View from the Top

The famously direct Harvey Norman chief – one of Australia’s longest- serving CEOs – tells Kirsten Galliott her glass is always half full. Don’t believe her? She’ll want your reasons. Now.

Harvey Norman CEO Katie Page gives it to you straight

How do you defifine good leadership?

These days, it’s empathy with your staffff. Because of the changing look and feel of retail – and the digital revolution – there are so many stresses now. I need to make sure the executive teams feel part of decisionmaking. We can make lots of wrong decisions at the moment because of everything that’s coming at us from overseas, from how you’re supposed to look as a retailer to what investments you’re supposed to make in innovative technology. Being a leader fifive years ago is very difffferent to being a leader today.

You’ve been CEO since 1999. How has your leadership style changed?

Everyone evolves. There has never been such a fast pace of change in the world. I don’t ever want to be in the mould of “This is what we’ve done for the past fifive years so this is what we’ll do for the next fifive.” I’m always looking to the future, not the past. Some people get really hung up on the past and their past failures; I’ve always been about “Okay, where are we going in the future? That was right or wrong or fantastic but where are we going in the future?” Gerry [Harvey, her husband and the chair of Harvey Norman Holdings Limited] always complains that I’m glass half full all the time.

Do you let your team fail at times?

Always allow people to fail. Gerry and I are, by nature, entrepreneurial and if you’re truly entrepreneurial, you’ll fail. You’ve got things that are hugely successful but you’ve got lots of things that fail. And if you’re not testing a market then you’re going to be second to market on everything you do. You can have all the data in the world but we have to be anthropologists as well. There’s a human factor that comes into it – a gut feel. So you’ve got to have executive teams that are going to try something new.

An early goal of yours was to retire at 40. What happened?

I fifigured out that it was better for my children’s sake that I keep working! I would have been one of those tiger mums; I would have been too involved in their lives. I tell my kids now, “You are so lucky that I decided to keep working.” They probably agree.

But you love working.

I love it; I have an absolute passion for retail. We are in eight countries – we’ve got separate teams in eight

countries doing this – and you see the effffect that running a good business in those countries has on your teams, on their lives, on their families’ lives. It’s an exciting business to be in as well so it’s not as if you don’t have that adrenaline rush happening. But you have to be the best. Retail is one of the toughest industries to be in.

You’re known for being very direct. Has that served you well?

If you don’t understand your brand, you can’t be directing people with your brand. And if you have to take weeks or months to make a decision, that brand isn’t going to go anywhere. You haven’t got the time to not understand what you’re doing and say, “Oh I’ll give it to a consultant committee.” All of the people we’ve dealt with always know where they stand, what’s right, what’s wrong, let’s fifix it. If, because I’m direct, people are going to get emotional, they shouldn’t be dealing with a company of our size. If I’m meeting someone for the fifirst time and they don’t know that I’m direct, I’ll say to them, “Listen, this is how I operate. Don’t think it’s you, don’t take it personally. It’s about you and me growing our businesses effffectively, quickly. I want you to tell me if you think it’s wrong but I also want you to tell me why it’s wrong. You’ve got to have the facts. I have the facts on my side so that’s why we’re being so strong about how we see our brand and how you’re going to deliver for us but you’ve got to be factual about why you think it’s wrong.” A lot of people can’t do that.

How does that approach fifilter into your own team?

I have a team of people who are as direct with me as I am with them. Our discussions are always factual. One of the executives might say to me, “Kate, you’ve gotten emotional about that. Take a look at this, this and this…” So they will bring me back to the table as well. We are very collaborative as a team.

Is there a benefifit to an executive team that has worked together for so long and knows one another so well?

I look at many companies and they are changing their teams a lot of the time. So if you look at, maybe, department stores, the longevity of executive teams is not long. And you’re in a fast-moving business, being hit by digital. I would fifind it extremely diffifficult to be working with a team that changes so quickly all the time. You can’t get the culture; you can’t be developing long-term strategies.

I’ve heard you say that you like to hire people who have the right set of skills but are also just nice.

You can have the most intelligent people who perform well but if they’re not nice people, they’re alienating others. People like that don’t actually work as a team and I want to know that the people being led by our executives have a great working life.

You’re a champion of women in the workforce and on the sports fifield. What do we need to drastically move the dial towards more women in senior executive roles?

You can’t assume every woman wants to be a CEO. You can’t assume every woman wants to be on a board. So it’s about how you’re growing women within your workforce to do whatever they would like to do. How are you helping them achieve that? There’s a lot of media around how many board positions women get. And you know, we’ve done a great job getting women on boards – still got a way to go – but in that discussion, what was not included was how many women are running companies. How many women have we lost from the workforce who could have become CEOs because they’re now sitting on boards? There are fewer and fewer women in this country who are running companies in the top 100 and 200. It’s a disgrace. So while we’re high-fifiving that we’ve got more women on boards, it should have been balanced with the same sort of push for female executives going into CEO positions. I want more women on boards. But I also want women running companies in this country.

In your business, the chair has been married to the CEO for 30 years. How has that worked for you?

We’re a strong partnership; we have difffferent skill sets but there’s balance. It’s well known that we disagree on a lot of things. And it’s well known we don’t pussyfoot around each other, which I think is important. Can a lot of people do that? No. A lot of people don’t want to do it! But in this particular case, it works.

“WHILE WE’RE HIGHFIVING THAT WE’VE GOT MORE WOMEN ON BOARDS, IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN BALANCED WITH THE SAME PUSH FOR FEMALE EXECUTIVES GOING INTO CEO POSITIONS.”