MEL #034 | From Consulting Ranks to Innovation Leader through Holistic Problem-Solving with Christopher Roberts

ROBERTS (00:00)

People are people. We have our concerns.

Our emotions will override our logic every single time, especially when we’re scared.

I learned really quickly that the most important thing for making a successful project was listening to your people. When you validate their concerns or maybe you’re able to dispel their concerns, but let them be heard it actually makes the whole project go better.

ADAMS (00:49)

In this episode, I speak with Chris Roberts, a fractional Chief Digital Officer and Founder of Intevate Labs, where he helps companies translate strategy into working systems using AI-enabled automation, commerce, and data platforms. 

Chris discovered his engineering aptitude early, receiving encouragement from teachers for his math and science skills. After earning a mechanical engineering degree from MIT, he pursued management consulting, blending engineering problem-solving with process and systems improvement, for major manufacturing and technology clients. His career evolved into innovation strategy, leading him to found Intevate Labs. 

In our leadership discussion, Chris talks about how he had to lead professionals twice his age with decades more industry experience. He learned that listening, understanding others’ concerns, and effective communication are critical to overcoming resistance and fostering collaboration. 

Chris encourages engineers to focus on improving emotional intelligence, especially listening,

reading the room and understanding motivations as it enhances leadership effectiveness and personal relationships. He stresses seeking candid feedback from trusted mentors to accelerate growth. 

ADAMS (02:05)

Hi, Chris. Welcome to Mastering Engineering Leadership.

ROBERTS (02:08)

⁓ thanks, Angelique Glad to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

ADAMS (02:10)

Very glad to have you here. Can you start out by telling us how you got into engineering as a career path?

ROBERTS (02:15)

I’d love to. I think probably like a lot of people that get into engineering, it starts at a very young age. mean, this is literally, I’m guessing most people who choose engineering, they were identified maybe even in elementary school or junior high as somebody who has a high aptitude in math and science. And you get a lot of kudos and attention from teachers that you have that aptitude. I think there’s a second part of it and that’s…

our desire to connect with people and when you get that kind of connection from people and appreciation for those skills, it obviously kind of moves you in that direction, I think for a lot of people. decided at that point, I wanted to capitalize on some of those skills that were identified and chose an engineering school that I knew had a great reputation for that.

ADAMS (03:04)

MIT, by the way, everybody

ROBERTS (03:05)

It was. I was in a, I lived in a small town in the Intermountain West. And I said, okay, if I want to be a great engineer, where would I want to go to school? And so I, not surprising, MIT popped up and I read, this was pre-internet days. So I went to the library and got, you know, how to apply to schools and what do you need to put in there? And I sent him a book of what I, of my experience. I purposefully in my high school days, try to do everything. I know now they’ve got a whole industry around preparing kids. This was pre that those days. when I went to the counselor and they actually asked me, I said, I want to take the SAT and they said, what is that? That’s how small of a school. Oh, the school’s here in our area, only take the ACT. You don’t have to worry about that. anyway, I knew that I wanted to have an experience at a

ADAMS (03:47)

Okay, yeah.

ROBERTS (03:57)

top engineering school and take advantage of that. And of course, when you land there at MIT, there’s a lot of folks that have done a lot of research and it became really easy to get into engineering. Did an internship at a Fortune 50 company in their R &D labs and got to work with a lot of professors who were preeminent in their fields in robotics and things like that. I was a mechanical engineer. But initially started, because I love computers and hooking up computers.

took lot of computer science classes as well and realized, really I would say before I even started college that an engineering and technical path was the direction that I wanted to go. And I’m not sure if you want to talk about the leadership part of that or management part of that, but maybe as I was there in school, I heard a lot, I.

was part of a lot of these engineering projects and realized I really loved the creative aspect. Instead of just working on a specific part of the technology, I love the holistic approach and the creative part of it as well. So I had a lot of classmates that graduated or had come back and would talk about some of their leadership experience and that really resonated with me. So it started at a young age and was confirmed during my college experience.

ADAMS (05:11)

Well, that’s interesting. So yeah, I definitely do want to talk a little bit about about your interest in leadership early on, it sounds like. But maybe before before we jump into that, can you just talk a little bit about your career trajectory? Because I’ve got your LinkedIn profile up. I’m looking here and you know, realizing that

While you started in mechanical engineering, it doesn’t look like you did a whole lot of sort of maybe the traditional sort of mechanical design engineering type of stuff. It looks like you really kind of jumped into maybe stuff on the more computer and IT side and technology development side of things pretty early on in your career. And that seems to be sort of how you’ve progressed. So can you just talk a little bit about your career trajectory?

ROBERTS (05:49)

Yeah, it is a little bit of a non-traditional engineering, but there at MIT, I was there in the early 90s, and a lot of management consulting firms were recruiting there. so I did actually have to, I debated between some offers between management consulting firms and some, it was GE, they wanted me to be part of their engineering management program. And,

It was a tough decision. Oh, I guess I would say the other one was working for JP Morgan on Wall Street. I had a lot in manufacturing, finance, and management consulting. the management consulting for me, it was a practice that specialized in manufacturing, re-engineering. how, and this for people who grew up in the late 80s and 90s,

ADAMS (06:18)

You had all kinds of options, yeah.

ROBERTS (06:37)

the Japanese were going to destroy American engineering. And I thought, okay, I want to be part of making us competitive again. And so for me, that seemed like a really good fit where I took the engineering background and then the management consulting and helped make American companies competitive in the manufacturing space again. So that’s how I started. I joined Deloitte Consulting and I worked in a practice that did a lot of work with big manufacturing companies. In fact, one of my first projects was implementing

⁓ SAP, a big enterprise resource planning project. and that was considered really kind of cutting edge at the time. Everybody had done manufacturing resource planning, MRP, and to move into this entire enterprise resource planning where that was all integrated in with finance seemed like a really great way to help make American companies competitive again. And to take that engineering mindset and some of the leadership and management and

roll it all together to help companies be better. So that’s how I started and did that for a few years. And actually my career since then has been working primarily in management consulting, becoming familiar with these big systems implementations. I ended up doing that for a few years and then just migrated a little bit to some of the systems that made marketing work. I got to play with my creative side a little bit and do some of the marketing systems.

but worked interestingly enough with semiconductors and a lot of high tech industries, but those same principles also apply in consumer packaged goods and even the restaurant industry. We’re all about taking some raw materials and creating something better for our consumers and then making the consumers aware of them. So the engineering process mindset has been consistent throughout, but it really was more of a process engineering.

than maybe a traditional, if you were a civil engineer or a mechanical engineer.

ADAMS (08:27)

Yeah, makes sense. I know. Absolutely. Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. There’s still I mean, there’s like the problem solving and sort of the systems thinking and the holistic view of things. I mean, those are sort of like these fundamental engineering skills. You can really apply that any kind of situation. And you chose to go kind of through the management consulting ranks and and and work in integration, work, work in many. I was in manufacturing myself much more on the ground floor on the shop floor side of things and definitely.

felt like that was really important to me to kind of be a part of making things and being a part of America’s of engine of making products, which was something that I really enjoyed as well. And so you’ve continued to do that. And so now you are founder and chief innovation officer of Intevate Labs. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

ROBERTS (09:11)

Sure. While I was at my last client, Taco Bell. We discovered in the process of redoing their app and website and building things like the Taco Lovers Pass and their combo boxes and stuff and figuring out how to integrate that in with their backend systems. I was working a lot with the marketing team and the firm I was with was very, very technical.

As soon as I started doing innovation sessions and helping to coordinate with marketing strategy, the work that I was doing with my client and the career path at my consulting company didn’t quite align anymore. And I realized that I really enjoyed being part of the initial creative part as well as the implementation.

I’m going to do a little pitch for the engineers and the propeller heads out there. I think there is a conception out in the marketplace that we’re just technical problem solvers, but so many engineers, you know, they’re more than just technical problem solvers. They love the holistic view of the world and understanding what the underlying problem is. actually loved

Angelique, that you started on the shop floor, that, you know, it’s what our actual workers are doing and how people are interacting with technology and getting things done that is important. And when you have that holistic view, just working on it, for some people, solving real technical problems is fantastic. For a lot of people, understanding how that technology solves bigger problems and what it’s involved in is really important.

For the folks out there that enjoy the holistic view of things and who have a lot of engineers are very creative as we know. For me, that’s what I wanted to do is be part of the initial ideation, the initial prototyping and then help get them implemented. So Intevate Labs was founded to address that need in the marketplace And so spent the last two years.

helping now with the upfront innovation and strategy, as well as the backend implementation and figuring out how to make the technology support those new ideas that might have to do with AI or exposing inventory to customers. customers are asking for a lot more visibility now and trying to address some of those new needs in the marketplace.

ADAMS (11:22)

That’s great. And thank you for dispelling the myth. I I too constantly find myself dispelling the myth about engineers. There’s a bunch of actually stereotypes about us, as I’m sure you know, and you flip through. there’s the, don’t like people. There’s the, we only like to solve technical problems and we’re not creative. And so I just, thrilled to hear you talk about, not only do I love the creative side, I love it so much that I actually changed my career and invented a company.

so that we can go after really being able to address that space in the marketplace that might be underserved and bringing like all of your engineering skills and all of your experience to solving that problem in a different way. So thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And then you started out, when you first started talking about your career trajectory, you did talk about your interest in leadership really early on. Can you talk a little bit about how you became interested in leadership and…

if there are any kind of common themes that have come up throughout your career trajectory.

ROBERTS (12:20)

I grew up in a community that Boy Scouts was what, so yes, I’m one of those Eagle Scouts and I love doing that. And they encourage these young men to show leadership. I think we all, leadership isn’t just when you hold a position, it’s when you exert, you have influence and persuasion. And I think that’s what it’s all about is when people are looking for you to your expertise and you can provide that guidance. So,

and helping other people be successful. So I grew up with that servant-based leadership mindset. And so it was kind of natural serving in leadership roles in youth organizations. And then when we’re able to have such a big impact on these companies, know, let’s be honest, a kid, this took me a little while to get over, a 21 year old new college grad.

I was working in a room full of people that been in an industry for 50 years and I was, I had to lead them and it was tough at first. I literally remember going back to some of my mentors and the consultant, I’m like, look, these guys are twice my age. They’ve been in this industry for 30 years. How am I supposed to lead them? And he goes, you have knowledge that they want and using the software and these new processes that they don’t.

they are looking to you for that knowledge and that leadership. So, you know, when I got over that hurdle of the seniority and realized that I had something to donate and contribute to making these processes better, you know, it was actually very worthwhile and fulfilling. And I think where the feedback that I got when you put something in place that they had a hand in creating and maybe I’ll just…

touch on one of the things I think is really important for leaders is you’re doing a lot of listening as opposed to doing a lot of talking. These are the people’s lives that you’re supposed to be making better are these, you these people and if they have a hand in creating something, they’ll support it and promote it. And so when I maybe that was one of the benefits of being so young and naive is I didn’t think I knew everything and maybe even doubted. So I was able to ask a lot of questions.

And I think that, and then being able to synthesize those with the engineering mindset into solving problems and then putting something together that makes people’s lives better through your leadership and getting that feedback, ⁓ my life is so much easier now that I have this process. It was just, it’s a great feedback loop that as you listen to people, you hear their problems, you help them, solve them in a way that they understand and believe.

and then you see the results, it’s something that really resonated with me and I’ve loved doing it ever since.

ADAMS (15:11)

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

ROBERTS (15:15)

I can. I think it’s worthwhile kind of talking a little bit more about the importance of leadership. I think the most important thing about leadership is communication. So maybe talk about how communication and leadership in that regard made a really big difference. When I joined the management consulting firm, one of the partners said, we were talking about this new technology that was going to

impact manufacturing. And he scoffed and he said, it’s just software. That’s not, that doesn’t solve the problem. And, and being a technologist that I was kind of offended and I was going to, I thought he was wrong. I will admit, I thought that he was wrong. And then we jumped into the project where we were installing this new software, this company to improve their manufacturing operations. And we had this, the specialist that just

was continually talking about how we documented their process and it was really convoluted. And I went back to some of the project leadership and they said, they said they do it this way and they get this information. And he said, they don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re thinking about the old way of doing things and we need to get them onto the new way. And so I came in there and I tried to be as diplomatic as possible to tell them,

They didn’t know what they were talking about. And I could see the frustration on their face and like, you know, you don’t understand. like, don’t, I don’t know what to do. I guess I’m just going to have to ask a lot of questions and listen. And it turned out that they actually had a point. had a specific customer and some specific resource, sorry, some, some manufacturers that they got some of their chemicals from.

that required a certain thing and our, that system didn’t support it. And I said, okay, what happens if we don’t do that? And explained to me what the impact was. I’m like, okay, I had dismissed off hand something that, and even some of my, folks I was working with on this project didn’t understand. So had to go back up the line and say, look, there is a reason they’re doing it this way is outmoded and crazy as it seems when you understand the underlying reason.

you can understand why we have to figure out a workaround for this solution or they are going to lose this big customer. anyway, that was the first thing I learned is that the first time I learned, okay, communication is really important. And then we had this IT guy who just was pedantic about, no, this is not secure. And he was like the sand in the gears to get this project done. And they tried it again, be very diplomatic.

and just kind of quiet his voice down. And it just made him louder and louder. And so after one of the days after work, like, I kind of had a heart to heart with him. I hey, what’s going on? seem really pedantic. And he went on to share a personal story.

about where he almost lost his job because of a security issue and it actually affected the way the plant ran. Somebody got in there and messed things up. It was a very real concern for him. And after I listened to him and validated that concern and then went back and confirmed that we could alleviate that, the guy was fine. He just wanted to be heard and make sure that his concern was.

was justified. So we moved forward on that. We had a finance guy who every single time we’d put our plans together, I have to say he was a sense of humor the whole time too. You know, we’ve got this whole thing planned out. We’ve laid out this great runway and he goes, you know, most planes crash near runways. He had a great sense of humor, but was always a little bit of a cynic and a skeptic. And sometimes his comments actually

impacted the team’s morale and their confidence in the project. So by the end of that first project, I realized just the most important thing, I learned leadership really quick, that the most important thing for making a successful project was listening to your people. When you validate their concerns or maybe you’re able to dispel their concerns, but let them be heard and you address those things that they have that

you know, first row view of it actually makes the whole project go better. So it really is about communication and understanding even more so than technology. So if there’s something that I had to learn through my experience that if somebody who’s just getting into this, they hear like me, they’re a little hard headed and like, no, technology is the solution to everything. People are people. We have our concerns.

Our emotions will override our logic every single time, especially when we’re scared. so great leadership is really about great communication. And I think great leaders have learned that. that’s something that was a case study that helped me understand that that was true.

ADAMS (19:55)

Yeah, those are great examples and I love the way you tied those all together and it brings up a couple things. So first of all, I love that you actually had, I think, three different examples because it really demonstrates what I think is very much a reality, which is to say that when people may seem like they’re blocking what you’re trying to do and it may look different in different situations and in different aspects of your career, but one, it is going to happen because it always happens at some point, but that

maybe the approach, an approach or something that has really worked well for you is rather than, resist or disregard or, you know, try to go around them, maybe you should talk, you can talk to the people that may be blocking what you’re trying to do and really try to understand what their concerns are. And I like what you said about that actually does two things. One, it actually uncovers the real concerns and there may legitimately be,

something that needs to be fixed or worked around or something. And you can oftentimes turn that blocker either into just a neutral person, which is great, because then you can move on, or sometimes even a supporter. Once you have, they feel valued and feel heard and you’ve addressed their concerns, now you’ve actually not only just changed the project, you’ve changed your relationship with someone. And so.

I really love all of those examples. And I will say, just kind of going back to our comments before about, you there’s these stereotypes about engineers. You know, I do think sometimes we have not been trained necessarily in our undergraduate education. We have not necessarily been trained to consider the non-process, non-technical, you know, challenges that come up. And so I do think in some cases we might be under equipped to do what you just.

what you just talked about, because it’s not necessarily something that we’ve learned.

ROBERTS (21:45)

Yeah, I did not take any undergraduate classes that equipped me for that. And I’m going to say I am still learning on a daily basis how to be a better communicator. And I do think that that is really the key for success in anything, but especially in engineering and technical projects, under making sure that you’re getting that feedback. And I’ll say the other part of it is communicating it up is really, really important. ⁓ We want to be easy to interface with.

ADAMS (22:13)

Yeah, absolutely. So where do you think that came from? Just like, as you said, you didn’t learn it in school. So how do you think you came to maybe this understanding, maybe it’s just trial and error, which is a completely legitimate way to learn things, but how did you kind of come to this understanding of, know what, well, maybe there’s something here. Maybe I just need to talk. Maybe I need to ask some more questions or in the case of the IT person, maybe you need to take that person aside and say, you know, what’s really going on here? I’m just curious kind of where that instinct came from.

ROBERTS (22:41)

⁓ I wish I could say I had that innate instinct. might say that I had the opposite instinct. ⁓ I have such a, get, I got like a lot of engineers get really, you fall in love with your own ideas. And he was like, if I just say it in a different way, they understand it more there. They will fall in love with it too. This is a great idea. actually, I think it might be worthwhile sharing one of their story in my consulting journey. I had a.

I had a partner, he was an ex-McKinsey partner who had just taken on this new, our strategy practice. And we had a client, okay, I’m gonna date myself, but we were at Yahoo, which was bigger than Google in those days. It was the biggest site in the internet and we were helping them do some strategy. And we collected all this information and put together this slide deck that in very engineering fashion, you know, like almost like a mathematical proof.

We have this information and this information and this information and this information. And so at the very end, we came to this conclusion and we took it to this, the partner and he said, I should fire you for this deck. That was a little hard take for me and left me just crestfallen. Cause I thought we had so much great information in there. And so he looked at me and I had the

opportunity of being part of the strategy group, even though I hadn’t gone through the strategy training program or had the MBA from a top MBA program. And he said, no, Chris, even though you’re leading this project, you haven’t come up through those ranks. So I’m, I don’t blame you. But he turned around to that, my senior consultant, he goes, but you should be fired. And, and, and we left. And so this is the heavy emotional impact that

grow this home. And this was after the experience I shared with you earlier about already learning that getting information from people is important. This seemed another part of it. said, because yeah, we need to use the Minto pyramid principle for explaining this. This was, for those who don’t have it, it is a book that I recommend. Barbara Minto was a consultant at McKinsey who did a lot of experience under.

research on how human minds process information, how we communicate. And she identified that we don’t want to burn a lot of calories. Get to the point really quick and then provide the underlying analysis after the fact. If somebody doesn’t question your analysis, you can move on. And this is really important for the upward communication.

And but this is also true for the downward communication and our communications with each other. And I have to be reminded of this all the time. I haven’t mastered it yet. But that that experience, we went back and I literally bought the book and I know this is audio. But think now. He’s. Only got the book is a very well worn, it’s got tape holding the edges together and using learning how to communicate. And there’s a lot of other great books out there. I I don’t.

ADAMS (25:18)

I got the fuck out of this.

ROBERTS (25:29)

you probably can go out there and Google them and I’ve read several of them, but learning the art of communication and persuasion and understanding that getting to the point and then understanding what their objectives are as opposed to how we came to our conclusion is really important for communication. And it’s really important for being a successful manager and a member of a team. And we’re all managing, whether it’s managing up or managing down.

ADAMS (26:02)

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

ROBERTS (26:08)

I think that the one biggest thing is improve your EQ. The fact that you’re in engineering probably means you’re already a really high IQ. And I think the people around you will assume as being an engineer, you’ve got a high IQ. you don’t, basically you don’t have to prove yourself there. But when you prove your emotional intelligence, your ability to care about

other people’s motivations and desires, your ability to listen to them, your ability to read the room and see how people are responding to what you’re saying, I think is really key. And if you can improve those abilities, your ability to, not only lead projects and manage projects, but your ability to improve.

the other aspects of your life too, it’s a very beneficial chain that affects all of your areas of your life in very positive ways. if there’s one thing, it’s improve your EQ and there’s a lot of great books and seminars and things that are out there. so I don’t know if there’s, I would say you can probably go out and Google or use AI to find some of them. Cause every one I read and I’m a pretty avid reader, probably a

book or two, or probably three or four books a month. And there’s some great stuff that’s always coming out as we learn more and more about how the human brain operates and how our interpersonal skills work. The better we are at doing that, the more effective I think that we are.

ADAMS (27:37)

That’s great advice and I’m curious if you have any suggestions about how how someone might either prioritize where to start or or even just you say this is the one and I know you’ve been talking about communication so maybe that’s it but you know what’s the one that what’s the area of you of EQ that has maybe been most impactful for you but you EQ it is it is a broad category and there’s lots of opportunities to improve particularly because you know we don’t we don’t

Our training is designed for something very specific and it doesn’t often give a lot of opportunities to build EQ, although students at University of Tennessee can take my class. That’s what it’s all about, my leadership class. But I’m just curious if you have any sense for either how to maybe assess yourself or maybe even just sort of pick an area that you would tell someone to focus on if they really wanted to embark on this journey of improving their EQ.

ROBERTS (28:26)

Ooh, that’s a good one. If you have a colleague or a mentor who has been successful you trust that they have your best interests at heart and you’re not gonna dismiss their tough, sometimes hard to hear feedback, that is the best. So.

I would say, and I haven’t been great at it, this is something I would love to have done better, so I didn’t have to learn a lot of these things the hard way. If you can find somebody who you respect, chances are if they have probably a high EQ, they have those skills that you’re looking to develop. So if you can ask them for some really honest critique and feedback, that’s a great place to start.

ADAMS (29:06)

That’s great advice. Well, Chris, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us.

ROBERTS (29:10)

Thank you Angelique it’s been really fun to be able to talk about this stuff.