Episode 299
As we gear up for all the action 2025 is sure to bring our way, host Sara Nicastro welcomes Roy Dockery, once again, for an insightful and provocative episode of Unscripted. The Director of Field Service Research at TSIA brings new perspectives backed by recent experiences to the conversation, shining a light on the critical ways in which field service leaders need to adapt and change their leadership styles this year.
Tabling thought-provoking ideas, the two discuss the many shifts that need to take place, the first being that of a shift away from a culture of complaining with field service organizations. The conversation underscores the role of service leaders in fostering a positive workplace, emphasizing the necessity of being a “translation engine”, learning to speak the language of other departments, ensuring that their insights and challenges are understood and addressed at the executive level. They further unpack the importance of values like empathy, curiosity, proactiveness and collaboration, which can elevate the impact of field service leaders in the industry. They also consider the impact of AI and automation on the field service industry, discussing how leaders can remain relevant by focusing on strategic thinking and emotional intelligence rather than getting bogged down in tactical firefighting.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Also, subscribe to our newsletter right here.
Episode Transcript:
Roy - 00:00:00: I think in field service, we have to kill the culture of complaining. Yeah, like I just said, because we speak a different language, we tend to get frustrated that other people don't hear us. And then because we all speak the same language amongst our management team, our directors, our field service engineers, we complain that sales doesn't get it and HR doesn't get it and these people don't get it. So within your organization, you create a culture of complaining about the fact that the rest of the organization doesn't understand you. The rest of the organization doesn't, you know. And it creates a weird disconnect within the organization. It creates a lack of like horizontal transfer. So then field service engineers don't want to go work in engineering. They don't want to transfer to customer success and like spread that DNA to the rest of the organization.
Sarah - 00:00:55: Welcome to the UNSCRIPTED Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. At this point, today's guest probably doesn't need a huge introduction. Many of you know him from his multiple roles in the space or his LinkedIn. And he's also been a guest on the podcast a number of times before. So, Mr. Roy Dockery, welcome back to the podcast.
Roy - 00:01:30: Thank you, Sarah. And Happy New Year. It's 2025. We have been doing this for a long time now.
Sarah - 00:01:35: Yes, yes, yes. Now, former, well, former military, but we don't need to go back that far. Former service leader, author of The Art of Leading, also consultant and advisor. And you have, since your last appearance on the podcast, added a new role to your repertoire. So, you are also now the director of field service research at TSIA. So, tell everyone a little bit about getting into the world of research.
Roy - 00:02:06: Yeah. So it's not something that I thought I would be doing, right? I know you and I talked about this, right? I've done podcasts, I've done content creation, role books and consulting, but I always just enjoyed being a service leader, right? So thinking about progression of a career, it's like lead more people, lead bigger teams, keep kind of moving up vertically on a ladder. And so when I transitioned earlier this year, and like you said, just started doing some consulting, I traveled to Sweden with you, which was super fun. The food was amazing. I had to contend with all the Swifties that were running around.
Sarah - 00:02:34: Yes, yes, yes. But we didn't make it to the show, which is unfortunate.
Roy - 00:02:39: We did not. But going through that, going through that time period, right? Like I said, this was doing consulting, helping people with leadership. And I really like enjoyed being able to kind of like engage with companies at a larger level and being able to impact multiple organizations. And so I don't even know if I think I've shared this with you, but so I made a video on my, like you said, I make a lot of content on LinkedIn and I made a video about the fact that, I have a passion for field service. I love the industry. And I kind of want to evangelize the industry, right? Like I really want to share across generations, the jobs that are available, the things that people can do, the economic opportunity, the experience that people are looking for. And I posted that on all of my social medias, LinkedIn, TikTok, and everything else. And back when I worked in healthcare technology, I was a member of TSIA. And several people at TSIA still follow me on LinkedIn. And one of my former, my former account executive saw my video. And then he messaged me on LinkedIn that same day. It was like, what you just described, we're actually hiring for, right? Because I'm thinking like, okay, this is something I'll just do. I can consult and kind of keep doing content. And when he sent me the job description, it was like exactly what I had just described on LinkedIn or in my video. And so I was like, well, that's not what I thought I would do. Right. I was thinking about consulting, maybe going to run another service organization. So landing on, okay, I can be in a position where I call it the intersection, right? Like I'm TSIA. The intersection of technology and then the industry. So we've got all the partners that come to our events that come to our shows, but then we have all of our members that we provide support for across different segments of the technology industry. And when you want to evangelize, right, you want to be at a busy intersection so that the message gets relayed. So I made that decision, joined back in August of last year, and it's been fun, right? I always joke with my members when I'm on the phone and I'm like, that's great. Like we just talked about a lot of problems. Now you get to go work on them and I don't have to. Because for 14 years, I was the one in the seat that had to drive it. So it's really, it's almost like, and I think most people don't, like I do counseling and mentoring and things of that nature as well. But it's like counseling for me, right? It's like counseling other leaders and executives on the challenges they're going through, some of the foundational things that they can address. And being able to do that for small companies, medium companies, and large companies, I get to impact dozens of companies a week, thousands of people a week versus one organization, one vertical, or one team. And so that's where I am and been enjoying it. We had our conference in October, got our next one coming up in May. And so it's been fun to work with our members and keep working to try to grow that out and do what's needed for the field service practice so that we keep moving forward and that we're kind of staying ahead of the curve instead of always playing catch up.
Sarah - 00:05:27: Yeah, I like the description of the intersection. I don't feel dissimilar, right, in the roles that I've played in this space. And it's nice because to your point, the work that you've done as a service leader in the different businesses you've been a part of, you had a massive impact on those organizations, right? And of course, when you speak at conferences and you do what you do in terms of sharing your knowledge on LinkedIn, you have some ability to impact other organizations. But in the role you're in now, you're able to take not only what you've learned from, your past experiences and also blend that with TSIA's expertise to help a number of people. And that's what I've always been passionate about. When you start talking to a high volume of service leaders week after week, like you really get that true sense of how common the challenges are and how you can start making those connections in a way that the change that's needed can catch on and we can move the industry forward. So.
Roy - 00:06:30: Yeah. And I was talking to somebody yesterday and it's exactly what you said. The interesting thing is when you're the field service voice within your company, you're the only field service voice within your company. So you feel crazy. You feel like John the Baptist screaming in the wilderness, right? Like, cause no one else really speaks your language. You're at the bottom of the, of like the outcome. So like you're the sales and the engineering and the projects, everything lands on you. So it's almost like you're speaking a foreign language internal to your company. But then like, I get to hear the message from all of these people. And even when we have our event, that's why field service events are so, are so popular because you get to go and hear somebody speak your language. So it's fun for me because I speak that language, but I also spent enough time in a senior executive role that I can help them speak the other languages as well. I speak finance and engineering and software support and supply chain. So I can, whatever question you have, I can help you position it in a way where you can start getting the other organizations to see the needs of field service instead of just always kind of being at the outcome in, of the decision tree and start to leverage it, influence the rest of your organization as well.
Sarah - 00:07:40: Yeah. When we have done the future field service events, like you came to in Stockholm last year, and whenever we have the opportunity to bring that community together in person, I would say the most frequent feedback I've gotten is I feel so much less alone. And it's honestly my favorite thing, right? Because, you know, that takes an amount of time. Of pressure off, it lets you know that there's a community around you that is working toward the same objective, struggling with the same challenges. And when you're able to bring people together to share their experiences and build that collective knowledge, that's what it's all about. Okay, so today we're going to talk about, we're going to combine your, leadership, expertise and your service expertise into talking about three ways service leaders should evolve in 2025. So hit me with number one.
Roy - 00:08:42: All right. So the first one's going to make some people, we're going to lose some friends. I think in field service, we have to kill the culture of complaining. Yeah, like I just said, because we speak a different language, we tend to get frustrated that other people don't hear us. And then because we all speak the same language amongst our management team, our directors, our field service engineers, we complain that sales doesn't get it and HR doesn't get it and these people don't get it. So within your organization, you create a culture of complaining about the fact that the rest of the organization doesn't understand you. The rest of the organization doesn't, you know, and it creates a weird disconnect within the organization. It creates a lack of like horizontal transfers. So then field service engineers don't want to go work in engineering. They don't want to transfer to customer success and like spread that DNA to the rest of the organization. And I think I learned that probably seven or eight years into my career when you started hearing like your complaints that you think you're just venting. You start seeing it actually become a tangible part of your organizational culture, because when someone that you've never directly spoke to before brings the same complaint that you echoed back to you, you're like, oh, this is going further than I thought it was going. And so I think it's creating like a lack of interest. I think it leads to attrition because the thing is some and I ask this question all the time when people have high attrition, right? Like who's leaving? Are your senior technicians leaving or are your new technicians leaving? And it's normally the new technicians leaving. And the reason they're leaving is because the culture of complaining. Because the people who have been there for 25 years make $90,000 a year as a technician, and they're not going anywhere, right? Because they have expertise, they have domain knowledge. But when they constantly complain to the new people, that new person gets kind of embittered, and they're like, why do I want to be here, right? So everyone's losing their one- to two-year technicians because they're being poisoned by a culture of complaining that we all complain about our senior techs and the grumpy manager, but it actually comes from us as the leaders. And because we make it seem like no one understands us, no one speaks our language, what we should do as the leaders is we have to learn everyone else's language. We've got to be the Rosetta Stone, and then we've got to take the concerns of our organization and go effectively communicate it to those teams in their language so that our team feels heard, because that's going to create a culture where people want to stay. It's going to create a culture where you develop leaders that vertically move up, but it's also going to create a culture where your people move horizontally, and now you've got field service. I call it spreading field service DNA, right? Like when I worked at Swisslog, we wound up having field service people in engineering, in the warehouse, in sales, in customer success. And so they all speak my language. So now I have someone in customer success who understands me. I have someone in sales who understands me. But if you make it, it's us against the world, which a lot of times we do. You don't get that growth, and you create an environment where people tend to leave, especially if they're new. It doesn't feel healthy, and it doesn't feel productive.
Sarah - 00:11:54: I think that's a very good point. Leaning into the, probably in many instances, valid frustrations of not feeling understood. I'm going to focus my comment more on the senior leadership in service, right? Leaning into that, you're just further ostracizing yourself and the function from the business, right? And then all of those ripple effect things you talked about. I think though, the only thing I would add to what you said is you talked about speaking the languages of the other functions and understanding how to reframe some of the challenges into terms that they will understand. I think it's just important to also, especially if you're trying to minimize or eliminate a culture of complaining, to think about not only how you translate the challenges, but the opportunities. Because even when you are presenting opportunities, if you are presenting them in the language that the other functions of the business don't understand, it's just noise. They don't see the value in it, which then fuels that frustration, right? Because the service leader is saying, I'm telling you X. So also think about how you adopt that language both to resolve some of the challenges, but also to articulate the opportunities that we know service leaders see that are relevant for the business that maybe aren't getting through because they're not being spoken about in language those people care about.
Roy - 00:13:18: Yeah, and I completely agree. And especially when you talk about, and I know you deal a lot with customer engagement, right? Like, especially when you think about the customers, because we are the ones that hear most of the things, but we bring them in our field service language. So then sales is like, I don't know what that is. And engineering is like, so like take the customer complaint and I'm going to translate it into sales. And then I'm going to translate it into finance or because it is an opportunity, right? Where if we just relay the complaint, they're going to be like, I don't know what that means. Right? But what the complaint is an opportunity for you to close the gap, deliver a different service solution. But if we just relay the complaint, then people don't know what to do. And then, like you said, it fuels the frustration. It's like, no one's listening to the customer. It's like, no, they don't understand that language. Right? So you've got to put it in terms that they understand. Like when you're developing a product, you got to give the product team an MVP, right? What's the minimal viable product. Like what's the, that's what they need. Right? And so like when you learn to speak that way and understand, speak incentives, and sales and targets in revenue, when you're talking to the sales team, a complaint does not equal revenue unless that complaint is a product that could be sold that is revenue. So I completely agree on that side that you've got to reframe opportunities as well.
Sarah - 00:14:31: All right. What's number two? All right.
Roy - 00:14:32: And I know you touch on this a little bit in your 2025 predictions, right? But it's I think you called it storytelling. But I also want to say it kind of goes into what we were just talking about a little bit. But we've got to become we've got to be that translation engine. Right. So we have to learn and most field service organizations do not report directly into the CEO. So we're kind of outside of the C-suite table. But we have to learn how to speak C-suite. So we can't just go in and say, hey, our techs are doing X, Y and Z. And we can't speak the same way that we speak to our organizations downstream. We have to because we're at the end of the value chain in most of these situations. So we've got to know how to speak to everyone upstream from us, which is project management, pre-sales activities, legal contracts. Right. The product, the marketing, like we've got to understand all of that. And so we talked about that a little bit, but that's my major second one is like I call it field service should be a Rosetta Stone. So it doesn't matter what's going on. I should be able to take a problem to the CTO, the CFO, the CEO, the COO and be able to translate it to them in a way where they can take action for what I'm saying. And they don't have to go figure out, okay, what does that mean? How does that translate? Like, no, translate it for them and deliver it to them, because we have to realize that people don't- Everyone in field service probably agree. People don't fully understand what we do.
Sarah - 00:15:59: Right.
Roy - 00:15:59: So we get frustrated by that, but it's not their responsibility to understand what we do.
Sarah - 00:16:04: Mm-hmm.
Roy - 00:16:04: Right? We have to deliver what they sell. So we have to understand what's being given to us because we have to go deliver it to the customer. But like I said, kind of to the first one, instead of complaining about that, like spend time learning to speak that language. Like I remember I spent I used to spend a lot of time with our principal engineer.
Sarah - 00:16:23: Yeah.
Roy - 00:16:23: Because he had a lot of influence on our VP of engineering. So if I could get him to understand what I was saying, then I heard my thoughts through him come out of the VP of engineering.
Sarah - 00:16:35: Mm-hmm.
Roy - 00:16:36: And I was like, oh, like as long as if I can speak his language, he can get it to leadership because he speaks better engineer than I do.
Sarah - 00:16:44: Right.
Roy - 00:16:45: At least I can communicate with him on a software level or on a hardware level and work that way. And the same thing with our my sales colleagues and other people as well.
Sarah - 00:16:53: Mm-hmm.
Roy - 00:16:53: We have to learn how to do that if we want to take advantage of opportunities and also if we want to address some of those challenges that are in front of us.
Sarah - 00:17:01: Yeah. So I think if we take that point a step further, right? So like when you're talking about working with the engineering person, because that person's close to the VP of engineering almost can be your... Go between right and yeah in a way you're building inroads right like you're being smart about taking steps to get the message where it needs to go in a way that's going to make sense I think the other part, if we think about how what you're talking about applies differently in different organizations, right? Some companies are further along in sort of understanding the role and the value of the service function and leveraging it appropriately. Others are miles, miles, miles away. And hosts are somewhere in between, right? But for the service leader who is further away, feeling really on the outside, feeling really not understood, I would urge them to start by understanding, like really understanding the core objectives of the CEO. And if you're going to learn the language, right, start with figuring out. What you can share that can help with those. Because if you want to be successful getting someone's attention and you ultimately want to build a common language with them and have them listen to you more, you need to start by talking about what's important to them, right? And the thing that is incredible about service is how much it can play a role in... Not only all of the other functions of the business, but many of the strategic objectives that people in that C-suite don't necessarily correlate service to, right? So if it's diversifying revenue, right? Maybe you have ideas in your role about different offerings you could be providing that you're sitting back rolling your eyes because no one wants to listen to, right? But if you can go to someone and say, I know that diversification of revenue is very important to you. I have an idea for how we could help with that. You might get their attention, right? If your company is highly focused on sustainability, right? There's a lot of ways that people don't necessarily think about that service can play a role in. Not only the company's targets and changing things to help from that front, but also positioning it with customers, right? So I think it's speaking the language is right. But I would just say if you're really on the outside, take it a step further and start by speaking the language around things that are most important to them. And they might not be the same as what's most important to you. But like if you start with what's most important to them, you're ultimately going to get further along.
Roy - 00:19:55: Yeah. And like you said, when you're trying to help them, and I guess the other thing I'd say as well, and I completely agree with that, it's like a lot of times you're in a role, you're a VP or a senior VP, you think your title gives you influence and it doesn't. Relationship gives you influence. And like you said, when you're trying to build that relationship, talking to them and everybody will tell you in counseling or whatever else, right? Like what is important to that person? And like, and that's, so even when I talk about like speaking their language, I'm talking about exactly what you're talking about, right? It's going like, like when I went to the principal engineer, I'm like, what are you struggling with?
Sarah - 00:20:28: Right.
Roy - 00:20:28: And he was struggling with escalations that were coming down to him. But most of those started in the field with me. No one listened. And then it got out of hand and the customer got really pissed. And then it went from the CEO to his VP to him. So like what I started doing is like before I was escalating things to my counterpart, right? Or things are getting escalated to my boss. I just started telling my team, take it to the principal engineer. Like he wants to fix it as well.
Sarah - 00:20:53: Yeah.
Roy - 00:20:54: And he can actually fix it. He's the person who knows the code. He wrote it like his blood and his DNA is in those, are in those lines. And I think that's what it is. And it was funny because the weirdest compliment that I got when I left my healthcare technology company to shift is one of our sales executives. He told me, he said, Roy, you're the most sales friendly service executive I've ever met. And it was weirdly like uncomfortable to me because I always, you know, there's always a weird tension between service and sales, but I know that I always was intentional about making sure that my team knew like it's their job to sell. They have a sales target. They've got revenue. They didn't design the product. They didn't make the product. They didn't ship the product. Stop getting mad at the salesman. If something doesn't work or if the customer overbought or if the customer underbought, like that is just their job, they're doing their job. Right. And like, let us help them be successful. If anything, let's teach them more about the equipment. Let's teach them what problems these things solve. Let's go with them. Let's send some of our technical experts on our site visits. And because at the end of the day, they want to be successful. Because the first sale is good. All the recurring sales in the referrals is better. So they don't want the customer to be unhappy because then they don't have a referral.
Sarah - 00:22:03: Right.
Roy - 00:22:04: So like we have a common interest is you want your customer to be happy. And to your point, how can I help you make the customer happy? And that's from the estimate. During the pre-sales process, during the project, at the handover, what service they buy, how we treat them during warranty. And when we make sure the customer is taken care of, then when that health care director goes to another hospital, now they want your technology over there because they were taken care of. And that just developed a good relationship between us and sales. It still got tense, right? We argued about estimates and work, but we were ultimately, we had the same goal. We want the customer to be happy, right? So that they recommend more business. And that's what we just built a healthy relationship to do so. But we had to learn to speak their language and we had to teach them some of what we were saying because they were also talking to technical people, right? So when you're talking to the VP of operations, he doesn't speak sales either. So it's helpful for you to learn from us because we make you more effective at speaking with them. So ultimately, it winds up helping everybody out. But internally, it definitely improved that relationship.
Sarah - 00:23:11: Yeah, and I think what you just said, use that common interest to create the common language, right? Like... Honestly, I mean, if more companies did that, they would be markably more successful, right? We talk about all of these silos that exist, and the customer is the common interest across all of them. The problem is they're so deeply embedded in organizations through the different language, which is reinforced by different KPIs, which is exacerbated by different use of technology. You know what I mean? Like, if we just looked more at, I think the companies that are leading the way are using the customer experience as the common interest to start creating a playbook that everyone can kind of rally around.
Roy - 00:23:57: You said one thing that I think is really good, which is the silos are based on our metrics. Everybody's just trying to attack their goals. And we make conflicting and contradictory goals within a company. Yeah. Where if I 100% just focus on my metrics, I'd be screwing half of the rest of the company. So it creates a silo just around those. But when we're all driving customer experience or retention or growth, those are the things at the high level. And so when we all speak there, it helps because, yeah, we got to be good at our individual functions, but it can't be at the risk of causing pain in another part of the business.
Sarah - 00:24:34: Right. And I think understanding that, right? Like, I mean, the fact that persists, it infuriates me. Okay. Because, whoever is at the top of those companies, like, really should be thinking about how are we working at odds with one another. Right. But it happens everywhere. Right. But going back to your point, which is being the Rosetta Stone, the more you can look through a lens of empathy and understand that the person that runs the other department that you want to punch in the face isn't really an a-hole. They're just doing the job they've been incentivized to do. Right. So.
Roy - 00:25:11: Yeah.
Sarah - 00:25:12: It's like, I think when you get that sense of frustration, it can be, it feels very personal. Right. But if you can step back and see that. They're probably not a jerk. They're just incentivized differently and focused on doing their part, right? So it can, I think, diffuse some of the emotion that exacerbates that. Culture of complaining and like just putting yourself further and further away from creators.
Roy - 00:25:39: And you said a good word, which I know you read my book. I talk about that in my book, right? Like that's empathy, right? Like it's empathy for like, I know you have sales targets. So you might oversell.
Sarah - 00:25:48: What's the common ground, right?
Roy - 00:25:49: Over promise, right? Like, all right, I get it. So I see why you did that. You aren't, and I would always tell people, no one's trying to hurt us.
Sarah - 00:25:56: Right.
Roy - 00:25:57: No one's intentionally, maliciously trying to ruin your day. It might happen, but no one's doing it on purpose. And like, once you understand that, it lets you step back a bit and then try to understand, okay, why would they do that? And then, like you said, it's because they're incentivized to do it that way. Or sometimes they just don't know. They need training. They might be new, right? Like there could be changes in process. But I mean, I've been, you and I have been in this industry for a long time. 95% of the time, it has never been malicious, right? Like there was like some jerk that got fired somewhere that was just trying to ruin everybody's life. But for the most part, people are trying to do their job. We just have natural conflicts. And when we don't talk about them, it seems personal. But it's really not, right? They're just doing their job, right? But we get so focused on our lane. Sometimes we don't pay attention to where other people are trying to merge or where there are opportunities for us to work better together. So.
Sarah - 00:26:49: Yeah. Okay, what's number three?
Roy - 00:26:53: All right, last one and quick one. Field service is a reactive organization by nature. And so what I want to say is that our teams should be firefighters. Our teams should be reactive. We as the service leaders need to be forecasters and not storm chasers. Like let our team go run once the tornado touchdown. Like let them do that. Because the funny thing, and I know for me, it took me a long time because we enjoy that. A lot of us come from that. So we tend to lean more towards getting into the tactical, getting into the problem resolution. When we actually need to sit back and into what we're talking about, we need to look across the silos. You need to go forecast and say, hold on. Our sales department just got a 30% revenue increase target. Our product team just got told that they need to make three new widgets in the next two years and say, how does that affect us? How is that going to affect my headcount? How is that going to affect my employee training? Or we're already seeing the decline. We got a bunch of people retiring. Instead of waiting and then reactively saying, hey, HR, I need a bunch of people. Let's develop your own workforce strategy and say, I need some apprentices. I need entry-level positions. I need people to start coming in and shadowing my senior employees because I don't want to lose this knowledge. And I'm guilty of it as well. I did it my whole career. I used to get excited and I used to get bored. I actually was mad. At some point, I used to tell my employees, y'all have all the fun. Like, once they were able to handle the escalations, we spoke the same language. They knew how to work with cross-functional partners. I'm like, I'm just sitting up here doing strategic planning. It's boring. It's not as fun. You need to do that for your team. You need to be the person that's at the helm saying, okay, like you said, where's the CEO trying to go? Where's the organization trying to go? Let me make sure I'm focusing. The vast majority of my time, of forecasting how that's going to impact field service. Because no one else is going to do that.
Sarah - 00:28:58: Yeah.
Roy - 00:28:58: Right? And then you're going to land at year-three of the five-year plan. And now you got to go double the size of your field service organization in six months because the product is ready.
Sarah - 00:29:09: Yeah.
Roy - 00:29:09: Right? So I think we've got to be more intentional about pulling ourselves out of our natural inclination to be technical. I mean, to be tactical and technical and into the problems. And then we've actually got to look at the company as a problem and say, what is the field service solution to the company's problem, not the customer's problem. So let your team deal with the customer's problems. And then you look at what field service problems are going to become prevalent because of our technology, because the industry is changing, because of hiring changes, because of pricing constraints, because of material restrictions, because of the availability of company vehicles. Right? Or all of this other stuff that can impact your team. Because if not, we're just kind of like a victim of circumstances. And then it puts us in a situation where we're scrambling. It becomes more expensive. It's more deconstructive in that way. But yeah, but it's pulling us out of our natural habitat. Most of us who are service executive, or at least from my network and the people that you know, we love the problems. We love the customers. We love diving into it. It energizes us. We enjoy it. But we've got to shift to what are the future problems the company is going to have with field service. And then start working on ways to resolve that. And then trusting our teams, our directors, our managers, or our other VPs, if you're a senior VP, to take care of the customers every day. Right? I feel like 80% of your job should not be interacting with customers.
Sarah - 00:30:37: Yeah.
Roy - 00:30:37: That should be 20% of your job or less. 80% of your job should be leading your team so that they're effective. And then making sure that the field service organization is ready for wherever the organization is trying to go. Because that keeps you learning. It keeps you engaged. It keeps you jumping into those silos and going to spend time with the product team. Like, what the heck are you making? And what is that going to look like? Or working with finance? And what are our targets? And being able to plan that way. And so I think that's the other thing that we've got to do. And it's got to become a normal rhythm for us to test that. Right? And if we're drifting too much into the tactical, and if we're spending too much time troubleshooting and solving problems, we've got to pull ourselves up. Because while we're that deep down, something's being missed. That's the strategic level that we're going to have to respond to later. That's going to cause us a lot of pain and frustration.
Sarah - 00:31:26: So you know me well enough to know I would never weave AI into a conversation unless it was genuine, but... Here is what listening to you talk about that third point just made me think. A leader who is not putting ample time, effort, energy into being strategic and is not pushing themselves to get to a level of emotional intelligence that they can adeptly communicate across silos of the business.
Roy - 00:32:00: Yeah.
Sarah - 00:32:01: Those are the leaders that people think about when they think about AI replacing jobs. Because you're not doing, I mean, I'm just saying right now, like the big conversation around AI, is it going to take my job? How many jobs is it going to take? I just saw a statistic that came out this morning that said the World Economic Forum showed that 41%% of employers intend to downsize their workforce. Through AI automation, I think by 2030, right? So my point is the firefighting part is the part where technology and automation can help the most. I have never felt it can help entirely in field service. I never will, right? Like to me, that's just not feasible. But my point is, if you stay stuck in the tactical, if you stay complaining, if you stay unwilling or unable to understand and speak to the challenges across the organization and the company's strategic priorities, like you will very quickly work yourself out of a job because you're not then doing anything that is centered in the skill sets that are going to be most in demand in the next phases of the business.
Roy - 00:33:19: I completely agree. And one of the reasons, right? AI is good. And I mean, this is all going to get better, right? You got agentic AI and all this stuff that's coming on GenAI, but AI is good at answering questions based on unstructured and structured data now. What AI isn't good at is asking questions that no one's asking, right? So in that form, when I talk about like, when you pivot away from, like you understand this, you know what technically needs to be done. So what you're talking about being easily replaced is what a lot of us as executives have done is we have the knowledge of what points need to be connected to be successful. But you could also look at historical data and know the same thing. So you know exactly who to call to get the right answer. So does your phone records. So does the service ticket history. But like, it's all in your brain. So like, it's an easy neurological path that you can just, you can get there. So when, if all we're doing is coaching the team, if all we're doing is directing the players on the board, that's just like nobody can beat AI at chess right now. It's better than you, right? Because it's taking more things and more signals into consideration. But AI can't, can't go to the, right? Like can't go ask the questions to the finance department or the product team about something that doesn't exist yet. Right? The product isn't here. There's no data on the product. The product is a thought. It's an idea. It's an alpha. It's in beta. That's where you should be spending your time as a leader. Because to your point, if I'm in the present, AI is going to become better at making decisions on present information than you are. Right? So like, you've got to be in the future a bit in helping guide that navigation. And asking the right questions. Because to your point, until things that operate 10 fingers extremely precisely. At a very cheap cost, field service isn't going anywhere, right? Like you still need people to fix things and climb ladders and go under houses and climb. Like that's still a very expensive robot at this point. And we're not at that point in society. But yeah, just moving the pieces around on the chessboard and knowing tactically the best person to sit in here, the best person to sit in there, like AI can do that now. So we've got to be better at asking the questions about the things that don't exist yet, right? We've got to be more creative. We've got to be more future focused. But I agree. And like you said, and that's why we've seen a lot of kind of stale outs and a lot of organizational shifts within field service where a lot of VP roles are eliminated. A lot of things are being shuffled around because I think a lot of us were tactical for so long that the organizations didn't see us as like a future forward thinking asset, right? So when they do a reorg or they got to look at a cost structure, they're like, well, like the pieces can move themselves on the board, at this point, and that was always a question for me when I was an executive, like, does my team need me?
Sarah - 00:36:07: Right.
Roy - 00:36:08: Right. And if they don't need me, I should go because I'm not adding value, right? Like if they don't need to tell me to move around or what to do, if they've been taught, if they lead well, then I don't need to be here, right? And like you said, in both of my transitions, that's why I made my transition. My team didn't need me anymore. Like they were good. They were just as good at doing what I was doing as I was. So I'm like, let me go do something else and have an opportunity to do something forward thinking in advance, but.
Sarah - 00:36:34: I think what is even scarier than becoming irrelevant because you stay stuck in the tactical as a leader, right, is really, I mean, it comes down to like bringing the three points you made all together, which is having the good ideas about the future and the questions that would get you there. But being so frustrated that you do nothing more than bitch about it. Or being so unable to translate your ideas or your questions into the language of others.
Roy - 00:37:10: Yeah.
Sarah - 00:37:10: That like to me, that's a worse fate, right? Because I think a lot of going back to your advice, I think there's a fair amount of service leaders that are in that boat. They're not necessarily incapable or unwilling of being more strategic. They just feel like it's a dead end for them. You know what I mean? And it's because they need to do more of what you told them to do today.
Roy - 00:37:37: Yeah, and it's funny. I love the way that you structured it, right? Because like you said, one of the reasons we have a culture of complaining is because we haven't learned to speak the other languages. And like, because we can't speak the other languages, it's hard for us to help us articulate, right? Like you're on the Titanic and you can see the ice, but the people who are steering the ship are too far away from you. Like they can't hear you. So like you see the problem, but you can't get the message there quick enough or you can't articulate it in a way where they can take action. And then you watch the ship crash and you're like, I knew it was going to crash. So now you're complaining and it's like that situation reinforces it. So I think I do. I love the way you tied it together when I think it's all relevant. Like once you learn to articulate and if you're frustrated, you probably really got to check your own heart. And are you frustrated because people don't listen? Or are you frustrated that they don't understand you? Because if they don't understand you, which means they can't take any action, like you said, that's emotional intelligence. Slow down a bit and then try again, right? Like if I say something, and your reaction is completely different than what I would expect, I shouldn't assume that you're a jerk. I should assume you didn't understand me.
Sarah - 00:38:46: Right.
Roy - 00:38:47: Right. I know you travel internationally a lot. You got the world tour for Future of Field Service. But like when you're in a different country and you say something to somebody and they just give you that weird look, you look around like, yeah, I don't think they speak English. Right. You're not like, you don't get rude. Right. You're just like, oh, they don't understand me.
Sarah - 00:39:02: Right.
Roy - 00:39:03: Like we don't do that in when we think we all speak the same language. Right. Like you just assume that person is ignoring us or disregarding us. And like you said, that's emotional intelligence. And like I said before, assume it's not malicious. Assume the best of intentions. And if somebody doesn't get it, just find another way to say it. Right. That helps with the relationship and it minimizes the frustration. And you'll stop complaining when people hear you and when you see action being taken and your future ideas are being incorporated into strategic planning or what we're doing for the next year. Because when you sit in a room and you pour your heart out, about what you want for your team, and then you don't see any of it on the list of plans, then what, like you said, you stop talking. Well, they didn't take my advice last year. So like, well, I'm going to keep talking. I'm like, but then you're doing your team a disservice as well. So like if I, and you know, and you know the origin of my leadership style is love. If I genuinely love my employees, I'm going to keep advocating on their behalf, whether somebody takes action or not. It's my responsibility to keep speaking until somebody gets it.
Sarah - 00:40:05: Yeah.
Roy - 00:40:06: And if I have to change my language so that I can, you know, bring that stuff to you, then I just need to, I need to take the time out, pause, get over myself a bit and then go do it. But it's definitely connected. And I like the way you connected those together.
Sarah - 00:40:19: I'm going to make one more connection. You said at the beginning when you were talking about joining TSIA that you said that you started talking about how you're passionate about evangelizing field service. And it's interesting. It's like a if you know, you know thing, right? Like only people in it understand how it makes you passionate. And it's weird. I mean, I never saw myself having a career in this space. But I mean, I can't tell you how many people I met that feel the exact same way about it. And I just was thinking as you were saying that there are people in the situation you just described where you say something, they didn't get it. You jump to they don't care. Like, yeah, forget it. Right. Some people are in that situation because of ego. But I think a lot of people in service, it's because you're passionate. But you can't let your passion prevent you from making progress. I'm speaking from experience. My passion gets in my way a lot. And so to your point, like that passion is good, but it has to be channeled appropriately. And passion can very easily become a force that ostracizes you. Because when you feel like people aren't getting it, like you will step back or you will find a way around or you will whatever, right? And that passion is good, but channel that passion. Use the opportunity to learn how to speak different language to channel that passion in a way that will resonate with other people. Because then when you start to see their brains clicking and you start to make some progress, you're going to realize that in some cases at least it wasn't that they don't care or they weren't listening. It was just that they really didn't get where you're coming from.
Roy - 00:41:57: And one thing I love about what you said and you had a little alliteration there with your peas as well. But I think the other thing is that we assume we kind of prioritize our passion as well. Service in the outcomes and the people in the fields and the customers. I wasn't passionate about bill collection and none of us would have had a job if somebody wasn't passionate about making sure we got paid. So like when you get that escalation from the collections department, that's like, why hasn't this person paid this invoice? You're like, hey, calm down. It's not that serious. So it's like I think, like you said, while we're empathetic and we all have an understanding that we all have different passions, they're not deficient. They're just different. And sometimes they do compete. But there's nothing wrong with that. Right. Because competition also drives creativity and gets us to be better at what we're doing. But I think that and in service, we're service oriented people like that's why we're in there. So when we feel like other people aren't aren't leaning in to serve or to help because that's what we're passionate about. You think that there's something wrong with them. But I don't want an engineer to be service oriented. I want an engineer to be engineering and innovation and creation oriented. Right. Like that's what I need them to do. So it's like all of us together will work effectively. But we know one person should think that they're part of the mission or kind of their part of the body is more important than the other. So it's like you might be the hands. Right. But like somebody else is the mouth. You don't want the service organization doing all the marketing.
Sarah - 00:43:42: Mm-hmm.
Roy - 00:43:43: Like, you don't. So it's like, so I think that's the balance. But I absolutely agree that there's normally a conflict of passion.
Sarah - 00:43:50: Mm-hmm.
Roy - 00:43:51: But it's like, no, like, just you're passionate about something that they're not. So instead of just keep pouring out your opinion, like, kind of figure out what they're passionate about.
Sarah - 00:44:00: Right.
Roy - 00:44:00: And that'll also help you understand. Like, we talked about that Rosetta Stone. It helps you understand their language. And you have children, right? You love to travel. Like, you can, there are even personal things that you can find to connect people to that completely change the way that they're communicating.
Sarah - 00:44:14: Right.
Roy - 00:44:15: Right? And then, like, you can tap into some of those passions as well. But no, I think that was a great point.
Sarah - 00:44:19: Yeah, I was just thinking, like, how big of a part of empathy curiosity is. Like, just take a pause before you react and just think about being curious about where another person is coming from or what do they care about or, you know what I mean? Like. Yeah. It's a very important part of being able to build that skill. Well, we said we were going to do a short episode and we failed, but I think ultimately we succeeded. So thank you for coming back yet again to the pod and sharing your insights and your wisdom. Is there anything you have going on that you want to tell people about?
Roy - 00:44:58: Yeah, I mean, the one thing, like you said, you mentioned the book, and I think the last one was on a podcast in February. So I have heard a lot when it comes to leadership development. A lot of companies aren't, like they talk about it. There might be a speaker at a kickoff and then there's nothing really more. So I've actually been working with an organization to build like a learning module for leadership development with an organization called Tinker Time Labs. That's going to be based off of my book. So one thing people will start seeing me promote this year is an actual like learning module that you can pull into your LMS system. That'll walk people through like almost a year long program on leadership development that talks about empathy, that talks about authenticity and all the things that you and I shared. I know you wrote an article about the book as well. So because I'm trying to focus on, like you said, like broader impact and evangelism. I think the biggest way for me to help leaders is to try to help. Drive like a more effective leadership culture where people can participate, go through. There's like questions and scenarios and things that you can go through. And we pulled in like information and leadership tips from different sources as well. So that'll be largely outside of my primary role. What I'll be doing this year is kind of helping Tinker Time Lab push that out there. And then they'll be doing some facilitation and stuff with the book as well. So it's like, I got to write the book and then somebody else gets to go, gets to promote it and do it. But yeah, that'll be a learning module that companies can actually buy. And we'll just sell it based on company size. It won't be a subscription, like download it and then use it for the benefit. Because for me, and you know, I have a passion about people being effective leaders. So I don't even want to make like ongoing costs or limitations. So people will be able to download it. It'll be in your LMS and then you can use it for your leadership cohorts or your entire organization. So that's the main thing. People can follow me on LinkedIn. I share information there and on my other social media platforms. But that's it. Just follow me on LinkedIn. I normally share what I'm doing and we'll be doing some stuff to kind of impact businesses at a higher level in 2025. That sounds so weird. It's already 2025.
Sarah - 00:46:54: I know. You did miss one important plug, which is if you truly can't get enough of Roy and I, Roy has asked me here to be a guest on a state of service webinar. So TSIA's state of service webinar, looking at what happened in 2024, what's coming up in 2025, and that is taking place on January 22nd.
Roy - 00:47:21: Yeah, January 22nd at 2 PM.
Sarah - 00:47:23: Eastern. Yes.
Roy - 00:47:25: They can register on TSIA on the portal. And then even if they miss it, the webinars are normally available on our portal afterwards. If they can't watch it live, they just have to register for a portal account on TSIA. But you can register for the portal for free. And you can see other articles and stuff as well. So we've got survey insights on supply chain and logistics. There's going to be some insights coming out. We just finished the talent management survey in December. So that'll be getting released right before the webinar as well. But yeah, so they can set up a free account on the portal and then they'll see the webinars available. That webinar and for field service and there's other ones for customer success, education services, managed services, professional services and support services as well.
Sarah - 00:48:05: Very cool. All right. So check it out and join us on the 22nd. Roy Dockery, thank you so much for coming back. I appreciate you. You can find more of Roy and I's podcasts and all sorts of other things by visiting us at futureoffieldservice.com. The podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. And as always, thank you for listening.