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Author: sydney.lofthouse@ifs.com

May 14, 2025 | 2 Mins Read

From Combat Pilot to the Corporate World: How the Military Shaped My Leadership (& Considerations for Recruiting Military Talent)

May 14, 2025 | 2 Mins Read

From Combat Pilot to the Corporate World: How the Military Shaped My Leadership (& Considerations for Recruiting Military Talent)

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Episode 316

In this episode of UNSCRIPTED, host Sarah Nicastro sits down with Hallie Johnston, US Director of Equipment at Henry Schein, to explore how military experience shapes corporate leadership, the delicate balance of empathy and accountability, and proven strategies for recruiting and retaining veteran talent. Whether you're looking to enhance your leadership approach or build more effective veteran hiring programs, this conversation offers practical insights. Tune in to discover why professional candor, clear expectations, and authentic leadership are crucial for success in today's business landscape.

What You'll Learn:

  • How to balance empathy and accountability through clear expectation setting and consistent feedback
  • The "Initial Counseling" framework for establishing two-way leadership expectations and goals
  • Why professional candor and humility are essential for building trust and team effectiveness
  • How to structure successful veteran hiring programs using SkillBridge partnerships and mentorship
  • The importance of translating military experience into corporate value through manager education
  • How to create supportive environments for veterans through Employee Resource Groups and transition support
  • Why "leading from the front" and demonstrating willingness to work alongside teams drives success
  • How to have difficult conversations professionally while maintaining team relationships and trust
  • The value of continuous recognition and celebration in building team morale and engagement
  • Why military talent brings unique perspectives and soft skills that enhance corporate leadership

About the Guest(s)

Hallie Johnston is the US Director of Equipment at Henry Schein, where she oversees full US dental operations and equipment business. A West Point graduate and former Army aviation officer and combat helicopter pilot, Johnston brings unique military leadership experience to the corporate world. Her transition from military service through roles at JPMorgan to her current position at Henry Schein exemplifies the valuable skills veterans bring to business leadership. In this episode, Johnston shares insights on military-informed leadership principles, including the importance of clear expectation setting, professional candor, and leading from the front. As an executive sponsor for Henry Schein's veterans employee resource group, she offers valuable perspectives on successfully integrating military talent into corporate environments and creating supportive transition pathways for veterans entering the civilian workforce. Her combination of military expertise and corporate leadership experience makes this conversation particularly relevant for service organizations looking to strengthen their leadership approaches and veteran recruitment strategies.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Also, subscribe to our newsletter right here.

Watch the episode here:

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Mental Health Matters: Resources to Support Wellbeing at Work

May 12, 2025 | 4 Mins Read

Mental Health Matters: Resources to Support Wellbeing at Work

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

May is Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States, and the focus may be more important now than ever. At Future of Field Service and the UNSCRIPTED podcast, we try to ensure that mental health and wellbeing are topics represented in our discussions often, not only in a certain month – but I will never pass up an opportunity to call attention to stories and resources that can help reduce stigma and improve awareness and understanding.

For 2025, Mental Health America is using the theme "Turn Awareness into Action" and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is focusing on the theme "In Every Story, There's Strength" (personally, I agree and I love that one). In the spirit of sharing powerful stories and helping to not only create better awareness, but inspire action, here is a compilation of some of conversations and resources I’d urge you to check out during this month of focus:

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

In this podcast, Rob Stephenson, TEDx Speaker, Mental Health Campaigner, Keynote Speaker, CEO of FormScore®, and Founder of the InsideOut LeaderBoard® shares his motivation for evangelizing mental well-being and gives advice on how companies can make progress in normalizing mental health topics and promoting well-being at work.

Rob is deeply committed to mental health awareness and actively participates in efforts to eliminate the stigma surrounding mental ill-health in the workplace. He has managed bipolar disorder throughout his personal and professional life and shares his experiences and strategies for change through public speaking engagements.

Be sure to check out the work he does with FormScore and the InsideOut LeaderBoard as well!

Building Mental Strength as a Leader

Scott Mautz, author of The Mentally Strong Leader, is a former Procter & Gamble executive who successfully ran four of the company’s largest multi-billion dollar businesses. He has been named a "CEO thought-leader" by The Chief Executives Guild and a "Top 50 Leadership Innovator" by Inc.com.

In this podcast discussion, Scott shares his strategies for building mental strength and overcoming challenges as a leader. He also explores topics such as self-regulation, the "static trap," self-doubt, imposter syndrome, navigating stress, as well as the importance of creating habits that support mental strength, providing tools and frameworks for building resilience.

Tetra Pak’s Proven Ways of Supporting Field Force Wellbeing

While looking beyond just mental health, this podcast about the steps Tetra Pak has taken to support field force wellbeing touches on many important points, including the message of “it’s OK to not be OK.” Marco Hugo Guiterrez, VP of Customer Service Operations, EMEA at Tetra Pak, shares a detailed look at what the company has done to put more emphasis on employee engagement and promote and maximize field force wellbeing.

8 Facts About Mental Health at Work to Expand Awareness and Prompt Action

When Darcy Gruttadaro, former Director of the Center for Workplace Mental Health, part of the APA Foundation, and now Chief Innovation Officer at NAMI joined our podcast for an episode on six ways to address employee burnout, we had more than we could squeeze into one discussion. As a result, I wrote this article on eight facts around mental health that I feel we all need to better understand and urge action on.

Learn more about the resources that both the Center for Workplace Mental Health and NAMI provide.

Destigmatizing, Normalizing and Prioritizing Mental Health in the Workplace

When I recorded a podcast with Johnny Crowder, suicide/abuse survivor, TEDx speaker, touring musician, mental health and sobriety advocate, and the Founder & CEO of Cope Notes, a text-based mental health platform that provides daily support to users in nearly 100 countries across the globe, I was in awe of him. Listen as we discuss the criticality of prioritizing mental health in the workplace, and also be sure to learn more about Cope Notes.

Putting Focus on Employee Mental Healt‪h

I shared on LinkedIn how sad I was to learn that Jordan Argiriou, former Director, Service Solutions APEC at QIAGEN had passed away. I will always remember when I asked him (a burly, Australian man) what he’d like to talk about in a podcast and he responded with “mental health” how surprised I was! It was a topic that was very important to him, and his advice in this podcast centers around normalizing the conversations, leading by example, and creating relationships that give people a safe place to share. Wise words from a wonderful man.

Making Mental Health a Focus in Service Leadership

This podcast is an oldie but goodie from an incredible woman, Linda Tucci. Recorded in the midst of Covid when Linda was service as the Global Sr. Director of the Technical Solutions Center at Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, we talk about why it is critical to make mental health a priority in service leadership and how she’s done so, for herself and her team.

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Lead Yourself First: Exploring the Link Between Self-Care and Service Excellence 

May 7, 2025 | 1 Mins Read

Lead Yourself First: Exploring the Link Between Self-Care and Service Excellence 

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Episode 315

In this episode of UNSCRIPTED, host Sarah Nicastro sits down with Laurie Battaglia, CEO of Aligned at Work, to explore how service leaders can thrive amid constant disruption and change. Recorded live at Field Service Palm Springs 2025, they dive into three essential success patterns: controlled urgency, dual focus strategy, and the tech-human balance framework. Whether you're battling burnout, struggling with work-life balance, or seeking ways to lead more effectively in today's fast-paced environment, this conversation offers practical insights on putting yourself first to better serve your team and organization. 

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Also, subscribe to our newsletter right here.

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4 Crucial Considerations for Defining Humanity’s Future in an AI-Enabled World

May 5, 2025 | 5 Mins Read

4 Crucial Considerations for Defining Humanity’s Future in an AI-Enabled World

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

In my opinion, we all have a quite serious responsibility at the moment to take part in creating an appropriate, ethical, and delicate balance between AI advancement and protecting what is uniquely human potential. Recently, I invited Faisal Hoque onto the podcast for an insightful discussion around what this delicate balance will take.

Hoque is a serial entrepreneur, business strategist, technology innovator, and best-selling author whose insights have been featured in CNN, Fast Company, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and Yahoo. He’s held corporate leadership roles at companies like GE, Pitney Bowes, and Dun & Bradstreet and he has built multiple companies focused on innovation and transformation. His latest book, Transcend, explores how organizations can harness AI's potential while protecting the human experience. As a dedicated philanthropist, Hoque donates all book proceeds to charity, and I found his uniquely balanced perspective on the AI revolution to be full of food for thought.

#1: Distinguish Enterprise AI from Consumer Applications

Hoque warns against conflating consumer AI tools with enterprise initiatives, as they serve fundamentally different purposes. Enterprise AI has been evolving for decades through automation, predictive modeling, and process optimization, while tools like ChatGPT that began as consumer AI represents just the visible tip of the iceberg for what’s now and next.

Business leaders must understand that enterprise AI will fundamentally reshape companies and work models as we move toward general intelligence systems that can think independently. As AI becomes a true "coworker" rather than just a passive tool, it will bring both unprecedented challenges and opportunities. This demands careful evaluation of where AI can remove inefficiencies, while preserving human value.

For us to do justice in preserving human value, Hoque suggests we must start by defining humanity. “Humanity is about freedom - freedom to be creative, freedom to pursue something, and it's love. It's love for your craft, love for your family, society, whatever. Love is driven by passion, because that's how you become fully fulfilled as a human being,” he says. Keeping these definitions in mind is how we set the stage to harness the potential of AI without risking what’s special about the human experience.

#2: Approach an AI-Centric Future with Neutrality

One of the aspects of our conversation that has stuck with me is discussing the power of neutrality when it comes to approaching an AI-centric future. I pointed out that, on one hand, it seems there are individuals and organizations that are overly excited to go all-in on AI with a hyperfocus on how it can cut costs and maximize profits; the risk here is being driven by greed.

On the other hand, there are leaders and businesses who are so hesitant to embrace this technology that is undoubtedly changing the way we work forever. The risk here is not only falling behind, but quickly becoming irrelevant. Perhaps the healthiest mindset is a more neutral one – welcoming and even being excited about what AI can do and how it will evolve businesses and work, but with a very keen eye on where caution need be applied and where the utmost risk to humanity lies.

Hoque agreed, bringing to light that this is how a Buddhist philosophy can be applied. “You have to develop this mentality of devotion and detachment in the sense that you have to be devoted to things that actually are helpful, that's regenerative in the sense that it's regenerating something that's helpful to humanity. You have to detach yourself from greed and from things that could be harmful, and also from fear,” he says.

He goes on to share a framework that is explored in Transcend, called the “open and care” framework to help provide a balanced approach to AI adoption. At its core, this framework promotes being radically open to possibilities while deeply caring about humanity and helps organizations identify opportunities while remaining mindful of risks and ethical considerations. Hoque reinforces that implementation should focus on augmenting human capabilities rather than wholesale replacement; the goal is transcending current limitations while protecting what makes us uniquely human.

“This divergent framework, Open and Care, is about being radically open to possibilities because there's so much good we can do with AI. But then, also, you have to be catastrophically focused on risk, and you have to care about humanity deeply if you want to maintain some level of balance,” says Hoque.

#3: Consider Reverse Innovation Risk

Hoque shared some thoughts around what we stand to lose if a balance isn’t struck between AI innovation and humanity. He spoke of the concept of "reverse innovation," describing how some technological advances can actually reduce human capabilities and critical thinking skills over time.

Business leaders must keep this in mind and be sure to evaluate whether automating certain processes might erode important foundational knowledge and skills their teams need. This requires maintaining core competencies even while leveraging advanced tools; I shared how this reminded me of our experience when our son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when the doctors insisted we learn manual calculations and care before relying on automated systems.

Careful consideration must be given to which activities truly benefit from automation versus which ones contribute to skill development and engagement.

#4: Prioritize Regenerative Leadership

So much of how AI’s impact will unfold in the coming years has to do with how it is approached by leaders, and how important they see it to strike a balance. Hoque speaks about regenerative leadership, which is focused on creating sustainable systems that help people reach their full potential rather than defaulting to automation.

Leaders must help employees develop new skills and capabilities as technology evolves, rather than simply reducing headcount. This approach views AI as a way to expand human potential and organizational capacity rather than just cut costs and centers the goal around multiplication of capabilities, not elimination of human contribution. "When I talk about regenerative leadership, I really mean that you have to be able to create ecosystem just like nature does, that regenerates resources. You have to do stuff as a leader that allows the resources to be regenerated so that they can live up to their full potential. If you're going introduce automation, you need to help people to regenerate their next level of contribution and skill set,” says Hoque.

Regenerative leadership relies heavily on empathy. "Greed is one risk factor, but a lack of empathy is another. If we have no empathy, then we don't really care about humanity. Empathy plays a huge role in terms of how you think about AI, how you design AI, and how you deploy and execute,” says Hoque. The successful integration of AI requires balancing technological capability with human empathy and mindful leadership; leaders must remain focused on how AI deployment impacts their people and organizational culture, not just efficiency metrics. This requires maintaining strong human connections and understanding while leveraging AI's analytical power. Organizations should evaluate AI initiatives through the lens of both business value and human experience. The key is finding ways to advance technology while strengthening rather than diminishing human relationships and purpose. "Think about a knife - you can use it in the kitchen, or you can use it to harm somebody. AI isn't any different, except it's million zillion times more powerful than a knife. It's up to you how you use it,” cautions Hoque.

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Episode 314

Sarah shares an overview of session highlights as well as her personal observations of Field Service Palm Springs 2025.  

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A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

April 28, 2025 | 3 Mins Read

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

I’ve had it on my mind to speak on this topic for quite a while, but coincidentally am writing this on a flight home after a hellish day of travel turned extra night away from my family turned into another day of travel. And sadly, that isn’t an experience that’s unfamiliar to me – or to many of you, I’m sure.

Over the last four or so years, I’ve traveled extensively. I have a handful of horror stories that would rival anyone’s and, if I’m being honest, have had a handful of full-on breakdowns in airports from the exhaustion and desperation to get home to my family. Not that it’s been all bad! I am incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to see different places and, more importantly, to meet and spend time with people face-to-face.

What I’ve observed over hundreds of flights and plenty in time at airports across the globe is behavior that makes me cringe. It’s interesting to watch how, when a flight is delayed, it’s almost always the most frequent fliers that are throwing fits, huffing and puffing, yelling, and treating airline employees like trash. I’ve witnessed some truly abhorrent behavior from the most experienced travelers.

It's important to remember that your 1K/Platinum Elite/Whatever Top-tier status may provide you with premium perks, but it does not guarantee a smooth experience every time because that simply isn’t possible. You may observe an airport’s inefficiency with keen awareness of how it could be done better, but that doesn’t give you the right to treat TSA employees who are simply doing their jobs poorly.

That family on vacation, with strollers and diaper bags that’s holding up the security line? They are simply trying to enjoy their lives; not make yours more challenging. The person who hasn’t flowed but once or maybe not at all who has 100 questions? They paid a ticket price to get the same place you’re going. The flight attendant who is required to follow specific guidelines to keep all passengers safe, when things go smoothly and particularly when they don’t, are doing a very hard job. The individual rushing from the back of the airplane to deboard before their row’s turn may be desperate to make their connection.

My plea is this: let’s try our very best, even in the situations that make you want to cry or scream, to see the human in everyone we encounter. Let’s please remember that your tax bracket, your title at work, your airline status do not make you any better than anyone else. Let’s remember how far a little kindness can go, and let’s try to be a pinch more patient, understanding, polite, and empathetic.

I understand the grind, deeply. I really do. At times it can be incredibly challenging to maintain composure. But the privileged, entitled behavior I’ve seen far too many business travelers exhibit is truly unacceptable, regardless of how frustrating a certain situation may be. So next time you find yourself in a circumstance that makes you want to roll your eyes or make a rude comment, I hope you’ll think twice and remember that it really won’t make things any better – it just makes you look like a jerk to everyone around you.

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Using AI to Unlock Potential While Protecting the Human Experience

April 23, 2025 | 2 Mins Read

Using AI to Unlock Potential While Protecting the Human Experience

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Episode 313

In this episode of UNSCRIPTED, Sarah Nicastro sits down with Faisal Hoque, serial entrepreneur, business strategist, and bestselling author, to explore the delicate balance between AI advancement and human potential. From distinguishing consumer AI from enterprise initiatives to understanding the concept of regenerative leadership, this conversation tackles how organizations can harness AI's power while preserving what makes us uniquely human.

What You'll Learn:

- Why distinguishing between consumer AI and enterprise initiatives is crucial for business success

- How to approach AI adoption through the "Open and Care" framework for balancing innovation with humanity

- The concept of "reverse innovation" and why not all technological advancement equals progress

- How leaders can embrace "regenerative leadership" to help workforces evolve alongside AI

- Why empathy and mindfulness are essential guardrails for responsible AI implementation

- The importance of maintaining neutrality between AI optimism and pessimism to make informed decisions

- How to preserve human creativity and purpose while leveraging AI's capabilities

- Why establishing governance frameworks for AI is crucial before widespread adoption

- The critical balance between using AI as a tool versus allowing it to replace human expertise

- How to approach AI implementation with a "do no harm" principle while maximizing opportunities

[00:00] Intro: Balancing AI and Humanity with Faisal Hoque

[04:19] Why Enterprise AI Differs from Consumer Applications

[16:17] The Open and Care Framework: Finding Balance in AI Adoption

[21:16] Personalization and Choice in AI Implementation

[34:39] Understanding Reverse Innovation and Its Impact

[41:25] Regenerative Leadership in the AI Era

[43:56] Empathy, Mindfulness and Responsible AI Development

[46:10] Final Thoughts: Do No Harm, Create Better Futures

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A Focus on Efficiency is Only the Tip of the AI Iceberg – Expert Advice for Considering What Comes Next

April 21, 2025 | 5 Mins Read

A Focus on Efficiency is Only the Tip of the AI Iceberg – Expert Advice for Considering What Comes Next

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

few weeks ago, I spoke with Amer Iqbal, a sought-after speaker who has spent the last 20 years leading innovation at some of the world’s top companies including as the Head of Digital Transformation, APAC at Meta and Director of Digital Strategy & Innovation at Deloitte Digital on the UNSCRIPTED podcast. The topic was around overall innovation, but of course AI came up.

What was interesting is Amer’s observation that everyone knows they need to be ‘doing something’ with AI, but the steps being taken by the majority are not as strategic as they could or should be, at least thus far. He explains that the AI investment he sees is being done because companies know they must take action and are focused on finding areas of low-hanging fruit by way of applying AI to inefficiencies.

While this isn’t bad in any way, his advice is to think bigger than just efficiency. “AI is absolutely the number one  topic that clients are asking us about these days. What we're seeing is a lot of the hype around AI is about how to do today's business better, how to do things more efficiently, find some cost savings,” Amer explains. “These are just examples of how we do exactly what we have been doing, but with a little bit of automation on top.”

Amer points back to the industrial revolution, when people would burn coal to create steam that spins a turbine to run factories. When electricity was invented and could replace coal and steam, it wasn’t until quite some time later that factories were redesigned to make use of the invention and really change the way of working. “It took a really long time between the innovation occurring and people actually harnessing it,” he says, “and that’s similar to what we’re seeing with AI right now.”

A 3-Phase AI Strategy

With that example in mind, the explosion of generative AI with ChatGPT is relatively recent – so it makes sense that companies are still grappling with exactly what to do with this technological innovation. “If I’m being honest, most of the requests that come in are from individuals saying, ‘I’ve been given a mandate that I need to spend 5% or 10% of my budget this year on something to do with AI – what should I do?’” Amer shares.

His advice is to consider a three-phase framework starting with, but not limiting yourself to, efficiency. “AI is a great efficiency driver, but I think that’s just the easy wins,” Amer explains. “So, find those efficiencies and cost savings, but then where it gets more interesting is when you look beyond efficiency to growth. And what’s even more exiting is transformation – building the businesses of tomorrow.” He suggests:

  1. Efficiency First: Start with quick wins in automation and cost savings focused on how to do today's business better. This is where you look for opportunities to apply AI to gain efficiency, automate manual tasks, leverage knowledge better, and more.
  2. Growth Focus: It would be a mistake to stop at gaining efficiency with AI. Consider how you can leverage AI to remove human capacity constraints. Ask questions such as, how would we grow our business knowing what we know about AI? What would growth look like in a world where we have unconstrained capacity?
  3. Transformation: What Amer is most excited about is how companies can reimagine their entire business model with AI capabilities "Efficiency and growth are great for driving your core business and maybe even some adjacencies, but what about building the business of tomorrow?" Amer says. “Consider: what would our business look like if we redesigned it today, knowing what we know about AI?" This question, he suggests, should be at the heart of every leadership team's strategic planning.

The New York Times Lesson in Innovation

Amer and I spoke about how the New York Times provides a masterclass in maintaining core value proposition while transforming delivery methods for the digital age. “Anyone can look at what Apple is doing, but it's more interesting when you look at more traditional companies and how they're innovating,” he says. “One of the ones that's in our book and one of my favorites because it's such a traditional industry is The New York Times. In one of the most old-school and most traditional industries on the planet, they have absolutely bucked the trend. In an industry where fewer than 10% of Americans still read newspapers, the Times has grown to over 10 million subscribers – five times their peak print circulation.”

The New York Times focused on identifying and protecting what truly matters (in their case, quality journalism) while being flexible about how it's delivered and open to change in processes, workflow, and use of technology. Amer says that they pay their journalists well and give them freedom and respect to do their jobs with autonomy but have welcomed the need to find new ways for journalists to express themselves, such as through podcasts and new subscription models.

The New York Times embraced AI tools for efficiency while setting clear boundaries to protect their core product's integrity. “They have approved the use of best-in-class tools like Copilot, Notebook, LM, ChatGPT, etcetera and they've also built some internal tools,” says Amer. “But my favorite thing is they've set some guidelines. Employees can use AI to generate SEO headlines, summaries, suggest edits, etcetera, but can't use AI to generate images or videos. They're outlining a playbook now that I think more and more companies are going to have to get used to, playing in this kind of gray area when it comes to AI. We can no longer say this is okay, this is not okay, whitelist and blacklists or whatever you want to call it. Increasingly, there's going to be more of a gray area. We're already seeing fewer than 30% of companies in America have officially adopted AI tools, and yet 75% of employees are using AI at work. What that means is people are bringing ChatGPT, their personal subscriptions or whatever to work whether you like it or not. So, people are going to use it, and I love to see companies in traditional industries that are embracing that ambiguity and leading from the front of their industry.”

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How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

April 16, 2025 | 1 Mins Read

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

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Episode 312

Host Sarah Nicastro sits down with Berend Booms, Head of EAM Insights at IFS Ultimo, to explore the evolving landscape of Enterprise Asset Management and its critical role in service transformation. Berend and Sarah also discuss their mentee/mentor relationship as well as share honest insights about a topic they bond over: balancing professional ambitions with family life.

In this episode:

[00:00] Welcome to Unscripted with Berend Booms

[06:16] Why EAM Matters for Service Organizations

[15:08] Top Trends in Enterprise Asset Management

[19:57] Sustainability's Evolution from Afterthought to Driver

[25:32] Bridging the Generation Gap in Today's Workforce

[36:33] Work-Life Balance: A Leader's Perspective

[41:18] Finding Balance Through Intentional Choices

[48:53] Key Takeaways: Balancing Business & Life

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My Foray into Field Service

April 14, 2025 | 4 Mins Read

My Foray into Field Service

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

I talk to people often who share stories of how they fell into their careers in field service – in fact, more often than not the tale of career origin in this space is one of happenstance versus intent. Not long ago, field service legend Ged Cranny, who recently retired from Konica Minolta, shared that he built a 40-plus year career by applying, on a whim, to a newspaper job listing emphasizing the free car alongside the perks of a field technician role. My foray into field service, too, was a happy accident (or, perhaps, the universe at work).

I had an opportunity to revisit my story a week or so ago when prepping to be a guest on another podcast, and I realized that while I’ve told the story a number of times, I’ve never written about it or shared it broadly. So, here we go!

When I was in graduate school, I ran into a friend from college who told me about a local publishing company he was working for that he was enjoying and paid well. At that point, I had continued waiting tables and bartending while attending school and I had had about enough of that so I jumped on his suggestion to apply for a sales position. Shortly after doing so, I received notification that they appreciated my interest but didn’t hire without prior experience. I was disappointed, but not deterred.

(I must insert a quick sidebar here. Once when my husband and I were very newly married – and you can tell the ‘newly’ based on me even asking this question – I asked him one day in the car, “If you had to describe me in one word, what would it be?” I’m not sure what I was hoping he’d say – maybe something like kind, loving, generous? “Tenacious,” he said, without hesitation.)

Don’t Take No for an Answer

This tenacity was on display after my initial rejection, because I set a weekly reminder to call and check in with the HR lead. Then, serendipitously, I had a woman from that company in my corporate finance class; on the first day of class, we did introductions and right after class I walked up and said hello and explained that I’d recently applied to her company but was rejected. We partnered on a group project that semester, and by the time the class was over she spoke to the company on my behalf and told them they were making a mistake.

That got me an interview, a few of them actually, but ultimately still resulted in rejection – or redirection, perhaps. The company felt I wasn’t right for the sales role but offered me a position as a writer. My goal had simply been to get my foot in the door, so I took the role with no intention to stay more than two years or so while I finished my MBA. But then, to my utter shock, I sort of fell in love.

I hadn’t even heard the term “field service” before starting in this writer role and my honest initial reaction was that it seemed like it would be very boring. As I started interviewing business leaders, though, I became very interested in what they had to say. It was a time where a lot of change was beginning – the early phases of service being perceived as a potential profit center versus a cost center, the early iterations of digital transformation, and a whole host of layers that came with these big shifts.

My interest was complemented by other external factors. First, the 2008 recession took hold, and it seemed a very poor decision to voluntarily leave a job when so many were without work. Second, the company made the decision to move into some new markets giving me a chance just over 18 months or so into the work to become the Editor in Chief of the publication and oversee a re-brand from Integrated Solutions to Field Technologies.

All of this was very exciting and gave me a variety of work to explore and pour into, all while doing what I still love most – having interesting conversations with people about the challenges or opportunities they face, creating compelling content to help individuals learn from one another and build collective knowledge, and to foster community. More than ten years later, I was still leading Field Technologies when the opportunity to join IFS and launch Future of Field Service arose.

I had a lot of emotions about leaving that initial role that led me into this space behind, but I also had some reasons why I knew it was time to do so. All in all, it’s been more than six and a half years since I created this platform, and I am incredibly thankful for all the opportunity, learning, and growth it has brought.

What’s interesting about considering how many careers in field service start serendipitously is how we create greater awareness of the vast potential of career opportunities in this collection of industries so that companies don’t have to work so hard to attract talent. This is a need that many organizations are tackling in different ways, from visiting schools to share stories earlier on to partnering with trade organizations, colleges, and the military to broaden the knowledge of what this world is really about and how much we all interact with “field service” on a day-to-day basis without even realizing it.

I hope you enjoyed learning how I got here; I’m so grateful to be here. Those that find themselves in service also often comment how there’s something that makes it truly special, and I couldn’t agree more. How did you land in your role – intentionally or by chance? I’d love to hear your story!

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