Episode 287

In this episode of the Unscripted podcast, host Sarah Nicastro reveals the 33rd edition of the Future of Field Service Standout 50 Leaders, celebrating exceptional service leaders who drive innovation and customer-centric strategies in the industry. Sarah highlights the evolving service delivery landscape and the crucial and often behind-the-scenes roles these leaders play in motivating teams and navigating modern business challenges. With insights from a panel of industry experts, she discusses the critical traits of the Standout 50. She announces an upcoming report featuring valuable data on people, processes, and technology in the service sector. Join Sarah as she recognizes these impactful leaders and shares how to stay updated on their findings!

Sarah Nicastro is a passionate advocate for the power of human connection and service evolution. Since 2008 she first stumbled into the field service industry, she has been captivated by the transformation of service from a cost center to a strategic driver of innovation and growth. Through meaningful conversations with business leaders, Sarah uncovers insights that inspire and inform others. Her mission is to prove that it’s possible to love family, work, and the world simultaneously while building a community that shares knowledge, forms lasting relationships and creates a positive impact.

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Episode Highlights:

Sarah - 00:00:00: It brings me great pleasure to announce this list today because I care so much about this community and have such a deep respect for the hard work that service leaders are doing to impact their teams, their customers, and to bring their businesses and the industry as a whole forward. The thing about service is it's most effective when it isn't seen or heard, when it happens seamlessly and invisibly. This creates a challenge because there's a tremendous amount of work that goes into service. And it's not only incredibly important, but it quite literally keeps the world running. However, it's something that often goes unrecognized.

 Welcome to the UNSCRIPTED Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today is a very exciting day because we are announcing the first ever Future of Field Service Standout 50 Leaders. That was a mouthful. This is an award that we created to be able to recognize and acknowledge some of the hard work that leaders within our community and the broader service community are doing. It brings me great pleasure to announce this list today because I care so much about this community and have such a deep respect for the hard work that service leaders are doing to impact their teams, their customers, and to bring their businesses and the industry as a whole forward. The thing about service is it's most effective when it isn't seen or heard, when it happens seamlessly and invisibly. This creates a challenge because there's a tremendous amount of work that goes into service. And it's not only incredibly important, but it quite literally keeps the world running. However, it's something that often goes unrecognized.

With the power of today's technologies, companies are evolving how they offer service. They're moving beyond transactional and break-fix service models to be more customer-centric, to deliver outcomes-based service and create new revenue streams and change their business models. As the possibilities of how to serve customers vastly expands, so too does what service can mean to the business. It's a key brand experience. It's a powerful competitive differentiator. It can be a substantial growth opportunity and so much more. While it is an exciting time for service, It also signifies an immense amount of change. Some companies are enthusiastic about the opportunity this presents, and others are still working to determine exactly what role service plays in their broader business landscape. This means that the role of today's service leader is tremendously complex. It means balancing the need to meet the demands of today's business while working toward creating the business of the future. It requires a deep customer understanding, the ability to attract and motivate talent, the creativity to innovate, but also the patience to manage change, and the need to balance initiatives for both the short-term and the long-term, all while advocating for the importance and the role of service within their businesses.

So these leaders do a whole lot. We see that firsthand in all of the conversations that we're fortunate to have here on this on this podcast, the folks were able to meet at the Future of Field Service live events. And as I said, I've been in one form or another engaging with this community for more than 16 years and care a lot about making sure that the hard work these folks are doing is acknowledged and recognized. One of the ways that we decided to do that this year was launching this Standout 50 Leadership Initiative. We held open nominations in June and July on the Future of Field Service website, and the leaders were nominated by colleagues, by peers, by industry connections, etc. We had a panel of judges that included myself, Dot Minahan, who spent over 30 years with Otis Elevator and now is with the National Elevator Industry, John Carroll, who heads the Service Council, and Professor Tim Baines, who heads the Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School in the UK. So the four of us came together and sifted through all of the nominations and did the hard work of landing on the 50 leaders, that we are announcing today as the Standout 50. There's, of course, not enough time to touch on all of the incredible traits that were brought up when we read through the nominations for these leaders and those that ultimately weren't selected. But just to share a couple of examples, these individuals, they don't sacrifice innovation to meet immediate needs. So this is, of course, a balancing act. But we need leaders in roles today that are not just completely caught up in what the next immediate need is. They're also finding ways to carve out time, energy, resource, and building teams that are able to also think about what will make the business successful in the future. They evangelize the importance of service within their businesses. As I mentioned earlier, service is often most appreciated when it is invisible. And this is true from a customer perspective. The less friction, the more, seamless peace of mind you can provide, the better. But also within organizations, often service, particularly frontline resources, aren't recognized and acknowledged the way that other functions of the business are. Service leaders play this important role of making sure the business understands the potential of service and what it can represent, but also the incredible impact of its teams and the critical role that they play in what the business does. They're bold. They're not afraid to speak out on topics and issues that are relevant and important today. They aren't afraid to think outside of the box. They aren't protecting the status quo at all costs. They look for ways to think differently, to be creative, to ask questions, and to be curious. They put their teams first because they care and because they know that doing so will create the best customer experience. I'll share a bit later an initiative we have worked on with the leaders who were awarded the Standout 50 award. And we talked with them about employee engagement and not only its importance, but what factors they think are critical in building a good culture and having engaged employees and just thinking through some of the responses and the anecdotes that were shared, it's clear how much these leaders value their teams as human beings and as an important part in the success of their function and their businesses. They prioritize customer intimacy. I think standout service leaders understand that the best source of inspiration for innovation comes from customers themselves and understanding, their businesses deeply, understanding what matters to them, understanding what their challenges are, what their opportunities are. And they make sure that this is a priority for them and their teams. They harness the power of modern technology. They understand that it's critical to work smarter versus harder today. In fact, it's likely impossible to keep pace if you are trying to just work hard enough to evolve without really creating a solid strategy around leveraging, things like AI and automation to streamline operations. And to look for ways to change service delivery and evolve, the customer value proposition. They focus on creating inclusive environments, they are not interested in diversity as checkbox exercise. But rather, they truly value, having a range of experiences skills opinions perspectives, and they know that doing so and giving those people a safe space to contribute and making sure everyone feels part of the, not only the team, but the broader business objectives is the best way to succeed. They're authentic, they're humble, and they are continually learning and growing. These are folks that are willing to reflect on what's working and what isn't, even within their own leadership styles. They are engaging with peers and with the broader service community to understand best practices and trends. They're listening to their teams, and they're seeking to understand, and they are not being complacent, not only within their business, but within themselves.

So those are just a few things that I think, are notable about standout service leaders today and are standout 50. So I'm not going to take the time here to read all 50 names aloud, because I think that would probably be the point in this podcast where people log off, but we will make sure that we insert the graphic with all 50 leaders on the page for this podcast on our website. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, you can simply visit futureoffieldservice.com. And take a look at the standout 50 leaders. As we make the official announcement today, I just wanted to take this time here on the podcast to reflect on why we created this initiative. Also to thank the future of field service team. This initiative created a lot of extra work on top of our regular content to fit in. And we took that on gladly because we are honored to be able to have a way to, recognize these folks, but the team does deserve a huge thank you. And most importantly, to congratulate the leaders who were recognized as well as all who were nominated for their amazing impact. So please join me in congratulating the first ever Future of Field Service Standout 50 for work well done. I also wanted to share, as I alluded to earlier, that we have taken the opportunity to work with the Standout 50 on a report where we are compiling some of their insights.

So I wanted to sort of take this moment in time to not only acknowledge and recognize these leaders, but also to share some of their perspectives with our audience. I think it's really interesting to sort of try and peek inside of the minds of leaders who were nominated as Standout, as special by their peers and by their colleagues to see what their thoughts are on some of the biggest trends and themes and challenges today. So we created this report in three parts, people, process, and technology, because over the years, as I've interviewed leaders on service transformation, those are sort of the three pillars, that people commonly refer to as critical in that journey. So we took the opportunity to put together a survey in each of those categories. So with some questions around themes related to people, to process, to technology, participation in the survey was optional. So leaders aren't being named in terms of who contributed or what quotes came from which individual. It was optional and anonymous so that they felt they could share honestly, but we've compiled their insights, both the results of the survey from a quantitative perspective, but also anecdotally and reflected some of our own opinions on what we found and what came out of that was interesting to myself and what I think might be interesting to you all and the broader community. So it's a report that will be up on the website in the next week or so. So please keep an eye out for that. And we will certainly be sharing on our social media when. It's finalized and when it's published, there was so much great content that it was impossible to fit it all into that report. So I will also be doing a series of articles for Future of Field Service, with some of the anecdotes and insights that didn't fit into the full length report. So keep an eye out for those as well.

Once again, huge congratulations to the Standout 50. I am honored to be able to recognize each of you and the effort that you put in. But also the people you are. So congratulations. And please visit futureoffieldservice.com to see the full list of the Standout 50 and also to keep an eye out for the research piece that will be coming out in the next week or so. You can find all of that and more at futureoffieldservice.com. Also, be sure if you aren't already to follow us on LinkedIn. The podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always. Thank you for listening.