COPHP MPH alum, Sara Teitelman’s first book, Zen and the Art of Digital Transformation, outlines strategies for organizations to improve employee productivity and happiness.
Sara Teitelman, MPH, released her debut book last month. Zen and the Art of Digital Transformation: Leading a Mindful Redesign of the Digital Enterprise is a guidebook for organizations of all sizes to reduce tech overload and create a more fulfilling work environment.
Teitelman’s publisher, Wiley, refers to her as the “Marie Kondo of enterprise tech.” Her writing provides practical strategies for digital decluttering. Through case studies and downloadable tools, readers can immediately put her concepts into action.
As CEO and co-founder of the digital transformation firm Ideal State, she applied her expertise in human-centered design, knowledge management, and change management to write this book. Zen shares practical solutions to improve organizational efficiency and employee engagement. Teitelman outlines strategies to address issues that commonly plague modern workplaces. Steps include quantifying and reducing recurring software subscription costs, and engaging employees from across organizations in technology decision-making.
Organizational digital transformation is rooted in public health
“I’ve always been interested in what environmental factors support human health and wellbeing,” said Teitelman, who earned her Master of Public Health degree in Community-Oriented Public Health Practice at the University of Washington in 2004.
Early in her career, she noticed how many workplace factors were detrimental to human health. “I began examining how an organization’s approach to designing and implementing the technology employees interacted with every day was compounding feelings of stress and frustration.” As a result, people would leave their jobs or become disengaged from their work.
“Later on, I had the opportunity to help transform technology using human-centered design in ways that empowered people to take control of their experience of technology and put it to work for them rather than feel alienated by it.”
She viewed this fundamentally as a behavior change exercise, for both organizational leaders and employees. The goal, “to support enhanced health and well-being, in addition to efficiency and productivity. So, the alignment with public health and its tenets has been clear for me throughout.”
Internal change agent to co-founder and CEO
After graduating from the COPHP MPH program in 2004, she worked in public health roles for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, VillageReach, Batelle, and Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, among others. During this time, her focus shifted to the digital health of the organizations where she worked.
“I’ve always been interested in what environmental factors support human health and wellbeing. When I started my career after grad school, I realized that there were so many factors in the workplace that were detrimental to human health.” Teitelman’s client projects range from field-level data collection and analysis to global collaboration and innovation.
Connecting her public health education to her career trajectory, Teitelman said, “The COPHP program opened my eyes to the possibility of communities co-designing solutions that lead to better health outcomes. This is exactly the work that we do at Ideal State and the core message of my book. Looking to the people most affected by an issue, in this case dysfunctional workplace technology, and creating an opportunity for them to take constructive action is something I was able to experience during my capstone project and left a lasting impression on me as I entered the world of work and later started my own consulting firm. At the end of the day, it’s about having empathy and a willingness to listen deeply to those you are in a position to help.”
Along with her husband, Jeremy Nurse, she co-founded Ideal State in 2016, after almost 15 years of experience working in international health and development. Teitelman has spoken at several industry conferences including Digital World Enterprise and KMWorld. She has also appeared as a guest on the podcast KSFR Matter of the Mind.