MEL #041 | From Project Plans to People Strategy through Cross-Functional Trust with Chris Whaley

WHALEY (00:00)

Even if people don’t argue with the numbers, they don’t always grasp the so what of your point.

That ability to give someone factual knowledge is important, but if you can’t give them a reason to care, it may not matter.

ADAMS (00:40)

In this episode, I speak with Chris Whaley, founder and principal consultant of Escape to Expand, where he brings together people from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to unlock their full potential. Chris fell in love with engineering after seeing Star Wars. He started his engineering journey in aerospace at UT Knoxville, pivoted to industrial engineering, and developed leadership through a decade in the volunteer fire service. He moved into project management at Phillips, earned a PMP and Six Sigma Black Belt, led large reorganizations,

and advanced to VP of HR with a global assignment in Amsterdam before launching his consulting firm. In our leadership segment, Chris discusses how, as a new HR business partner in a multi-billion dollar medical device business, he faced inconsistent talent perceptions among senior leaders. He accelerated an externally calibrated leadership assessment program, shifting his mindset from optimizing HR timelines to serving the business need. Chris’s advice for engineering leaders,

Build trust by delivering and collaborating, seek cross-functional projects for visibility, learn fast by pairing immediate strengths with targeted mentoring, and use storytelling to connect data to meaning. Explore the full episode summary, including guest bio, key takeaways, transcript, and recommended resources in the show notes at drangeliqueadams.com slash podcast. Without further delay, here’s my conversation with Chris Whaley.

ADAMS (02:00)

Hi Chris, welcome to Mastering Engineering Leadership.

WHALEY (02:02)

Thanks very much for having me. Been looking forward to this.

ADAMS (02:05)

Okay, great. Me too. I’m thrilled to have you here. Can you start by telling us how you got into engineering as a career field?

WHALEY (02:11)

Absolutely. It probably started when I first saw the original Star Wars movie. That was way back in 1977. So I was, you know, I was negative. No, I was about seven years old. And it really created a lifelong love of sci-fi and imagining how I might be part of building the future. I was good at math, science, and even English. So, you know, it was like, wow, this is nice.

Uh, but I was pretty much a nerd. in, in high school, I was in the electronics club, took Latin, carried a backpack. And back then, you know, in the eighties, those things were not cool. You know, nobody else carried backpack because I didn’t want to have to go to the locker. So, so yeah, total nerd. Uh, but it was easy for me to see a path to engineering. And of course I chose aerospace because I thought, Hey, you know, I might want to work for NASA or maybe a, you know, one those large aircraft manufacturers.

But as I was finishing my bachelor’s degree at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, nice little plug there, the aerospace industry had started a major contraction. So I thought, well, maybe I want to make sure I’ve got a broader skill set. So I decided, well, let’s look at industrial engineering. Now, as an aerospace engineer, we always called the IEs imaginary engineering.

You know, it’s it didn’t require thermodynamics or finite element analysis. Nothing too complex, but what I learned was IE is actually way trickier because it’s systems of people, processes and technology. How all those things come together. So yeah, and unlike thermodynamics, it’s not just one single right answer. It’s you know, there’s a lot of different ways you can. You can define success. So I.

Came to see and I don’t know if anybody else bought into this, but I always refer to it as intelligence engineering, but you know, I don’t think. But it’s it’s really a path to solving problems in different ways, and it’s it’s not just tools and data, but it’s about mindsets and behaviors to be successful. So it’s really kind of opened my eyes because I’d never really honestly thought about that until until I was there. I.

As I was working on my master’s degree, I actually started volunteering with our local volunteer fire department because we didn’t have one in the area I lived in and it had just started up and I thought, wow, it’s a good way to, you know, help the community and also, you know, learn something, you know, a little different. Certainly not something I’d thought about doing before. And what’s interesting was, you know, I spent about a decade there and so it, you while I was working on my master’s degree and even beyond that and

It was amazing, especially now in retrospect, looking how the fire service actually developed a lot of leadership skills, the systems that they put in place, the way that they do not just training, but coaching and mentoring. don’t call it that, but it’s all embedded in how they work the system. And now as I look back, I can see, wow, there was actually a lot of leadership development that happened to me because of the systems. so now I’m kind of unpacking now.

what are ways that businesses can utilize some of those same techniques that the fire service has been using for over 100 years. And it develops skills like critical thinking and adaptability, which are the ones that we need now as humans in this world of AI. So maybe that’s a whole different podcast, but a lot of really interesting things there. so after my graduation,

I worked at a couple of different places. even spent a few years as a crime analyst with the Knoxville Police Department, which was a really neat way to get to apply those statistics classes to something I’d never thought about. But there really wasn’t a lot of room for me to grow as a civilian employee. I was looking for other opportunities. And I might have to explain this a little bit for the younger listeners.

I found an ad in newspaper for a job. Back when, you know, every day somebody would give you a big stack of papers and there were stories in there. And there was a, you know, help wanted ads. And there was an ad in there for a knowledge engineer at a local branch of Phillips, which was a Dutch company. Had over a hundred thousand employees at that time in the areas of consumer electronics.

medical devices and lighting. And I was thinking, wow, it’s such a large and diverse company. It operates in over 100 countries around the world. Maybe that would give me an opportunity to work in different industries and maybe even get a chance for an international assignment. And in the end, it proved everything that I hoped for. I started off with some cross-functional projects in consumer electronics.

And one of the project managers there said, hey, you know, maybe you might want to consider becoming a project manager, which again was not really a career path I had thought of before. And I ended up moving to our North American headquarters in Atlanta and became a certified project management professional, a Six Sigma black belt. So again, drawing on those engineering skills of, of data and how to interpret and how to use those systems. But, you know, touching on, you know, getting things done through people.

So the kind of a nice intersection, I think, of those skill sets. And got to work on all kinds of ⁓ projects. Now, some of those involved restructuring organizations, which sometimes it was spinning off an organization to become its own organization outside of our company. And sometimes it did involve layoffs. And so that was a new thing for me to be part of. Obviously, our HR teams knew

all the people processes, but the scale of some of the changes we were driving was so large, they needed some more help. So I was assigned as a project manager to support the HR team. And it was really an interesting way to use those skills I had on the project management and data side, but then apply them to this new area that I hadn’t really thought of before. And then I started learning all these things about HR that I had never even thought of.

As you know, as I did more of those kinds of projects, I was eventually asked by one of my former bosses to join me at the company’s global headquarters in Amsterdam. And that was as a director of business transformation. it was, know, if anyone’s listening ever gets a chance to take an international assignment, I highly recommend it. it’s, you know,

ADAMS (08:22)

Me too.

WHALEY (08:25)

You get to see how similar we are to other people in many ways, you know, how we love our families and things like that. But you also see those differences in how those same values are, are played out out. And, know, sometimes you see things and it really makes you appreciate, you know, being here in America. And honestly, sometimes you see some things that you say, Hmm, that that’s pretty neat over here. How do we have that here? Yeah. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a mixed bag.

But a lot of that work was in restructuring and merger. So kind of drawing on that experience as that I had. But it really made me consider how all the elements in such a large company come to work together. So how does strategy and product development tie into sales and service? And then how does HR and finance and legal and supply chain, how do all those things connect to come together? And so it really was engineering at

at this huge scale, you know, not with gears and motors, but it was people and processes. And that was kind of like, ⁓ you know, this actually is engineering at scale, but just maybe not, you know, what I was thinking of when I was doing aerospace.

ADAMS (09:32)

Yeah, for sure. And I’m curious, you you, you talked about, you used the phrase, you know, you were tapped, you know, you were asked by a leader to kind of take on a new role and that happened a couple of different ways, a couple of different times, excuse me. And I’m, I am curious if you in retrospect could, could identify some of the behaviors or skills or traits that they were seeing in you that would signal that

this somebody, you know, this person is, is this is somebody who I’d like to have on my team or somebody who I think can take, even either a greater role or maybe even a different role. Cause it does. mean, it takes some specific sets of skills for people to say, you know, I know they’re, I know they’re doing this thing here, but I can envision them taking on a role in a completely different function and doing well at it. And so I’m just curious if you.

if you have anything that you could share, because I think there’s a lot of my listeners who want to have those opportunities.

WHALEY (10:26)

It’s a great question and I think it can take different shapes for different people and different opportunities. But for me, the biggest part was it was trust and it was if if I said hey, I’m going to do this, I would get it done. You know when no matter what, you know if it took extra work hours and you know we don’t want to glorify people getting burnt out, but.

you know, sometimes you do have to work a little bit longer, work a little bit harder to get some things done or to figure things out or to work across different functions. So I think it was the trust to get things done, but also to get it done collaborating with people because you can push and get things done and burn other people out or only stick to your own agenda and not help other people along the way. So it is that fine balance of, you know,

get the work done, but also do it in a way that other people want to keep working with you. So I think that was one of the things that I heard as feedback was that, yes, he gets things done, but people want to continue working with him. It’s not a one time, he’s burnt the bridges now, and now we’ve got to send him somewhere else. But rather, that ability to collaborate and work across the different functions.

ADAMS (11:35)

Yeah, that’s great. I appreciate that perspective. And you’re right. I mean, I’m sure there are some cases where other people got roles because maybe they were like the world’s leading expert in this one problem that, you you know, the company had at that time. And certainly, you know, we’ve seen examples of that. But but more often than not, what I hear is what you said, which is it’s about showing that you’re trustworthy and showing that you’re collaborative and showing that you’re willing to take the initiative and to put in the extra mile when it’s when it’s called for.

And consistently building that type of reputation is noticed and that’s what that’s what creates new opportunities. I’m also curious how you prepare yourself for these roles. I’m sure there were some things that were similar from previous roles but there were other things that were completely different and even moving to a different geography, things like that. Do you have a process that you use to kind of ready yourself for new roles or does it happen more organically for you? Can you talk a little bit about that?

WHALEY (12:31)

I think it’s it’s a little bit of both. One of the things I love to do is I find the things that I can already do well. What can I bring into that role? So you know, when I was helping with reorganization, OK, I know how to do a project plan. I know how to do stakeholder management. I know how to look at metrics and build leading and lagging indicators. So I so I would jump to those things very quickly so it would bring value to the people that didn’t know how to do those things in that role.

And then I’m figuring out, OK, what are the parts in here that I’ve never done before? And who can I go talk to that knows what this looks like that can give me the coaching or the support to help me come up to speed on those things? So was find the areas I can immediately add value and learn as quickly as I can on those other sections.

ADAMS (13:19)

Yeah, and I want to reinforce what you said about how you come up the learning curve. I think sometimes it’s particularly for newer leaders, it’s underappreciated. You said, who can I go talk to who understands this, who can bring me up to speed, which is different than let me go try to get another certificate in this one thing, or let me read these books, or much more of a academic maybe type of approach that I’m not saying that that

can’t be helpful, but it’s often much slower. And also, I think it often misses the nuances of the specific culture of the organization that you’re working in. So you can learn, if you need to brush up on project management skills, for example, I’m just picking that. mean, absolutely there’s great education certifications on that. And there’s best practices. And then there’s the way it’s done in organization A, B, and C that sometimes you have to reconcile.

that difference. And so when you can talk to people about how things are actually done, that can really help you come up the learning curve. So I just appreciate you saying that and want to reinforce that because I think it’s often underutilized

WHALEY (14:25)

Yeah, it’s a great reflection point. And I think it also there’s an element of risk taking. that’s actually my next step was when my assignment was over in Amsterdam, I moved into the health care organization. So mostly I’ve been in more the consumer electronics and a little bit in the headquarters side, but moved into the health care organization, which was outside of Boston.

this time I moved into a formal HR role. So before now I’d worked on the HR projects, but I hadn’t been an HR employee, you know, whatever that means. And, uh, you know, and that was, you know, a risk on my part, you know, I now really have changed my career path, you know, engineering into now formally an HR role, but you know, they’re also taking a bit of a risk on me. You know, they know, okay, he knows restructuring, but this new job,

also involved employee engagement, performance management, learning and development. So those other areas that I knew something about, but I certainly didn’t feel like I was an expert and was not an expert at that time. And so, yes, there’s also that risk taking for me as an employee, but also for them as leaders to say, okay, we’ve seen what he could do over here. We think he can stretch in this direction. And so there is that kind of mutual risk taking that

as the leaders we take on people and as people we take with our leaders. So I think that was a good reflection on that.

ADAMS (15:48)

Yeah, that’s really great point. And do you recall what your decision making process was like to actually decide to accept that particular risk? It may have been one of the bigger ones for you in terms of, as you said, completely changing your career path. So what was the calculus you were doing in your mind to kind of help you make that decision?

WHALEY (16:07)

Great question and I of course I always have spreadsheets of know pros and cons and you know what okay what’s the salary gonna look like you know all the yeah right where are we gonna live you know and you know I’m married so it’s very important what’s the wife think then okay that’s number one you know I’m kind of bring my key stakeholder yeah along with me in this journey but but part of those think he’s a

Went into that was so I love to learn and take what I’ve learned somewhere like engineering and then apply it into a new area like project management and then project management into HR. So I was actually excited to say OK, this is a new a new function and hey, there’s a lot of stuff I can learn here that employ engagement and all these other things. So so there was kind of an intellectual curiosity around what else is out there and also hey, I can.

already step in and bring the strengths I already have. So again, that kind of mixture of what can I bring immediately and one of the things I can learn. So that was exciting. And the other part for me, you know, I mentioned that multi-industry and that to me is one of the positives of working for a large multinational corporation. Your healthcare obviously is a growing concern area. It’s, it makes a lot of money obviously, but there’s a lot of research and development, a lot of technological advancement.

So to me, that was kind of an exciting space to be in. thinking back when I was a volunteer firefighter, how much we wish we had had automatic external defibrillators back then. And now I’m actually able to work in a company that were making automatic external defibrillators. And so those were some of those things that was, this is an interesting industry. I can learn a new function.

It’s ⁓ a different group than I’ve worked with in the past. But the company overall was still the same, so I still had a good network. And so it was not as risky, I think, once I started putting all those things down. It didn’t feel quite as risky as what it might look like at the first.

ADAMS (18:04)

And then you’ve continued on with other career pivots and now you own your own business. Can you talk a little bit about what you’re doing there and maybe also if there was a different sort of risk calculus that you used to go out on your own? And I will tell you at least for me that that has been the riskiest thing when I decided to start my own business. And actually I pretty much broke the spreadsheet. Like the spreadsheet wasn’t gonna help me. This was a completely different set of criteria that I needed to use.

even though the spreadsheet said I could do it. So anyway, I’m just curious if you had the same kind of same experience.

WHALEY (18:34)

Absolutely. that was my last role at Philips was actually vice president of HR. So I had moved up and was getting to work with all these international business teams and HR teams in China and the US and Germany and getting to work with leaders from Spain and Austria in the UK and Germany. But I got to be part of one more restructuring project in 2019 and that included my own role.

And that was something actually had happened a couple of times, you know, through my career at Phillips was actually restructured my own roll away and, found something else. But this time I thought, well, maybe it is a good chance to take that, that change and came back here to Knoxville. And part of that was we, was having some aging parent issues, so it gave me a chance to, give space to, to help pay attention to those things a little bit. And then also to start thinking is this.

the chance for me to step into doing a consulting service, which is something I’d always wanted to do, but I never had really thought about what am I actually going to consult on? You know, if you’re going to be an expert and people are going to pay you to do something, you know, it better be worth their money. And so that, as I started doing the calculus on that and the spreadsheet, and I thought, well, I want to consult on something I love doing. And the part I love the most is working with teams.

And so that’s my consulting service is Escape to Expand and using those HR and project management skills. I work with people from diverse functions and backgrounds, help them come together, meet their mission while they build engagement and collaboration. So that’s a lot of, you know, working with team coaching and facilitation of workshops. I’ve got, of course I have a survey that…

So we have some real data driven analysis, but it’s also about those conversations you have with people. And that was, uh, I think an easier step for me to take because, I, you know, I had a good career at Phillips. So I, you know, I had a good savings and so I had definitely had a cushion. So it wasn’t that scary, you know, if this doesn’t work, we’re not going to eat this month. So, know, that, that, and, but sometimes that, you know, makes you work harder. So.

that can be a path that people want to take. But that wasn’t what I wanted to go for. But for me, that worked out very well. so I really enjoyed, I get to pick who my clients are. Obviously, I want to have as many as I can get. But at the end of the day, if it’s somebody I don’t feel like is really looking for the right reasons, if it is, we’re just doing this as

you know, to look good or to make our teams think we’re paying attention, but they’re really not looking for the growth of the team, you know, that’s not a leader I want to work with. But luckily, most people when they reach out, they do want to make things better, and they’re willing to put in the work for themselves and also for the team to make that a reality.

ADAMS (21:39)

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

WHALEY (21:43)

Yes, that’s you know, we’ve touched on a few already, but I think, you know, one that really stood out for me was when I started that vice president of HR role. So I was an HR business partner to a business leader and it was a multi billion dollar medical device company. So we were doing patient monitors, automatic external defibrillators, ventilators. So a lot of, you know, very key equipment. And I was new as an HR leader and

The business leader was also new to that business. She had come from the sales organization in Germany. So we were both new to this organization. We all had high expectations of ourselves and the teams. And we were learning what was working and what needed to be improved, as any organization always has. And we had a talent review. And in our talent reviews, it’s where the leaders on that management team.

We discuss the development plans for their leaders on their teams. Who’s doing well? Who do we want to be looking at for future opportunities? And who might want to look for advancement? Might we need to change somebody? What organization they’re in? And how that aligns with their growth strategy. And what we found was the business leaders didn’t always share the same impression of each other’s employees.

Sometimes it’s because they just weren’t familiar with them. You they hadn’t worked with them. They were only in that sales organization or only in that ⁓ specific function. So they hadn’t had exposure to other leaders. And so when we’re having discussions in the talent sessions, you know, people just don’t know who they are. But sometimes it was because they knew them, but they had a different impression and either because they had a different experience or maybe they had.

higher or lower expectations than the other leaders did. you got this, one person says, hey, Mr. or Miss X is great talent, here’s what they’re doing. And then somebody raised their hand and says, that’s not what I saw. They were on this project team with my group and they couldn’t stand this person. So we had a few examples of that. And of course, the business leader and I didn’t have enough knowledge of the people yet.

to know who to trust, who had the better opinion or even have our own opinion on some of those. So we said, well, one way we could deal with that is to have an externally calibrated view of each person’s leadership potential. And so there’s a lot of different companies out there. so talk to your HR teams that can come in and help evaluate leadership potential for your organization. And that’s a non-technical.

side. You can also do technical evaluations obviously and look at a capability matrix to see how you someone’s doing on the technical side. But this was really around leadership skills. You know, how are people at working in teams driving strategy, those sorts of things. And at that time we didn’t really have anything in Phillips that would fit that bill. And so I met with our corporate HR team and they said, hey, we can have something and.

pull it together and get a, you know, we’ll have to do an RFP and get an outside vendor, you know, it’ll probably be about six months. And so I thought, okay, six months. You know, we’ve got, I’ve got a lot of other stuff to work on. So that’d be nice to push that out six months. But you know, when I told my business leader, okay, it’s going to be six months. Um, yeah, that was not a pleasant conversation for me. Um, and reminded me, you know, that’s, that’s half a year. So,

So in my mind, it’s like, well, from the HR side, that sounded reasonable. But from the business side, which is I’m supposed to be the business partner for the business leader, totally not acceptable. So it kind of reset my expectations to, yes, I’m not just in HR. I’m in the business. And this is important to me, not from an HR standpoint, but the success of our business. And so that was.

a little bit of awakening moment for me that, yes, I can’t over optimize my function of HR. I’ve got to remember I’m part of something bigger. And so, I agreed with her, yeah, you’re right. And we went back to the HR leadership team and they came up with a way that we could partner with them and actually become the pilot for that new approach. And so we accelerated the timeline and it was, in the end that worked out pretty well.

but it was a reminder, know, if something’s important, know, don’t give in too easily. And the other part is kind of a meta because we’re talking about leadership development and that experience. And of course, we’re talking about leadership development in this highly technical organization. And what I found was in many organizations, engineers and scientists can only advance so far until they have to become a people manager.

to continue to move ahead. The only way you can get that promotion, the only way you can get that pay raise is by taking on that extra leadership responsibility. And as we started getting the assessment results and got to know these people better, and they weren’t all engineers, obviously, but we had a lot of engineers, we had PhD scientists on things. I saw several examples where great engineers were promoted into a managerial position, but for one or more reasons, they were really not ready for it.

We saw some of them overlook the importance of emotional intelligence and collaboration. So we talked about that ability to collaborate earlier. Sometimes they felt like, this is my expert opinion, so you should listen to it because I’m an expert. And if you don’t agree with me, we’re done. And that doesn’t always work in the business world. It’s OK, we understand that that’s your expert opinion, but that doesn’t mean that that’s the business decision, that those things sometimes diverge.

Sometimes engineers, we like to micromanage things to make sure they’re done exactly the way that we would do them. And that doesn’t always work, especially if you’re managing other very smart engineers. that micromanagement was something I ran into often with these engineering leaders that hadn’t learned that skill. And some of them honestly just didn’t want the responsibility. They didn’t want to have to manage other people. They just wanted to keep doing the engineering work.

And ⁓ what we found was with coaching and if people had a desire to improve, you could get most of those engineering leaders back on track. So those were skills that they could learn. But sometimes those people just didn’t want to manage people. Once they started doing it, sometimes they found out, ⁓ it’s not that bad. Actually, I can get more done.

really leverage the team. When I build that trust with the team, I’m empowering the team to go off and do their work. That frees me up to do some some other work, some different work. And so when people made that connection, a lot of times they became quite good at it. But then there there are people that again, no matter what, just don’t want to manage other people. And so what we did was that we had what we call the dual ladder program and that

provides a path for promotion of certain technical experts, whether they’re engineers or scientists. And it was linked to criteria that didn’t require them to have to become a manager. And so, if that’s something that you think your organization is missing, definitely go to your HR teams, say, hey, I’ve heard about a dual ladder program. What is that? It sounds like a great way we can attract and retain engineering talent or scientific talent.

So use those words, attract, retain, dual ladder, and see maybe you can get some help from your HR teams.

ADAMS (28:58)

Yeah, this is a great example. mean, so first, I mean, just starting with the very end, I have found that to be quite common that there was not a dual ladder. So I ended up implementing dual ladders in the two main companies that I worked for because of this thing. And I always had the R &D groups were always reporting to me for the innovation side. And so they would often be like,

Yeah, we’re stuck, like we can’t go further. And then even if they wanted to take on leadership and some of them did, you know, there’s so few, just the numbers don’t work out. And so it’s like, how do we get, how do we get really important technical people who are driving innovation, driving growth, driving revenue? How do we compensate them properly? And ultimately, yes, end up with this, with this dual ladder approach. And sometimes it can be really a challenge if you’re in an organization that doesn’t.

understand this that that

that really focused on people leadership as the only means of a promotion that sometimes it can be a challenge to win people over. But there’s plenty of data and benchmarks out there that show that, you really need, if you want to be a technical organization at all, a company that relies on innovation, you got to find a way to compensate other technical people. So I just thought that that was interesting. The other thing I like about this example, and you actually said at the very beginning, but I want to dig on it a little bit because I think this is really important. You said,

When you’re in the, first of all, you set the stage really well and described what I think so few people understand, which is what these calibration meetings are really like, right? You’ve got the managers at certain levels, the peers get together and they basically talk about who gets promotions, who gets demotions if you have those, but you have to rate people, right? Because there’s a fixed amount.

of compensation, bonuses, promotions, all that stuff, there’s a fixed budget and you gotta figure out how to allocate that budget. So basically you’re sitting in the room and you are advocating for your people and negotiating and all of those sorts of things, which is how you get chosen for those resources. And you said something that’s really important that I think people don’t understand is if your boss’s peers don’t know who you are, you’re not gonna get it because.

Because it, you know, your boss no longer has complete, there’s a compensation limit where your boss no longer has total control over bonuses and things like that. It is now a peer-based thing. And so I just wanted to highlight that, because I think you’re the first person that I’ve had so far that actually has described the situation. And I talk about it in my leadership classes, but you, you know, as a…

somebody who’s actually an expert in the field can speak more on this, but it’s just so under appreciated how important it is that your professional network include people outside of your direct function.

WHALEY (31:47)

Yes. that kind of jump, don’t want to jump because you’re asking the questions, but that showing my first piece of advice for engineers leadership roles was seek out those large cross-functional teams, project teams, volunteer. It doesn’t have to be your area of expertise. You don’t have to be the project leader. Get into those projects because you’re going to get to show others what you’re good at.

You’re going to prove you’re someone people want to work with. So you’re going to build that good reputation. You’re going to learn about other parts of the organization, other jobs, other functions. You’re going to see what other people are doing. And that can bring you that visibility to other leaders. because there’s going to be, if you’re on a multifunction project, there’s going to be a group of stakeholders. There’s going to be some kind of steering committee or leadership committee. And they’re going to be made up of business leaders that are probably a couple of levels or

even more higher than you. And they’re going to hear names. They’re going to hear, this is the person that saved our project. This is the person that made sure that all the parts work together. And then that is how absolutely that you help build your reputation, good or bad. So make sure you’re the work. so you are making that reputation. We’re assuming that’s going to be positive. And it’s going to give your network a huge boost inside the company and

you know, guess what? Over time, people are going to leave the company for one reason or another. So your network has just gone from, you know, the hundred people, you know, in your company to now they were working in a different company that, you know, maybe open some more doors for you. So yes, absolutely. And if I can also put a little plug in, this is why I love the Heath integrated business and engineering program at UT. And it’s where they have

cohorts of engineering business students working together. And so they already get to start learning, you know, the language, what the other person, you know, what do you do in business? What do you do in engineering? And it’s not a solid line in between them. It’s, you know, how they collaborate together. And I’ve got to mentor with that program since it started. And

Yeah, I highly recommend everyone have at least one mentor they can go to. And you might even have two. You might have somebody that’s more in your technical field, you know, whatever your specialty is that, I want to learn how to be, you know, the best biomedical engineer or whatever. But you can also have a mentor in that’s a business leader or a mentor that’s in marketing or communications that might be helping you with your communication skills or other things. So, yeah, keep that same thought of.

cross-functional, not just for your business life, but also for your whole life as well.

ADAMS (34:22)

Yeah, I think that’s great advice. Another thing you mentioned let’s talk about assessments for a second, because that’s another thing that I’ve heard people talk about as having taken them. You know, why take an assessment? I use it as a tool to improve. But can you give us the HR perspective a little bit about how you actually use those?

what, how, what maybe things they’re, they can do well, things they don’t do well. And then also one of the things that I, that I talk to my students about is, is how to manage your own emotional states based on what the assessment data says. And I try to tell them like, this is, this is just a snapshot. And if don’t, you know, don’t decide to adopt a fixed mindset on this and thank you. Now you can never do anything because this particular assessment says this one thing. So.

I know that’s a lot of different questions there, but maybe just talk a little bit about the HR perspective on assessments.

WHALEY (35:13)

Absolutely. And there’s tons of assessments out there and they all have different purposes, different types of things they’re assessing. And honestly, there’s a wide variety of scientific backing behind some of those assessments. Some of them are more backed on data than others.

But that’s basically what we look at is what are we trying to assess? And the example I gave it was leadership potential. And so what are the things that we look for in future leaders? Can they motivate other people? How do they make decisions? Is it based on facts? What’s the speed of those decisions? And so there’s groups of questions that help evaluate. And a lot of those are sometimes it’s kind of self-rated. I’m.

You know, here’s the questions and I’m answering, you know, scale one to five or here choose the best answer. Here’s which answer I think fits me the best. But the assessments we use also included, which I thought was really kind of cool, a business simulation. And so what this is, it’s a, I mean, it runs about four hours. I mean, it’s a pretty big investment in time. And so people do a

know, the standard written assessment and so they get some idea of, know, what their leadership style is. But the business assessment is actually, it’s a, they become the operations leader for a day of a company, of a fictional company. And there’s kind of a story that goes with that. And then they get emails and they’ve got projects that are happening and, and they actually have to work through this simulation and there’s videos of things, you know, what’s going on, you know, and

and you’re working and things are happening and things change. And so it’s really seeing how people are reacting to dealing with all these things that happen. And sometimes there’s a right answer, sometimes there’s not, but it’s how did they react to that situation? And so all those things come together to that report at the end that says, hey, we’ve evaluated you using this criteria and here’s what we see. And what I found,

ran I think about 120 people through that particular section. And there were only two of them that said, hey, I don’t recognize any of these results. The other 118 said, yep, that sounds like me. if you were honest in it, usually they’re actually scarily accurate. Some of those are. And that’s what we actually pair with all those is a development plan.

So, you know, no matter where you scored and, sometimes it says, yes, you’re, you’re might look like a better leadership candidate than others. You know, how it says that can vary. Usually it says, here’s your strengths. Here’s where you need to work on. Um, and really look at, okay, where I want to go, how, how does this serve what I’m trying to do? And again, you can only work on so many things at a time. So pick those.

you know, maybe one strength you want to continue to really maximize and maybe what’s that one weakness that you really need to work on, again, whether it’s communications or how I collaborate or, you know, it might be a technical deficit you have. So typically that’s what I advise people is you might have three or four things on your development plan, but normally as humans, you know, we’re going to be able to cope with maybe a couple of major differences or changes at a time. So, you know,

You know, take it as it is, but also remember, you know, if, if you ask your HR or your manager, Hey, you know, you read the results of this profile too. Do you think it’s accurate? And they say, yeah, it seems pretty accurate to me. Then that’s, that’s what you’re projecting, you know, whether you feel like that’s you or not, that’s what others are perceiving. And so then that’s kind of on you then to figure out. Is it because the other report actually is accurate and you’ve told yourself a story that’s maybe not true.

Or maybe there really is that other part of you that’s not showing out for some reason. And that might also be where you can talk to your coach, mentor, your HR, your leader that you’re working with, get their feedback. Hey, well, what do you see? What does this look like in my daily life? Give me those examples, and then I can help see how I can work on that.

ADAMS (39:26)

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

WHALEY (39:31)

Well, we talked about working across other functions, and I think that’s one of the key skills as engineers. can, regardless of what level of expertise you get to, and you want to focus in on the tiniest. We had experts in molecular, how different magnetic resonance imaging affects cells, and that’s the only thing those people studied. They didn’t want to know anything else, and then we had other people that were very broad.

But one thing that’s always going to be valuable is that ability to tell stories. Because as engineers, it’s easy for us to bring data into any conversation. This is the data. These are the facts. But even if people don’t argue with the numbers, they don’t always grasp the so what of your point. OK, I take it sure that that number is 32 % and it should be 57. Who cares? That doesn’t mean I need to.

swing to your side. That ability to give someone factual knowledge is important, but if you can’t give them a reason to care, it may not matter. And so it’s how you inform the head, why you motivate the heart and putting those two things together. And when we started talking, I mentioned how influential Star Wars was to me. I was young, so I didn’t really understand then that George Lucas was using a storytelling art.

that’s known as the hero’s journey. And he takes you on, it’s a very well known, if you don’t know it, look it up, but it’s been used for probably hundreds and hundreds of years. And it’s that hero’s journey. But I also didn’t understand the context of the world, the real world at that moment. The United States was actually not in good shape at that time. There was…

You know, we had a lot of disillusionment from the involvement we had in Vietnam, which, lot of people that was a major distrust of the government, a lot of cynicism following Nixon’s resignation. The economy was undergoing stagflation, which is where you have high inflation, but you have slow growth. We just come through a gas shortage where we had a four times rise in oil prices in the U.S. because the U.S. was supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War and the

oil producing countries said, we’re going to punish you United States for that. So, you know, all that optimism that was there in the sixties and, know, think of all those, those times, you know, it was all gone. And so when you look at the movies during that time, they were, they were pretty grim. You know, it’s things like taxi driver and a clockwork orange, which very dystopian, you know, and you know, everything’s, you know, wasn’t looking very well. so star wars really stood apart and.

It’s full title is now everybody knows is Star Wars, a new hope. And, you know, I can’t help but see similarities from, you know, the world then to where we are today. You know, we’ve got, you know, some of the most amazing technical advancements we could ever imagine, but there’s still war and poverty everywhere you look. mean, you know, probably just right outside your window. You don’t have to look very far to see those examples. And, you know, you can’t have a difference of opinion without vilifying each other.

And so my plea to engineers is, how do we help create hope? How do we listen for what we can learn from each other, see how we can help one another, focus on building not just what’s possible, but what’s purposeful? Why am I driving this thing forward? We can make a world where hope isn’t just a story, but where it’s engineered into the very fabric of how we work, lead, and live.

to me is also a little bit of storytelling, but hopefully some inspiration to go out and see where you can help make a positive difference in the world.

ADAMS (43:14)

Chris, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today.

WHALEY (43:17)

Thank you for having me.