Your Help Desk Knows Something Your CIO Doesn't - Episode #139 - Leza Isadora

Episode summary

Host Justin Lake sits down with Leza Isadora, Organizational Change Manager at Puget Sound Energy, who brings more than a decade of experience guiding digital transformations across healthcare, entertainment, government, nonprofit, and energy. Leza makes the case that frontline rollouts rarely fail because of the technology. They fail because leaders move fast on change and rarely stop to see it through the workforce's eyes.

Justin and Leza dig into the operational consequences of broken trust, the metrics that translate "warm fuzzy people issues" into the language leadership actually responds to, and the practical mechanics of building support that lasts past go-live. Along the way, Leza shares a true story about a help desk turnover spiral, why 30-60-90 day follow-up plans matter, how to reach frontline workers who never read email, and why a willingness to pause an initiative is often the most strategic move a change leader can make.

Key topics covered

• The operational fallout when frontline workers lose trust in a rollout: workarounds, call-outs, turnover, and erosion of legacy knowledge
• Connecting change strategy to the metrics leadership cares about, like trouble-ticket volume, time-to-resolution, and turnover rates
• Building a super user network that draws on early adopters across departments, not just the technically adept
• Recognizing change champions in ways that stick (callouts, gift cards, and the underrated currency of extra time off)
• Why personalization at scale starts with surveying past initiatives and reading the data already sitting in HR and engagement dashboards
• Replacing the project mindset with a sustained model: 30-60-90 day follow-up, hyper-care handoff, and ongoing support
• Closing the communication gap with field workers who do not read email, do not attend town halls, and do not pick up the phone
• Why "people don't resist change, they resist being changed" reframes how leaders ask for buy-in
• Two pieces of advice for change leaders running large-scale technology deployments: always have the conversation, and never be afraid to take a pause

About Leza

Leza Isadora is an Organizational Change Manager at Puget Sound Energy. She has spent more than ten years supporting digital transformations across healthcare, entertainment, government, nonprofit, and energy sectors, with a current focus on frontline workers navigating wave after wave of new technology. Her background in strategic communications and branding shapes a change approach grounded in trust, transparent dialogue, and respect for the field employees who actually carry the work.

Resources & Links

• Frontline Innovators Podcast: https://skyllful.com/podcast
• Ginger Luttrell's Super User Revolution: https://sapinsight.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/super-user-revolution-pre-sale
• Connect with Leza on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lezaisadora/