Karen Sheriff: President and Chief Executive Officer of Bell Aliant

Bluteau DeVenney and Company (BDCO): What did you do to move to a leadership role?

Karen Sheriff(KS): A theme for me has quite simply been to do a great job. Following graduation, my first position was with United Airlines as an analyst. It was a challenging job and I brought all my educational background (from psychology to economics and mathematics) together to really deliver and excel at my work. I focused on finding how to hit the home runs and show that I was thinking beyond the role. I quickly moved into my first leadership position at the age of 27. Again, I worked really hard and exceeded expectations. This is the approach I repeated in each new position. It comes down to knowing what you do, what is needed, doing it well, and working to excel. With that the opportunities will come your way.

It may sound surprising but I didn’t plan my career. I relaxed and focused on growing, developing, and delivering great results. Since 1984 I have held fifteen positions – some moves were lateral while others increased my responsibilities. Each position added to my skills through new challenges, applying what I had learned along the way, and getting into the thick of the role quickly. I loved every new challenge and never focused on the next move. Most times I was initially unhappy to move because I enjoyed each position. I just embraced the next step and always focused on delivering. I didn’t need a roadmap for my career – I focused on what I needed to do to make a difference in each position I was in and then concentrated on delivering great results. As a leader, I look for talented people who can move, adapt, learn, and fit into different spaces.

(BDCO): What is one thing that developing professionals need to do more of?

(KS): My suggestion is a continued commitment to learning and developing. For developing professionals, I encourage them to have a purposeful development plan of what skills they want to learn and what abilities they want to acquire – and stop thinking about the next job. You need to know how to lead and manage people, learn how to sell ideas, and many things that may be quite opposite to what you were trained academically to do. Focus on skills development and not on promotion. When you stop concentrating on the “checklist” of what should be the next career move, you become someone that is actually ready and can be promoted. Fixating on the next job can derail you if promotion happens before you have developed the breadth of skills needed to excel in the next and other roles. For me, taking the time to be versatile has been beneficial.

As well, my advice is also to forget about limiting yourself because of your age. I am someone who believes that people can lead others earlier than you think. I don’t get caught up in age. Young people have the energy and empathy to connect with people while being adaptable to changing environments. The right person at 23 years can be a great leader. The lesson for leaders in my opinion is not to discount youth and move them into the mix earlier than you might have thought. The Millennials are ready – give them room to grow and broaden their skills and they will step up to lead.

(BDCO): What about doing less of?

(KS): As I said, I really think the one thing developing professionals can stop doing is worrying so much about getting promoted. It may sound like a subtlety but it is the skills and not the job that should be the focus. Putting all of the attention on the next job gets in the way of being open to learning new skills. It can stop you from putting your head down to excel in your current role and not being able to hit the home runs - the ones that will actually bring you the opportunity for advancement.

(BDCO): What experience helped you the most in your career and why?

(KS): I have had many experiences that have contributed to the success I have achieved. Each job and degree helped as well as wonderful role models that helped me learn and grow. I truly enjoy learning. I get tremendous energy from finding how to quickly get into what I am doing and see where I can add value - it always makes me feel fulfilled. Even my art training in university has helped me in the corporate world. When you are an artist you are able to visualize and build resilience to obstacles. In art, you try something and it doesn’t work - you often have to repair, recover and have the patience and determination to try again. So, the greatest experience for me as a leader has been the ability to mold all of what I have learned from so many sources into my actual work using and leveraging a wide range of skills to achieve results.

(BDCO): What was the greatest challenge moving your career forward?

(KS): By focusing on exceeding expectations in my work, opportunities were always there. Leaving jobs that I loved was a challenge but at the same time an opening to something new. Coming to this industry in a period of time when things were challenging has inspired me to drive on. Earlier I mentioned the need for resilience and part of that is not running from the challenge. I had to admit it was my responsibility (and no one else’s) to work through the tough environment and that was tough. I would say the greatest challenge is taking responsibility for the results in a tough situation.

(BDCO): What is the greatest strength of your approach to leadership?

(KS): Without a doubt it is my strategic focus and love for execution. I don’t believe people can do hundreds of things well. I work to help people and organizations focus on just a few key drivers for success and then the world becomes a lot clearer. I just love to make things happen and that combination of focus and execution has been powerful for me. The real risk for many very smart people is not having focus – there is so much analysis and pursuit of perfection that they miss what is most important.

(BDCO): What has been the biggest surprise you have had since attaining a senior leadership role?

(KS): What surprises me the most is how I have used everything I have learned in my work. There are moments when I have a flash and say “I know where I learned that”. It may have been from my art courses, my psychology classes, from my last job or something else entirely different but each piece comes together at times to help me through a situation to deliver results.

(BDCO)What is the greatest benefit to you in attaining a senior leadership role?

(KS): There are two benefits that come to my mind … firstly, the ability to work with more and more talented people who are very strong and bring great ideas, and secondly, the opportunity to hit a lot of home runs which is incredibly gratifying. When I say “home run” I mean the result or outcome that will have a material impact. And it is delivered in a short time. This is a critical concept for me. To get the home runs, you need to know what is needed in the job, who to talk to about the impacts, crystallize what it all means, and then see the direction and hit it out. I always look for the opportunity to create that home run. I see it as the role of a strategic thinker. One way I put it (and I need to explain the context) is that as a leader you look for “people who can smell the money”. What I mean is that you can sense where an action will either make or save money. It is a skill that you develop as you grow a breadth of knowledge and you can just sense that you can make a difference in this area, scope it out and deliver it. As a leader, when people do this you feel like you have received the greatest gift. When someone brings you that “money idea” and you see that they had the guts and confidence to think strategically and then execute to make it happen, you are in heaven. There are home runs in every job. Start by thinking beyond the day to day and then about how to impact the organization – leaders love that kind of thinking. It is less about the “what” and more about the “why”. With this type of thinking, people go beyond being a “cog in the wheel” to have a real impact and when that happens engagement explodes.

(BDCO)What is the next achievement you want in your leadership career?

(KS): It is a challenging industry and a challenging time. What I want is to get us back to growth. That is it.

(BDCO)What is the biggest challenge you face in achieveing results in your work?

(KS): Enough hours in the day! Seriously, the real key is having the right leaders in the right places where they can expand their capabilities and have an increasing impact. With the right people in the key places we can focus on building productivity. It’s the focus thing again – we need to focus, be deliberate, help people contribute, and find that next brilliant idea.

(BDCO): What is your greatest opportunity/goal for providing value for your organization?

(KS): The best opportunity is to develop people. For me to be effective as a leader, I need to spend about ten to twenty percent of my time out there in the organization talking to our people, asking and listening, and guiding the development of key people in the company. I love doing it and it makes a difference. Great mentoring, hands-on interactions, and helping people by watching them work are hugely positive for the organization.

(BDCO): What added support or capability would help you the most in delivering on your goals?

(KS): An experience I learned a few years ago called “rigging the success” is a real catalyst for growth. People naturally think in increments. The key to “rigging the success” is in knowing as a leader how to shift people from believing a 5% increase is possible to being confident they can stretch for 30%. The leader’s job is to understand the physics of what stretch objectives are truly attainable from those that will not be achieved. Then using all of the levers in the company (like personal time with senior management, resources, and the best talent), you can support people be successful in stretching themselves by helping to ensure that they are successful. When they are then successful, their confidence grows and the whole process becomes self-feeding. The next time, they reach further more on their own with more confidence. I need to focus on those points where I can “rig the success” for my people.

Think about where you are now in your career and what you can take from Karen’s observations. We would love to hear your comments about what are your key takeaways from our conversation with Karen.

Tell us your progress – we want you to succeed.

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Karen’s success as a leader has been built on her incredible ability to bringing all her experiences and learning together to find where she can have the greatest impact and hit that home run. She is constantly learning and keeps the bases loaded. Her passion is clear in her commitment to Bell Aliant.

You can find out more about Bell Aliant at www.bellaliant.ca.

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