We speak with leading board director Diane Smith-Gander in the lead up to a national conference exploring “modern philosophies”, by our partner the Governance Institute of Australia.
How do you stay ahead of the issues that matter, make decisions, and ultimately have your ideas and opinions heard?
Good advice shared on such questions is valuable to anyone, but it’s particularly important for leaders at the helm of strategic decisions.
For Diane Smith-Gander, one of Australia’s best-known professional non-executive directors and a trailblazer in business, curiosity and a little bit of creativity have been key.
Smith-Gander’s interest in current trends and issues and how they impact on business and workforces have contributed to her ongoing success at the top. That curiosity also extends to being a lifelong learner, undertaking regular courses and pursuing education that has deepened her knowledge and abilities.
On creativity, Smith-Gander has had to think and act strategically to gain seniority and get heard as one of few women, if not the only woman in the room. In the lead up to her plenary session at the Governance Institute of Australia’s national conference in September, we spoke with Smith-Gander about her leadership trajectory and her push to see “innovation, inclusiveness and equity” become the key pursuits of modern organisations.
Below we share some of Smith-Gander’s advice on building a successful leadership career and ensuring your voice gets heard.
Elegant interruption
One such skill is the “art of elegant interruption,” necessary if you want to avoid the risk of “spending your life listening to men”, says Smith-Gander.
She recalls learning this advice from Ann Sherry when they were working together at Westpac. Sherry opened Smith-Gander’s eyes to how comments and ideas were often repackaged and repurposed by men.
Confidently own your ideas
“That whole thing that it doesn’t matter whose idea it is, just as long as it gets done? That’s bullshit,” Smith-Gander says simply. “The person who determines the idea is the person who gets the opportunity.”
A key success strategy comes in knowing what you want and being confident in pursuing it, she explains. In her own case, she recalls getting comfortable with the idea that: “I don’t want to be the power behind the throne, I want to be on the throne.”
The goal made her more determined to speak up, preventing her ideas from being repurposed and repackaged by others.
But speaking up wasn’t always easy – especially as the only woman in the room.
“That’s when it started. I discovered that if men didn’t like it, I could be humorous about it,” she explains. “Saying things like, ‘here I go again, I’m interrupting!’” made those in the room take notice.
“I learnt that it’s good that I’m different. It means I can be impactful. Instead of being the same and predictable, I can start to build range. That’s not being untrue to yourself, that’s being respectful of the setting you’re in.”
As well as being vocal on business and industry issues, Smith-Gander has been outspoken issues such as enabling more affordable and accessible early childhood education. Recently, she publicly rebuked male members voting against including women at The Australia Club, which she describes as being “strategically foolish for not recognising that the world has changed.”
Take responsibility for up-skilling and re-tooling
The above are great strategies for getting heard and making an impact.
But more important is having the knowledge to be aware of just what’s going on: the trends, the risks, and the opportunities in change.
Smith-Gander has experienced and seen the benefits of continuous learning. Especially now, with the pace of change so fast and affecting everything about how we work. You need to be alert to the risks, the opportunities and remain agile. “I think everyone needs to take ownership of their re-tooling and re-skilling,” she says. “If I hadn’t been progressing in things like those that I’ve done with Governance Institute, then I wouldn’t be progressing as a director. I wouldn’t understand things like digital.”
But it’s not just undertaking training that will help you excel, you need to stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone, she says.
That may include speaking up about issues that matter to you and being willing and able to comment on things publicly in the media – something Smith Gander has done extensively. So much so in fact, that certain journalists have queried whether her “gung-ho style is a problem”. (Her response was in Helen Lynch’s words, that “diversity of style is a basic human right.”)
Smith-Gander says the idea of “stretching and challenging yourself to have a perspective” is a skill she honed during her many years at McKinsey.
“You need to have a view,” she says. “That is always important for a director. You have to do that. You’re being asked to make a decision, often in the absence of full information. You have to bring all the pieces of sparse information together to come up with that decision.”
Starting a board career
Smith-Gander moved to Kalgoorlie Western Australia at the age of 11, played in the state’s basketball team, and has previously recounted her experiences of coming across her first “businesswoman” in Geraldine Ardagh, who later hired her mother as a typing teacher. Starting her career at PA Consulting Group before shifting over to Westpac, where she worked with Ann Sherry, and participated in a game-changing leadership program under Bob Joss, and then chairing the ASDA board in the lead up to the Sydney Olympics, Smith-Gander moved to the United States at the turn of the century, where she spent eight years as a partner with McKinsey. There, she held a senior executive role until the GFC.
Looking for her next role during the GFC (with a strong desire to stay in Australia given her parents were getting older), she started seeking executive roles within the top 20 listed organisations in the country.
It wasn’t long before Smith-Gander received a call from Wesfarmers, which was on the hunt for a second woman, as well as for a Western Australian resident. With clear qualifications for the position, she now laughs that she was able to help tick two quota boxes.
The Wesfarmers directorship was high profile. While careful not to build her board career too fast, she says it gave other organisations the confidence to see what she could offer.
And back then in 2009, it was still very much noteworthy to see women appointed to such boards, and an anomaly for an organisation to have two women. Smith-Gander was later asked to join Governance Institute to support its goal of expansion. She says she was motivated by the organisation’s integrity, diversity, creativity and desire to get across the big issues that mattered. “It all just made me want to attach myself to the Institute,” she says.
Later, Smith-Gander received the Governance Institute President’s Award, and more recently was appointed as a brand ambassador.
Now in 2022, as the world grapples with the fallout from the pandemic, supply chain shortages, equality, global conflict and more, Smith-Gander is reminded of the need to keep learning, adapting and remaining open to understanding as much as you can about risk.
Diane Smith-Gander will chair a plenary session on innovation at the upcoming Governance Institute of Australia conference on 12-13 September, with the overall theme of “Modern Philosophies”. Also speaking at the event is Margie Seale, Professor Peter Greste, Sue Keay, MP Victor Dominello and Julieanne Alroe.