, maybe they have,” he says.

What we ended up coming around to is that Tim has naturally inclined toward a leadership style that is being demanded more in today’s landscape. So, while it hasn’t changed for him, we uncovered in our conversation that it has indeed evolved as a whole.

There are elements of leadership, of course, that have been and always will be foundationally important. “The things that haven't changed relative to how we lead, are things like fairness, equity, and honesty. And one I'll throw out there that many people might not agree with, but I really love, which is inclusiveness. I've never been the smartest guy in the room. I've never been the expert, but I know where to find those people, tap into their experience and knowledge, and have them be a part of the solution. Not only do I get a better solution, but I get a team that's excited to participate. So, I think that leadership style never changes,” he says.

When it comes to what has evolved, it is tied to the elements of leadership I see as outdated like control, ego, and even fear. “What I came to think about that might be a change is the ability to adapt your style beyond the very ‘command and control’ kind of leadership,” says Tim. “I remember an early encounter when I was a supervisor at a plant with an executive who said, ‘I don’t get ulcers, I give them.’ I thought, Wow. Okay. That's aggressive. And throughout the early years of my career, I had a lot of leaders like that who would often say to me, ‘you know, you're not mean enough. You're not tough enough. You're not kicking butts.’ But that's never been my style.”

While that’s a testament to Tim and not only his values but his ability to recognize an approach that’s ultimately more effective, it’s a positive change that “his style” is becoming more the norm. “I think that finally that style has found its home. In our current environment – our employment environment, our work environment, our leadership environment - it's okay to have a little bit softer, gentler approach to leadership,” he reflects. “It doesn't mean that you aren't still tough, that you don't follow guidelines, metrics, and principles to hold people accountable. But it does mean that you can still find joy in the process. You can have some camaraderie and good spirit and mentorship and an approach to leadership that understands and appreciates that your people have lives. If we think about our employees' environment, we can adapt and change ourselves to make it a much better, sweeter work environment for them. And a place that they'll want to come back to the next day and a place they'll want to maybe work harder for.”

The evolution of leadership style ties in, at least in part, with the rapidly evolving talent landscape – and the two topics are inextricably linked. “Today, there’s more of a need to do the right thing. Then it was the right thing, to do the right thing. Now you need to do the right thing in order to attract the workers that you need. And if you're not thinking creatively about ways to make their work-life balance better or to appeal to whatever it is that floats their boat, someone else who's more innovative is going to get the talent,” Tim cautions. “You're either going to not get enough people or you'll get the less talented. So, I think innovation relative to our approach to work, our approach to our people, our approach to hiring and retention, innovation is the key. You've got to be thoughtful. You've got to think outside the box. You've got to be smarter than the other guy who's recruiting the same people. You've got to be thoughtful about what does the employee need in their current environment and what can I do as a company leader to try and help solve for that need.”

Managing Vs. Leading

In Tim’s view, part of the role of leadership is to look for the opportunities to change. “I used to tell young managers that there's a difference between a manager and a leader. A manager manages the process and doesn't change anything. A leader looks for ways to change the process. And I always encourage them to be more leaders than managers,” he says. “What I tried to do in my career was to always be thinking, okay, this feels pretty good, but what am I missing? What's next? And where's the next opportunity to change something? Because not changing is backward movement in life. Staying put is the same as moving backwards.”

Leading well relies on two important factors: one’s willingness to keep learning and one’s ability to be kind. “You can never stop learning and growing, no matter where you are in your career. As part of that learning and growing, look for ways to innovate and then iterate,” Tim says. “Lastly, I'm convinced after 35-plus years, a kind leader can and will prosper. Don't think that you can't be a kind and caring leader. Don't think that you have to be the guy that's kicking rear ends down the hallway. We need to find joy in our leadership. Other people need to find joy in our leadership, and have it not be a burden to work for us. There are ways to do that and still accomplish the mission of the job.”

Episode 283

In this session from Future of Field Service Live in Cologne, host Sarah Nicastro talks with Joern Lindstaedt, VP of Global Customer Service at Rolls Royce Power, about the company’s famous “power by the hour” innovation and how an early start at Servitization translates to a culture of continual innovation.

Joern brings over 20 years of experience in customer and product support across aviation, transportation, and power generation. He has vast experience leading global, cross-functional teams and driving the development and implementation of worldwide service support strategies and MRO networks.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Watch the Podcast Video here:

Episode Highlights:

[02:21] - Rolls-Royce's success with its innovative "power by the hour" concept was driven by listening to customer needs and adapting to meet them. The company's first deal in 1962 with a business jet client reflected this customer-focused approach, offering peace of mind with fixed maintenance costs despite the lack of advanced technologies like trend monitoring. Understanding their clients and developing long-term service agreements allowed Rolls-Royce to build a model that transformed the way maintenance and services are delivered, creating lasting customer loyalty and reshaping the aviation industry with its outcome-based approach.
[10:01] - Building a successful service business requires laying a strong foundation before making big promises to customers. While the behind-the-scenes work may seem unexciting, like setting up ticketing systems, building operation centers, or gathering customer feedback, it's essential for long-term success. You can't skip this step if you want to meet customer demands and deliver consistent outcomes. Be transparent with customers about your capabilities and work together to address any challenges.
[26:38] - When tackling change management challenges, having a sponsor at the C-level is vital. Resistance is inevitable; different departments may hesitate to change, especially when they benefit from the status quo. Involving stakeholders early and making them part of the solution helps overcome these obstacles. Change management can take longer than building the technical capability, but it's necessary to secure buy-in from everyone involved. Combining sales, services, and even engineering teams ensures a better understanding of customer needs, fostering smoother collaboration and long-term success.
[32:30] - In the next five years, the service landscape will be shaped by technology that enables greater scalability and customer-focused solutions. AI will play a key role in managing complexity, while hybrid roles allow more flexibility, like troubleshooting from home. However, the key is to keep the human touch, ensuring that technology enhances the customer and employee experience without becoming impersonal.

It’s interesting to talk with leaders from companies along the continuum of innovating around service and to reflect on the wide range of progress and approach. Some, in the earlier stages, are working to determine how to bring service into the forefront their businesses – they may be struggling with alignment on the value and potential service truly brings and focused on things like increasing contract attach rates or expanding aftermarket revenue. Others, more mature in service innovation, have not only found ways to innovate within their service offerings and delivery, but to transform the business model of service – introducing outcomes-based or as-a-Service offerings.

Regardless of where one lies on this continuum, there’s a shared reality – forward progress can’t be made without taking some risk. There’s always risk in trying something new; in doing something different. When it comes to service innovation, there’s an argument to be made that the more risk you are willing to take, the greater the opportunity for reward. This is evidenced by companies that have taken the leap to evolve the service business model significantly and are reaping the rewards.

How much risk a company takes depends on a variety of factors, including the capacity and ambition for change, alignment on the vision for service, and the willingness to adopt a new business model. Progress also necessitates a company and its leaders take an honest, realistic view of where they are currently and what the potential is. Often, I talk with leaders who would identify as further along this innovation continuum than they truly are; they are finding new ways to sell the existing value proposition versus creating any new value or fundamentally changing the customer relationship – but perceive themselves as having truly transformed.

While there isn’t anything inherently wrong with a more incremental than disruptive approach, it’s important to be able to accurately assess your current state in order to envision the full potential for your future. Only from that view can you determine how much risk you’re willing to take to innovate further.

The Initial Leap

Reflecting on this topic calls to mind some of the wisdom I’ve gathered from leaders in businesses who have embraced the discomfort of risk in order to see what opportunity lies beyond the status quo. The first of those is Dave Mackerness, Director at Kaer, a Singapore-based business that transitioned to a Cooling-as-a-Service model. “There was no one we could look to, to understand is this going to be successful or not. So, we did all of our legacy work that we had done for 70 years in cooling and then we added this as a service and got a few customers on board. Throughout year five we actually did all of our legacy business products and the As-a-Service offering as well and then looked NPS, which was much higher for our Cooling-as-a-Service customers,” he says.

With this data in hand, along with data to support the impact on sustainability this model had, Kaer decided to go all-in on its Cooling-as-a-Service offering and stop its legacy business. “When you're talking about an As-a-Service businesses, it's different investment of dollars and providers then get nervous around ROI. The problem is you cannot look at it this way. You have to understand your business risk and your customers’ risk and you cannot mitigate your own risk by putting on your customers contract clauses and penalties that you bake into the business model or essentially tying them down into things or locking them into things to secure your revenue,” Dave explains. “Those two things really kill the business model. When Netflix came around they said to me ‘Dave, give me 10 dollars a month I'll give you all you want,’ and I said ‘I'll do it, 10 bucks a month.’ If they had said to me ‘Dave, it's 10 bucks a month but, you have to sign a 10 year contract and you have to pay me in advance for the first year and to terminate the contract you have to pay me a penalty of six years’ worth of revenue,’ I would've said ‘No, but thanks very much.’ You have to stay true to the business model. It's not easy, and there is a lot of business risk involved, but you can take it a step at a time, and you can learn from other industries.”

Alec Anderson, Managing Director at Koolmill, a company that has disrupted the rice milling industry not only with its machinery but with offering it As-a-Service, knew risk was essential to his endeavor. “The risk is there; there's always risk. Things will go wrong. The question is how do you deal with that risk? It’s important to focus on value creation. How can you create value? How can you capture a share of that value? And if that means redesigning the machine so that they can have a longer life with more service, and I think the world is moving away from the disposable, buy it, scrap it, get another one. If you can design machinery that has a longer life, and it can be upgraded through its life, I think there's great value there,” says Alec. “We work in a very, very conservative industry, and I would say our challenge right now is not a technical challenge. It's really a culture or mindset. It's changing the perceptions and how people think.”

Alastair Winner, Partner and Co-Founder at Mossrake Group, has a history of working within companies that have introduced new service business models and, in his current role, works with businesses looking to do the same. On this concept of risk, he says, “When you sell a customer a product, the accountability and the risk for the value that product creates immediately transfers to the customer. In this model, there is an onus on the service provider to deliver that value. This means they're likely to have to make some sort of upfront investment in technology and they're going to have to think about putting capacity ahead of demand, especially if they're able to provide some level of flexibility to the customer. So the customer is not making an upfront investment, but the service provider is. That's a risk,” he explains.

“Then they've got to think about all of the lifecycle activities to sustain the service and deliver the outcome over the contractual period, which could be up to 10 years. When you think about all of the updates and changes and recalibrations and replacements that have to go on over that period, you've really got to be thinking about what does that look like and costing it accordingly,” says Alastair. “The benefits for the service provider are they get a long-term annuity stream with almost certainly a higher rate of return. Over that contractual period, they're going to get service on everything over a very long time and they're going to end up with a very loyal customer.”

You can listen to each of these interviews in their entirety to gain additional perspective from Dave, Alec, and Alastair and each of their journeys. How much risk has your organization taken, and how has it paid off? I’d love to hear from you!

Episode 282

“I never implemented any technology in any of my roles just for the sake of technology. I did it because I wanted to solve a business problem. I had an issue. I had to solve it.”

In this episode of the Unscripted Podcast, host Sarah Nicastro welcomes Tim Spencer, VP for North American Operations at Interblock Gaming, to reflect on what’s changed (or not) related to field service technology, leadership, talent, and customer-centricity over his 35+ year career.

Tim has a wealth of experience from his roles at BUNN, Scientific Games, WMS Gaming, and as an Independent Consultant. He specializes in field and customer services, manufacturing and printing operations, sales management, and executive leadership.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Episode Highlights:

Tim - 00:00:00: So I would say never stop learning and drawing. And then part of that learning and drawing, look for ways to innovate and then iterate. Another one that I would share, I think, is always share and grow other people. Share what you know and grow others. You can't keep it all in. It's not fair, not the right thing to do. And as we learn through our journey of life, it's up to us to help others learn and grow. So find ways to mentor and help other people be successful and grow in their lives and careers.

Sarah - 00:00:38: Welcome to the UNSCRIPTED podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, I'm excited to welcome a friend to take a look back at a 35-plus-year career in field service. Tim Spencer is here, and we're going to talk about what has changed in his career, what hasn't, where things are headed, and a bunch of other great things. So, if you don't know Tim, Tim Spencer is currently the vice president of North American operations at Interblock Gaming. Before Interblock, he was with BUNN, Scientific Games, WMS Gaming, ACCO Brands, and Taylor. I don't know if I missed anything. If I did, you can fill everyone in. Tim and I have known each other for a number of years, and we share the same wedding anniversary. So, Tim and his wife and my husband and I were married not on the same day and year, but the same day. And coincidentally, that day often falls during the service councils annual symposium. So, Tim and I have spent an anniversary or two together instead of with our spouses when we were attending that conference. Anyway, Tim, thank you for being here. Really excited for our conversation today.

Tim - 00:02:07: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. You're kind with a 35-year career thing. It's a big plus on that 35-year.

Sarah - 00:02:14: So before we get into it all, what would you want to tell everyone about yourself?

Tim - 00:02:19: You did a great job of the introduction. You know, I started my career as what they call a manufacturing management trainee back in the day. And the objective was to just learn everything you could about manufacturing operations company. It was fun. I got to spend time in every function. Some not really very practical, but every single function of the operations. With the end goal of getting to a manufacturing leadership executive role, which I accomplished, I got to be a plant manager, and then I'm the manager of many plants. And then I had kind of the career-altering opportunity to manage kind of the business unit as a general manager. Within that business unit was a service organization. And that was my first taste of what service looks like and feels like. And I liked it. My dad was in sales all his career. I thought, man, I'm not doing that.

Sarah - 00:03:11: And he asked?

Tim - 00:03:12: No. Sounded terrible, right? To be scrounging for-

Sarah - 00:03:15: Permission.

Tim - 00:03:15: Permission and hitting codes and objectives. And as it turns out, we all end up doing that anyway. But I did enjoy the interaction with customers and the opportunity to learn about their problems and try and solve, I think that's correct. That's what I really enjoyed and kind of the back half of my career is, as we say, almost our service executive. So. it's been a fun ride and moved all over the country, spent a little time in Canada. My wife and I are on our 14th move. And it's been fun. It's been an adventure. Enjoying every minute of it.

Sarah - 00:03:44: Well, that's good that you've enjoyed every minute of it. And I think a lot of that has to do with mindset. So you took that general manager role and it had a service component. And looking back on that time, what would you say the world of service looked like then? So what I want to kind of get to are what strikes you as the biggest differences between your first introduction to the service world and today? And what are some of the constants?

Tim - 00:04:17: Good question, you know, it's interesting the most obvious one is technology you know, you always, you think about your grandparents and you go man, I wonder what changes they saw in technology over time. Well, I'm now one of those grandparents. And I can think back on a time when there was no cell phones, you're lucky if you had a pager, that was the coolest technology of the time. I was cool to finally get a pager where my babysitter could now call me, if there's a problem. I remember getting my first pc, the thing was giant, it was you know this big this took up the entire desk, and that was in 1996. I got my first pc that fit on my desk, I can remember the first handheld device, you and I shared some fun with that, back in 2005.

Sarah - 00:04:58: I'm glad you, um, remember the year. So for anyone listening that is newer to me, than my background in this space. Before I ran future field service and hosted this podcast, I was the editor-in-chief of a print publication. Which was no known as field technologies, but actually even before that, known as Integrated Solutions Magazine. And way back, we did a story on the introduction of those handheld devices into your organization. So sorry to to cut you off there, but people wondered what the heck are we talking about, I did have a life in print magazines, before this one.

Tim - 00:05:37: Back when print was all there was, right?

Sarah - 00:05:39: Yeah.

Tim - 00:05:40: You know, at the time, that was the cool thing. In fact, it made a really cool magazine article to talk about this innovative launch of a handheld device that had big real estate on the screen and where you could use it, touch technology in the field for your technicians. You know, it was recognized by Gartner Group and Aberdeen and Verizon all gave us awards for that particular innovation. Now you think, that was nothing compared to where technology is today. So that's certainly one of the biggest changes is, you know, this technology has really evolved. I can remember going to trade show events in our service space and all you would see is, you know, there'd be a lot of people like FedEx and UPS. Toshiba would be there with their hardened laptop devices. Verizon would be there. But no software providers. And now you can't find a hardware provider at these kinds of events. And they're all software providers. It's kind of as an indicator, I think, of where we are and where we're headed. Which is solutions for our space that help us work faster, smarter, easier. It's not hardening a device that we already had. It's changing the world by virtue of some software innovation or tool that makes our lives different. I think that's one of the biggest things. Some of the things that never change, I think, are kind of the way you do business. For example, one of the keys to success, customers and service base is communication. Always has been. Always will be. We won't ever change. I found that in my career that every challenge I ever had with a customer was resolved one of two ways. Either by better-understanding expectations or by better communicating. Or both. Sometimes. So if I learned what they expected and they learned what I could deliver, we aligned those expectations. Generally, we had a good relationship. If the relationship came off the rails, it was because we didn't spend the time to do that. So that's something that's forever been, I think, a secret sauce for service and has it changed.

Sarah - 00:07:38: And that relationship is absolutely paramount to what service has become, as well. Because if I can kind of just reflect on, you know, one of the biggest changes I've witnessed in my time covering this space is the shift in perception of service of companies. From an afterthought, a necessary evil, a cost center, to a potential profit center, a differentiator, part of the brand experience. And it's because of that relationship and recognizing what all that relationship can mean. And I think those relationships are what build loyalty. But also what's always interesting to me is how much shortcomings or reality or turbulence those relationships can withstand when they're solid. Right? Meaning failures or failures, or parts that you can't get, or whatever it is that is going to happen because things happen. When you've done a good job at that communication piece and you have that relationship to fall back on, it doesn't have nearly the impact as if you're treating your customers in that transactional manner, and you're not focusing on that element. So I really like that point. I think it's, like you said, it hasn't changed. It will never change. And I'm sure we'll talk about this a bit. But all of this talk of AI, I say great. To the extent it can help ease the burden of service and other professionals and allow them to do their jobs more effectively, then I'm all for it. But it's not going to replace those people. Like it's a people business. People do business with people, not robots. So relationships and communication are constant. Okay. Any other observations?

Tim - 00:09:28: And just on the communication piece, you know, the key there really is just timeliness and candor. Again, I've never had a customer, well, rarely had a customer who said, I hate the bad news you're giving me. Usually what they say is, why didn't you tell me sooner? Maybe could have reacted. We could have worked something out. We could have done something differently. Timely and honest communication, I think, is key. You mentioned something, too, that's not constant, that has changed, and that is the evolution of the role of service in companies, right? So I mentioned that I kind of cut my teeth in the manufacturing side of the business. You know, product companies for a long time made all their money on the product, skinny margins, gave away the service. And most companies now have figured out that the inverse is actually the key to success, right? Maybe even give away their razor in order to sell the razor blades. The margin opportunities in service, the opportunity to really continue with a revenue model that's repetitive, that's on the service side. So that's something that's changed a lot over the many, many years that I've been slugging away at it.

Sarah - 00:10:33: Any others that come to mind?

Tim - 00:10:35: Yeah, a lot of things have changed and stayed the same. You know, you and I talked a little bit before this, and one of the things you asked me about was leadership styles. Mm-hmm. And what you want to go there next. But I thought about this a lot, and I thought, you know what? I don't think leadership styles have changed or evolved. I thought, and I thought, and I thought, and then finally I said, well, maybe they have.

Sarah - 00:10:57: Okay. Actually. So tell me what you think.

Tim - 00:10:59: Yeah, so the things that haven't changed relative to how we got a lead, I think, are things like fairness and equity, honesty. And one I'll throw out there that many people might not agree with, but I really love, which is inclusiveness. I've never been the smartest guy in the room. I've never been the expert, but I know where to find those people, tap into their experience and knowledge, and have them be a part of the solution. Not only do I get a better solution, but I get a team that's excited to participate. So I think that leadership style never changes. What I came to think about that might be a change is the ability to kind of adapt your style from what it used to be a long time ago to what I think it ought to be now. Let me give you a couple examples. So I think it used to be, back in my early years, a very command and control kind of leadership. I remember my first executive encounter. I was a supervisor at a plant. I'm a global executive manufacturing visitor at a plant. And he said, I don't get ulcers. I give them. Wow. Okay. That's aggressive. And throughout kind of the early years of my career, I had a lot of leaders like that, right, that would say, you know, you're not mean enough. You're not tough enough. You're not kicking butts. You know, I even had one leader who told me, he says, you know, I'm going to be the happiest guy if I ever hear that Tim Spencer is walking down the halls of the office and kicking rear ends and taking names. I told him that. I said, well, that's not going to happen.

Sarah - 00:12:30: You should be waiting a long time.

Tim - 00:12:32: Because that's never been my style. And I think that finally that style has found its home, I think, in our current environment, employment environment, our work environment, our leadership environment. It's okay to have a little bit softer, gentler approach to leadership. It doesn't mean that you aren't still tough, that you don't follow guidelines, metrics, and principles to hold people accountable. But it does mean that you can. You can still find joy in the process. You can have some camaraderie and good spirit and mentorship and, you know, an approach to leadership that understands and appreciates that your people have lives. I've had a lot of leaders in the past who've said, you know, on a Friday, I need this Monday morning at 7 o'clock. And, you know, people work all weekend. It's like a way to get whatever it is to another desk at 7 o'clock , and they don't look at it until Tuesday. If we think about our employees' environment, we can adapt and change ourselves to make it a much better, sweeter work environment for them. And a place that they'll want to come back to the next day and a place they'll want to maybe work harder for. There's some recognition of the fact that they have lives. They don't need to work every weekend necessarily. You know, when they have to, they'll be willing to if we don't put unnecessary and unreasonable demands on them.

Sarah - 00:13:49: Okay, so I have a few reflections. So first of all, I love that you thought about your initial response to that prompt and thought, nothing's changed, what's she talking about? And then kind of reflected a bit. So I think after hearing everything you just said, and I was listening intently, I think your approach hasn't changed. Because you were always leading in a way where you're humble. You just said, I've never been the smartest person in the room. I'm not the expert. I am able to bring talented people together to achieve an end. There are a lot of leaders that don't have that attitude. They fancy themselves being the smartest person or the person in charge or in control, right? And just the empathy and the appreciation. The appreciation for humanity and the fact that everyone is a human being, whether you are the CEO of the company or on the janitorial staff, and everyone's life matters and everyone has lives that matter, and you have an appreciation for that. So what I see is more people taking that approach and less and less and less people of the old school, they won't give me an ulcer, I'll give them an ulcer mentality. I think it's a very, it has nothing to do with age, because you're evidence of the fact that you've held the same beliefs your entire career, right? You didn't just land here in the last five years and say, you know what? It's not that, but it is very much, I think, a dying mentality. Now, I think there's a number of factors, though, that I kind of want to touch on a bit. One is, I think, to some degree, it is who you are. To some degree, people just have personalities, they have traits, they have experiences that shape them. Some people are more apt to want to find the good in people and want to work well as a team, and others are more apt to be ego-driven and things like that, right? I do think that organizationally, particularly in service, oftentimes you have leaders that are rewarded for strong, individual contribution that are promoted and promoted and promoted. And I think while that isn't inherently bad, we have not reflected as much as we need to on whether or not they are actually capable of and interested in being leaders rather than just being managers or supervisors. The other thing, though, is I think there is an element of change that has been prompted by, I think, the way the role has evolved. So in a landscape where service is a cost center, it's an afterthought. It doesn't mean that I don't think leaders should be people-centric or focus on the humanity, but it was more of a command-and-control environment, right? It was, here's what you need to do. You need to do it efficiently. This is how you do it, period. Now we're in an environment, and we can talk next about new talent and bringing new talent into the space. We're in an environment where we want people to have more of a sense of ownership and be more empowered to kind of bring themselves to work and build those relationships, et cetera, et cetera. And you're not going to get that type of talent with a command and control style because it doesn't mesh well, right? Like you're not going to have someone come in who's creative and innovative and maybe some of the newer things people are looking for and then be micromanaged by someone, and stay around, right? That being said, I think this also, and one of the ways that I want to compliment you, and one of the things I want to point out to people is looking through this list here that I wrote of the companies that you've worked for, I don't know them all well, but I am going to guess that they are all quite balance sheet driven, and all companies are to some extent. I'm just saying, in the manufacturing space particularly, a lot are more so, right? When you get into like, well, we should treat people the way Google treat people, and I don't even know if that's a relevant example today, but you know where I'm getting at. There's these more innovative, newer startup type mentality companies where like the culture's new and everything's people-centric. Those are not the companies you've come from, but you have still found a way to strike a balance between, you know, meeting the objectives of the organization and creating an employee experience that honors people and their talents and their skills and what they want out of their careers and have allowed them to find some joy in the work that they're doing. That is no small feat, but I think people should hear that and they should understand that one, both things are possible. And two, even if we have leaders listening who are in organizations that they feel don't get it, meaning they're not focused on the way that creating a better employee experience will ultimately drive better outcomes, even if not in the next days, you can still be successful at achieving that balance. So I just wanted to point that out. I do think that there is a growing understanding among companies of that correlation, which is part of this movement. I think that like, they're very interconnected. Company cultures are improving both because the talent is demanding they do, but also because there's a better understanding that, well, geez, maybe if we just treat people well, they will do the work we want them to do, right? And that's allowing leaders to be under less pressure to where they don't have to take the same command and control approach. They can take the more empathetic approach and think about how to build teams that, you know, complement each other and work well together, et cetera, et cetera. But to me, this is one of the most interesting shifts that I've witnessed. And I think it's interesting to hear your perspective because I think largely your initial response came from the fact that you yourself, have had the same beliefs and the same mentality the whole way through. But I think there's a lot going on around that, that is evolving in a positive way.

Tim - 00:20:38: Yeah, no, I think you're right. In today's environment, things have flipped completely the opposite, right? So early in my career, tons of workers, very few jobs. Now it's tons of jobs, very few workers. And you're forced to behave a little bit differently. But even back in the time when it was easier to find workers, you still wanted to create an environment where they wanted to come to work. I'm reminded of one of the first roles I had in bona fide field service. It was we were looking at lives that our field service technicians were living. And, you know, it was a lot of road time, a lot of time in the band, a lot of fast food. In our case, a lot of hotel time, too. A lot of time away from family, very isolated. And we start thinking about, well, what can I change there? And one of the things that caused us to change was one of our technicians passed away. I mean, on the job, in a hotel, and we didn't even know where he was. And so we started to look for ways to just improve their health, if nothing else. And their overall safety. And that was back in a time when, you know, we didn't have to. But it was the right thing. Try and help them just have a better, healthier lifestyle. So we published kind of the health thought of the month, you know, to get them thinking about their health a little bit better. We sent them some things that they could do in their hotel room to exercise. Sent them some better eating ideas. Put GPS devices in the vehicles, not because we wanted to track their every move, but because we wanted to know where they were in case something happened. So we could send the rescues. But today, now I have more of a need to do the right thing. In fact, then it was the right thing. Now you need to do the right thing in order to attract the workers that you need. And if you're not thinking creatively about ways to make their work-life balance better or to appeal to whatever it is that floats their boat, someone else who's more innovative is going to get the talent. You're either going to not get enough people or you'll get the less talented. So I think innovation relative to our approach to work, our approach to our people, our approach to hiring and retention, innovation is the key. You've got to be thoughtful. You've got to think outside the box. You've got to be smarter than the other guy who's recruiting the same people. And it doesn't mean you have to do all the things that Google used to be famous for. I don't know if they still do all that stuff or not, but free meals all over the place, laundry services, and bring your dog to work or whatever. You don't have to do all that stuff, but you've got to be thoughtful about what does the employee need in their current environment and what can I do as a company leader to try and help solve for that need. The other thing that has been a bit of a realization for me, too, is the worker looks different physically, right? So back in the day, most technical service people were very blue-collar-y, mostly men. Generally, a worker with tools, mechanically oriented. You know, there's a look and a style. But the worker today looks completely different. They can be of any gender or type, any size or shape, any background. And you need to accommodate for that as well in your workforce and understand that today's worker, who's going to be really, really good, might look different than your expectations years ago.

Sarah - 00:23:45: Yeah, and probably has to, really, you know, because if you're just trying to meet the expectations of years ago, you know, there are less and less of those people around, right, that have the experience everyone was looking for, etc. Now, Tim, I do want to go back to the technology piece for a moment, okay, because, you know, we just talked about your leadership style and how maybe you were ahead of the trend in that realm. Now, I think a lot of times people might have the assumption that an older leader is not going to be innovative when it comes to keeping pace with technological change, making sure they understand the latest innovations, etc. That's something that, you know, I've heard you talk many times at conferences about and something that you've done a really good job at. So, you know, we heard you talk about your first pager, mobile phone, PC. But you didn't stop there. You just kept it moving and have kept it moving all the way along. And I know that in many of the organizations you've been with, you know, you've really not only transformed but continually transformed the operations with the use of technology. Can you just talk a little bit about what your mindset is around that? Because the tendency to resist change is human nature. We all know this. It takes intention to set that aside. And to think, okay, but what does this mean? How can we use it? And then not grow complacent in the next phase and the next phase. So, what has your mindset been around the technology piece? And do you have any advice for folks on how you've put a workflow around continual innovation when it comes to technology?

Tim - 00:25:37: I used to tell young managers that there's a difference between a manager and a leader. A manager, at least in a lousy definition of manager, a manager manages the process and doesn't change anything. They just manage the process and manage the process, manage the process, day in, day out. A leader looks for ways to change the process. And I always encourage them to be more leaders than managers. What I tried to do in my career was to always just be thinking, okay, this feels pretty good, but what am I missing? And what's next? And where's the next opportunity to change something? Because not changing is... Backward movement in life. If you're not looking to change something. You're staying put is the same as moving backwards. I didn't ever want to stay put or move backwards. So I tried to find something, always, that needed a fix. I never implemented any technology in any of my roles just for the sake of technology. I did it because I wanted to solve a business problem. I had an issue. I had to solve it. And I looked to others and experts and technology to try to figure it out. And then go grab whatever that solution was and try and implement it in my business to make it better. Then you could then innovate either on that, innovate and innovate and innovate or iterate, and or find the next business problem and go find a solution to that. And so just always being on the hunt, I guess, for the next problem to solve. Not being complacent, saying, I don't have any problems because that's stupid. I mean, everyone's got a business problem somewhere. And if they don't think they do, they have it.

Sarah - 00:27:09: They definitely do.

Tim - 00:27:11: They do and they have value.

Sarah - 00:27:12: Right.

Tim - 00:27:13: They're going to discover it eventually, or their customer will.

Sarah - 00:27:15: Yeah.

Tim - 00:27:16: Sometimes innovation can be, you know, the technology can be sexy all by itself, but and impress customers and win business. I only ever approached it from a problem-solving perspective. And then, you know, so then you might say, well, okay, I have a problem. How do I find experts to help me? So what I try to do is always be reaching out to peers wherever I could find them. I did something really crazy one time. My first time I was in the gaming industry, I reached out to every one of my competitors in my role. So service leader in each of my competitors and said, hey, I'm the service leader over here. I want to introduce myself. Are you interested at all? And check. A few of them said, oh, no way. We're competitors. We can't do that. A few of them said, yeah, that might be it. And we shared appropriate ideas with each other. Not anything that would screw up our competition with each other, but industry stuff, service stuff. And that was kind of the start for me of engaging with peers to say, here's what I'm experiencing. What are you experiencing? Do you see any cool tools? Any new innovation? And then more and more, there were other opportunities to engage with industry people, you know, at conferences or whatever. But that's how it started for me. I think as a leader, if you're not... Finding a way to reach out to other people and learn and grow by association you're missing the boat you're doing yourselves and your customers and your employees of the service if you're not finding ways to tap into the ideas and thinking of others and that's where not only ideas but connections to some of this innovative technology comes from too. They may say, I'm not using this but I heard so and so use them.

Sarah - 00:28:54: Right.

Tim - 00:28:54: Such as had great results or where.

Sarah - 00:28:57: Yeah, there's so much power in knowledge sharing. And, you know, to your point, when you reached out to those folks, you weren't sharing the blueprint for success with your competitors. It's just sharing enough that it can spark an idea or a thought that can lead to that next iteration of change and that next step forward. That's, I mean, what I've built my career off of. So I'm a firm believer in the power of that. And I was smiling because I picked up on you saying, I looked for what needed fixed next. And to me, that was very telling, even before you clarified that you were looking for the next challenge, not for the next cool thing. All too often, we see companies, you know, chase the technology and invest and invest and invest, but they're not doing the digging to figure out if they're applying it to, the biggest challenges or any challenges, right? And so I think that mentality is really important, because there's a whole lot these tools can do, especially today. I mean, it's incredible, but they all should only be used rooted in, you know, what is going to serve the business well, what challenges are your employees facing, what needs your customers have, not what's cool, what's trending, right?

Tim - 00:30:18: That's a great example, actually, of that. So think of, and I've got no criticisms of these folks, but think of your Uber experience. As a customer, do you really need to know where his little car is on the map? Or do you just need to know that he's going to be there at 2:05. You just need to know he's going to be there at

Sarah - 00:30:36: Right.

Tim - 00:30:37: And so sometimes we overshoot the target. I think the best way, if you can't find a problem on your own to go solve and figure out how to use some technology to solve the problem, go ask your customer. Say, what do you need from me in order for your business to be successful? Do you need all this cool route? You just need to know that I'm going to be there at 2:05, and have me tell you that and let you know if I'm going to be five minutes late.

Sarah - 00:31:01: Yeah.

Tim - 00:31:02: So our customers can inform where we should go hunt if we, back to what you said, have the relationships in order to be able to ask them those questions.

Sarah - 00:31:10: For sure.

Tim - 00:31:11: When I was very young in my career, I was still stuck in manufacturing. President of our company said, you know, as a manufacturing leader, you need to understand the customer. We're going to stick in sales for two years, go over to Houston, Texas, be a sales leader, and then come back into manufacturing when you've learned and understood the sales process. And I go, oh man. So first sales call ever, I go to the customer and the customer says, oh boy, another new guy. What are you going to do for me? I said, well, I don't know. What do you need? And he said, you know what? No salesperson's ever asked me that. No one's ever asked me what I needed. They always said, here's what I'm selling. And that was something I've incorporated in the whole rest of my life since then, is to ask my customers, what do you need? What do you need me to do? How can I help you grow your business? How can I change to help you be better? And that fuels then the search for the technology solution or whatever, or process change or whatever.

Sarah - 00:32:06: Yeah. And it's amazing that that's the first time they'd heard that question. But okay. So before we wrap up the technology piece, we just talked about not chasing the cool, shiny thing. But I do have to ask, I was just at Field Service East a few weeks ago, and I think every session was AI, AI, AI, AI. How do you feel about that?

Tim - 00:32:28: I don't know if everyone will agree with how I feel about it, but I'll tell you my thoughts.

Sarah - 00:32:32: Okay.

Tim - 00:32:32: So I think that as service leaders, we don't have to worry about AI. And here's why I think we don't. I think all the solution providers are going to worry about AI, so I don't have to. I think the day will come that it's going to be so ubiquitous, that it's going to be buried and hidden and part of the solution in every solution we ever touch. And it'll just be in there. I don't know, I can't think of a good example, but it'll just be part of the solution. I guess an operating system is part of a computer, right? Nobody, it might be an Apple fan or a Windows fan, but nobody really cares once you've bought it how it all works. It's just in there and it makes it work. I think AI is going to be the same way. I think the innovators and technology solution providers and all those people are going to innovate in such a way that it just becomes a part of their solution, part of our lives. And as practitioners of the business, we don't really have to worry about it unless what we build and sell needs an AI feature to our customers. But as users of the technology, I think this is going to get incorporated and I have to worry about it. That may be a really stupid view, but that's my view.

Sarah - 00:33:42: I don't disagree that that is where we'll head. I think it's interesting, you know, we've talked a little bit about some of the evolution that we've both seen, right? So I think about, you know, I don't want to name names because if they are still around and I'm saying they're irrelevant, then that would not be nice. But, you know, we talked about a lot of the big handhelds, right? And I did magazine articles on that technology and I knew the vendors and, you know, the human beings that work at those companies. But, you know, when the iPhone came out and the iPad, I mean, they were largely displaced because it became very difficult to argue the need for that level of durability unless you were in some specific industries. But then, you know, as the software evolution started, it initially was a lot of point-specific solutions that companies would have to piece together to create a overall service management solution that met its needs. Until those software providers started to make those offerings more sophisticated, where then you could get what you needed in that platform. And I think that right now, because this focus on AI and particularly Gen AI is new, you know, you have people coming to market with, we have this AI solution, we have this AI solution, we have this AI solution. But, I mean, bolting things together has its own risk and cost, et cetera. I think that, to the degree the core systems vendors that whatever company works with are innovating around AI, then I agree with your mentality that you're a lot better off getting up to speed on what does the innovation within your core solution providers look like? What's the roadmap? When's it coming? What are the use cases? And going back to your point, figuring out if there are gaps that it doesn't fill, because chances are it will. So I get that. And I think that... The biggest value in AI is to increase the level of intelligence in a lot of the digital transformation and automation companies have already put in place, right? It's really just amping it up versus starting over. Okay, Tim, so if you were to share your top three lessons learned that you think, I'm going to say either an up-and-coming service leader could benefit from hearing or someone who maybe isn't new to the space but is very beholden to the status quo, because that also can be a real thing. What lessons, what advice would you share?

Tim - 00:36:24: I think the first thing I would say is you can never stop learning and growing. So no matter where you are in your career, you might think, well, you know, this is my last job. It's the sunset of my career. I'm going to retire in X number of years. This is it for me. That's still not the time when you can stop.

Sarah - 00:36:41: And then you might come back.

Tim - 00:36:42: Yes.

Sarah - 00:36:43: And so, you can't assume it's ever really over, you know.

Tim - 00:36:49: Like somebody we know who retired.

Sarah - 00:36:50: Right, right.

Tim - 00:36:51: Yeah, that would be really great. But, yeah, I think that's key, right? And I met a fellow the other day. He showed up for a job interview. And I thought, well, this is an interesting guy. You know, you can't ask how old they are, but clearly he was in his mid-70s. Brilliant man. And had a master's degree, had two master's degrees and a PhD. And then retired for a while. But had still been studying things and came to the interview with all this information of his recent studies, queries and things. So clearly a very hungry learner. I thought, this is cool. And there was value that he can bring to me by virtue of the fact that he had continued learning and growing, even though he'd been out of pocket for a while. So I would say never stop learning and growing. And then as part of that learning and growing, look for ways to innovate and then iterate. Another one that I would share, I think, is just always share and grow other people. Share what you know and grow others. You can't keep it all in. It's not fair. Not the right thing to do. And as we learn to our journey of life, it's up to us to help others learn and grow in their journey. So find ways to mentor and help other people be successful and grow in their lives and careers. That's what I love about sometimes we get to rub shoulders in industry events. Sometimes you meet people who are very early in their career and are hungry for information and knowledge, and I'm happy to share it. So I think always share and grow others because it'll circle back. It's a forward kind of thing, particularly if you're someone crazy like me and you go retire and then go somewhere else. You might now find people who want to come where you are, who have been part of that learning, growing, and sharing experience before and want to be a part of it again. And the world's a small place. The industry is a small place. Those people might circle back. And then the last one that I would share is, you know, you and I talked about it a little bit, but I'm convinced after 35-plus years, more like 40-plus years, that a kind leader can and will prosper. And so don't think that you can't be a kind and caring leader. Don't think that you have to be the, you know, the guy that's kicking rear ends down the hallway. I know a good friend who wrote a book and is now retired. His book is called Joyous Leadership. And I think there's two messages there. One is that we need to find joy in our leadership. Other people need to find joy in our leadership, and have it not be a burden to work for us. And there's ways to do that and still accomplish the mission of the job, right? So that would be my two cents, is that I wish that some of the people 40 years ago who were telling me that my leadership style wasn't going to work were here now and I could say, aha, it worked okay.

Sarah - 00:39:38: Look. Yeah, absolutely. They're all very wise words. And I am deeply, deeply honored to have been able to have you on and have this conversation.

Tim - 00:39:50: Thank you, Sarah, for what you do for the industry to help promote these kinds of thoughts and be a thought provoker.

Sarah - 00:39:57: Yes, it's a pleasure, honestly. It's my way of continuing to learn and get different perspectives, which, you know, makes it a joy for me. But I think there's, you know, so much for others to gain from these conversations. And just how you said, you know, back before there were so many opportunities for engagement at events and things like that, how much you got out of just talking to your peers. You know, I mean, there's a lot of value in it. There's the commiseration and the sense of community and realizing, and I hear this every event we do in person, I have someone say, I didn't realize I wasn't so alone in the challenges that we have. And I always feel like that's the best feedback because people do get caught in their day-to-day and you can question, you know, are we doing something wrong? Are we behind? Are we this? You know, and then when you come together, you kind of get that relief of, okay, no, no one has it all figured out. We're all in it together and we're doing just fine. And I think that's, it's great. Well, thank you very, very much for coming on. I really appreciate the time.

Tim - 00:41:04: You bet. My pleasure.

Sarah - 00:41:05: You can find more by visiting the home of the UNSCRIPTED podcast at futureoffieldservice.com. The podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

The Service Council published some interesting data over the past several months that emphasize some opportunities and challenges in field service management in general and in shifting to a remote service model specifically.

One infographic highlights the role that field service management plays in service innovation. According to the Service Council data, top planned tech investments for 2024 are artificial intelligence (AI), business intelligence (BI), and field service management. FSM is outpacing CRM and ERP in market share. The top focus areas for digital transformation across service organizations are currently technology interoperability, customer touchpoint management, and worker enablement (including training process efficiency). These insights indicate there is still a lot of work going on behind the scenes to get data and technicians aligned in useful ways.

Their State of Remote Support report includes some additional insight into technology priorities and challenges. For example, two in three companies lack the dedicated resources to achieve remote support efficiencies by innovating through IoT-based machine learning models or AI.

Related to that, the inability to predict and prevent why remote support was necessary was the second most common reason for challenges in this area, and there was generally an indication of low success with more proactive approaches to field service and support.

According to the report, “The motivation for shifting left is the simultaneous improvement in customer experience, asset uptime and service costs by resolving events earlier in the process and with less touch points – essentially removing waste. However, the reported challenges and the top 3 focus areas going forward (Knowledge Management, Employee Training, AI-Assisted Diagnostics) are geared to mitigate the impact from customer-triggered events. Best-performing organizations will be the ones that integrate data, processes and technology to understand the reason for service events, anticipate their occurrence and proactively influence the resolution path.”

The Service Council also noted that data is being underutilized. Many companies cannot use IoT data at scale, and roughly a third noted that they could not really consume their own knowledge base effectively to help solve problems. Asset proliferation is making this worse.

A Bold Vision

Reading these numbers brought to mind my recent discussion with Clinten van der Merwe, SVP and Head of Global Service and Project Management at TOMRA Recycling.

Clinten mentioned a pretty bold goal during that interview, relative to service sustainability: “[W]e set the strategy that by 2035 will be fully digital, which is very ambitious. I know … but as I mentioned before, the challenge is that … we don't want to sit in 10 years’ time selling machines, but unable to support our customer.”

Clinten described a potential future where technicians are working remotely, fixing machines from coffee shops while wearing flip-flops. This was part of what he called the company's North Star vision. You can question how aggressive or realistic this goal is, but if you are a field service organization ramping up digital transformation, hoping to shift toward more proactive and remote service, and working to become more attractive to today’s talent, that description is not entirely off the mark.

The obstacles outlined in the Service Council data can stymie that vision. As he put it, you need the right digital tools and processes in place, along with a lot of automation. Putting a strong foundation in place – technologically, process-wise, and culturally – is critical to making that remote service vision a tangible reality.

Moreover, that type of vision requires not only the means to provide remote troubleshooting and remote service, but also the ability to pull useful insights from those service encounters, and do so in a way that can help service organizations illustrate their value to customers in a service delivery model where they may not physically encounter the technician (often or at all). On the bright side, customers are primarily focused on whether or not a machine is running, and if you have the right tools in place, you can more easily sell them on that idea of paying for uptime rather than break-fix.

“And that's what it comes down to, is really saving money and cost to our customers, that overall total cost of ownership, but getting to a place where you can actually put on a piece of paper that you're guaranteeing a certain level of uptime availability,” Clinten said.

The warning in the Service Council data is that companies are having trouble getting useful information out of their existing systems, and that they still have integration work to do. If your technicians are remotely recalibrating machines to get ahead of problems that would otherwise result in downtime, you must be able to show what they did, why they did it, and why that is important and valuable to the customer. Without interoperable tools in place that can generate those reports easily, a remote service or digital transformation initiative can struggle to gain traction.

My conversation with Clinten covered a lot more ground, including the importance of getting management to see field service as a key revenue stream and the cultural changes involved in this type of transformation. You listen to the entire conversation here.

Episode 281

In this episode of the Unscripted Podcast, host Sarah Nicastro welcomes Andy Schneider, European Vice President of Services and Support at Canon EMEA, to share the company’s five-pillar service strategy and why the relevance of service is near and dear to his heart.

In his role, Andy's key focus is on driving growth and excellence in Canon's Digital Printing & Solutions unit by optimizing service delivery and leading cross-functional teams to consistently deliver outstanding results. Before that, Andy held senior roles at companies such as Spigraph, DICOM, Kofax, and more.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Episode Highlights:

[36:01] - The fourth pillar is the relevance of service, which is more than just fixing problems; it's a core driver of business success and customer loyalty. Showcasing the dynamic, high-tech nature of modern service roles offers Canon the possibility to attract top talent and inspire the next generation. As service evolves, it demands creativity, people skills, and the same level of engagement found in sales and marketing.

[07:29] - Canon's strategy is built on five key pillars, with a strong focus on solution growth. At the core, it's about shifting from transactional sales to true partnerships with customers. Instead of just selling products, Canon aims to transform its customers' businesses by aligning with their evolving needs, offering tailored support, and delivering real value. The goal is to move beyond short-term costs and focus on long-term business benefits.

[20:00] - Graphic arts is a key growth segment for Canon's production business, offering print service providers diverse applications with advanced technology. Transitioning from traditional analog to digital printing allows these businesses to enjoy lower maintenance costs, greater creative versatility, shorter and more personalized print runs, and faster production speeds. However, to fully capitalize on these benefits, Canon must invest in workforce skills, tools, and smart technologies that support this high-demand, competitive market.

[27:45] - Operational excellence is all about using the right technology, people, and skills to enhance both the customer experience and cost efficiency. By investing in remote solution tools and customer self-service options, Canon can solve issues faster and more effectively, often without needing an on-site visit. The company is also upskilling its field service engineers for remote support roles, which require new capabilities and tools, all aimed at delivering seamless and modernized customer service.

[32:17] - Sustainability is at the heart of Canon's philosophy, driving efforts to minimize environmental impact across the entire lifecycle of the company's products. From pioneering recycling solutions since the '90s to offering reconditioned devices, Canon is committed to responsible manufacturing and operational excellence. Canon also supports its customers in reducing their environmental footprint with eco-conscious print solutions, energy-efficient designs, and data-driven guidance to promote sustainable practices.

Episode 280

In this episode of the Unscripted Podcast, host Sarah Nicastro welcomes Joe Molesky, SVP at Sodexo for a conversation about why leadership is so important in service today when it comes to attracting quality talent and creating an effective culture, how his own approach has evolved over his career, and the role mindfulness plays in his leadership today.

As a leader known for his expertise in enterprise transformation, Joe is committed to driving improvement across all areas of business. His focus lies on executing strategies that create significant value for customers. Joe's goal is to design actionable plans, build inclusive teams, optimize operations, and foster a high-performance culture centered on delivering exceptional customer value.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The Show Notes

Joe - 00:00:00:

The inflection point for me was seeing a really high-functioning team that I built, put them under undue stress, and actually did not achieve the results I would have expected. That's where I really had to think about it. And it goes to that the ways of working have changed. People's expectations have changed. People are more aware of themselves, right? They're more aware of how they fit into the world than we ever have. And you don't see the culture of I need to mimic leadership. You see more of a culture of people that have superpowers that want to apply those but still maintain their sense of individuality, not put on the suit, not put on the badge and become a different person for 10 hours a day. Having the respect for this is the person, these are their superpowers, that's been a big part of the change.

Sarah - 00:00:54:

Welcome to the Unscripted Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today we are going to be talking about why the future of field service depends so significantly on leadership. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast today Joe Molesky, who is the SVP at Sodexo. Joe, welcome to the podcast.

Joe - 00:01:30:

Hey, thank you for having me today. Appreciate it.

Sarah - 00:01:32:

Thanks for being here. So before we get into the topic of the day, tell everyone a little bit about yourself, anything you want to share about your background, your current role, and maybe some context on Sodexo as well.

Joe - 00:01:44:

No, just starting out with my personal background, I'm based out of the Minneapolis area. I was born and raised on the Iron Range of northern Minnesota, which I think is pretty significant. I have a family there that's very blue-collar, hardworking group of people. Luckily, I got that from my family up there. And it also exposed me early in my life even to the challenges between leadership and frontline employees, listening to the conversation that holidays, etc. The debate between leadership and union employees that were going on. And I was found it interesting. So those roots are very important to me and they still are to this day. After I left the Iron Range, I went to college, went out to Washington State for a while back to Minnesota. Fast forward to today. I'm the proud dad of a 16-year-old daughter, amazing child. And it's cool watching her grow up and getting to be a father in that way. So she's hitting her junior year. We did our first college visit recently. Which was fun to see. So on the professional side, I would say I won the job lottery right out of college and I got to work at a company called. Coldspring Granite at the time, and it's now Coldspring USA in central Minnesota. And my first role was a continuous improvement specialist. Where I was leading teams of five to 12 people two or three times a month on both business process improvements, Six Sigma, you name it, literally hundreds of projects that the reason I say I won the job lottery is I got to hone my skills around quickly getting to understand people and moving a team in a direction towards a set of goals really quickly. By 25, I was a plant manager. And a few years later, I cut my teeth in service, which we're talking about today, while at Tennant Company and working for a great mentor still to this day in Terry Diaferio. And he really taught me a lot about field service and the differences that needed to be understood there. Currently, my role at Sodexo is Senior Vice President of Operations for Corporate Services on the FM side. Most folks, when they think of Sodexo, think of soup. And that's because that's how Sodexo was founded in the late 60s in Paris, France, was on what I would call the first workplace experience innovation, which was bringing food forward to the workplace. In my role, we lead FM, so facilities management, which includes everything from painting to operating boilers. We deliver 216 distinct services to our customers in the field. And so while we do have food, a large portion of Sodexo is related to FM, both in North America and globally.

Sarah - 00:04:28:

Very good. And how long have you been with Sodexo?

Joe - 00:04:31:

I've been with Sodexo now just going on a year, just showed up a year. And it's been interesting to learn, as you know, Sodexo is a very big organization. And the different layers, understanding our leadership team and where they're going, and then translating that down into my organization and setting our path has been the first call, the first 90 days at a lot of companies, we'll call it the first nine months at Sodexo, just because it is a big business to get to understand.

Sarah - 00:04:57:

So when we were chatting about this topic, you described to me that your leadership style used to be heads down, horns up, and that that has changed significantly. So first of all, can you kind of explain what you mean by heads down, horns up? And then, you know, compare that to where you are today and some of the reasons that you knew you needed to evolve your approach.

Joe - 00:05:25:

So the head down, horns up. It's one of my, I've been using that description for years. And it actually started in my time at Coldspring where I was a CI specialist and would go out with teams and truly time after time get really good results. I even received the nickname at one point of Bulldog. And so my approach was celebrated. And it was an approach of there was no mindfulness to the team, no mindfulness to the current environment. It was, here's the productivity target, we were asked to reach. Here's the quality target. We're going to go get it. And we don't care what happens around us, the impact around us. And when I realized I needed to change, and when I actually started affecting change, were two different periods in time. There was a engineer at Coldspring that I worked with that came up to me one day and said, you really need to think about your approach. Literally his words. And I said, what do you mean? He said, when you go back for your 60 or 90 day reviews of your projects, a lot of them are backsliding. I said, yeah. And he said, it's based on your approach. And he gave me some coaching. His name was Tom Howler. I took that on, but didn't really start to actualize that for probably another 10 years. And so where I really started was in my time at a tenant company where we had a very intense transformation underway. And that translated into how I work every day. And personally, I saw a need to change. And then I saw it within my team as well. I didn't realize it, but I was living on the edge of burnout every single day of my career for years. And I was translating that to my team. I didn't have a sense of mindfulness. I didn't honestly really care where my team was at. All I cared about was hitting a result. Where I started to see the big need to change is when I... Started seeing turnover, really high-performing people struggling that were on my team, I saw a need to change. Where I really got into that is, and I'll talk more about her as we go, about five years ago, I started working with a coach in the mindfulness and meditative space really to develop myself personally. And that created a whole new view of the world for me and understanding myself first, and then being able to understand and empathize more with where my team is at. And so my leadership style has evolved to what I call mindful intensity. There's still, the intensity is still there, it still needs to be there, but it's more about when, where, and how you apply that intensity than having that switched on, being able to use your different emotions, your different levels of intensity at the right moment in time for the right purpose and the right person.

Sarah - 00:08:10:

So I have a couple questions about what you just shared. So you said Tom is the gentleman who gave you that feedback, right? And what was his role?

Joe - 00:08:19:

He was an engineer.

Sarah - 00:08:21:

So first, good on Tom for speaking up because often one of the side effects of a bulldog approach is silence. People don't want to tangle. And obviously, there's a lot of ripple effects that can come from that. So good for Tom for being brave enough to bring you that feedback. So I have two questions about it. One is, what was your initial reaction internally?

Joe - 00:08:52:

My initial reaction was one of surprise where the way he described me as kind of the head down, horns up approach. He gave me more details that people see you as arrogant and dismissive. And I saw myself as confident and driven. And I'm like, well, I see this in my one side and then I hear Tom over here. But then I took his feedback on the results and kind of went, okay, this is making sense. I can see how that could be the perspective. But at first I was taken aback. I just thought I was confident and off as pure arrogance.

Sarah - 00:09:25:

And so it's interesting that, and I guess credit to you for that reaction of surprise versus dismissiveness versus ego versus power trip or any number of things that you might expect from someone who has that approach. But also, I think it's interesting that what really got your attention was the tie back to the performance metrics. And I think it's an important point to underpin for people because, again, when we start talking about the impact of leadership and how we treat people and the culture we're creating and the employee experience, there are still groups of people that see all of that as soft. And so just the real evidence of tying it back to performance, you know, it wasn't him coming to you and saying, now, I'm not saying you didn't consider this over time, right? But it wasn't him saying, like, here's how you're making people feel that got your attention. It was, here's how your approach is perceived and here's how it's affecting performance, right? So it's just an anecdotal proof point that these things aren't soft. There is evidence upon evidence upon evidence that treating people well will improve performance more so than that bulldog mentality or approach. So my next question then is, you mentioned there was about 10 years before you took that feedback that you didn't dismiss. You know, you really took in and considered, but actually put action behind it. So why so long?

Joe - 00:11:07:

Yeah, I would say there was hints of it before then. It really came back in, again, to your point, as a matter of just realizing as my team size grew, my impact grew in an organization and it spread wider and wider, I understood slowly at the time the importance of each and every action and every word as a leader that gets said. So as I started to realize that, and some credit to Terry Diaferio, who was my leader at the time, he would remind me of that constantly. So having him, who was a different type of leader than what I was working with when I was at Coldspring, and not to say either was good or bad, but one of the things we talked about in the past together is the changing evolution, the evolutionary dynamic of senior leadership. And my experience very early on was sitting around a table as the youngest guy in the room, and it was the loudest voice one, not always the best idea. And so that's what I thought it looked like until I was given something. Different to learn from in Terry, where he was still very intense, but yet he brought a different element forward, showed me where I had opportunities to grow. And I was able to draw on those comments from the past and start to put them into play. And really, like I mentioned earlier, the inflection point for me was seeing a really high-functioning team that I built, put them under undue stress, and actually did not achieve the results I would have expected. That's where I really had to think about it. And it goes to that, you know, the ways of working have changed. People's expectations have changed. People are more aware of themselves, right? They're more aware of how they fit into the world than we ever have. And it's not, you don't see the culture of, I need to mimic leadership. You see more of a culture of people that have superpowers that want to apply those, but still maintain their sense of individuality, not put on the suit, not put on the badge, and become a different person for 10 hours a day, having the respect for this is the person, these are their superpowers. That's been a big part of the change.

Sarah - 00:13:13:

So you touched on two important points that, again, I just want to kind of emphasize. One is, and I'm trying to think of how to articulate this, but the way that culture trickles down and out, right? And so this is something that I think particularly when we think about field service and the industries that a lot of the folks that come on or listen to this podcast are in, industries that have a lot of legacy, right? That also brings with it a lot of kind of old school culture and old school thinking. And to your point, it isn't about the people are bad or the intentions are bad or any of that. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, but it's about the effectiveness isn't there, right? But I think one of the challenges for leaders today is considering how they surround themselves with environment, that are aligned with the approach they feel works because I talked to a good amount of people who are really more modern in their thinking, but surrounded by people who aren't. And that can be very, very challenging. It doesn't mean you can't affect change positively by any means, but I think, you know, there are more limits and more challenges that you encounter when you're not in an overall company culture that is sort of aligned towards some of the same core beliefs, right? The other thing I think is really interesting is, you know, you mentioned what's modeled. Okay. And I think that is true, also evolving, but historically true, both in the environment you were in, but also just sort of like characteristically how men are taught to be strong, right? Like you mentioned that when Tom said that to you, you said, well, wow, he's using these words. I thought it was this. And I just think, you know, we don't have time to even get into this whole discussion, but I think it's very interesting to consider then, you know, we talk often about how women can be perceived in the workplace and how when a man strongly verbalizes an opinion, he's seen as strong. And when a woman does it, she's seen as other things, right? But I think it is also interesting to think about the flip side of that sort of conditioning of if you want to be a strong leader, historically, it looks like X, Y, and Z. And how do we, you know, not only embody a new approach, but shift that narrative to be one that is more aligned to what works with the modern workforce and the workforce of the future?

Joe - 00:16:04:

Yeah, I agree. And I think as we talked about prior, the challenge is amplified in field service, right? I have the luxury of having a career that's in a lot of different industries, different work environments from four walls of manufacturing to quarries to remote sites to field service. And it creates a bigger challenge. And as you talked about, the historical reference that we have has been slower to change in field service, in my opinion, than it has in, say, a manufacturing environment or a retail environment or even in B2C, certainly, that we would consider field services. Think SafeLight, Autoblast, right?

Sarah - 00:16:46:

Sure.

Joe - 00:16:46:

It's a unique industry that way. And we have, as you mentioned, a lot of folks that have come up through the businesses over time are in leadership positions that are still working off of references that are relatively dated. And so, as we talked about, it's been slower and it's been a bigger challenge. And it creates a culture where, especially in field service, we continue to see our best service providers becoming our leaders. And quite often, we're not preparing them along the way for that transition. And to make it even more difficult in field service, right? If you're in manufacturing and there's 20 other supervisors and 800 people in the building. You have examples every day of what good looks like from how they interact with their team, how they talk about KPIs, how they draw results. And you have bad examples that you want to avoid. When you're in a field service environment, you're on your own. So, if your senior leader is simply pushing a P&L at you and saying, your P&L defines your performance for the year, that's it. That's really old school. And that's still happening at some of the biggest brands we know today, not helping us move the leadership. Our team done that spectrum down, developing to that new leadership style. It's actually reinforcing and perpetuating kind of the path. In some cases, some will see that as micromanagement when we're talking just about the MBOs are managing by the P&L, but I think that's been the end result that we have to start to convert Trump.

Sarah - 00:18:18:

Yeah, so there's this idea of micromanagement, I think. And how would you contrast that then with this P&L-centric management?

Joe - 00:18:28:

Yeah, so as I was thinking about this topic, you think about the end-of-pipe metrics, T&L performance, things like that that have been historical in field services. You've got the traditional structure where there might be a regional manager with other field managers within there. And if we have one set of things we're focused on only and we pound those on a daily basis, it can create bad decision-making, right? It's very narrow in focus and can create some bad decisions. Whereas you start to span out, like I mentioned, the opposite is something that I'm even more concerned about, which is an utter lack of management, right? Where I've seen in the field service industry, we put our technicians out in the field. We put KPIs out there. We send them out to do work. And as long as those KPIs look okay, we're hands-off. We only focus where something doesn't look right. And the risk with that is we don't know. We may not know how those results were achieved. You don't dig into it and understand it. So that lack of management or that lack of oversight in the field can be just as detrimental as micromanagement. And finding that right way of working, that right balance between allowing the freedom of the team to take advantage of their superpowers and strength with just enough organization and structure, we're all moving along together. And I think

Sarah - 00:19:53:

Maybe oversight reinforces the idea of micromanagement in some ways, but it's more so engagement, staying engaged. What are they encountering? I had a gentleman from Tetra Pak on a couple of months ago, and we talked about a whole initiative that they had that started in Europe to understand better just kind of like the mindset of their technicians. And he talked about a survey they did, but I really loved some of the questions that they asked because it wasn't as formulaic as some that you might think. You know, they actually asked, like, what makes you feel proud in your role? When do you feel most supported? When do you feel not supported? Like things where it's this idea of understanding both what are the teams feeling fulfilled by in their roles and how can you amplify those? And then also where do the challenges lie and how can you remove some of those barriers? Right. So it's kind of oversight to me feels maybe even too transactional for like the mentality we're talking about. It's more engagement and like this concept of some of the things we're going to talk about and understanding and building relationships with your team and considering their strengths and all of those types of things.

Joe - 00:21:12:

Yeah, there's symptoms of the past still when we talk about micromanagement. But you think back a few of years. You'd have a guy show up to install something at your home. And before he left, he would give you his personal cell phone number and say, if there's any issues, call me. Why was he doing that or why was she doing that? Because from a micromanagement perspective, that KPI was only used in a negative way. It wasn't from an engagement perspective to say, geez, we had an issue with an install. Where did it break down? It was a technician avoiding getting a ding in their KPI. So they're having a negative conversation, it sounds like a simple shift but to shift to it's okay to have an install not go great as long as we can go back and understand what happened and engage that technician rather than dumping the technician it's a mind shift there but you still have to get over the hurdle of people are still used to a lot of people are still used to those KPIs from a micromanagement perspective being used to bludgeon yeah then to understand where the business is letting the technician down where they weren't able to be successful a big shift that is still underway that i think is again been a little bit slower to take hold in our world of field services than other sectors

Sarah - 00:22:28:

Absolutely. And the way you just said that is perfect. Where is the business letting the technicians down? It's shared responsibility, not blame. And you're absolutely right that particularly technicians that have been around a while, they are very well programmed to be more fear-based and to expect that mentality. So let's talk a little bit about the importance in leadership today to recognize and understand the different strengths you have in your team, or teams, and then position your team members to succeed.

Joe - 00:23:04:

Yeah, the huge part, I talked about it a bit at the field service conference a while back, and recognizing talent and where your team is at is vitally important. And I'll go back again, that really starts with understanding yourself and whatever that takes. There's tools and there's programs for that, everything from the well-known disk to the strength finder to a number of different ones that I've got here. We can share later, but really it starts with understanding ourselves, understanding what our strengths, where our weak spots are, right? And there's a tool I use at the very beginning, whenever I'm bringing in a new leader or when I'm joining an organization that I would recommend people use called new leader assimilation. It's very basic, very easy to execute, but it gives you a leg up on helping your team understand you as well. And I'll give you an example. Like with myself, I understand that I can, I love highly engaging in conversation backed in data and facts, but I can become frustrated if it's a conversation that drones on based on opinion rather than data and facts. I'll share that with my team when I first meet them. This is something I know about myself. You should know about me. Once you have a strong understanding of yourself and you're building a team, if we take it from that angle, you have to be able to quickly assess and understand the team you have and the pieces that you also need. And that is beyond the technical, right? When you get to a certain point in your career, the technical elements stream out on the resume. It's really what makes the difference is what you mentioned earlier is the formerly labeled soft, what separate especially leadership or leaders from the high-performing leaders from the low-performing leaders. So when I get with my team, like I said, understanding myself and then getting a really good, strong understanding of them and what their superpowers are. There's an example I like to give. When I assembled a team in my past, I had been accused of assembling strange-looking teams. That tend to perform highly. But I knew I had a Jason that was highly technical. And if I had a harebrained idea, I needed to run it by Jason because he was going to fill in all the gaps. If we had a new initiative or strategy rolling out that we needed to be communicated, well, I had John. John was the best communicator on my team. He led the charge there. So from understanding yourself, understanding the strengths of your team, and then putting them in those positions to take advantage of those strengths is vital. And understanding and really getting the team to understand that where they're going to succeed best is being their true self. Not trying to be me, not trying to be Tim, not trying to be Becky or anybody else, but really getting people comfortable with being their genuine self, focusing on their team, understanding their team, putting them in the right position to create better than expected results. There's other elements that I think are important within that. From coaching, right? I sat in a session at Sodexo the other day, and we were talking about how often one-on-ones are happening, everywhere from weekly to every six months, right? Well, how do you apply the really basic tools, really basic understanding to strength assessments, all those things, your personal observations to put people in a successful spot?

Sarah - 00:26:29:

I think as you're describing this, I'm kind of thinking in my mind, one of the initial objections I can imagine people would service is that's too time-consuming. Which I think is interesting because, you know, when we think about, and obviously this is a broad generalization of all of field service, right, and which is a lot of different industries. But generally speaking, we've witnessed a shift of service as a cost center where it was very transactional success, very formulaic, which I think is where this, you know, ability to drive through KPIs came from, or at least when it worked, right? Because it was something breaks, it needs fixed, it needs fixed fast, it needs fixed well, and if we can do that, we're winning, right? To service as a profit center. Service as a potential competitive disadvantage. Service as often a new revenue stream, et cetera, et cetera. It's not formulaic anymore, right? There isn't just an easy recipe for success, and therefore, people become the critical asset. And understanding then how you position these various strengths to create something truly compelling and to give your customers whatever it is that they want, that they can't easily get elsewhere. You can't do that managing by P&L, to your point. It becomes like, yes, it's time-consuming, but what's the alternative? You know, the alternative is being disrupted. The alternative is, you know, becoming competitively obsolete. So I just think it's really interesting how a lot of the skills or evolution of skills that we're talking about is also rooted in the evolution of service and its role within the business. Does that make sense?

Joe - 00:28:24:

Yeah. It does. And I think we're going to start to get to a topic that's really near and dear to me when we talk about how we start to make that shift that you're talking about, right? I'll share a brief example I've shared in the past that will maybe get us going down that path. And really, I'll underline it under the guise of mindful leadership and give a quick example of what less than mindful leadership looks like, and then we can dive into it. The story is about my uncle when he worked for U.S. Steel and the steel mines. He was a millwright and he would make parts for the large equipment at the steel mine. And in short, he offered a suggestion for an improvement that would reduce downtime on a belt line. And his supervisor basically told him, I pay you to work with your hands, take your work order, go do your work, get it done. Fast forward to today, right? So in that world, not being mindful of that individual strength, not being in mindful of that individual, my uncle's superpowers and ignoring those versus what you just talked about is where we move forward today. And in this world where we're not just a cost center, our service technicians are the face of our companies and our brands. They deliver a service. They deliver it in a way that creates a lasting impression based on our brand. If a leader... Is a micromanager only dealing with problems, running hot all day, carrying all kinds of baggage through the day. What type of experience is that employee going to have? And then what type of experience is that employee going to translate onto our valued customers or client? So having that mindful leader approach can ensure that, especially in field service, where that person with the uniform showing up at our business or at somebody's home is the lasting memory of Sodexo or name the service company even more important than it has ever been as we go down this continuum. So I think there's a lot we can chat about in that space. And when it comes to making that shift to what I refer to as mindful leadership rather than micromanagement P&L leadership.

Sarah - 00:30:34:

So how would you describe the ideal balance of leadership between sort of the technical skill and tactical approach versus the kind of mindset and ethos?

Joe - 00:30:46:

I think definitely have to be solid in the first element, right? We have to understand our business. We need to know what levers cause what reaction down the line, right? If we're trying to drive for efficiency, quality, customer experience, you have to be flawless in the things, the technical aspects. The further we get from the field through our career and are trying to influence our culture back down, that ratio needs to continue to grow less on the technical side and more on that mindful leadership communication side and what we're saying, how we're saying it, when we're saying it, who we're saying it to. I think that there's a kind of a sliding scale, right? The closer you are to the field, the more technically sound you have to be, but then call it 20 or 30% focus on your people, understanding them and your customers, but then just continue to slide that as you move up the organization. Because you're going to have experts like on my team. I have sourcing experts. I have technical experts. I've got quality experts, safety experts. If they're all set up right, they're going to build a great plan based on what we've communicated. And so I beat them, focusing more on how do we shift culture in the organization while their leaders are focused more on technical. So I know that's not perfectly clear, but it is a sliding scale kind of depending on where you're at within that service organization.

Sarah - 00:32:10:

Yeah, that makes sense. Now, what are some of the facets or traits or practices that you feel are most important in leadership today?

Joe - 00:32:20:

I think being genuine. People are really smart. People are really empathetic. If you're not, you're genuine self, you're already down. You've watched it happen. You try to be something you're not. People will sniff you out immediately and you'll lose credibility. It's okay that people may not like you as long as you're being your true self. You're not going to have everybody that's going to be on your side at all times and you have to be okay with that too. A huge part is truth telling. I always emphasize the importance of transparency and honest feedback. Truth-telling in terms of, especially as, again, you grow up in the organization. The last thing you want to do is be less than transparent. Truth-telling isn't always fun either. You're going to have to tell somebody something they don't want to hear either up the chain or down. But I think it's vitally important that we're transparent and tell the truth, unveiled truth at all times. I think as leaders, another key element is being adept at coaching and not just using coaching as a word blindly, but truly dedicating time to becoming a good coach, a good question asker, a good listener, a good developer, it's a vital skill. And then I throw in things that I think are, these are a little bit newer to the party, but I think they're important. An ability to be paper mindful, saying, be meditative, be mindful, allows you to be your true self, allows you to be focused and genuine. So even the practice of setting intentions, being willing to set intentions for a day or even for a meeting, right? I was just coaching a former employee prior to meeting with you. I've got a much more stressful conversation coming up. So how do I? As a leader, how do I look for somebody who can adapt and adjust? Mindfulness practices of simply taking a deep breath and resetting your energy and your intention towards the next meeting. That's a great way to be like. I even brought a resource with one of the books I use. You can see it's kind of tabbed up. It's called Move to Greatness, where if you need to be in a driver energy, organizer energy, collaborator, visionary, there's even physical movements you can do to help get yourself to that right space. So, like I said, if you go down the list, genuineness, truth-telling, true coaching ability, and mindful leadership are, if those things exist and the technical piece is there, it can do great things.

Sarah - 00:34:43:

So I want to come back to two things quickly. One is the idea of telling the truth up, okay? Because I think truth-telling, very important no matter what, right? Being honest, being transparent, being open, I think is very important. But I think it's probably more likely people struggle with doing that up versus down. To the point I said toward the beginning about the feedback Tom gave you, right? I mean, again, he was telling the truth up because he felt it was important to be transparent and honest, but that's something that it can be tough for a lot of people to do. So what advice do you have on truth-telling up?

Joe - 00:35:23:

Starting first is understanding who you're going to be speaking to and what is their view of the situation, being mindful of that, attempting to remove as much of the emotion from your observation that you're about to share, being fact-based, and being really confident in what you're going to share, especially if it's contradictory to what your leadership team believed to be the case. So the leadership team believed the product is ready to roll out in the field. Quick example, you do your analysis and it absolutely is not. How do you craft your message to your senior leadership team in a way that exposes the truth and says this product is going to cost 2x in annual maintenance than what we had in our pro forma? How do you pass that message in a way where it can be received? And also then act it on and resource to help solve the problem. Understanding your audience and understanding the data and facts. And then lastly, offering alternative paths. Way too often new leaders come into an organization and they're really good at explaining the problem, but they're not good at offering alternative solutions or they haven't been empowered to offer alternative solutions historically. So I always encourage my leaders, come with your problems and come with alternative solutions. And at the same time, when you're, like you said, that truth-telling conversation, that may not be what your leader was expecting to hear that day.

Sarah - 00:36:50:

Good advice. My other question is, at what point and how did you first get into the mindfulness and meditation stuff?

Joe - 00:37:01:

I think I mentioned earlier, maybe about five years ago. And it started on a personal journey, but then developed into the professional side. I started working with my coach. Her name is Jill Summers. Anybody listening and want to look her up, I know she has a couple of available slots for clients right now. But I started working with her on a personal journey, like I mentioned, trying to understand myself better about five years ago. And as I went down through that journey with her, I started making these connections to the workplace. And so I would say in the workplace, it started about three years ago, four years ago. And even you jump forward to today, beyond just how I lead personally, mindfulness has made its way into my teenage world. Sometimes we'll do a breathing exercise. Sometimes we'll be mindful and just, we have an hour meeting. I'll tell, ask everybody who's been at their desk all day. Everybody raises their hand. A mindful gesture is turn off your cameras, go outside for a walk for 10 minutes and come back a little bit of self-care to get you out of your seat.

Sarah - 00:38:02:

So we've been talking a bit about the evolution of your leadership journey and style. How often do you think leaders need to be reflecting on and, as necessary, reimagining or recreating their leadership style?

Joe - 00:38:17:

It's a continuous journey. I don't think there's an end point. There are certain milestones where you're definitely going to have to assess your leadership style, right? Joining a new organization, building a new team, moving to a different element of the organization. Even the most mindful leader, that leadership style may not be appropriate for the time and place that they find themselves in. So I think reassessing continually and making micro-adjustments is the best approach, but also assessing at those big milestone moments, new strategies, new leaders, and just assessing how your style is meshing. Worst-case scenario, if you're just not getting the result. You've got to really look at your leadership style and see where you're missing.

Sarah - 00:39:00:

So you showed us the book and you talked a little bit about how you transition from sort of event to event or pieces of the day. Anything else on how you channel the right energy to bring to your team or to whatever it is that you are responsible for throughout the day?

Joe - 00:39:21:

If you go through the day, it's actually a bigger practice. It starts every day with a similar pattern in the morning. The things that I do to prep for the day, you already mentioned it. It's the things that you do between moments in time and setting yourself up to the next one. I think also vitally important, as we haven't discussed, is having what we all like to refer to as time to focus and stop going meeting to meeting and be mindful of what was in that last meeting. What do I need to follow up on? Who do I need to check in with? And then I also make it a habit to do that at the end of each day, at the end of each week, at the end of each month to continually reflect and then look forward to see what are those challenges coming at me in the next week, month, quarter, or year. So you can start to put your energy in line with that rather than waiting for it to be on your doorstep. I also, when you get into the really micro stuff, Sarah, when people go on vacation, make them go on vacation. Don't call them, don't email them. Just simple little stuff like that that set us up for success so people can truly disconnect, re-energize, and come back to work. It's even little stuff like that where we forget about that quite often.

Sarah - 00:40:36:

Yeah, and I mean, it's not that little, really. It's really, really important. What leadership resources, inspiration, information, et cetera, do you find most valuable? Anything you would share for people to check out that they might not be familiar with or might not think to use, that sort of thing.

Joe - 00:40:57:

So this is going to sound a little silly to start with, but anytime you interact with a service person in your daily life, ask them questions. I had a safe flight due to Red Shield recently. Both technicians were amazing in their pre-trip call, in their follow-up at the end. And I just asked them, how do you know where you're going next? What do you like about your job? How do you know you're having a good day? So learn from them. Other tools to use are ones we know, but maybe haven't used on a daily basis, is something like a disk assessment. They've done so much with disk where now I can go into a meeting at a big company like Sodexo. I can pull up another employee's disk profile, put them side by side, and see what I need to think about mentally to prepare for if I'm going to be going into a meeting with a high C and I'm a high R. I can be mindful of who I'm meeting with. So I'm not just applying Joe to the situation, but I'm being mindful of who I'm sitting across from and how they might receive information. I love reading, and I always encourage people to read books. I'll always have one in my bag. You saw the one on moving to greatness. There's a ton of books around that. The new one I'm reading, I can't recommend it yet, but I can say I'm reading it, is The Conscious Professional by Jessica Hartung. I am a huge proponent of coaches, and that's why I have one in more than one space of my life. So folks like Joe Summers, my coach, who I'm happy to connect anybody to, I highly advise having a professional coach. Either continuously or at certain periods of time. One that's a little bit different that I've found to be a great source of inspiration, no matter how interesting it might be, is actually a masterclass. I downloaded that masterclass. If you haven't heard of it, check it out. But it's everything from business and strategy to how to make a great cup of coffee. But seeing these different folks, different leaders, from Oprah to different political figures, different business leaders, talking about their success. It's been a really cool way to grab eight and ten-minute clips of information to try to draw some inspiration out of. So I thought I'd throw that one in there, even though it's a little bit off the grid. But masterclass has been kind of a cool, creative way for me to think a little bit different recently.

Sarah - 00:43:12:

I like that. I mean, all good things. And I like what you said. The idea of these conversations in this podcast, you know, isn't that anyone needs to try and replicate anyone else's approach or success, but just that you can get some fresh perspective, get some different ideas or inspiration and understand a bit better what others are thinking and doing. And I think there's a lot to gain from that, doing it through things like this, but also masterclass, reading or whatever those ways are that you can sort of broaden your perspective and reflect on what's working well for others.

Joe - 00:43:51:

Yeah. And the last thing I encourage people is to be open about if you are on that journey, like my current team at Sodexo, I shared with them my mindfulness journey and meditative work. Surprisingly, within 10 minutes of that meeting, almost half of my team sent me individual notes, say, hey, guess what, I do that, too. God, I'm a runner. I'm a lifter.

Sarah - 00:44:24:

Yeah.

Joe - 00:44:24:

I do this. It's okay to talk about that, now find, I found. Anyway. Here's a lot more people are. I'll take things to the pandemic or what, but, when you do start to talk about it, you will be surprised how many people are either willing to discuss it or practicing some of those same techniques on their own or are very open to doing those things at work, right? Like, I'll work with my team on, breathing exercises, if we're going to have a challenging meeting, we'll start and do two or three minutes of a box breath before we get started to center everybody in and bring them back in, so.

Sarah - 00:44:54:

Yeah.

Joe - 00:44:54:

It's vitally be willing to talk about it.

Sarah - 00:44:56:

And it's a case study in you being genuine. And we talked about how important that is. So yeah, that's wonderful. Well, Joe, thank you so much for coming on and sharing sort of your trajectory thus far and some of what you've learned, some of what's working for you today. I really appreciate it and would love to continue the conversation at some point in the future.

Joe - 00:45:18:

Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity and good luck on future episodes.

Sarah - 00:45:22:

Thank you so much. You can learn more by visiting the home of the UNSCRIPTED podcast at futureoffieldservice.com. There is all sorts of information there on everything from leadership and the talent approach to digital transformation and service transformation and much, much more. So check it out. The UNSCRIPTED podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

My husband and I have a running joke when one is complaining to offer a solution and then say, “or do you just want to complain about it?” The way I roll my eyes at him when he says “yes” makes me think of how I feel about the field service organizations making a very half-hearted effort to address the challenges of today’s talent landscape.

Should we change our job descriptions and recruiting practices? Nah, let’s just complain. Shall we finally accept that we have to work harder than we used to by – gasp – training capable but inexperienced workers rather than expecting they drop from the sky with 10+ years’ experience? Let’s resist (and complain).

All the complaining about what’s changed and the pining for “how it used to be” is wasted energy that would be better put toward adapting to the current circumstances, because they aren’t changing anytime soon. So, yes, you do need to change your approach to attracting and recruiting – and, yes, you do need to put more effort into not only training and enablement, but culture and leadership. But if you do the work, the talent is there – and they’re telling you what they want and need if you’re just willing to listen.

Take, for instance, Teresa Carneiro, Field Service Engineer at STEMCELL Technologies, who recently shared her story on the UNSCRIPTED podcast. Teresa is 24 years old, from Portugal, and after finishing her master's degree in biomedical engineering set a goal to work in Germany. Having landed in a Field Service Engineer role in Munich for Vancouver-based STEMCELL, Teresa had a lot to share about her experience seeking said role.

Having had the opportunity to meet Teresa in person at the Future of Field Service Live event in Cologne this past June, I can attest to her appeal in terms of field service talent (the various job offers she received throughout the day are further proof). Most organizations are seeking greater diversity, including bringing more women into roles, and far more importantly than that she is intelligent, engaging, well-spoken, and passionate about her work. The insights she shared during our podcast are food for thought for organizations across industries looking to break free from the status quo and take action to modernize their talent approach.

#1: The Field Service Branding Problem Persists

I wrote an article a while back about the field service branding problem, and the premise endures. There isn’t ample representation of field service careers and, therefore, it’s a sort of unknown category of career opportunity that varies greatly by industry but overall falls victim to being “under the radar.” Kids in school talk about wanting to be doctors or teachers or athletes or businesspeople, but they aren’t aspiring to lead a global service organization (or a regional service company).

“One thing that I felt that was really lacking throughout my whole university experience was having some real examples of what it is possible to do after you finish your studies,” says Teresa, “And of course, you can do your own research, but having real life examples and people to talk about how their daily life actually looks like gives you a much clearer idea of what your own life can look like if you choose that path.” She came across the opportunity of becoming an FSE because she had a friend working in a similar role and felt it was an opportunity she’d enjoy.

While it’s a long-game approach vs. a real-time fix, it's important to consider how we work to make the world of field service more visible and the career opportunities within that world better known to children and students.

#2: We Don’t Have a Talent Gap, We Have an Experience Gap

Many service organizations have been accustomed to hiring FSEs or technicians with previous experience and are really struggling to accept that hiring based on experience is a practice of the past. We talk about the “talent gap” but in reality, there isn’t a shortage of talented candidates – there’s a shortage of candidates that have already done the job.

Companies that are taking the initiative to revisit requirements, finding ways to offer additional training or certifications or apprenticeships so that they can seek capable and teachable employees rather than those who have been in a similar role are opening up a far broader realm of possibility. “I think it is very curious because ever since I actually joined the industry, I have heard all sorts of companies saying exactly how hard it is to get young talent in their teams,” shares Teresa. “But I must say that having very recently searched for a job, I felt exactly the opposite. I felt that I was always behind because I didn't have any previous experience in this industry. Even when you come across some entry-level jobs, they often ask for years of experience. It can be a bit discouraging. And especially in this type of role, you need a lot of training regardless of your previous experience because of how specific it is. I truly believe that recently graduated students can bring a lot to the table. We are used to learning so many different things in such short timeframe.”

#3: Many Field Service Job Descriptions Are Hindering Efforts

There’s the need to evolve to a point of not requiring previous experience, but that particular issue aside many field service job descriptions are deterring potential candidates. Everything from inaccurate or outdated requirements (such as needing to lift 50 pounds when, in reality, no FSE has lifted more than 15 in history) to highly technical or niche terminology to poorly articulated descriptions of what the work and opportunity looks like are causing massive challenges.

It's important to consider: when is the last time you really updated your job descriptions? When you did so, how critically did you examine not only the criteria but the unconscious bias and the appeal to candidates? Many organizations haven’t updated as recently as they should, and even more haven’t truly reflected on what could help them cast a wider net of applicants to have more potential talent to choose from.

Let’s also remember that evidence shows that women are far less likely to apply for a role if they do not meet all requirements, which is important to consider if you have the goal of increasing diversity. “At first, if I didn’t meet all requirements, I would not apply. Then I started to understand that this simply wouldn’t work; I needed to apply and then prove myself in the interviews. If they meet me, I might change their minds. And that's what happened,” says Teresa.

It's fortunate for Teresa, and her employer, that she was given an interview despite not meeting 100% of the criteria. But this is a lesson for companies to consider the talent they are missing out on by not revisiting how they position the roles they need to fill. “I applied anyway, because I figured, what do I have to lose? And I encourage young people to do the same. Whenever I'm talking with friends that are searching for new jobs, I always say, apply even if you don't fit every requirement. Because it might change their mind when they meet you and talk to you,” Teresa says.

#4: Know Your Audience: What Appeals to Younger Talent about Field Service Roles

Tied in to creating more awareness appeal of field service roles and updated job descriptions to reflect what matters most to today’s talent, you first must understand what it is younger candidates are seeking and will find attractive about the FSE role. For Teresa, the appeal began with the sense of purpose she feels as an FSE. “I have found a job that allows me to keep in touch with the research environment I studied. For me, being able to bridge the gap between industry and research makes me feel really accomplished and that I'm doing something meaningful,” she shares.

Many younger workers are drawn to the opportunity to travel, which is common with field service roles. “I was excited for the opportunity to travel, to be exposed to different environments,” says Teresa. “I do love traveling and having the opportunity to visit not only places in Germany but also other countries in Europe.”

Teresa was also excited for the opportunity to hone her communication and people skills. “I also like to talk to people and establish communication with our customers. I see this job not only as servicing machines, but also listening and understanding our customers, which in my case are researchers,” she says. “I can relate to them and I can understand their urgency.”

Field service holds a lot of potential in offering variety as well as flexibility, if the company embraces doing so. For young talent that hugely values work-life balance, this can be an advantage. “I like that not every day is the same and I appreciate the flexible work hours,” explains Teresa. “In the same week, I can have some days working from home, others traveling, and also some days in the labs. Not always being in the same place for a nine to five job is also one of the reasons this role is so appealing to me. The younger generations are definitely more focused on work-life balance than previous generations.”

#5: Understand that Improving Recruiting is a Small Piece of a Much Bigger Puzzle to Solve

If you really want to create a winning talent strategy, it must reach beyond the recruiting and hiring phases. Companies can get wrapped up in these areas because of the acute need to fill roles, but the reality is if you aren’t creating a working environment that this talent wants to be a part of, retention will be poor and you’ll constantly be trying to catch up.

For companies who are bringing in more diverse candidates, consideration of the employee experience is even more imperative. If your new employees are different in any way from the “typical” employees, think ahead about what work is needed to ensure they are welcomed, treated fairly, and feel comfortable communicating any challenges.

“So far I've not really faced any big challenges. However, all of my visits so far have been joint visits as I'm still in training. And I guess that another thing that might make me feel more comfortable and secure is that I work mainly with research labs where, in contrast with field service, there are a lot of women working. Compared to other industries, I feel this one might be a bit easier to fit in as a woman, even though all of my field service colleagues are men,” Teresa shares.

Teresa not only felt very respected and supported by her manager from as early as the interview process, but she has felt welcomed by her peers. “I feel my company's culture is overall very welcoming. One thing I really appreciate is that everyone is super available to include me and have me join customers visits. They always take extra time to explain and train me properly. They never make me feel like a burden or like I'm delaying their work or making them stay longer or anything,” says Teresa. “The other thing that was also reassuring is that I was never given a time limit to when I need to be ready to start going alone. My company has always reiterated that I will only go alone when I feel comfortable and ready.”

The employee experience begins with onboarding and initial training, both of which demand proper focus. “With all the training [two intensive training weeks in Canada at headquarters and subsequent joint visits], I feel really equipped. As I've said before, the training is so specific that even if I'd had previous experience, it would not help me necessarily with this equipment. I don't think that would make such a difference,” Teresa says.

Of course, the quality of leadership and type of management plays a fundamental role in employee satisfaction and retention – this is another area of evolution and significant differentiation for some companies. “So far, I’ve been really lucky with my current manager because there is no micromanagement whatsoever. There’s a sense of ownership that comes from, of course, being given the tools that you need, but also having the freedom to explore the way you're most comfortable doing things and tackling issues in your own way,” says Teresa. “Instead of just being told how I need to approach services, I have been given space and highly encouraged to find the way that is best for me.”

#6: Check Your Bias and Assumptions

As younger workers enter field service and diversity improves in other areas as well, it’s more important than ever for us to be very aware of our biases and assumptions. As companies work to evolve to today’s talent landscape, knowing that you don’t know what you don’t know is imperative. Get curious, ask questions, seek to understand.

This importance was illustrated when I asked Teresa how she feels her draw to field service might evolve as she progresses into other phases of life. “Of course, I have no idea how my life is going to look in a few years. And I don't know if I will enjoy traveling as much as I do now,” says Teresa. “These questions about balancing this type of job with parenthood are often framed as exclusively a woman's problem, such as how do you see yourself managing this lifestyle when you become a mom? And, of course, you did not frame it that way, nor did you assume that I do want to have children, which is also not an assumption that should be made for every woman. But this balance is not just a woman's problem. This might be a concern for anyone who wants to start a family and knows how much time we spend away from home in this type of job. So, companies should tackle this problem and get creative, having everyone in mind and not just women.”

As we work to modernize our approach to talent, we have to understand that there are deeply embedded assumptions, norms, and unconscious bias that must be mined and mediated.

In conclusion, Teresa shares some thoughts on her recent experience seeking, obtaining, and starting a FSE career: “A young person's perspective is that the companies that are investing in creating flexibility and creative environments and that are promoting professional but personal growth as well and that provide a safe space for learning are definitely on the right track. Believing in young people and their skills is crucial as is giving them a chance, even if there are other candidates with more experience. Everyone needs their first opportunity to show their work. And ultimately, the companies that are working hard to attract this new talent hold significant power in including the younger generation.”

Episode 279

In this episode of the Unscripted Podcast, host Sarah Nicastro shares a synopsis of attending Field Service East in Orlando on August 13th, 2024. She discusses the importance of customer centricity and the role of technology in improving employee and customer experiences.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The Show Notes

Sarah - 00:00:00:

I think it's an important reminder for service leaders to keep in mind that as you look to what the impact of AI can be or how it can expand within your business, you also need to be keeping an eye on everything else. And that includes other technologies, but it also includes things like leadership and culture and engagement and, you know, soft skills and customer sentiment.

Hello, welcome to the UNSCRIPTED podcast, where you'll find discussions on what matters most in service, leadership, and business transformation. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Let's jump in.

I am flying solo today to do a brief recap or summary for you all of the Field Service East event, which took place August 13th through the 15th in sunny Orlando. So, I will start this by saying I was only at the event for day one. So I was speaking on day one. I attended the majority of the sessions on day one and did as much networking and interacting and talking with people as humanly possible in one day, but I did have to depart on day two. So this won't be a comprehensive recap because I wasn't at the event for the entire thing. But I actually had the opportunity to kick off the first day of the event with a keynote session where I spoke about, so the theme for the day was talking about customer centricity. And I wanted to reinforce the connection between the importance of employee experience and customer experience. So I think, you know, that's a connection that I hope everyone understands well at this point, but I think we're at various phases of organizations taking that understanding and actually operating from a place of understanding that and aligning actions to that understanding. So what I spoke about is not only that connection, but from a technology standpoint, how we need to really evolve our thinking from technology being, seen as something that can, you know, drive productivity, drive efficiency for organizations and broaden that to also consider the ways in which it can be leveraged to improve the employee experience. So this is not to say, of course, that, you know, managing costs, maximizing efficiency, or improving productivity are not important. It's simply to say that companies that are leading, I think, are doing so by considering not only the ways that technology investments can benefit the business, but also how leveraging technology to improve the employee experience can also benefit the business while benefiting those employees. So I gave some examples, in which I summarized an article that we can link in the show notes, but that was my session, and enjoyed kicking off the day. I actually really like going first, because you get it out of the way, the hard work is done, and then, you know, you can just enjoy from there. So I had the opportunity to introduce some of the speakers throughout the morning and also moderate a panel discussion, which I'll speak about momentarily. But after I spoke, Greg Ratcliff, who is the chief innovation officer at Vertiv, did a keynote on essentially the importance of data. What I really liked, so he got up, are you guys ready to nerd out? Which, you know, isn't really my thing, but it was great. But what he talked about was this evolution from paper-based service to essentially digital paper to data-driven service. And I think it's really interesting because, you know, I've said this before, you know, the term digital transformation is just so broad and can be very confusing in some ways, right? Because, transformation to me gives the connotation of transforming from one thing to the next thing, right? But really we're talking about a digital journey. And I think the initial wave or waves of transformation that a lot of service organizations did digitally was really just to replace paper-based processes with digital paper-based processes, right? We weren't significantly leveraging data. We weren't really optimizing. We weren't layering in, you know, remote capabilities and AI and really adding intelligence to that process. And today, all of those things are not only possible but happening, which significantly increases complexity and also opportunity, which is exciting. So Greg did a great session on some of those things and what that looks like at Vertiv and how they're thinking about it, what they're working toward, et cetera. So, then there were a couple of other sessions, one from Aquant, one from ServiceMax. I had the opportunity to host a panel discussion with Greg, who I mentioned from Vertiv, Craig Bruns from Crown Equipment, and Logan Lewis from EnterBridge. And the panel discussion was on essentially build versus buy. And to be completely honest with you all, when I got the information that that was the topic, I was kind of surprised because, I don't know, to me, and I understand I have bias here, but to me, I think there's very few arguments today to build. And we actually talked about this in the panel discussion. And I think Greg made the point that even within the last five years, the field service management solutions that are available have become so much more sophisticated, sophisticated and accessible that, you know, there would be, it would be hard to defend the idea of not leveraging something that, you know, that much work, effort, time, resource, et cetera, has been put into. Now that we talked about, you know, obviously some of the advantages of building, which is mostly control. But I think, you know, by and large, we're just at a point where, for a company to have the volume of knowledge and resource that it takes to do that well is pretty rare. So it was an interesting conversation nonetheless. And we talked about some things that, you know, really were applicable no matter what. So, you know, building business case and ensuring adoption and things like that. It was an interesting chat. Craig from Crown also had a session of his own on that day and talked about their initiative of leave no tech behind. And so what they're doing from a technology perspective to make sure that their technicians are well enabled in the field to make sure that they have access to everything they need to have access to from history to knowledge to support and all of the different pieces of technology in place, throughout the service journey to make sure that those technicians are properly equipped and enabled. So I also had an interesting conversation about the idea of both the benefits and potential debt of legacy. So talking about how when a company has had continued success or sustainable success for years and years and years and has, a reputable brand and has a very well-defined customer base and customer experience, you know, to what point does that sort of exacerbate or breed status quo, like embracing the status quo versus when and where and how do you select the points of opportunity for innovation or change? And I think it's a really interesting question. I think, you know, we talk about that quite a bit from the perspective of companies who are ‘servitizing’ the business or companies who want to introduce as a service offerings, because that's sort of a fundamental shift in how those companies are operating. This conversation was less in should we fundamentally change how we do business, more in do you miss the boat if you get very stuck in, well, what's working is working really, well, and don't look to external inspiration or other industries and how they're innovating. Like, is there potential to be disrupted if you aren't more actively seeking areas to innovate? I don't have the answer. I think certainly, you know, the idea of just leaning into the status quo and just avoiding change because what's working has been working and is working well. I don't think it's the right path. You know, I think companies like, well, I mean, we won't name names, but, you know, there are companies that have been significantly disrupted that aren't even around anymore that I think would agree. You know, you want to be looking toward the future and what's next and what's around you and what's happening and what could happen. But, you know, when you have customers that are very happy with the current ecosystem, you know, that does present a challenge of making sure that you dedicate the time and energy to that. And also that you continue to honor the legacy business that's working well while you also look for those areas of opportunity. I don't think any of you would be surprised to hear that AI came up in every session, and I would expect that, of course. You know, it's, again, something that is holding potential to add a lot of intelligence into companies, digital journeys and to really bring a new wave of capability. But I had an interesting chat with someone and the way he worded it is, I understand that AI is something we need to be thinking about, but it isn't everything. And I think that person was frustrated that, you know, it was so front and center that it seemed like there was maybe not enough space to be talking about some of the other things. And I think it's an important reminder for all of us. You know, I think, it's an important reminder for service leaders to keep in mind that as you look to what the impact of AI can be or how it can expand within your business, you also need to be keeping an eye on everything else. And that includes other technologies, but it also includes things like leadership and culture and engagement and, you know, soft skills and customer sentiment and, you know, all sorts of things. And I think, you know, when it comes to the event organizers in this space and the technology providers, you know, it's also important to keep perspective on the fact that while AI is uniquely positioned to really change a lot in terms of how intelligently and how automated and how, you know, modern operations can become, there are still a lot of other factors in play within these businesses from a technology standpoint and far beyond that these folks are needing help with, that they're seeking knowledge on, that they are wanting to interact with resources and with one another on. And so I think this idea of, yes, AI is definitely something that we need to be talking about and thinking about and learning about and discovering. And we need to continue thinking about and learning about and sharing about all of the other things that are on the minds of service leaders today and into the future. So those were my tidbits from the event. It was unfortunate that I wasn't able to catch more of the content that was being presented. However, I did talk to a few folks there and plan to reach out to some others who were sharing insights on other topics to see if they would be willing to come here on the podcast and share some of those insights with you as well. So stay tuned, and hopefully we'll have more for you soon.

You can take a look at the article that I wrote summarizing my keynote at futureoffieldservice.com and you can find a bunch of other things there as well. If you enjoy the UNSCRIPTED podcast, I hope you'll take an opportunity to rate or leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. The podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. And as always, thank you for listening.

Celebrating Stand Out Leadership

Celebrating Stand Out Leadership

Share

Episode 284

Episode Highlights:

Stay Connected

Related Content

How Alfa Laval Has Brought Service into Focus

The Feminist Plumber Who’s Paying It Forward

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

Most Recent

How Alfa Laval Has Brought Service into Focus

The Feminist Plumber Who’s Paying It Forward

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

Lessons in Leadership: Remaining Relevant and Impactful Over a Long Career

Lessons in Leadership: Remaining Relevant and Impactful Over a Long Career

Share

Stay Connected

Related Content

How Alfa Laval Has Brought Service into Focus

The Feminist Plumber Who’s Paying It Forward

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

Most Recent

How Alfa Laval Has Brought Service into Focus

The Feminist Plumber Who’s Paying It Forward

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

Lessons in Servitization: Combining Historical Success with Continual Innovation

Lessons in Servitization: Combining Historical Success with Continual Innovation

Share

Episode 283

Watch the Podcast Video here:

Episode Highlights:

Stay Connected

Related Content

Field Technicians: To Sell or Not to Sell?

As AI Unlocks the Promise of IoT, It’s Time to Double Down on Service Innovation

From IoT to GenAI and Beyond: Advice for Building Intelligent Connected Solutions

Most Recent

How Alfa Laval Has Brought Service into Focus

The Feminist Plumber Who’s Paying It Forward

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

Service Innovation: No Risk, No Reward

Service Innovation: No Risk, No Reward

Share

Stay Connected

Related Content

Field Technicians: To Sell or Not to Sell?

As AI Unlocks the Promise of IoT, It’s Time to Double Down on Service Innovation

From IoT to GenAI and Beyond: Advice for Building Intelligent Connected Solutions

Most Recent

How Alfa Laval Has Brought Service into Focus

The Feminist Plumber Who’s Paying It Forward

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

A 35+ Year View on Field Service Technology, Leadership and Change

A 35+ Year View on Field Service Technology, Leadership and Change

Share

Episode 282

Episode Highlights:

Stay Connected

Related Content

How Alfa Laval Has Brought Service into Focus

The Feminist Plumber Who’s Paying It Forward

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

Most Recent

How Alfa Laval Has Brought Service into Focus

The Feminist Plumber Who’s Paying It Forward

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

Bridging the Gap Between the Remote Service Vision and Reality

Bridging the Gap Between the Remote Service Vision and Reality

Share

Stay Connected

Related Content

How Alfa Laval Has Brought Service into Focus

The Feminist Plumber Who’s Paying It Forward

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

Most Recent

How Alfa Laval Has Brought Service into Focus

The Feminist Plumber Who’s Paying It Forward

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

Canon’s 5-Pillar Service Strategy