Corner Office: Ilene Gordon of Ingredion, on the Importance of Mentors

Q. What are some leadership lessons you’ve learned from mentors over the years?

A. There was one gentleman in particular. He had three daughters and his attitude was: “Look, you’re really smart, you’re very ambitious and focused. I can help teach you about business.” This was around 1982, and I’d already been out of business school for several years. He made it a priority to help me to hone my business skills.

I was a strategist by training, and I was doing acquisitions. I was smart, I was analytical, but he said to me: “You ought to run some of these businesses and see how good your analysis was. It may look great on paper, but you have to motivate and inspire people. You’re 30 years old and the guy you’re leading is 55. How do you get the best out of him? That’s your challenge.”

So, early on, this mentor gave me that opportunity to run businesses. I’ve been running them since I was 32.

He had a philosophy of putting people in jobs that were bigger than they were. If somebody has talent and good people skills and drive, I think you can stretch them and put them in a job that they’re not quite ready for, so they grow into it. That’s what people did for me, so I’m a big believer in doing that and taking young people and stretching them.

And employees love to hear that, because they feel like they’re going to get opportunities. There’s a big competition for talent. People will leave their company if they think they’ll have more opportunities elsewhere. So you need to offer opportunities to your young people. And you’ll have a much better retention.

It’s not all about a 2 percent raise; it’s really about opportunity. I’m taking these lessons in how people treated me as a young professional and use those lessons today to excite our people.

Q. How do you know if somebody’s able to stretch into a big new job?

A. One question somebody once asked me was, “What do you think are important attributes to be successful in leadership?” I said it’s about tenacity. It’s never giving up. It’s having a Plan B. And that’s one of my favorite expressions: Have a Plan B, because Plan A doesn’t always go well, or maybe it’s derailed by a competitor or somebody else’s new product or some type of regulation.

My point is to always have a Plan B that you can implement. Maybe you have to go to Plan C or D, but the point is that you always have to have a backup plan.

I look for young people who have a lot of energy, and who treat other people well, because we’re not looking for bullies. Some people push their way through things and they’re not collaborative. I look for people who don’t give up, who are very focused and organized but are also able to collaborate with other people, because in today’s organizations, you actually may not have anybody directly reporting to you but may have a team of 10 people from other parts of the organization. They’re your virtual team.

So I look for young people who have the energy and drive to get things done, to keep their eye on where they’re going but at the same time realize they can’t do it alone. It’s not just a one-person show. You can’t be the micromanager; you have to be able to get things done through others.

Q. What else do you do to help develop younger managers?

A. I use one dinner a year with my board to bring in young, high-potential managers. We have everybody give an “elevator speech.” You have three minutes to tell the board and other people in the room where you came from, the challenges you’re facing and how you’re trying to create value for the company. Everybody might want to take 15 minutes, but you have to be succinct.

This is part of what we’re looking for in people who have potential; it’s all about communication. What are the challenges you have, and you have three minutes to explain them, because there are 40 of you and we’re going to be here all night otherwise. And if you take somebody else’s time, that’s not respectful. It’s all about being succinct and articulate.

Q. What questions do you ask when you hire? What qualities do you look for in job candidates?

A. I like to look at the person’s résumé, and ask a lot of questions about how they made decisions to go from one company to the other. Did they have a plan? Not everybody has to have a structured plan, but I like to hear their thought process. Did they make things happen for themselves and their companies, or was it just serendipity? And serendipity is sometimes O.K., too.

So that’s how I get into the interview and get people talking, but the key question I always ask, going back to my own theme, is: Who mentored you? Who did you learn from? Because I feel that, with the people we’re hiring, we’re hiring all their mentors, too. I want to know if they learned from somebody who was an operating expert or somebody who was a strategist and what companies those mentors worked in. That’s because I’m not just hiring the person sitting there; I’m hiring the four people who mentored him. I don’t think there’s anybody who’s successful in their role today who hasn’t been mentored by somebody.

Business is always challenging. It doesn’t always go well, and Plan A doesn’t always work. So I look for people who have dealt with some adversity in their life. It could have been in business — maybe their company was acquired, and they had to figure out what they wanted to do and made a change, rather than sitting around for two years lamenting, “Why me?”

Or somebody might have lost their parents early on. The point is, they’ve dealt with some type of adversity or illness and they came back and they persevered.

That’s what I look for, because very few people have had perfect lives. You want people who are able to have a Plan B and C, and to rise above a challenge, move ahead and just get on with it, and have that can-do attitude.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/business/ilene-gordon-of-ingredion-on-the-importance-of-mentors.html?partner=rss&emc=rss