This is a YouTube video titled "Overcoming Adversity in your Career with Gloria Griesinger" containing an English interview recorded in December 2019. The conversation features Mike Richards interviewing Gloria Griesinger about her experiences managing a large treasury team, leadership challenges, building trust with team members, and qualities she values in treasury professionals.
We talked, you know, before the show, briefly as well. One thing we didn't actually talk about is that you then managed quite a team because a lot of treasurers might, you know, and treasury teams might be relatively small and, you know, high level, but, you know, you then had quite a number of people underneath you and things. What was that like being responsible for a larger team? And again, perhaps describe that for the listeners.
I think I had to learn. I wasn't given a lot of training. And looking back, that's where I think it's very important to learn leadership, to learn how to manage people. And at that time, that sort of training wasn't as well developed. To some people, it comes naturally to other people. I think the hard thing for me was is I didn't ever want to feel like I was dumping something on someone, you know, you know, do this. It's how do you guide people and challenge people? And I had some people that I worked with very, very well that I basically sit here. Here's something I know you've never done. I'm going to give you some guidelines. You know, you might feel like you've been pushed off a cliff, but I've got the ripcord to your parachute. I'm not going to let you fall and get hurt. And that's really something one of my former bosses said to me when I was a ball corporation. And I applied that when I went to Whirlpool with a couple of the people that were newer in the role. And just to see them blossom and to see them learn and not be afraid was a wonderful thing.
He came to you with a distinct distrust on day one. How did you, you know, again, maybe other people are listening today and thinking, oh, yeah, I have that situation, or I'm about to. How did you. You know, you worked at it for a year, but what key tip would you give people? Buy them lunch every day or what did you do to get him on site?
It was difficult. I think he had to understand that I still was able. I had to open up a bit of my personal side of my life to show that he understood that although I had younger kids, I cared about him. I was being a good mom. I was doing things with them so that he would respect me still as a mother. And that's not something that I initially was prepared to do. I was kind of defensive. And instead of being defensive, I had to just be myself and share those things and kind of demonstrate my whole self to them, not just my work side. But at first I really it was difficult. I can't hide that. And I didn't feel like I could tell anyone that. I didn't feel like I could go to my boss and tell him that. I felt like people would view me as a whiner.
What is it you look for at any level from the junior guys, mid level guys, and as they sort of nudge up the more senior end of the ladder, what is it you're looking for in those treasury professionals, as it were?
Curiosity. You have to be curious. You have to go out and understand the business. You have to ask the follow on question. You have to want to know more about what you're doing, not just do the basic part of your job and say, okay, I'm done for the day. You have to be curious, you have to follow up. You have to go ask people, did this solve your problem or did you get the answer you need? And that's how you learn more. So if somebody's not curious and they don't have a desire to follow up and learn more from everything they do, they're not interesting to me as an employee.
