Nikki Maginn: Emotional Intelligence for Engineers and Why Resistance Equals Feedback

What separates change initiatives that stall from the ones that actually ship value? Benjamin Moses, Manufacturing Engineering Manager at L3Harris, has spent 26 years on both sides of that question — designing and building hardware at Eaton, then spending a decade at AMT researching which manufacturing technologies are real and which are hype. In this conversation with host Chad Jackson, Benjamin makes the case that a change agent is simply "someone who defines and achieves a future state" — a posture, not a title. He digs into why measurement is the hardest part of engineering change, why two-year transformation projects are usually too long for a business's natural rhythm, and how the best organizations delegate the outcome rather than the method. Along the way he shares hard-won lessons on building cross-functional buy-in, capturing tribal knowledge before it walks out the door, getting real value from digital transformation without jumping straight to AI, and why his team once solved a throughput problem with PVC pipe in the cafeteria instead of an expensive robot. A practical, no-buzzword listen for engineering executives and change agents working in production environments. Topics covered: the change agent mindset · connecting change to business value · the engineering measurement problem · incremental improvement and business cycles · top-down vs. delegated change · knowledge warehousing and brain drain · digital transformation ROI · digital twins · AI and the single source of truth · MVP experimentation. Guest: Benjamin Moses, Manufacturing Engineering Manager, L3Harris

What does it take to drive model-based definition adoption inside one of the world's most demanding aerospace environments? In this episode, Chad Jackson sits down with Brandon Paré, Senior Engineer in the Drafting and Product Definition group at Pratt & Whitney, where he specializes in MBD adoption and 2D-to-3D workflow transformation. Brandon's path to MBE didn't follow a straight line — it ran through circuit breaker design, aerospace machine shop floors, and one-touch gauging fixtures for jet engine components. That cross-functional journey is precisely what makes his perspective so sharp. He didn't just learn to create drawings; he stood next to the operators reading them and felt firsthand where design intent gets lost in translation. In this conversation, Brandon and Chad dig into:

What does the future of engineering look like from the perspective of someone just entering the field? In this episode, Chad Jackson sits down with Ryan Botzbach — a final-year mechanical engineering student at UC Riverside with a computer science minor, a passion for aerospace and defense, and the kind of hands-on instincts that most companies spend years trying to cultivate. Ryan brings a perspective that engineering leaders can't afford to ignore. He's the engineer rebuilding a Volvo five-cylinder engine in his garage, converting 1970s aerospace drawings into 3D models for a machine shop, and running a thousand-person car club — all while finishing his degree. He's not waiting to "get experience." He's already in it. In this conversation, Ryan and Chad explore:

What does it look like to build a software engineering function from scratch inside an aerospace and defense organization that has never had one? Marilyn Arceo has done it—more than once, across industries—and her answer might surprise you: the hardest part isn't the technology. It's the translation. In this episode of Change by Design, Marilyn, an enterprise architect in aerospace and defense, talks about what it takes to stand up software engineering competencies in complex, regulated industries where those capabilities don't exist yet. She draws on a career that spans consumer packaged goods, fashion, healthcare, commercial real estate, e-commerce, and logistics to explain why the most valuable skill a change agent can develop isn't technical at all—it's the ability to sit between the deeply technical and the deeply human sides of an organization and make each one intelligible to the other. The conversation covers the practical mechanics of building teams: when to hire fresh graduates versus experienced engineers, how to convert mechanical and electrical engineers who already have software foundations, and why a hybrid agile-waterfall approach works better than imposing any single methodology on a team that's never used one. But the real value is in the strategic thinking underneath those decisions—how to evaluate whether an initiative is worth pursuing, when to push for innovation versus when to accept that the math doesn't work, and why iterative rollouts beat wholesale transformation every time. Marilyn also takes a grounded, cautious stance on AI-assisted development. She's seen the productivity gains, but she's equally clear about the risks: hallucinations, security exposure, and the "garbage in, garbage out" problem that surfaces when organizations skip the discipline of code review and governance. Her position is that AI should free engineers to focus on architecture and design, not replace the judgment that keeps systems safe. For engineering executives building new capabilities and change agents navigating cross-functional integration in regulated environments, this conversation delivers field-tested guidance without the hype. Topics covered:

What does it take to transform the way a major automaker designs and validates its products — and who really drives that change? In this episode, Chad Jackson sits down with Vijay Sanikal, a seasoned automotive engineer and proud self-described change agent who has worked across OEMs including GM and Stellantis, tier one and two suppliers, and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) software providers. Vijay brings a rare 360-degree view of the product development ecosystem, and he doesn't hold back on what it actually takes to move organizations forward. Vijay and Chad dig into the evolution of simulation-driven design — from the days when CAE was treated as offshore "extra work," to today's world where AI-assisted tools can optimize a design in real time without a human ever pushing a button. Vijay explains how the value proposition for simulation has fundamentally shifted, and why today's engineering leaders are far more prepared to invest in digital twin technologies than they were even a decade ago. But this episode is just as much about people as it is about technology. Vijay shares his framework for what makes a change agent effective — from winning stakeholders without authority, to building cross-functional innovation forums, to knowing when to call an initiative a silo and when to reframe it as a stepping stone. In this episode, you'll hear: