Episode #15: Building trust with credibility:How to move IT from firefighting to trusted business partner/Linda Söderberg (Sysmex)
A practical CIO perspective on reducing operational noise, rebuilding IT confidence, and creating the conditions for tech adoption.
Building Trust with Credibility: How IT Moves from Firefighting to Trusted Business Partner
In many organisations, IT does not lack ambition. It lacks room to deliver it. When the team is trapped in operational noise, constant escalations, unclear ownership, and competing business requests, even the best IT strategy struggles to land.
In this episode of A Change in Conversation, Arne speaks with Linda Söderberg, CIO at Sysmex EMEA, about what it takes to move IT from firefighting mode to trusted business partner. The conversation is not about a quick transformation story. It is about the slower, more disciplined work of rebuilding credibility, creating focus, and earning the right to lead more strategic conversations.
Linda describes an IT organisation with deep expertise, strong commitment, and a real ability to solve problems. But she also describes the hidden cost of heroic problem-solving: too much energy spent on operational surprises, too little time spent on root causes, governance, transparency, and future demand.
For CIOs and IT leaders, this matters because the pressure is rising from both sides. The business expects stable operations and fast innovation. AI pilots, automation ideas, platform improvements, and digital initiatives are everywhere. But if IT is still consumed by basic service issues, every new ambition adds more noise.
The leadership challenge is not simply to say yes to innovation. It is to create the conditions where innovation can be delivered credibly.
Credibility beats ambition
One of the strongest ideas in the episode is Linda’s belief that credibility beats ambition.
That is a useful warning for IT leaders. In the current market, it is tempting to make bold statements about AI, automation, digital transformation, and future platforms. The business wants to hear what is possible. Boards want confidence. Teams want direction.
But overpromising creates a serious trust problem. If IT paints a picture it cannot deliver, the organisation may listen once. It may not listen twice.
Linda’s approach was different. Before pushing a louder vision, she focused on stabilising the situation. She listened. She mapped pain points. She spoke with IT employees, local teams, business leaders, and regional management. She looked for where energy was being lost, where frustration repeated, and where processes were unclear.
This is behavioural science in practical terms: people judge credibility less by strategic statements and more by repeated proof. If the daily experience of IT is confusion, delay, or escalation, the brand of IT suffers. If the daily experience becomes clearer, more reliable, and easier to navigate, confidence starts to rebuild.
That confidence is not created by slogans. It is created by visible consistency.
Operational noise is a strategic issue
A common mistake is to treat operational noise as a service desk problem. It is more than that.
When escalations, complaints, unclear responsibilities, and fragmented processes dominate the conversation, senior IT leaders lose strategic capacity. The business also loses confidence that IT can handle bigger demands. Innovation then becomes another layer of pressure on top of an already overloaded system.
Linda’s first priority was to bring more silence into operations. That did not mean lowering ambition. It meant reducing the volume of avoidable issues so the organisation could focus on what matters next.
This is an important lesson for CIOs: keeping the lights on and preparing for the future are not competing agendas. The first creates the credibility for the second.
If the basics are unreliable, the business will keep pulling IT back into operational detail. If the basics become more predictable, the conversation can shift: Which projects matter most? What budget is needed? What should be prioritised? What value will this create?
That shift is where IT starts becoming a trusted business partner.
Saying yes to everything is not customer centricity
Linda also makes a sharp point about demand management: saying no is uncomfortable, but saying yes to everything is worse
For IT leaders, this is one of the hardest tensions. Business teams come with legitimate needs. They want new tools, better processes, more automation, more data, faster delivery. The demand is real.
But when IT says yes to everything, it creates false expectations. It signals support in the moment, but creates disappointment later when capacity, dependencies, governance, security, budget, or operational constraints become visible.
A customer-centric IT mindset does not mean accepting every request. It means helping the organisation understand value, trade-offs, timing, and priority.
That requires a different conversation. Not: “Can we do this?” But: “What value does this create? What else is competing for the same capacity? What dependencies exist? What will we stop or delay if we do this now?”
This is where stakeholder engagement becomes a core leadership discipline. Not as communication theatre, but as the practical work of helping the business make better decisions with IT.
IT branding is built through experience
The episode also touches a topic many CIOs underestimate: the IT brand.
Not brand in the marketing sense. Brand as the lived reputation of IT inside the organisation.
Is IT seen as slow or reliable? Complicated or helpful? Reactive or focused? Disconnected or business-aware? These perceptions shape how people engage with IT long before any formal strategy is presented.
Linda’s view is clear: the IT brand is influenced by every interaction. A ticket process. A project update. A difficult “no”. A training moment. A handover. A communication to end users. A conversation with a business leader.
This is why customer centricity matters. IT teams are not only delivering systems. They are shaping how the organisation experiences technology.
One practical insight from the episode is the value of end-user support through peers, not only through IT. People often learn more easily from someone next to them than from a central team. When information moves from end user to end user, support becomes more natural, less intimidating, and less dependent on IT capacity.
That is a simple behavioural principle: people copy trusted peers. Adoption, confidence, and new working habits spread faster when they are visible in the real work environment.
Trusted business partnership is a long game
Linda does not frame this as a quick fix. She is clear that building credibility takes time, proof points, team alignment, and repeated communication.
That matters. Many organisations want IT to become a strategic business partner, but still measure and treat IT as a reactive support function. The shift requires structural work: governance, transparency, reliable processes, service levels, cost clarity, team capability, and a stronger rhythm of prioritisation.
It also requires patience. IT leaders have to create confidence inside their own teams first. People need to believe the strategy is realistic. They need to see progress. They need the language, confidence, and mandate to repeat the direction consistently.
A strong IT brand is not built by one CIO on a stage. It is built by a team that behaves consistently over time.
Key Takeaways: What IT Leaders Should Remember
Credibility must come before louder strategic promises.
Operational noise reduces innovation capacity and business trust.
Saying yes to everything creates hidden expectation debt.
Customer centricity means clarity, not unlimited service.
IT brand is built through every business interaction.
For CIOs and IT leaders, the core message is direct: before IT can lead the next wave of transformation, it must earn the trust to be heard. That starts with reducing noise, creating focus, managing demand honestly, and showing the business that IT can deliver what it promises.
If you are leading an IT organisation that is still too reactive, too consumed by operational noise, or not yet seen as a true strategic partner, this episode is worth your attention.
Listen to the full episode to hear how Linda approached the long game of moving IT from firefighting mode toward trusted business partnership — with more clarity, confidence, and room for innovation.
About your host
Arne Kötting founded COSYN after years of seeing organisations struggle with the human side of tech change. He built the Change Playbook to codify what actually works based on 20 years of watching these patterns.
The Change Playbook is designed for IT program teams to confidently manage the human side of tech change in-house, without expensive consulting dependencies.
His conversational style cuts through complexity to reveal the fundamental principles that make tech change communication work - principles you can apply 1:1 to your own transformation challenges.
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