Jul. 3, 2017 "The Ladder: Nancy Gougarty": Today I found this article in the Globe and Mail:
Nancy Gougarty, 61, is CEO of Vancouver-based Westport Fuel Systems, which makes alternative-fuel systems and components such as natural gas engines. Before Westport, Ms. Gougarty was vice-president of TRW Automotive Corp.’s Asia-Pacific operations. She started her career as an industrial engineer at the Packard Electric Division of General Motors. She has a bachelor of science in industrial management from the University of Cincinnati.
I was born in Berkeley, Calif., but Ohio is where I was mostly based growing up. I have three older brothers and one younger sister. My father, a nuclear physicist, was a university professor and a researcher. We moved a lot. He would work nine months in his teaching assignment and took on research opportunities during the summers and took sabbaticals, which allowed us to live in interesting places around the world.
One of his assignments was to the University of Saskatchewan. We lived in Saskatoon for 14 months. I was in the seventh and eighth grades. That was my first real winter. I don’t think I’ve been through another one like that since. We also lived in Australia when my father spent some time at the University of Melbourne. Needless to say, I changed schools quite a bit.
Moving around a lot as a kid showed me the world is 360 degrees. You also get to know who you are. It’s almost like starting over each time. You get to tell people what they know about you. They have no history. It made me realize that behaviour and power of speech matter and need to be managed.
I didn’t really know what I wanted to do for a career when I was growing up. My parents didn’t pressure us to figure it out. They had the attitude that we would find our way in life. They didn’t want us to work during high school and university. They felt that was our time to be free. My first full-time job was after graduation. That’s when I started my career with General Motors in Warren, Ohio.
I called them Generous Motors. I worked there for 29 years in a few different divisions – everything from engineering and sales to recruiting and finance. I was also able to obtain my executive MBA while working there, and while mothering three children.
Having the opportunity to live in lots of different places as a kid made me more willing to do that in my career. I spent nearly 15 years of my career in Asia, most of which was in China. Shanghai remains a special place for our family.
As a leader, I like to go and see people in person. I can’t manage remotely. I can’t make decisions based only on e-mail or phone calls. People can have very polished e-mails. Also, in my experience, you can’t liken someone’s speaking skills to their capability. I spend more than 80 per cent of my time outside of headquarters. When you’re in the room, you can read body language. You can see comfort or discomfort. You can see happiness or sadness. There are also different nuances in different countries. Doing business in China has a very different nuance versus India versus Italy.
My husband enabled my career success to date. He never held me back saying, “We have three kids, you can’t do that.” Instead, he would say, “If that’s what you want, go for it.” The two of us always tried to figure out together what was best. I never felt constrained; I wanted to be a wife, a mother. I wanted everything and he enabled a good bit of that.
I’m a person who likes to get things done. I don’t really have limits on the kinds of things I’m willing to do. I can type my own presentations. I’m pretty self-sufficient. I describe myself as a roadblock remover. I think, as a leader, my job is to get those speed bumps as low as possible or remove whatever is blocking the road.
I see my job as making sure I understand the whole voice of the organization. You can get very insulated at the top.
I have a good memory. People say, “Don’t tell her anything you don’t want her to remember.”
Some people might say I move too fast without enough facts. My opinion is that a bad decision is better than a perfect decision, as long as it keeps up momentum. I’m not sure with the kind of speed, in the [business] environment we’re in today, that we have the luxury of waiting for the perfect decision.
I make mistakes, and I readily admit it. I sense that we have to move quickly and swift and when it’s not right, we’ll fix it. People also need to be able to tell me it’s not right. That means having an environment where people can tell me, “That wasn’t your best decision.”
I’m very happy with where I am today. I’d like to continue to make Westport Fuels Systems even more successful. I also want to learn to laugh more and enjoy life more.
As told to Brenda Bouw. This interview has been edited and condensed.
INTJer
19 hours ago
Excuse me! "I'm a person who likes to get things done." What is this? Paid advertisement? So that's how this person is distinguishing herself from the rest of the world? Is there a psychological or blood test for that? OMG. Has leadership been reduced this?
"Today's business leaders need be heroes": Today I found this article by Diana Bishop in the Globe and Mail:
Diana Bishop is the creator of The Success Story Program and author Living Up To A Legend, My Adventures With Billy Bishop’s Ghost, published by Dundurn Press.
I had a built-in superhero – my grandfather Billy Bishop, who shot down 72 German planes in the First World War and was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery 100 years ago.
My grandpa Billy died when I was only three, so I never knew him. But he lived on for me with mythical status because of all the books, movies, the popular musical Billy Bishop Goes To War, as well as the stamps, streets, cafés, bars, buildings, a mountain in the Rockies and two airports named after him.
Billy embodied the qualities I thought a hero should have.
He set his sights really high and accomplished great things. And he showed remarkable courage in the face of adversity. My grandpa Billy inspired many people and I, too, have looked up to him as a role model to motivate, guide and help me define who I am and what I want to be.
Billy Bishop was not the only person in my family history where I found a hero.
My great-great grandfather was Timothy Eaton, founder of the Eaton’s Department store, which was once Canada’s largest retailer. Timothy became a hero to me, not only for the successful business he built, but for being a great leader who cared about his customers and his staff.
He instituted the ground-breaking policy, ‘Goods satisfactory or money refunded.’ Timothy nurtured his staff by reducing the 12-hour workday, and in 1898 he held a New Year’s Eve party for 2,000 of his employees. He seated them at tables around the store with fine white linens, silverware and more than 100 turkeys.
It may be a stretch to suggest that the demise of the family business in 1999 was due to a lack of a hero at the helm. But it certainly didn’t help.
Look at many of the businesses and corporations we most admire and respect today; they are usually launched, led or managed by passionate, innovative leaders who have become heroes to many. In fashion, think Coco Chanel, Ralph Lauren and Tom Ford. Elsewhere, think Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Sheryl Sandberg and Oprah Winfrey.
These icons embody the characteristics of a hero with their originality, daring, determination and commitment. People want to work for companies that are led by heroes. People also want to buy stuff from companies that have a hero at the helm.
Companies spend a lot of time and money in developing their brands and today’s CEOs can be an integral part of that branding. Personally, I think executives could benefit by highlighting the heroic qualities that got them to where they are – for instance, by making a list of where in their careers and lives they have shown:
a) courage, b) passion, c) selflessness, and d) caring, and then bring these qualities to the forefront of their stories.
a) courage, b) passion, c) selflessness, and d) caring, and then bring these qualities to the forefront of their stories.
Imagine if they made the same list for their management team and their employees. It could be eye-opening for business leaders to see where the hero resides in themselves. And by harnessing the hero in others these same business leaders will inspire greater loyalty from their employees and get much more from them.
I believe this to be just as true today as it was in my grandfather’s and great-great grandfather’s days.
In our increasingly cynical world, we have never been hungrier for responsible, focused, authentic visionaries whom we can look up to and who prompt us to be the best we can be.
Yes, we still need our heroes and I believe there is an opportunity for today’s business leaders to be heroes.
Yes, we still need our heroes and I believe there is an opportunity for today’s business leaders to be heroes.
Ceejaybee
4 days ago
But don't we have the greatest Visionary the world has ever seen leading Canada out of the dark and into the glorious Liberal sunshine. He is Zoolander. He is ours. We are Him.
2 Reactions
Thomas Darcy McGee
4 days ago
Clobbered your guy in the election, didn't he?
What was "your guy's" name again?
Ceejaybee
4 days ago
Andrew Sheer. Watch him wipe the floor with Boy Wonder whose star burns less every single day. The Press is finally starting to actually pay attention to the drivel that exits Zoolander's grinning yap. 12 months from now, it's all downhill for the Libs. And there ain't nothing they'll be able to do about it.
Thomas Darcy McGee
"Andrew Sheer"
--
I was right, you have already forgotten the name of "your guy" in the last election.
What was it again?
And no one is afraid of Andrew Scheer.
Another creationist who believes that ignorance is virtuous.
The CPC are pulling 30% in the most recent (June 12) Campaign Research poll.
"Wipe the floor"?
That's how Scheer will be earning his living in a few years, with a mop and pail.
Name Witheld
Missing from this assessment of 'leadership', and in any discussion of 'great leaders' as icons is any mention of acceptance of consequences - in another word, INTEGRITY. The icons mentioned became icons, because the consequences of their actions worked out in their favour.
Not mentioned, however are the leaders for whom the results of their actions did not lead to fame, fortune or personal success, but whose leadership was no less heroic, and no less worthy of replication, in fact, perhaps more so.
My grandfather was also a war hero; there's a line in the citation for his medal that tells me all I need to know about leadership, and my aspiration to it: "encircled by the enemy, he was given the chance to evacuate by sea. Instead, he chose to fight is way out, with his men". My grandfather died shortly after the war, I never knew him. There are no schools, no streets, no airports named for him.
That doesn't make him any less of a leader.
Popsiq
Good point. I'll be watching at this years fireworks to see who's wearing the most red and white and doing a 'crazy dance' during the national anthem. As usual I don't think the problem is with visionaries, as much as it is with us not liking what they're seeing.
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