Experts help companies effect change through better communication and leadership

Effective communication is a vital tool for any person in a position of leadership.

In fact, author and motivational speaker John C. Maxwell cites one statistic that indicates four of five leaders a person will encounter in their lifetime evolved into a critical leadership role because of the impact from those who mentored them.

For Leslie Landry, an expert in both IT Service Management (ITSM) instruction and Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), clear, concise communication has become a lost art with the rapid advancements of technology and the heavily emerging use of artificial intelligence.

“So many have become so reliant on email and technology that they no longer talk directly to people,” said Landry, the founder and CEO of Aspen Transformation, Inc. “Too often in the IT world you get people who are not the best communicators. They tend to work in silos.”

From major firms to major educational institutions of higher learning, Landry’s clients are as varied in the business sector as they are located globally.

“We focus on IT organizations or the IT part of a business,” she said. “We’re not limited to a specific vertical because everyone is using technology.”

With nearly two decades of experience in the ITSM sector, Landry, who established her firm in 2017, recently relocated her headquarters from Seattle, Washington, to a home office in the Treasure Valley.

And while she looks to establish some new local clients, her focus remains on helping equip leaders and teams with practical learning, frameworks and communication tools to help bring about measurable change within an organization.

In her business, the people side of the operation is what she feels often gets overlooked.

“One of the reasons I got into this is because I come from the business side of the house and I bring a different perspective to my clients,” said Landry, who prior to developing her firm spent about 10 years with AT&T, where she started as a sales representative before moving into a crucial role as an HR learning and development director.

“In fact, people, process and technology must be integrated and working together.”

With more than four decades working in the IT space, Mike Vikdal, president of the Auslyn Group, a consulting and educational services firm he started in 2006, has crossed paths with many tech leaders who have shied away from leading and learning while continuing to manage systems as they have always done.

“In this business, that has kind of always been the case of taking the approach to not fix what is not broken,” Vikdal said. “But that particular aspect is changing more with AI and the willingness to embrace and collaborate with technology as opposed to being afraid of it.”

Vikdal initially crossed paths with Landry many years prior when, through another firm called ITpreneurs, she wound up serving as an account manager for him. Over the years, both the professional and personal relationships have blossomed.

“She’s more on the side of leadership organization and change management, mentoring others to become leaders and champions,” he said. “I’m more in the trenches, but I definitely go to her when it comes to working with leadership teams and guiding and advising to do better from a management perspective as opposed to driving policies.”

Both agree that communication from those perched at the top, particularly under the umbrella of IT, is nothing short of critical.

“In the industry, one of the big challenges is the ability to translate the upper management level and what I call ‘speak’ to the individual contributors and every role in between that,” he said.

On Vikdal’s side of the fence, having someone like Landry in his camp helps move a business forward. “Sometimes that message gets lost in translation and doesn’t reach the people who are doing the work necessary for the mission to be achieved.”

With advancements in technology and AI, the challenge, he feels, is to accept it and not be afraid of it.

“The digital transformation is taking place right now, but it’s not about the technology, it’s about the people,” Vikdal said. “This is where I think Leslie does such a phenomenal job educating and guiding organizations to look at it from the side of the people and their feelings and their sentiments about being successful without being afraid of losing their jobs due to AI.”

“Trying to break those silos down in any organization continues to be one of the biggest challenges for all businesses,” Landry said. “I’m not a technologist per se, but I understand it. I’m a business person who understands the value and power behind connecting technology and integrating it throughout the rest of the business.”

The concept for Landry is simple: ITSM provided to a business must support company goals while using ITIL as the leading framework to assist company leaders.

“IT organizations need to understand clearly that they exist to serve the needs of the business,” she said. “What are the business goals? What is the company trying to achieve in opening new markets, developing new products, expanding their customer base or growing their revenue? IT needs to understand that.”

Her expertise in the arena also includes certification as a Maxwell Leadership Coach to help organizations improve performance and lead successful transformation initiatives in a rapidly evolving and technological business environment.

“If you’re really going to make a change, a lasting transformation, you can’t make any sweeping changes if you don’t start with learning,” Landry said. “It doesn’t work. People need to understand the ‘why’ behind it. People resist it. It’s all tied together.”

In the IT world, Vikdal acknowledges that the old days of deciding on which computer and which processor to utilize are long gone. The landscape has gone from a data environment to a cloud environment to what is now referred to as managed services.

“We’ve lost the people aspect of it, and we need to humanize IT or even AI and make it truly part of the organization and imbed it into what we are doing and not be afraid of it,” he said. “We can’t be thinking it will be detrimental to someone’s career as opposed to embracing it and further advancing a career.”

As for careers, he also has seen his share of those thrust into leadership positions based solely on a credential, certification or degree one may possess.

However, leadership for him is far more about the “soul of an individual” and not a piece of paper.

“It’s not about the person, who may be a fine person, but has a piece of paper that says he or she is qualified,” Vikdal said. “They may not be the right person to be in a position of motivation, which is tough to do. To be empathetic, to understand emotional intelligence. These are things that a degree or piece of paper can be tough to train.”

In Landry’s diverse experiences, the crucial combination of tying leadership roles to effective communication skills can often be easily overlooked.

“I come across it quite often, people in the wrong position,” she said. “The power and influence of an individual leader sometimes is quite amazing.

“I’m a huge sports fan and I see it all the time in the sports world with the huge difference you’ll see in team culture when the right coach is hired.”

As Vikdal knows quite well, there are even times when making recommendations of those considered for top leadership spots or moving others out of such roles can be a bit dicey.

“Those can sometimes be tough assessments to present to an executive board that some people should probably have to strongly consider changing roles,” he said.

That is when leveraging a talented instructor, such as Landry, schooled in the art of leadership development, becomes an easy proposition for Vikdal. “I admire Leslie for how she tackles things. When she sees something that is going to be a benefit, she looks at others first, not herself and goes after it. That is where I admire her.”

“My expertise is teaching, communicating and building relationships,” she said. “I live and die by this. I’m not a technical expert. But I understand it.”

Lessons learned well from her days as a speech and communications major at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, no matter the client she finds herself instructing.

“One of the keys to my success is being able to take curriculum material I’m asked to teach and to do it effectively,” she said. “There are commonalities that are fundamental to success, and we can’t afford to lose them especially as we move forward with more AI and more automation. If so, it will be detrimental to our society.”