Pam Fields is a veteran leader, turnaround specialist, and executive mentor who has more than 30 years of experience leading large-scale turnarounds, scaling start-ups, and expanding enterprises into global markets across a wide variety of industries. As part of our Organizational Leadership Series, Fields was interviewed by Adam Bryant, senior adviser to the Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership at Columbia University. Here are highlights from their conversation.
Early Leadership Lessons
“I was one of the youngest managers ever promoted at Avon, and I was promoted because I performed my tasks well — I wasn't promoted because I was a leader, or because I had been given any kind of leadership training. I was asked to run a team that involved these two very smart, very experienced, very savvy women who could smell a fake a mile away. After working with them unsuccessfully for a month, they came in, closed the door, and laid me out about how I was a rotten manager because I didn't tell them what needed to be done, and I wasn't clear about what I wanted them to do. I am so grateful to those women. They helped me build myself back up to be a really competent manager.”
The Patterns of Successful and Unsuccessful Companies
“Transparency is a key quality of companies that succeed. They are open and honest about the opportunities. They are open and honest about the bumps in the road. But most importantly, they are very clear about what they want to achieve, the resources required to get there, and the roles that people play to execute on the strategy. They also keep their eyes open for moving people around and promoting people who can really deliver. In terms of negatives, companies often get into trouble – beyond the obvious reasons of not managing cash flow and their P&L — because of blind spots, such as a management culture where people know there’s a problem but are afraid to bring it up because they worry about losing their job or facing some kind of negative repercussions. So, the business suffers in the short-term, and because it’s not having open discussions about problems or opportunities, down the road. There’s also a balancing act around decision-making. Someone has to make a decision, whether it’s the CEO or the team leader. But you have to allow the conversation to happen to get everyone’s input. If you take a more autocratic approach, then people will hesitate to bring their ideas forward. Then you're not getting the best out of the people you’ve hired.”
Telling people that I will take the bullets emboldens them to innovate and try new things.
The Hardest Part of Executing Turnarounds
“It’s balancing the paradox of quick answers versus smart answers. The people who hire you are impatient to see fast results. So, I will say to them, ‘Do you want thorough, well-considered steps with projected results over a secure timeframe? Or do you just want me to blurt something and make you feel better?’ There are quick fixes that you can make immediately, but by and large it took me a minimum of three months, and generally up to six months, to put in a full organizational strategic plan for at least the first year.”
Leadership Approach
“I tell people who work with me that I own their failures, because that's my job, and they will own their successes. My job is to put my body in front of the bullet. If something they try doesn't work, I am very appreciative when people learn from their failures. But telling people that I will take the bullets emboldens them to innovate and try new things. And if something goes wrong, it’s because I didn't do a good job asking the right questions. I have never wavered from that approach. A second thing I encourage is safe space for disagreement. If you don't have healthy and respectful disagreement, then the end product is always going to be compromised. People need to feel they can point out potential problems. Otherwise, people will just say yes to the boss, and then complain to each other after the boss leaves the room that the idea will never work. Healthy disagreement is critical.”
Career Advice
“It's always wonderful to be the person that everyone respects for having the data — owning the facts, and then being able to support those facts with plans and opinions and ideas. The key is being able to synthesize the data in a way that's actionable and easy to understand for everybody in the room. You shouldn’t try to make things so complex so that people think you're the smartest person in the room because that may have the opposite effect. Keep the message simple so that everyone can understand it and act on it. I also tell people that networking is key to your success and career longevity. I understand there are few things more daunting than walking into a room of a hundred people you don't know and trying to make some connections and contacts. But it’s something you have to learn how to deal with because networking will help create opportunities in your career. And put your ego in a drawer because the worst that can happen is people say no when you reach out.”