Strategist plays devil's advocate

By Selwyn Parker

When Linda Sewell first turned up in hard hat at Carter Holt Harvey's sawmills and started asking difficult questions, the guys weren't quite sure what to make of her.

After all, as a botany and accountancy graduate, she hadn't exactly grown up within earshot of logs being ripped apart by giant saws.

Yet here she is, still only 33, but since June Carter Holt Harvey's general manager for performance improvement and strategy for the wood products division.

Her job is to extract, as soon as possible, more than $60 million worth of sustainable annual profit from the 300 projects on her plate She's already a third of the way there.

At those first meetings in the laddish environment of sawmills, there was a "degree of cynicism" admits Sewell.

"The feeling was 'what can she possibly add to my job?' However, they gave me the benefit of the doubt."

According to Carter Holt Harvey insiders, Sewell won the sawmillers' respect by adopting a measure of humility.

She told them she didn't know the answers, but she certainly knew how to help them find the answers.

"Her style is consultative but with a clear purpose in mind," enthuses her chief executive, Devon McLean.

As for Sewell, she prefers to describe herself as a devil's advocate whose lack of familiarity with sawmills is a distinct management advantage.

"I like to stretch people's thinking," Sewell explains.

"I can ask the dumb questions because I have no preconceived ideas about how things should be done. For me they have to explain things in layman's terms and, when that happens, the problems often change.

"I tell them that if I can't understand what they're telling me, I can't help them."

One of Carter Holt Harvey's star performers who was runner-up in this year's Auckland region contest for young executive of the year, Sewell strikes you as a manager who would insist on the answers.

Armed with a double degree - a BSc. in Botany and senior scholar in B.Comm - she joined Carter Holt Harvey in 1995 from auditing with Ernst & Young, and raced through a series of increasingly responsible jobs.

Before being appointed to her present position, Sewell reported directly to present chief executive Chris Liddell, then chief financial officer, as manager for corporate development. Almost in passing, she handled a $A100 million basket of purchases in Australia without troubling the merchant banking sector for advice, and $180 million worth of divestments in New Zealand.

To fill up her spare time, she owns a Dymocks bookstore franchise and, a convert to the therapeutic returns from running, she somehow persuaded no less than 150 of her colleagues to run with her in the BMW half-marathon last weekend. A natural organiser, she organised individual coaching sessions for the runners, group discounts for equipment such as running shoes, and e-mail advice for the problem of the hour - "My knee's hurting. What do I do now?"

As for running, so for business. While Sewell uses sophisticated McKinsey tool kits to help the manufacturing units achieve their performance goals, it's amazing what can be achieved by asking dumb questions. If the answers seem right, she lets the technicians get on with it.

"Give them the tools to do the job, then get out of the way," is how Sewell explains her modus operandi.

"I visit all the sites once a month to find if they've got the right people, the right skills, and enough of both of them. We can be too demanding [at Carter Holt Harvey]. We need to add a few people in the right positions. If you get the people right, the numbers will follow."

It's okay to say this now after a few years of bootcamp-style downsizing by the last two American chief executives, former paratrooper David Oskin and part-time mountaineer John Faraci.

The era of Kiwi Chris Liddell, who plays on the Carter Holt Harvey touch rugby team, promises to be more fun. These days it's not necessary to be in your office at the crack of dawn any more. (If Faraci's light wasn't on at 5am, he'd slept in.) You can even work from home sometimes.

It's results that count, not hours worked, and the prospects look promising under the performance improvement strategy. For example, Sewell is excited by one of her mills where the team set themselves the daunting task of slashing unit costs down from $39 to $30 a cubic metre, which is apparently the sawmilling equivalent of winning an Olympic gold medal.

"They're thinking bigger picture and they're halfway there already," says Sewell. "If they hit the $30, there'll be a big party, I can assure you." They will also get a basketball floor in the mill's recreational area.

This isn't performance improvement by the Ronald McDonald method of one size fits all. Most of Sewell's 300 projects require a different approach. According to her boss, Devon McLean, old-fashioned cost reductions did the job in some cases. In others, newly empowered staff thought it all up themselves, often through improved products.

And in still others, dumb questions often elicited the right answers.