Wingtips for Women: Success Without Compromise

At the risk of jumping way ahead in my comments, I can’t resist noting a headline in a recent Wall Street Journal interview with Telestra Corp. CEO David Thodey (who, BTW, also started his career as a Systems Engineer for IBM). What caught my eye was the question about numbers. During our research for Wingtips for Women, we spent a lot of time (and a whole chapter) on the importance of numbers vs. nurture. Men usually hotly argued in favor of a command for the numbers as THE thing while women seemed to err on the softer side of nurturing.

Thodey’s situation is not dissimilar to that of many executives today. His industry (telecommunications – Australia’s largest) is in significant upheaval. Landlines are in decline and wireless is on the incline. Competition and regulatory restrictions are tougher by the day The WSJ asked Thodey about numbers and how critical they are to his and his company’s success.

“WSJ: There is a lot of data on customer behavior in your industry. Are you a metrics junkie? (March 15, 2010 – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704353404575114791966557902.html?KEYWORDS=IBM+CEO)

Mr. Thodey: Just like the markets and returns to shareholders, it is only the numbers that matter. You can talk strategy, you can talk culture, but if you don’t deliver the numbers then you really are not doing your job. (…) Mondays are usually a good day, Fridays tend to be a little bit slower. I look at calls into the call centers on a daily basis, I look at shop traffic. All these give you indicators of what’s going on but you’ve got to be careful to not to react too quickly.”

What we found in our research is that the answer to the numbers vs. nurture is both/and not either/or. And since there are still more men than women in the executive suite, women had better pay attention to what men think matters. Just a statement of fact. You always listen to the needs of your customer, right? And bosses are customers as much as those who buy your product or service.

So yes, nurture counts enormously, but so do the numbers. Ladies, have them on the tip of your tongue, not in the file or at the fingertips of your assistant or CFO. You need to be able to USE them in your daily walk, not just for talk. Get comfortable with the numbers and they will often show you where to take action you might have otherwise missed.

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