Latest / Expertly Said / Jenn Azar on Communicating the Future
Transcript
- Kristen Sweeney: You're listening to Expertly Said, a podcast on the art and impact of communication. I'm Kristen Sweeney, founder and CEO of Every Little Word. My guest today is Jen Azar, CEO of the Stellix Group. Jen leads a portfolio of innovative companies dedicated to accelerating breakthroughs in life sciences, energy, and industrial manufacturing using advanced automation, digital transformation, and AI to achieve faster, more sustainable outcomes for clients. With over two decades of leadership experience at the intersection of science, technology, and operations, Jen is recognized for her ability to turn vision into reality, bringing transformative solutions to market and building purpose-driven teams that scale with integrity. Jen is a passionate advocate for ethical innovation and is driving conversations across the industry about how to embed equity, trust, and human connection into the biotech ecosystem. She believes the future of biotech will be shaped not only by what we invent, but by how we connect, collaborate, and lead. She is also one of our absolute favorite clients at Every Little Word. Jen, welcome to the show. Jennifer Azar: Thanks, Kristen. That's a nice introduction. Kristen Sweeney: Very happy to have you here. We like to kick off everybody with a little bit about their origin story. So I know that you started as an engineer. Can you talk a little bit about what drew you to that field? Jennifer Azar: Yeah, sure. So I was lucky in college. Yeah, I was lucky in high school. We had a very good STEM program. So I really fell in love with science and math at a young age. And I went off to college to study electrical engineering with a biology minor. And right out of school, I ended up more on the control side working at a company called Thayer Scale which was an OEM for continuous weighing applications and over time I found my way to New England controls and I think that's really where my passion came out relative to the biology side. I really really really enjoy the life science community and NECI, New England controls at the time, was very involved in the launching of digitizing life science manufacturing. And so that's really where I cut my teeth on the passion for delivering really great therapeutics to patients worldwide. It's nice to have a bigger purpose than just the technology work. And I would say early on, it was all about mastering the technology for sure. You get approved to yourself, you could do that. But then you have an awakening where... it became so much more than delivering the technology, it really became about the patients. so here Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Jennifer Azar: I am. Kristen Sweeney: And you came up and transitioned your career from more of that technical work into leadership role today. What kind of was the early indication for you that you wanted to be in leadership, that you might be good at it, that you had the right kind of skill set for it? Jennifer Azar: I wouldn't say that at first that I ever envisioned myself where I am today at all. It was kind of a journey. first and foremost was Master in Technology. But then I really, really am grateful for the teams that I've gotten to work with over the years, right? So I found a love of our... our engineering department and our services business and just being able to put the right teams together around the right client scenarios to solve problems. It really didn't matter what the technology was. It really didn't matter what the problem was. What really made the difference was the group of people that were there to solve a problem together. so being engaged with those type of teams became a passion of mine. Kristen Sweeney: And as a leader, you've had to get comfortable with being more visible. And when we started working together two plus years ago now, I know that was something that we talked about. And I often talk with guests about how we kind of think in business that we make all our decisions logically, but really our emotions and our feelings and our fears are very much bound up in the choices we make. You you came to me and kind of said, I know I need to be, I need to be out there. And you also kind of in the same breath expressed like, that's not going to be that easy or comfortable for me. Can you walk us through like, what was it that you would say allowed you to sort of move forward and say, I am going to put my thought leadership out there. I'm going to express myself. I'm going to be on panels. I'm going to publish on LinkedIn. How did you sort of overcome your recognized discomfort with being more visible. Jennifer Azar: So I don't know that I've overcome it yet. Kristen Sweeney: Fair. Jennifer Azar: I could see that we were coming up on a transformative time. and I could see how services and selling and creating connectivity was going to change. And I said, I really need to get on this journey out ahead of my team to understand it so that I can help them work through it. So for me, it was, I knew that thought leadership and... around creating community. We're going to be very important in the world of AI. And so I took the leap to do that. I also have a subscription to a Gartner CEO type guideline. And one of the most important things that I learned from that was that The world will reflect on the leader of an organization to consider whether they would want to work with that organization or not. So I really thought it was important that I got myself out there so that people understood the culture and the things that were important and the things that the, not just what the brand says, but the things that we are doing here internally to support the brand and the brand promise. So that was the other nudge. So I said, you got to get good at being uncomfortable. So here we are. Kristen Sweeney: think that's probably a valuable lesson that everyone's having to learn right now. So as usual, you were a little bit ahead of the curve on that. You talked about kind of change. And one of the things that has happened in your organization is that you've grown rapidly. Been on the Inc. 5000 a couple of times. I think the team has maybe more than doubled in size. But you can correct me there. How has that growth impacted communication, your relationships with your team? I can imagine it's created a lot more complexity. Jennifer Azar: Yes, scaling is hard. then scaling in a transformative time, think, challenges even the old school scaling principles. And we still are experimenting continuously with our communication strategy internally. I believe communication is absolutely critical. especially now in the time where change management is a continuous process, it's not really to a destination. So that really requires more and more communication and not just top-down communication, but bottoms up and side-to-side communication. So we've experimented with a lot of different ways to do that. And also we've implemented some plans, programs internally to help all of our employees get to communicate in a different fashion. So we have a value impact program, which is about communicating value. Kristen Sweeney: Mm-hmm. Jennifer Azar: That's critically important. We do a lot of really great work. And having everyone be able to articulate that work and tell that story is important. And if you can imagine, four generations of engineers in the workforce, all engineers. Communication can be different across generations. It can be needed in different mediums. And sometimes the same sentence can be heard. It can be said the same, but heard three different ways, right? So trying to really understand that is important. I think... We haven't gotten it all perfect. but we do now have a community set up internally on digital channels. We're trying to build skills to be really great storytellers, because I think in the AI economy, that creativity human part and being able to create human connection is really going to be critically important. Specifically, if you're on the edge of adoption, consumption, and change management, and that is a big piece of the deliverables that we have as technology comes out faster and faster, it's really important that we have a strong muscle on being able to communicate across that continuum. So we've done a lot of work. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. I'll... Yeah. Jennifer Azar: Some days it's exhausting. You feel like all you do is communicate. But twofold understanding. to connect strategy communications down, up, and horizontal has been a journey. would be one. And then really figuring out how to work across four different demographics in the workforce is something that we're still trying to get good at. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, that's such a span. And I love what you said about, because I think typically we do kind of think of communications, maybe especially around change management, as here are the decisions. They're made up top. And we need to just tell everybody and make sure they understand and they're aligned. I love what you talked about of getting the team to communicate with one another too, right? And I think certainly, you know, I'm in a very small organization, but I even I with a small team have felt that like you don't want to be the point through which everything must travel, right? It's got to start to be, you know, like I tell my kids they're fighting and they cut, they can both look at me and I'm like, work it out. You guys can be, can sit on the same couch together. Like you two talk and figure it out, you know, or you kind of hear that. So I think it's a really important point about fostering communication. among team members, not just what's coming from leadership and filtering down. Jennifer Azar: Yeah, and I think the other lesson that we learned is it has to become kind of like a network because it's not waterfall. It doesn't communicate from the top and cascade down. It's a continuum. So you need that network continuously, continuously communicating in multiple directions. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, yeah. I'd love to hear a little bit more about the value impact program. I think that my understanding of it is it was created to solve this problem of what can be challenging to sometimes communicate the value of your work. think especially in an environment where it's like every business wishes they had that. top number ROI to convey. That isn't the reality of every kind of work that's done. But you've looked to find a way to kind of quantify the value being created. Can you talk a little bit more about the challenges you were facing with kind of conveying that impact and how the VIP program is solving for it? Jennifer Azar: Yeah, sure. So we've always, since I joined the organization in 2002, we've always quantified the work that we've done. But. the complexity and the breadth of the solutions that we can bring to customers now are much more complex. And so really, the end-to-end value that we create for a customer. it gets lost sometimes depending on what department you're in because we have a very broad portfolio, broad portfolio solutions that come together. And depending when you join the company, you know different parts, but you don't know the overall end-to-end value. So what we decided was we really wanted to help our engineers. So we have a... 200 plus engineers with loads and loads of talent that are engaged and working on client solutions on a daily basis and to get them to articulate the work they're doing and the business impact that it has at the customer side was really important. They can write down the fabulous technology work they're doing, but as we move to the AI economy or the outcome economy, it's going to be more important that we talk about the outcome that we delivered and not necessarily the one. technical slice. So what we wanted was to really get the organization on a journey to be able to tell stories about business value on the work that they've done. And we knew it would be a journey. So we set a goal, I think it's by 2030, that we were gonna have documented a billion dollars in value for our customers. And the monetary goal is not really what it's about, but it's a way to measure and drive velocity around building that muscle of being able to story tell about an outcome and not necessarily about something that's technically great. And it doesn't take away from the technical greatness, but the value is about what the technology enables. So you think about AI and you really can't or any type of intelligent manufacturing or autonomous manufacturing, you can't really talk about getting there just about the technology. It really requires an outcome or something that you're trying to work towards or accelerate or make better or transform the way you work and really that has to come through in a set of value stories. Kristen Sweeney: I love that. It's an offshoot, I think, of case studies, which is something that we work on with clients all the time. there's something so powerful about. I always say the devil is in the details. So you could talk about things at a high level, but then for folks who relate and have that of that operational pain to be able to see in detail what happened and what was changed. I love that you've taken that 360 view of not only this benefits the team internally, helps them kind of understand their impact more, and probably gives it more weight and purpose to their work. Also probably some value that can be derived from taking it external over time and so it's just like very beneficial all around. Jennifer Azar: Yeah, and you'll hear a lot about the practice of customer success. think if Kristen Sweeney: Mm-hmm. Jennifer Azar: you live in the SaaS world, that's a pretty common topic, a pretty common title and program. And we understand that AI is going to impact all of our professional services deliverables. And we really believe our best engineers are going to shift over time into adoption and consumption and outcome driven services, what we call outcome engineering. And so helping every technical engineer start to understand how that technology is used by the customer, why the customer uses it, how they use it, and what business result they get is something that's really important because AI is going to come in and take some of the technical work away, not all of it. And nobody's going to tell us what the jobs of the future look like. but we really believe the value creation is going to be us really helping our customers consume and adopt the technology. There's still technical services, but there is an opportunity to do more to really continue to create value. Kristen Sweeney: the one big idea. It's an ambitious one that we want to talk about, which is communicating the future. you you talked already about outcomes a little bit. I want to go there first because I think. The AI economy and the outcome economy, these are two phrases we're hearing right now, and they do seem quite related. And I suspect that's because as AI makes work easier, we hope, certainly faster in a lot of ways, more efficient, that the value that remains will not be in it took you this many hours to do something, but in you achieved this outcome for us. And I know you've given us some. me some personally, some Boston Direct advice on, you know, making sure our messaging was well aligned around outcomes. So can you talk a little bit more about why you think that shift is happening right now and what's really the difference between here's what we did and here's what we've achieved? Jennifer Azar: Sure. So how can I start on this? When we talk about transformation or innovation, those are terms that have been around for 20 years, But what I think people need to recognize is innovation and transformation plus AI is something very different. same vocabulary means something very different. So innovation programs. have always existed, but continuous innovation hasn't. And so there is no destination anymore. And in our organizations, we need to be able to create the space for this continuous learning, for this continuous change. And so the first place everyone points AI to is efficiency. How do I get more efficient? But that's just the beginning. That efficiency gives you the space to then do the transformative work and the transformative innovation, right? Kristen Sweeney: I love that thinking about it that way, yeah. Jennifer Azar: And so when you take that principle and you put it across system design, you put it across problems that you're trying to solve, it changes all of the work processes and in some cases even who does what and when. And so it's hard. you're not selling a thing, you're selling a journey. Or and in some cases, you're not selling, I use that word, you're influencing, you're trying to help see help somebody see what could be possible. And you're you're you almost all your business processes around innovation and transformation have to become sprint like, like you're running a bunch of small sprints, right? And so how do you to put a lighthouse out there that this is where we want to go. but you don't plan all the way to that lighthouse because too much will change in between, right? So you got the lighthouse and you got to pick a couple of buoys and then you got to run some sprints to get to the buoys. Okay, everyone can get that concept, right? It's directionally correct. But how do you communicate that? How do you communicate failures and wins in a way that's safe? Because you have to try a bunch of things that aren't going to get you to the buoy. And that's unnatural for people. They want certainty. They want a detailed plan and they want to execute against the plan. That is okay if nothing else, if nothing is changing. But technology is changing so fast. It's hard. mean, look at the large language models and agentic AI. Look at that change, right? Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Jennifer Azar: So you have to build culturally, you have to build speed, innovation, a culture of learning, a culture of curiosity. say all those things. But for people to really feel safe in that environment and to get, you know, 80 % of the people there, you really have to focus on how to communicate all this. And it is definitely a journey. Kristen Sweeney: How do you, whether it's anchor yourself, when you know that you're basically communicating uncertainty? You're putting yourself out there maybe with a vision. You're saying, is what I think. This is where we're headed. But I'm not even going to give you the full path because I don't think that's possible. What anchors you personally as a leader to be able to do that? Jennifer Azar: You know that people can only absorb so much, right? So I vacillate between two modes. One is I'm gonna be really focused for them to see the concept on one thing, right? Like what is a small concept? What can you point to in their world that'll validate? the thing you're trying to get them to understand. Because if they fundamentally can't believe that one thing, they're going to resist anything that you're, wherever you're trying to take them. Right? Kristen Sweeney: Mm-hmm. Jennifer Azar: So I vacillate between that and then just being very disruptive. Right? Like declaring biotech and AI were going to collide and that there was going to be this world. where AI fused around biology in all different kinds of directions. Sometimes you have to put a stake in the ground on what you see and be provocative. But you have to balance that with the buoys or the everyday weekly things that they can see and feel themselves so that they come along, right? So it's kinda, okay, well, this week, internally, I'm gonna communicate something very provocative, but then I'm gonna bring it down to the ground and have a simple concept that would help. The hard part for me is some of it can't be verbalized. I think some of it has to be visualized and you kind of have to feel it, right? You go to the airport now and you walk up to kiosks and you scan your passport or you put your confirmation code in, you print your own bag tag. Could you have envisioned that, that somebody was gonna tell you you're gonna walk into an airport 10 years ago and that you're gonna do all this yourself? You would have said, way, right? But they brought us on that journey. Kristen Sweeney: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jennifer Azar: If someone was to tell you 10 years ago, were going to have cases of water show up on your doorstep within 15 Kristen Sweeney: You Jennifer Azar: minutes with DoorDash, would it be believe them? Right? Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, yeah. Jennifer Azar: So I think that you have to try to break it down into little pieces for people. And then in some places, you have to be bullish. I think you need both those bookends. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, I may Jennifer Azar: And yeah. Kristen Sweeney: have shared this with you, something that comes to mind for me, I used to live in New York City, and when my family would come visit me, and I was obviously the tour guide for them, and I would always walk ahead of them, and they would kind of give me a hard time about it, but I was like, you know... If I walk next to you, we will just slowly slow down until we stop moving altogether. I have to kind of be in front of you. So you have to keep up with me. And we like, you know, fall in with the pace of the city and quick walkers there. And, but at the same time, I can't get so far ahead that I disappear around a corner and I like lose them all together. So to me, that's the kind of picture I get in my head when we talk about this balancing, leading forward, recognizing that, you know, as the leader of an organization, you are responsible for having that vision and looking farther ahead, but also bringing people along who maybe can't see quite as far into the distance as you can right now. And that, I'm sure, can be frustrating, but also is OK. We need all types of people to kind of round out an organization. And those folks who maybe have a harder time with change are also the ones who kind of keep. keep things running day to day while you are changing. Jennifer Azar: Yes, you need both. Kristen Sweeney: yeah. You know, when I think about communicating the future, one of the things I think about beyond words and thought leadership and communications plans and programs, I think about Stella. So can you tell us a little bit about Stella and maybe how she helps you all communicate the future in an experiential way. Jennifer Azar: Yeah, sure. So when you really think about changing the way you work, it's hard to picture. So I was looking for a way to show... and feel digital transformation when you walked in our lobby. And so I wanted a really different experience so people would come in and they'd feel the difference, right? Sometimes when you can't see something clearly, if you experience it, it helps you start to see the change. so Stella is our robot dog. She's a quadruped. And she is our mascot for ways of working differently. And people are drawn to her. It's like an engineering feat to watch her go up and down our staircase. to see her go on her autonomous rounds, checking for energy leakage, and doing our safety inspections internally, right? Like, people are drawn to watch that and to understand it. And Stella really is digital transformation. She, not only what you see in her physical work, but there is a full digital stack, a payload on her back. that is a full functioning database that we can run AI applications on top of. And there are thousands of applications in and around a manufacturing shop floor and utility space within a lot of these industrial manufacturing plants. Or even some of the utilities, like, say, natural gas, where Kristen Sweeney: Mm-hmm. Jennifer Azar: she can do inspection and round. and our customers are working with her. what I liked was it could help us re-envision the way reliability and maintenance could be done. And it also is a little bit of a mascot on how we innovate internally before we take it to customers. So the other part about Stella is she works on a full wireless network. So there's a whole bunch of wireless engineering that needs to be done. You need to understand how the data flow from her payloads to the database and how to run applications on top of that. And so we've really, we brought her in to give a different experience when you come to lobby you're greeted by her. But also we are using getting her capable of doing that at first was the beginning of our renovation to then exploit her to do all these other things with reliability and maintenance. so she has two sides. She delivers the outcome, but she shows you what an engagement is. And like I said, I can see that we need to engage around this. AI and digital automation technologies in a different kind of way because the whole point of them is that as humans we work different. I think Stella is one of those physical AI things that you can see and experience. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Jennifer Azar: And it actually opens up engineers' minds to thinking much more creatively about what's possible. Versus, I could talk about robotics all day long in our town halls and at our corporate meetings. And yeah, yeah, iRobot's coming. And yep, she's got great, crazy ideas. But when you can actually see Stella and actually actually see the abilities that she does have. Like she creates what's possible, but leaves Kristen Sweeney: Mm-hmm. Jennifer Azar: it open ended, right? So it's again, it's not about a one size fits all, you shall buy this thing. It's about, she creates this engagement that allows you to be innovative and think about solving problems. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, I love the like bringing it back into the real world and especially because ultimately manufacturing great is about real products for as much technology and and you know digital transformation has happened that the end goal is to create a physical drug. So I love Stella as that physical manifestation and if a picture is worth a thousand words you know robot dog has to be worth a million at least. Jennifer Azar: People generally are, people are generally drawn to her. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, yeah, she's really cool. So let's talk a little bit before we wrap about the human side of this. I know that people for you are so central. How do we stay connected in a future that is dominated by, fully integrated into, technology and why do you think the human connections are so important and you've even said like maybe more maybe the last really important thing as AI capabilities increase. Jennifer Azar: Yeah, so I think knowledge is critically important and the AI world is, know, the AI generation, whatever you wanna, whatever spin you wanna put on, is, it's going to force us to go from what we know and all of our experience, it's gonna force us to change and, really tap into more of our creative, right? And so I think as humans, we have to figure out a way to stay connected, because we're all feeling the same way, right? So... I joined a couple different communities because I'm trying to learn AI, trying to stay ahead of it. I personally cannot consume all the new things with AI and stay ahead of it. But I have a community of practice that has some luncheons, that has some sessions at night, some sessions in the morning. And that's 50 to 100 people working on the same problem. And everyone takes a piece and then we share our knowledge and we share our learning, right? So I think shared learning is going to be really important. Communities, to make sure we're using AI for good is pretty important. You can go down some dark paths with it. So making sure that we're really being intentional about rolling out AI responsibly. think communities around that is going to be important. I think... people to get to their creative side, do a great job on their own, but I think creativity can be exponential when it's done. in a group. And so any places where we can create these teams in communities wrapped around is going to help us keep up and not feel deflated by the change and the speed of the change. Everyone, you you feel good when you're around and everyone's suffering with the same thing, right? Like, so you're not alone, right? Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Jennifer Azar: So speed, don't get lonely, because it'll make you lonely, it'll drive you lonely trying to learn it all on your own. You won't have any human interaction, especially if you're an engineer and you want to get to mastery, right? Scary. And then I just think co-innovation is going to be critical. We have... creative side to us and I think pairing that with the skills and the tools that AI is going to bring to us from a knowledge standpoint, bridging those two things together is going to be the next wave of what is possible and new ways of working. You're not going to take the technology and figure out new ways of working without the humans, right? And so... Everyone is so focused on what do we do about AI. And I think we got to start with what are we going to do as people to leverage AI. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, I love that. Love that. Thank you. This has been, there's so much. think when we first started the conversation, you were kind of like, where to begin? But I really appreciate this. And you you've obviously thought so much about thinking, not only thinking about the future, but what that looks like to bring along an industry, an ecosystem, and a team. So really appreciate it. We're going to transition now into our lightning round segment. This is the last word. So every guest gets the same five questions. You can just go with your gut on these. Are you ready? All right, Jen, here we go. Jennifer Azar: think I Kristen Sweeney: Question number one, what is your favorite word to say out loud? Jennifer Azar: I can't say what that word is, but if you really know me, you know. But I would say to be politically correct, creative. Kristen Sweeney: What's a word you know from reading but you are not sure how to pronounce it? Jennifer Azar: Yeah, I screw it up all the time. Operationalize, we're trying to operationalize a bunch of things and I never get it right. Yeah, yes, yeah, Kristen Sweeney: There's a lot in there, a lot of letters, even a Z. you know. Jennifer Azar: yeah. Kristen Sweeney: One phrase or saying you wish could be retired for good. Jennifer Azar: We always did it that way. Kristen Sweeney: Very on brand for you, yes. A communication practice or principle that's non-negotiable for you. Jennifer Azar: Yeah, deliver bad news face to face or live. Don't do it in writing or text. Kristen Sweeney: Good one. And number five, what's the last thing you read, heard, or watched that stuck with you? Jennifer Azar: Yeah, I actually went to a great event, Science Club for Girls in Boston the other night. And there was an Albert Einstein quote. I have to look it up because I'll butcher it. But I loved it. I'm going to print it and put it on my wall. Imagination is everything. It's the preview of life's coming attractions. Imagination is more important than knowledge. And what I really loved about that, that's Albert Einstein. is that everyone's worried about AI coming for the knowledge workers, right? And we shouldn't have a lot of fear because imagination is very human, right? And is more important. We always say the brilliance make the world go round. Yeah. There you go. Kristen Sweeney: Jen, thank you so much for joining me today. If our listeners want to learn more about you, where should they go to find you? Jennifer Azar: You can get me on LinkedIn or can get me at jazar at stellix.com. Thank you. Kristen Sweeney: Thank you, thank you, have a good one. Jennifer Azar: You too. Bye bye. Kristen Sweeney: That's it for this episode of Expertly Said. We are produced by Every Little Word, a boutique content and communications agency. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Subscribe, share the episode with a colleague, or leave us a review. If you want to connect with me directly, please do. You can find me on LinkedIn, just search Kristen Sweeney. Thanks for listening. Talk soon.