Fri 1 Feb 2008
... with Gaynor Hookings
There's a lot to be said for learning on the job, as Galliford Try's Gaynor Hookings explains to Michael Dineen.
They can't teach common sense at our universities - a fact which Gaynor Hookings discovered early, when she was the only non-graduate on a management trainee course with McAlpine Homes.We had begun the interview by talking about her dislike of school and her impatience at 16 to be out in the real world, earning a living.
She achieved that and after a few years found herself on this management course - because her boss felt she had potential, unrealised working as a secretary-administrator.
"When they first suggested I went on the course I thought it so unlikely that they must be trying to get rid of me. I was intimidated and embarrassed being the only non-university person on it," she explained frankly.
"But it didn't take more than a couple of hours to find out I was the only one with a bit of common sense. They may have their degrees but they were absolutely useless when it came to practical things."
If that sounds a little defiant, let me say that Hookings' explanation came out in a typically relaxed tone. She was merely communicating practical realities.
And she admitted that after two years on the course, working in various departments with her brainy contemporaries, she gained much in confidence, as well as knowledge of how the house building industry worked.
"It was all about team work, pulling together - and it gave me the push I needed. When my boss Jenny Huxley told me I was wasted in sales-admin where I'd been working happily for six years, she also told me not to be afraid of moving out of that comfort zone."
Hookings remembered this when changes were afoot at McAlpines. After nearly ten years there it was time to move on. Well, she has moved onward and upward since then, through several smart career steps - initially to Countryside for her first managerial role, then on to Prowting where she achieved marketing director status, and today her title is Divisional Marketing Manager with the ever-expanding Galliford Try Homes.
From director to manager - is that onward and upward progress, I asked her. Her response to this was the gentlest put down, a female put down in response to what I imagine she saw as a typical male preoccupation with status.
"I think it's because I'm a woman. Most men would have said something about a directorship by now. I think women just get on with the job. I don't really care what my title is as long as I'm enjoying the work and getting paid well for it."
"I think it's because I'm a woman. Most men would have said something about a directorship by now. I think women just get on with the job"
And what is Gaynor Hookings currently being paid for?
The Prowting directorship came to an end when they were taken over by Westbury Homes: "My face didn't fit," she says with refreshing candour; so Hookings enjoyed a spell of leisure, and undivided motherhood - two daughters so far.
But not for long, for soon she was seeking freelance work and was taken on as a marketing consultant by Linden Holdings who quickly recognised her talent and wasted no time in securing her as a staffer and then as a director.
That lasted until they too were taken over - by Galliford Try. As divisional marketing manager she has been responsible for integration of marketing techniques throughout the expanding group, ensuring that the strong brand imaging achieved by the successful Linden formula rubs off on the other Galliford Try house building acquisitions.
Companies such as Stamford and Midas were not expected to lose their identities, naturally, but they have been encouraged to follow guidelines based to a large extent on Linden's proven success.
This has been Gaynor Hookings' job, and it has required tact and also a cheerful capacity for mixing it with regional directors. Admittedly she is backed by two divisional managing directors to whom she reports regularly at board meetings, but as a woman she gets plenty of back chat from senior blokes in the expanding Galliford Try field.
This is largely, because she is a stickler for detail: "A pain," she says with disarming humour, insisting that those marketing guidelines are followed to the letter. Achieving group coherence in her field is simply a matter of "Getting on with the job."
Her way of dealing with potentially mutinous executives is to say, "Look, we're all working for the same thing. We just want to look good." And while she is saying that she is actually thinking, "Why make a fuss about it? Just do it!"
When we talked Hookings was already looking forward to her job after integration: greater use of the group's website, building on the customer database, visiting more of the nine group businesses. Continuing to be a pain - in the nicest possible way!
The common-sensical way, that is. The way she was born with and didn't have to attend a degree course to learn.
First published in Show House Magazine February 2008.
The greatest care has been taken to ensure accuracy but some information contained within this article may have changed since it was first published.
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