MEL #032 | From Outsider to Trusted Leader through Listening and Learning with Randy Gibson

GIBSON (00:00)

A successful posture if you’re trying to win people over is equal parts firmness and empathy.

ADAMS (00:32)

In this episode, I speak with Randy Gibson, senior advisor to the executive team of Gresham Smith, a multidisciplinary architecture, engineering, and design firm that delivers strategic people-focused solutions across the healthcare, aviation, transportation, water resources, and corporate markets. Randy began his career with a passion for buildings, originally considering architecture before pivoting to structural engineering. His professional path took him from small consulting firms to nuclear power then into a 27-year tenure with an AE firm where he rose from engineer to COO. He later served in C-suite roles focused on strategy and growth. In our leadership segment, Randy shared two pivotal leadership moments, leading a skeptical team at a branch office early in his career and later heading a new division with expertise outside his own. Both required overcoming deep mistrust, building individual relationships, and communicating vision with patience and consistency.

Randy advises engineers to actively seek leadership experiences, embrace diversity of thought, find mentors earlier than he did, and continuously develop soft skills. He emphasizes that leadership is about people, not just organizations, and that investing in relationships is key.

You can learn more about Randy, including reading his full bio, recommended resources, and links to connect with him in our show notes at drangeliqueadams.com slash podcast. Without further delay, here’s my conversation with Randy Gibson.

ADAMS (01:51)

Hi, Randy. Welcome to Mastering Engineering Leadership.

GIBSON (01:54)

Hi, Angelique. It’s good to be here this morning.

ADAMS (01:56)

Well, I’m thrilled to have you. Can you start by telling us how you got into engineering as a career path?

GIBSON (02:02)

Sure, I actually grew up wanting to be involved with buildings somehow. And actually, from the time I was really little, thought I wanted to be an architect for the longest time. And I was fortunate enough in high school that my father arranged for a day-long shadowing of an architect. And when he picked me up, he said, how’d it go? And he said,

I told him, said, I don’t want to be an architect. I’m not that creative and so forth. And what I realized from that experience was that what I really wanted to be all along was a structural engineer that was involved in the design and construction of ⁓ buildings. So that’s how it happened. And then from there, I went to University of Tennessee and my career started from there.

ADAMS (02:51)

And so when you got, first of all, it’s great that you had that early opportunity to kind of cross something off your list, right? And I’m curious if once you got into the curriculum of structural engineering, it what you thought it would be or was there anything about the actual study of structural engineering that was maybe a little bit different than what you had expected?

GIBSON (03:10)

No, I don’t think there were really any surprises for the most part. it was, it was, I was, had been warned, so to speak, that it would be a pretty rigorous study. But, you I was fortunate to be pretty good with the STEM subjects, particularly math. And of course that’s a heavy math oriented profession. So, no, I don’t think so other than it was probably just as rigorous as I had been told.

ADAMS (03:34)

Okay, well that’s good. no surprises. Oftentimes people will say, thought I wanted to do this and then I got in there and realized it wasn’t quite what I thought. But that’s great that it was what you were expecting and you successfully went through and then you went into the workforce. Can you talk to us a little bit about your career trajectory and the types of work that you’ve done? You bet.

GIBSON (03:54)

So I started, again, I wanted to be in the consulting engineering world. And so I started my career at a very, very small firm down in South Florida. It was in the early 80s, the economy wasn’t good. And I spent like the first six months transferring red marks on shop drawings for six months. I thought, boy,

This is what went to And, but anyway, so that ended up being a great experience because it was such a small firm that I got to take on probably a lot more direct engineering work, maybe than I was even prepared for. But I learned a lot that first year or two. And then I, I left that firm and went into the nuclear power industry for approximately, again, a short spell, about a year, a year and a half in Chicago. And then I spent the next 27 years with a firm that did architecture and engineering. And I sort of went from a design engineer to a project manager, eventually running an office.

and then became the COO of that firm. And then my partners and I sold that business to a firm on a big engineering firm on the East Coast. And I ended up being the president of the, one of the divisions of that firm for about seven or eight years. And then the back end of my career, the last 12 years,

has been largely in the C-suite of a firm here in Nashville where I was the chief strategy officer. So really responsible for growth initiatives and the like.

ADAMS (05:43)

So can you talk just a little bit about some of these pivots that you made? And I don’t know if you see them as pivots or more expansions of sort of the roles that you had in sort of taking on more responsibility and more responsibility, And then of course, general management, C-suite management is very different. But can you just talk about how you viewed those different

those progressions and how you prepared yourself to take on those additional responsibilities.

GIBSON (06:09)

Yeah, I think it’s more, Angelique, it’s more pivots than it is, you know, sort of, they’re definitely more or less pivots. And I would say in some cases they were intentional pivots. But in other cases, you know,

just seizing opportunity. And I’ll use an example. When I made the first leap, I was a design engineer and project manager on not particularly large projects. And the person I reported to came to me one day and said, you know, we’d like you to relocate to Chicago to run

to run our office there. I was, I think I was 28 years old and I really didn’t know what I didn’t know. And I remember having a conversation at home with my wife, what do you think? This is sort of a big move. And we both came to the conclusion, how many of these opportunities do you get?

to advance your career and quickly came to the conclusion that we’d be silly not to seize that opportunity. And I look back, had I not done that, a lot of the opportunities that came thereafter would have very unlikely happened. anyway, that’s part of the story.

ADAMS (07:35)

And did you feel prepared or did you feel like, okay, I need to either study or find some mentors or how did you ultimately take on that role and view maybe potential differences or gaps between where you were and where you needed to be to be successful in that role?

GIBSON (07:52)

Yeah, I think it’s actually a little bit of both and it’s also maybe not in the progression that you would think. I think early on when those opportunities or pivots as they were came about, was sort of

quiet confidence, hey, I can do this, I’ll find a way to do it. And not necessarily with a lot of consultation or mentorship of others. Later in my career, as I became more of a C-suite person, less technical and purely more management, actually that’s when I sought out mentors.

⁓ inside the industry and with outside the industry to hone those skills. it probably, most people would have probably done it in reverse, but that’s just the way it happened.

ADAMS (08:42)

And did you, was there something specific that prompted you to say, know what, actually feel like mentorship would be good right now or was it suggested to you, how did you make that shift for yourself?

GIBSON (08:54)

I think as I became more senior in a couple of those organizations, I certainly matured like most people ⁓ would, become a little bit more self-reflective and with an expanded network. And I want to talk about networks later on, but with an expanded network exposed to people that, you know,

I could admire and say, you know what? I would really like to know more about this person’s viewpoint or this person’s perspective, particularly in the consulting world. It’s very much of a people business, unlike in manufacturing or in general industry.

ADAMS (09:48)

All right, Randy, can you give us an example of how you’ve had to use leadership skills in your work?

GIBSON (09:53)

Be happy to. So I guess, Angelique, there’s two very similar, I’ll say problems, leadership problems at two very different points in my career. And if I can, I’ll describe both and I guess we’ll go from there. So I think I alluded to in a little bit earlier of

being relocated to the Chicago office. And so I was very young. I was going from a headquarters office to a satellite or branch office. And there’s always a little bit of sort of mistrust of big brother or big sister in a branch office. So I inherit this office. I’m young, very experienced set of staff.

that had been in that office for a long time, the distrust of somebody coming from the headquarters office, let alone somebody who has very little experience. And so there was a significant trust factor there that needed to be overcome. We can talk through that. And then later in my career, I relocated to a new company.

certainly it was a lot more experience, but the division that I was going to lead was in a discipline that was completely different than structural engineering. so again, a group of, know, 150 people who didn’t do what my experience was. And so there was a high degree of mistrust

of the outsider, let alone an outsider who didn’t do what they did. And so in both cases, overcoming that distrust or in some cases maybe fear of who is this person and do they have the requisite skills to successfully lead a group.

was really important. the lesson I would say is that leadership is certainly about vision, creating a vision, more importantly, communicating that vision and communicating with consistency as to why that vision will be good for the group, good for the company, good for the person.

And that’s a hard thing to do. And it’s really hard if you’re back seven steps, not even on, you know, footing. And so I learned from that experience that patience and really connecting with people on a one-on-one basis is, you know, is the key to overcoming, you know, a fairly deep…

high degree of mistrust.

ADAMS (12:36)

Yeah, these are these are great examples. And I think that, you know, oftentimes, well, I’d say it’s not uncommon to find yourself in the situation you talked about either where you’re trying to lead people with maybe more experience, more expertise than you or some other reasons why they might be a little bit skeptical about you and your and your leadership. And so I really love that you’re bringing this bringing this up. And so maybe my first question is, how did you know

that there was mistrust that was even present? Like what were some of the signs that you were getting in either scenario or both where you were like, okay, yeah, they don’t really trust me here.

GIBSON (13:14)

In the earlier example, there was actually physical… My workplace was sort of destroyed.

ADAMS (13:20)

⁓ wow!

GIBSON (13:21)

Yeah, and destroyed is a little hard, maybe a little of an exaggeration, yeah. So it was very evident from day one that I was really not welcomed. The second example was certainly a lot more nuanced, but it was just the body language, not a particularly desired interaction.

So two very different situations, but it was pretty evident. And I do think a skill that’s necessary besides ⁓ thick skin and patience, but also being able to read the room so to is really important. And I would say in my experience, a lot of times engineers are, they need to really work.

at having that skill set because, you know, we’re technical people. It’s very black and white. It’s by the numbers, so to speak, and sort of, well, soft skills in general are really something that’s important, but being able to sort of read your environment successfully is really, important for your career.

ADAMS (14:31)

Yeah, absolutely. And it is interesting that you have had maybe the two extremes, the one very overt, we’re going to, and I don’t know exactly what the destroy your workplace was, but I can imagine, yeah, you walk in and you see some real physical signs of them saying, yeah, you’re not welcome here. We don’t want you here. And then the less overt, maybe sometimes more difficult to identify and to recognize, but it’s the…

you know, passive aggressive behavior, it’s the not speaking up in meetings, it’s the, you know, all these other things that people are doing that you start to get these signals that, ⁓ okay, there’s an issue here. So I like that you’re bringing that full spectrum. And as you say, it is something that you need to learn how to be able to read. So.

Can you talk a little bit about, you mentioned one was around the communicating the vision and I liked how you talked about it at these multiple levels, the company level, the group level and then individual people and I do think that is extremely important and we’ll talk a little bit more about that here in a minute. But I’m also curious, what other things did you do to try to start establishing trust, maybe at the one-on-one level, you talked about that. Were there specific things that you found worked well as you’re trying to build trust with the people that are working with you?

GIBSON (15:45)

Well, think, yeah, there’s probably a couple of things. One is, when you’re in that environment, the tendency is always to be defensive. And that is not going to be successful, a successful posture if you’re trying to win people over.

is there needs to be a degree of firmness to establish a degree of respect, but sort of equal parts firmness and empathy. You do need to understand where that individual or those individuals are coming from because you are in effect changing their world.

you’re introducing a whole new dynamic in their workplace that they may feel very, very passionate about. And so I think it is equal parts of being firm and being empathetic. And at the same time, I think just establishing that one-on-one relationship that, I can trust this person.

you can’t establish that in a group format. Angelique it has to be done on a one-on-one basis. The example, I guess in both examples that we were talking about, there was a significant amount of time invested in those one-on-ones. I mean, I, know, countless breakfasts, countless lunches.

You know, and it seemed like, I’ll say in the latter example, that it took, it probably took nine to 12 months to sort of turn that corner to establish a trusted relationship. so.

ADAMS (17:27)

Yeah, and I really appreciate you raising that point of this is an investment, both in effort, but also this is not going to happen overnight, right? You’re not going to go have one or two breakfasts and, and, and, and joke around with somebody and then expect that to actually change their work behavior. Because as you said, any leader will be seen as disruptive.

for a period of time until they otherwise prove that they’re either really disruptive or they’re disruptive in a way that people can manage, right? Because you really are affecting their world, their day-to-day life.

GIBSON (17:59)

I sort of add two things. You talk about investment. the investment, clearly a time in those relationships, but I would say, and in both examples, an investment in really understanding what they do. second example, I really was out of my element in terms of.

of what they did on a day-to-day basis. And so I spent a lot of time getting to understand what they did, understanding what their client’s business was. And so I learned in that investment then, I think there was a respect, hey, you this person sort of has over the last year or, know, whatever, learned about what we do.

And I think that, first of all, you need to know what your business unit does. mean, it’s obviously clearly a sort of a one-on-one thing, but I think it does build respect. The other thing that I would say is, know, continuous learning is always fantastic for a career. And so in some ways for me, taking on those new,

roles that were sort of out of my comfort zone, sort of certainly accelerated learning opportunities that definitely helped build my career.

ADAMS (19:15)

I’m curious what your own internal thinking was happening when you find yourself in these two different situations and you’re like, okay, I’m here to lead a team, I’m here to do this job, and here I am, and they don’t trust me, and so there’s a challenge here with establishing trust, and then also, I’m sure, related to that, getting them to execute the way that you feel like…

that organization needs to execute to meet your deliverables. had planned? Just curious what your internal dialogue was like during those time periods.

GIBSON (19:46)

Yeah, you know what, in both cases, I would say they were among the most rewarding of my career. people would say that seems kind of odd if you’re faced with, those were probably arguably the two biggest challenges, at least from a people management perspective. I don’t know, I think, you know, the mindset is one of a bit of fearlessness. afraid.

to fail because it’s not a linear process, right? mean, one day is, this is going, the next day, maybe not so much. And so it’s perseverance, it’s fearlessness, and it’s sort of, you can’t be afraid to fail. And I’ve always, I guess, sort of…

overarching to all that is I really have always enjoyed a challenge and every day being different than the day before, I enjoy that. And in fact, don’t enjoy the opposite of of grinding from day to day. So I guess that would be sort of my mindset throughout my career.

ADAMS (20:58)

And you mentioned in the second example that it took about nine to 12 months to turn the corner. What were the signs where you felt like, OK, we have actually turned this corner in this trust building and execution from my team?

GIBSON (21:11)

Well, you know, it’s probably a couple, three things. One, just reading the room again, it’s like, the sort of the mentality or the atmosphere seems to be a lot less negative. But you know, when people start coming to you and asking for advice or opinion, you realize that you have earned

some degree of their respect or they wouldn’t be coming to you. So I think those are probably the two biggest signs. I think, you know, in the maybe a third sign is in group meetings with like department managers or whatever, where, you know, it was in the beginning more of us versus him.

it became a lot more collegial, a lot more productive discussion in those leadership team meetings.

ADAMS (22:06)

And then the last thing I wanted to circle back, because you mentioned a really important point about a leader’s job is to build the vision, but then to communicate the vision. And you talked about how you really got to make sure that it permeates down through all levels of the organization. Can you talk a little bit about your strategy for how you implement that?

GIBSON (22:28)

Yeah, think I’ll say how you not do it first. And I’ve seen this over and over when people come into organizations and leadership has a degree of ego and you have to have self-confidence, right? But I’ve seen

throughout my career people that come into organizations or our existing ⁓ employees in organization that get promoted to a high level that are so self-confident or sort of know it all that they come into a situation and start dictating

this is the direction, this is the strategy, this is what we’re doing. And that is almost always doomed to failure. And you need to spend a lot of time listening and not talking and form a strategy based on that because otherwise you’re sort of doing it in a vacuum of knowledge.

And you don’t build rapport and you don’t build respect. And so even if you’ve got the best strategy of all, you’re never going to be able to execute it very effectively because you’re not going to have much buy-in particularly if it involves significant change. I’ll just add, you know, in both of the

the examples that we’ve been talking about, they both occurred at a time of pretty significant economic turmoil. So people were already on a heightened state of, am I gonna have a job? so there was an underlying, you know, that there was sort of that underlying

⁓ turbulence was also sort of a thing that was just there that, you know, I, they, you know, we did not have any control over, but, you know, people were nervous and, you know, that makes the whole thing even more difficult to sort of, you know, get a hold of.

ADAMS (24:34)

right, Randy, as we wrap up, what advice do you have for engineers who are interested in pursuing leadership roles?

GIBSON (24:40)

Where do I begin? I think there’s a few things and I’ll.

know, leadership is about leading people, not necessarily organizations. And so a few things that I would offer is, and I think whether you’re early in your career or, you know, more mature in your career, finding, particularly early on, finding opportunities, whether it’s actually inside a business,

that you’re involved in or extracurricular, whether that’s habitat for humanity or whatever is your passion to get involved in organizations. And if you can get in a leadership role, that’s a great way to begin to leadership skills, particularly as it relates to gaining confidence.

So I think that’s one thing. I think the other thing is to identify and seek out coaches or mentors throughout your career. I we talked that, you know, I sort of made the mistake of not really having mentors until maybe a little later in my career. And I think I would have benefited more from

you know, from having some sage advice early on. But so a couple other things that I have found that may be a little counterintuitive to ⁓ leadership, and one is diversity. Diversity is really important in terms of being around people and listening to people who have

may be very contrary in views to your own. Group think is not a good thing at all. And being able to listen to people that you may not necessarily always agree with their perspective is incredibly important because it does give you a bit of a well-rounded view in which to make decisions. So I think that’s important.

I think diversity also can translate to…

things that you get involved with. And by that, I mean going to strictly to a ASCE conference or activity every year, again, tends to give you a fairly narrow perspective. So I always have advised people that I’ve led to get involved, go to conferences that are

sort of very tangential to what you do, but can give you a more perspective, I think is really important. So that’s another thing. And then I, you know, interpersonal skills, we talked earlier about, you know, situational awareness and reading the room, anything that you can do to hone and develop and master soft skills.

are extremely important for effective leadership. And again, I’ll kind of rambling on here, but continuous learning, both from a technical standpoint, but also sort of in those allied fields or what have you will make you

more well-rounded and more effective. So I think, you know, that’s a little bit of a ramble, but those are the things that I have found that set people apart from a narrower focus and to a more well-rounded, more people-focused.

skills.

ADAMS (28:11)

Randy, thank you so much for your insights.

GIBSON (28:13)

Happy to do so.