Not sure why didn’t come across this December 12 2009 interview before. Here at HOB we’re big fans of McKinstry and what she’s done at WK..Maybe Lexis & West should have a serious think about dumping the boys in suits and handing over to a woman… hmmm what a daring thought !
The NY Times writes
Managing Globally, and Locally
This interview with Nancy McKinstry, the C.E.O. and chairwoman of the executive board of Wolters Kluwer, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.
Q. Do you remember the first time you were somebody?s boss?
A. I became a manager when I went to work for Booz Allen Hamilton, the consulting firm. I managed junior people, and I quickly realized these folks were eager to please, very bright, but had literally no business experience. So my first lesson was to be very clear upfront about what I wanted because if I didn?t say, ?I want you to go off and do these five things,? I might not get back what I needed.
Q. How did you learn that was important?
A. I?d been a research assistant for a professor, who was this brilliant guy, but not always the most articulate in terms of what he was trying to get at. So I learned early on, in my own experience, that you could produce better results if you knew where you were headed and what somebody wanted.
Q. Is that a part of your leadership style today?
A. Yes, especially now that I?ve been running Wolters Kluwer for over six years. I had been running North America and was dealing exclusively with Americans, and then I went into this global job. What I?ve learned is that every culture is very different in how they make decisions. So that ability to understand how they interpret what you?ve said to them, and how you interpret what they?ve said back to you, and what are the rules of engagement about how you?re going to make a decision, is very important.
Q. Can you give me a couple of examples?
A. In the Netherlands, where our company is based, what you find is that people really want to be heard early on in the process. So if you just go to someone and say, ?I want you to go take this product and enter this new market,? most likely the first response they?ll say is, ?No, and let me tell you how that won?t work.? What they really want to say is, ?I?m not going to commit yet to that objective until we have a chance to really sit down and explore how we?re going to do that, what your expectations are, and how we measure success.?
So what I?ve learned in Holland is that if you invest a lot of time upfront to explain what you?re trying to accomplish, get people?s feedback, then when they do say yes, the time to implementation is really fast. But if you don?t invest that time up front, you?re going to get such resistance that you?ll never get to the end.
Then, when I work with my Italian colleagues and the Spaniard colleagues, what you find is they can?t always tell you how they?re going to get something accomplished, but they manage to get it done, and providing them the latitude is important.
Full article at? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/business/13corner.html
