“Leadership is a People’s Business” - Robert Robinson of Thermo Fisher Scientific

Dr. Josh Elmore Welcome to the Land and Lead podcast, where we explore the real stories behind leadership transitions, the setbacks, strategies, wins, and moments of all aimed at other leaders land well and lead I'm your host, Dr. Josh Elmore of Court Street Consulting. Today we're speaking with Robert Robinson, president, laboratory equipment at Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Robert has more than 25 years of experience expertise in commercial and operations management, strategy development, portfolio lifecycle management, new product development, mergers and acquisitions, change management, organization development, and financial management. As president, Laboratory Equipment, Robert is responsible for overseeing the strategic vision of the business and its execution in alignment with the global Thermo Fisher Scientific vision. Robert recently joined Thermo Fisher Scientific, and prior to his current role, he was VP GM for the Honeywell Smart Energy, VPGM Honeywell Healthcare Solutions, VPGM and Chief Product Officer Honeywell Advanced Sensing Solution, and held several GM roles previously to Honeywell, Robert held both commercial and technical roles at Sensate Technologies, which is previously Texas Instruments, and Airpax Phillips, formerly Phillips Technologies.

He held the role of vice chair for the Honeywell Black Employee Resource Group and was a sponsor for the Honeywell Diversity Career Advancement Program, or DCAP. He served on the boards of E4 Carolinas and Honeywell Hi Pack. He's also served as Honeywell corporate advisor to Southern University and A&M College. Robert received his bachelor's in science in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech, his master's in science in systems engineering from George Washington University, and his MBA from Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Welcome to the show, Robert. Robert Robinson Thank you. Thank you very much Josh. Really glad to be here with you today.

Dr. Josh Elmore Great, yeah, we're excited to have you and to have this conversation and learn all of the kind of things that are going on with you in your new role. So can you share a bit about your background and how you landed at Thermo Fisher Scientific? Robert Robinson Yes, you know, I always like to say my background is not very linear, lots of twists and turns, but I always reflect back on it.

And one of the core constant of our background has engineering foundation. As you mentioned, my background is in engineering. And earlier in my career, I was a design engineer and spent a lot of time designing sensing technologies across the board, different industrial application, healthcare application and some aerospace and automotive application. And over the years through my career, I had the opportunity to really get insight into a lot of technologies and capabilities within this different industry.

And as my career progressed through Honeywell, I had the opportunity actually, as I became a GM, to manage different types of businesses within the sensing portfolio that supported different segments and different markets. And one of those opportunities was actually managing the Honeywell Healthcare Solutions business, was a sensing module business that supported mainly med tech businesses. And through COVID, it really gave me a sense of fulfillment and understanding and accomplishment that I was working on something that I really loved, which was technology.

And at the same time, doing what I call practical good in the world, actually seeing my technology and the technologies that we developed actually save lives, help people and really have an impact in the community. And so that experience actually increased my affinity for the healthcare life science space. And so when it came, when I had the opportunity and had the call from Thermo Fisher, I just thought it made sense to actually leverage that technological and go into a company that is really focused on driving and enabling its customers to really drive their mission and in making the world a healthier, a cleaner and a safer space.

And that really made sense and really added up for my career and the that perspective, that's what really drove me to Thermo Fisher. That's what really brought me to Thermo Fisher. It's just the alignment of the company's mission and my own personal goal in terms of being leveraging technology to leave the world a better place. Dr.

Josh Elmore Hmm. Yeah, super interesting that kind of experience in one organization that led you to pursue a mission in another. And so how has that past helped you with your current role? Robert Robinson It's helped me a lot because if I think of the portfolio and breadth of what Thermo Fisher does, it is a company that is at its heart and its core a very innovative company that leverages advanced technologies specialty and space to really drive, call it innovative changes in the life science space and across the board.

So it helped me because one, with my engineering background, I truly understand the product and the technology that we use, that we sell, And at the same time, it also allows me to understand the strategic impact of what those technologies and capabilities can do for our customers. So just pulling the thread on that, when you think about level of innovation, the cutting edge innovation that we are developing and using in this space, it's made my job a little bit easier. think I always think if I engineer by working for such an innovative company, I'd have a lot to do from just learning basic physics and basic technological, you know understanding some foundational understanding around my background in engineering and also particularly actually my background in sensing really enabled me.

I mean, it's been very helpful in understanding a lot of things, not only understanding our products and the designs of our products, but also understanding customers' application and the use cases around our products and how customers use our products. So it's coming very handy, I would say. Dr. Josh Elmore Yeah.

And so long have you been in the Fisher? Robert Robinson It's just a week over one year. So just about a year, not counting, but just exactly one year. Dr.

Josh Elmore Yeah, during that time in a role, what strategies have helped you to navigate your transition? Robert Robinson The way I think about it from a transition perspective, I think the first thing I generally look into is trying to understand the organization. when I mean understanding the organization, it's going beyond the products and the operation is really understanding at the core that the customers, the people, and how the organization has operated. Most importantly, learning from lessons from the past, both the good and they're not so good, the successes, it's important that you learn not to repeat the mistakes of the past and where possible double down on what has worked and the successes that have been experienced in the business.

So I spent probably the first six months just truly learning and absorbing in the business. And at the same time, also understanding the people, what motivates them, what drives them and building that trust and relationship across the organization. Also looking in the next phase, I think what I do is start to think about setting what I call a humble but ambitious goal, right? Creating a path in the organization and starting to define what success looks like for the organization, for yourself and for your larger team, and beginning to marshal the team towards that goal.

I think it's very important when leaders step into new roles really reflect on really understanding the business. As leaders, one of the, I call it fault lines is you've been successful in other roles, you've been successful in other organizations, and there's a tendency always to come with your own ideas and ways of doing things and kind of force fit into new organizations or new businesses. And I think, well, in some areas, there are places where that would work to bring in your experience and import something you've learned from organizations.

But it is very important that you understand the dynamic, the uniqueness of each business culture so that whatever you do is aligned with where the company and the organization is headed or wants to go, right? So you're not going down a different path from where the organization is. So from my perspective, mean, my strategy encompasses three things. One of them is learning the organization, defining what good looks like and setting goals, ⁓ ambitious but humble goals, but at the same time, getting very good and strong alignment with where the organization, particularly my leadership team and my executive team wants to take the organization to build in that alignment.

Dr. Josh Elmore Super valuable in terms of kind of that structured entry and thinking. How do you pursue learning? Right?

So if you're thinking about the broader organization, how large, what's the headcount of your unit? Robert Robinson So we have, ⁓ it's a large organization. We have a few thousands of people in the organization. And when I think about learning, just reflecting back when I, you know one of the key, I call it assets that I have, I think it's my ability and willingness to learn.

I think as leaders, we are, call us natural students. We are always learning. mean, in almost every interaction, every conversation, every meeting. I always say if you don't leave an interaction with some level of understanding or new insight, then you either failed the person you had that interaction with or the person that's failed you one way or the other.

I think from my perspective, the way I approach learning is always understanding that I don't know about certain topics or I recognizing my limitations about certain topics. And really going to the foundation of it, I try to understand things from what I call it a seventh grade level. Like, how do I comprehend a topic, a subject matter or a technology from a seventh graders level? Because at that point, you can explain it to any seventh grader or anyone else that needs to be.

So I approach learning in three ways. One of them is I call it crowdsourcing learning. So learning from people, from a crowd dynamic in terms of just engaging with people across the having, I call them leadership round table, having leadership sessions and we call them here with our team in every group of associates and colleagues, put from shop floor associates to fellow executives and leaders across the organization. The other approach is also reading.

I think there's a lot of literature about businesses and things that you can learn from. So if I think about our It's a business with a long history. So there's a lot of strategy documents, there's a lot of financial returns, there's a lot of things that have been done over the years. So just digging deep into that and understanding and reading through.

And then it's always interesting in every organization you have, I call them the historians, who've been in the company, they've got really long tenure and they've seen different cycles and events through the company. And sometimes they could provide some more insight and shade into some of those cycles and events that enables you learn a little bit more. So just kind of thinking about it in a particular from different perspective, from reading to engaging with and also going to targeted leaders around the company that have significant, one pool of leaders that I've relied on is leaders who run the business.

One fortunate thing I have with this role in Thermo Fisher is that a number of leaders in the business that actually ran this business at Thermo Fisher. So they provide a tremendous amount of insight and guidance, if I can call it really helps me as I navigate the I have the same thing in my previous roles in the past where few of my roles, I actually followed on to a boss of mine, somebody who was my manager at that point who was still available as a resource and sounding board for me as I navigated through the role and onboarded.

Dr. Josh Elmore Wow. So a lot of looking at the organization as it exists, but a lot of looking at as it has existed in the learn to your point what has worked, what has not worked, what has been tried. I really like the historians, and simultaneously predecessor historians, because that's like right there, they've sat in that role.

Robert Robinson Yes. Dr. Josh Elmore But you also brought up this idea of context and how every organization is different. In what ways have had to the way that historians and predecessors talk about an organization versus where it is today and having to deal with that kind in the existing organization versus what it's been explained to you as what it looked like in the past.

And how has that helped inform how you transition and navigate as a leader? Robert Robinson Interestingly, in terms of context, a leader once gave me an advice and he said to me, he goes, going to get a lot of advice and a lot of opinions different people in the organizations on what to do and what not to do and what works and what would not work. one thing you need to keep in mind is you got to frame all of those feedback with respect to the context and the environment at which that insight comes from.

And one of the things I've done from my perspective is really understanding and trying to frame all of those feedbacks and all of those insights within two lenses. One, when and where they got that feedback from in terms of the time frame, and also where we are In a modern technology landscape, two, three years, five years is a significant time scale. So if you think about just five years ago, we had COVID, the world was a very different place, right? Than it is today.

And five years before COVID, the world was a very different place. I think from my perspective, putting that context in terms of where that person's point of view or perspective originate from where you are today and trying to mirror those two things and say, do they really overlap and where the gaps, where could that perspective be slightly deviating from reality or where could that perspective be doubling down on reality as it is today? It's important to frame it in that context because they're great insights, they're great feedback, great guidance, but you got to put it in the context of where you are today versus where that perspective is coming from.

The world is a very dynamic and changing place. Business is probably even more so it's important to always do that. And that's what I do as I talk to these historians and I deeply value their insight. I deeply value the perspective that they bring to the business, but I always frame it and try to put it in the perspective of how does it apply to the market, to the business today.

Dr. Josh Elmore Hmm, yeah, super valuable in terms reminding ourselves that, you know, the world is constantly changing and we have to keep that updating, hence learning from people who are there and kind of continuously listening. So if you were thinking about kind of this current role this past year and a What are some wins and setbacks and how did they manifest? Robert Robinson The first one for any leader, I think when you step into a role or when you are transitioning a role, I think the first foundational and probably the most important one is how is the and forging together and how is the team kind of collaborating and working together?

I think as a leader, you intentionally spend a lot of time building, driving really strong collaborative engagement across the team. I think a win for me has been the, you know, the team, the dynamic of the team has been very positive, In most of my experience in the past is ensuring that the team is one, the goals are very clear, right? You a sense of clarity across the organization with respect to what needs to be done, what's our mission, what's our goal. Setting that very clearly across the second one is driving a shared sense of ownership.

Does the team understand that we're in this together? We all have to be rowing in the same direction. And the third one is accountability. Like how do you ensure that you're driving accountability across the organization?

And when you have those three things well aligned, I think that's a win. And I think from my perspective, when I reflect on my organization and last one year, I think that's a win/ There are generally always places improvement, right? This journey is, I call it a continuous improvement journey, right? You and change and modify as you go.

But I think from a grand scheme of things, we're in the right direction, we're projecting in the right direction, we're trending in the right direction, and I think collaboration, engagement, a concept of shared ownership, a concept of a common goal, what we need to deliver. I think that's very close. I think that's been a good win for us. I think the challenges, the challenges of any business that any business has when you think about a business is, you know, seeking to build your talent pool is, you know, to be top world class talent, right?

That is a journey also. You do that in every way possible. You're from a technology perspective, from a marketing, sales, commercial, all of those roles, right, building that. component of it is technology.

I mean the world is being changed right in our eyes with the advent of AI and the integration of AI into our daily lives, right? And the question every executive, every leader, every business owner, every you know, everyone is asking themselves is how can I integrate AI into my product, my business, my can you make me better? There's all of these promises and aspiration of what it's going to do automation to intelligent decision making, data gathering, data analysis. And so we're looking at that and our biggest fear, if I can call it that, is missing out or not fully leveraging the potential of AI.

So from a perspective of our group, our little group here in Thermo Fisher, we're actively looking, actively utilizing it and actively exploring ways of integrating it more into our daily business process, into our automation processes, into our products and a number of different things across the board. So it's an exciting time. It's a great time to be in a technology company that embraces innovation and looks for ways of utilizing it and making it useful for both itself and its customers.

Dr. Josh Elmore Yeah, you know, I found that, ⁓ you know, while leaders in transition the kind of task of instituting some kind of change, bringing about opportunities for the unit that they've been assigned or the system that or the organization that they run, you know, it's often hard to bring that change if no one's expecting it, versus when change is kind of being thrust upon you and there's no choice, COVID for instance, AI for instance, and there creates this shared sense of, hey, there's this thing that we just have to address and work through.

How does that help you drive change? Robert Robinson I think in a sense, the interesting thing about technology today is that it's a, in a sense, it's all or nothing, right? One of the things we've seen in the last few years, if you're a student of technology and evolution of technology, there is a threshold where you either make a change or you're left completely behind. If you recall, I think in the past, you just think about video conferencing, what we're using today.

was a time when it was mainly optional, right? You had a lot of people who were, you know, using it. Most people didn't use video. Some of the performance of the technology was, you know, I'll call it average or somewhat below average, right?

And then COVID hit, and we had no choice but to use video conferencing. And so there was that pivot. And I think The world is completely pivoted to that. If you think about the internet, it was about the same thing, know, in early ages, in the times of the internet, it was optional.

mean, some people had emails, some people didn't have emails. But then it took off. And what you notice is that modern technologies, the speed of adoption is a lot faster and the impacts are so significant that it's, it really overwhelms the the world, the market, and changes things very dynamically. And we've seen that with internet, social media, video conferencing.

We've seen a number of different technological advancement that has really just changed how we do things and has done that in a very short amount of time, a short period of time. So AI is one of those. I think it's one of those that is coming very fast at us. A lot of companies now have tools and exploring ways of using it.

It's been integrated into some of the basic platforms that people use every day. So I think the awareness and the level of adoption is probably going to be on pace to probably surpass some of the other technologies that we used in the like everything else, I think there's a famous quote overestimate what is going to happen over the next or what we're able to achieve over the next one year or so, but completely underestimate what's going to happen over a decade. Right. I think it's probably not going to be very transformational over the short period of time in terms of what people think.

But I think over the next decade or so, there's going to be significant transformation that AI and all of the, I'll call it derivative technologies associated with it will drive in business. And so when you think about it from that perspective, it's easy to pull the organization towards it because people can see it. And it's also a technology and a capability that people can see in different parts of their lives. I mean, if you have a mobile phone today, you've got access to AI.

If you have laptop or an iPad at home, you have access to AI. So people can actually see it in their private lives. They could see it changing things in their private life. They could see it when the surf the web.

So it's one of those things where it's ubiquitous, it's all over the place. So you can actually, it's almost impossible to avoid it, right? So it makes it easier to pull people along, to teach people about it, it makes it easy to speak about. And the team understands it.

And the team understands that it's going to be very powerful, it's going to do very powerful things for the organization. And so it makes it very easy. When you don't have a technology such as this, is a bit of a challenge, but I think AI just sells itself, if I could call it that. It does sell itself, makes it easier to pull the team along and work with the team and really goals around it and integrating into our processes.

Dr. Josh Elmore Hmm. it's ⁓ certainly something that everyone has to deal with. And the fact that it's in the regular life, it's not just an industrial printer or this massive computer that's in a room.

Everywhere quick to go back to this idea of your team, right? You said your team was a win early on. How do you set your team up for success? What is the nuts and bolts of making it to where your team can be successful in these early days of transition for talking to other leaders who are trying to do this?

Robert Robinson Yeah, I think it goes, you know, I think about it from, you know, a few perspective. I think the first thing building a successful team, I think it's a portion of it is really personal. I think it comes down to the leadership style and the leader themselves. I think the first thing, if you reflect on it, leadership is a privilege.

It's very rare that any one of us makes ourselves a leader or just self-appointed leaders, Leadership is about demonstrating unique capabilities or unique performances where people appreciate and are willing to follow you or in some cases demonstrate and leaders above you or leaders in the community or in a company believe that you can do more and then trust you with leadership. So I think it starts out with a very humble understanding that you have a privilege and in that privilege is the ability to gain trust from your team and then build on that trust to be a successful team.

And then the second thing in terms of how you get that is driving an intentional when you think about leadership and leading people, how do you become and how do you act very intentionally to make sure that you are earning their trust every single day and bringing them along on that journey. In a sense, you're serving, you are a servant leader, you're there to serve them in unique ways. For example, driving clarity of objective and mission. Like, why are we here?

What do we need to do? And how clear is that? And how can you translate that for every single employee and the thousands of employees that we work with in our group? That they understand how they contribute in the business and what their roles and responsibilities are.

The second one is the component of self-awareness modeling the example that you want the team to follow, right? So being very self-aware and modeling the right behaviors across the board. Leaders, we set the tone. We set the tone in terms of expectation.

We set the tone in terms of accountability. We set the tone in terms of compassionate leadership. We set the tone in terms of accountability, leadership, we set a tone on just how we drive the business. And so it's important for us to understand that across the board.

And the other thing I think also is enabling proactive decision making. As a leader, you're going to make a handful of critical decisions, right? Maybe in a day, you might make one or maybe two in a week that are really critical and how you manage those decision-making and encourage your team to learn how to make very proactive, clear decision-making process across the organization enables your team to be successful, right? From that perspective, you drive those wings by driving, first, understanding that you are a servant leader.

You are here to help and enable your team not to do their job and being very intentional in leadership, driving clarity of goals, being very self-aware of the examples you set based on how you speak, how you act, how you treat how you drive accountability through the organization, and proactively making decisions and shaping the organization for the best. I think at the core of it, those are the things that enables the win from the perspective of a team. Dr. Josh Elmore Super powerful.

mean, there's so much richness in all of those dimensions, right? From treating it as a privilege and having that philosophy to earning trust and being intentional, role modeling piece to kind of show people the way, given kind of how you're taking it up. And then also giving them the example of managing decisions and getting things done, right? So that full kind of across how you do it to show them how to do it so that they can kind of illustrated to everyone else and kind of bringing that along with you as a leader.

Robert Robinson Just to add to that, talk about what we call leadership in Thermo Fisher, right? Where I think as leaders, we have to teach, coach on the job. Because if you, I always say there is no manual for a GM, right? There's no, this is how you be a GM because in every job, business, the challenges are different.

The situations are different. The dynamic is different. The people are different. The customer base is different.

The landscape is different. There's so many factors and variables. I don't think, if I just look back and reflect on my career, there hasn't been any year that has been exactly the same. Every year has been different.

COVID, non-COVID, you know it's just been very much different. And so understanding that and understanding that the best way to develop, coach, lead, and really empower your team is by driving apprenticeship, just kind of coaching on the job and explaining not just about the decision on the table, but the thought process of how you get to decision-making and how you make a decision, how you think about things, what factors you consider. I think those are really key things that drive strong leadership and builds the team.

Dr. Josh Elmore Hmm. So just really having a strength in managing, understanding, and navigating contextual factors has a key leadership function. Super valuable.

So a question I really like to ask all of my guests is, in the 1980s, John Gabarro ran a few studies focused on general managers and presidents as they pursued new roles and wrote the results in the book, The Dynamics of Taking Charge. Gabarro explained that an executive has fully taken charge when they have mastered the new assignment in sufficient depth to be managing the organization as efficiently as the resources, constraints, and the manager's own ability allow. Thinking about this definition where 100 % is having fully taken charge in your new assignment, what percent would you say you're at now?

Robert Robinson Yeah, this is like grading myself. I wish I could ask my leaders this question and they're giving me. I think would say there's a component of that about taking charge that I think also critical. I'll add to that a strong and robust and comprehensive onboarding support structure.

I think as a leader, when you come in, there's a lot of challenges and pitfalls that if you're not careful, you could step into. And when you have a very structured, curated onboarding process, I think it helps. And I think I would say in my current role, that's been fantastic and great. I would, you know with a sense of humility, I'll probably say I'm about 90 % there.

And I see that because at the heart of taking charge is a solid team that is collaborating, forming, understands the limitation and understands the resources limitation, understands the challenges and headwinds that we face. And most importantly, could take all of that and really forge what I call a unique strategy and align that with a very strong goal and ambition to outperform the market, outperform competitors, despite whatever headwinds or whatever challenges that we face.

So I would say we're doing pretty well in that aspect. And for myself, I think I would say, just looking at the success of the team is a success for myself. I think the better the team does, the more successful the team does, the more I feel that the team is taking charge. All of my team members taking charge of their respective function, ownership, and performing very well in every one of us is firing on six cylinders, I think, definitely, I would say we're in charge.

We own it. We are taking responsibility and we're driving in the direction that we want to drive. Dr. Josh Elmore Yeah, I like this idea of socializing ⁓ the idea of taking charge.

So it's not just you, but it's your team. To your point, it's something that you would ask your team. It points to that requirement of not just empowering yourself in transition, but figuring out how to empower others and bring them along, to your point, but also help them, do as you do to that role-modeling piece that you're sharing. And so, kind of getting close to the end here, what advice would you share with leaders currently entering a new high stakes role?

Robert Robinson The first advice I think goes back to what I talked about. Understand that it is a privilege. You are in a role because a lot of people, including the people you lead, believe in you probably more than you believe in yourself. So understand that it is a privilege and really absorb that.

Let that sink in. The second thing is also understand that you have, you know, your success depends more on everybody else on your team than yourself, right? And which is powerful. It's a very powerful and humbling thing to reflect on.

Having the right team, leadership team on your staff would get you probably 75 % there. So understand that. The second thing is leadership is a people's business. I don't care what you do, it's people's business.

Also digest that and understand that. And then the final thing I would say, strategies are great, but execution, leadership, and example role modeling is probably the most powerful tool you can demonstrate in leadership. so ground yourself in that, lead with conviction, lead with passion, and most importantly, drive strong accountability. It's amazing.

Teams are looking for it, people don't shy away from being held accountable, particularly under the right leadership, under the right coaching and mentorship. People don't shy away from being accountable. I always think of this, like when I reflect about sports, some of the most successful athletes, both on the field and off the field, are also some of the most coachable people. They take coaching advice, they accept accountability, end to end, right?

So if you think about it, you think about somebody most successful athletes in the world, and they're probably more successful than their coaches, but they humble themselves enough to listen, they humble themselves enough to be accountable to their coaches, they humble themselves enough to be accountable to the entire team members, including those who are not as successful, right? So it's accountability, something that's very strong. And I think sometimes people shy away from it.

But with the right level of leadership and space, you should drive strong accountability across organizations. Dr. Josh Elmore Super powerful. Yeah.

That idea of just being humble and allowing others who, you know, especially from a manager's perspective, right, managers are those who empower people. may not be subject matter experts and can be may be seen as not equipped to be managing a technical space or something. But ⁓ I don't imagine that's been a problem with a mechanical engineering background for you. Robert Robinson No, not at all, not at all.

Yeah, yeah. Dr. Josh Elmore So, you know, Robert, thank you so much for joining us. Is there anything that you'd like to share that's coming up for you or the organization?

Robert Robinson No, I think um you know, exciting time. Thank you very much, Josh. Really appreciate it. Glad to be here.

And hopefully we'll be speaking to you more often soon. Just excited about where we are as an organization. I mean, we continue to drive innovation. I'm excited about some of our lab products, MPIs, and new product launches that are coming out.

We are in a... We fundamentally believe that we are the cusp of really driving innovation to a next level when it comes to laboratory equipment and laboratory solutions. So keep an eye out for us. ⁓ Look at our website and check out Thermo Fisher Laboratory and equipment.

And you would see some of the new things that are coming out. And we look forward to serving our customers and continue to drive our mission, which is to really help our make the world a healthier, a cleaner, and a safer place. Dr. Josh Elmore Love it.

Thank you so much, Robert. Really appreciate you taking the time. Robert Robinson Thank you, appreciate it. Dr.

Josh Elmore Thanks so much for listening to the Land and Lead Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Josh Elmore. Tune in next time for more stories from leaders navigating high stakes role transitions.