Episode 28: Face Your Fears: It Will Help You Grow With Ginger White
Facing fears and learning new skills is one way to be a great leader. Today, Amy Vetter interviews Ginger White, US Controller at Sun Hydraulics and Chair Emeritus for the Global IMA Board of Directors. Ginger shares her family background and how she faced her fears, even when uncomfortable, to grow into a career that she could have never imagined as a child. Listen this episode to discover how you can an effective and successful supervisor and leader, too!
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Face Your Fears: It Will Help You Grow With Ginger White
I interviewed Ginger White, who is a CMA, CSCA and Chair-Emeritus of IMA's Global Board of Directors for 2019-2020 fiscal year. She's also the US Controller for Sun Hydraulics located in Sarasota, Florida, responsible for month-end close, planning, forecasting and reporting. During this interview with Ginger, we talk about her family background and how she has had to face her fears even when uncomfortable to grow into a career that she could have never imagined as a child.
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I'm here with Ginger White. Ginger, do you want to start off by giving us a little bit of background on yourself?
Amy, thanks for having me on the show. I'm the Chair-Emeritus of the Institute of Management Accountants. It's a global organization with over 140,000 members. I'm the US Controller at Sun Hydraulics in Sarasota, Florida. I spent the majority of my career in management accounting roles. That's brought me here to Sarasota.
Let's get into your story of how you got into the career you're in. When you were a child, is that what you want to be, an accountant? Did you have other desires when you were little?
I've had many desires to do different things and that's part of the challenge in life. I'm trying to figure out what that is you want to do. I went through a phase where I thought I wanted to be a nurse because I was a candy striper. I thought I wanted to be a flight attendant so I could travel the world, all of those things. I somehow pivoted at some point and started loving math. I went on to school. I never even thought about being an accountant, quite honestly. I majored in Business Administration. I love accounting. It was fairly easy and then found myself teaching Accounting one at night and loved it. I felt I would be a professor because I love teaching. The university I was teaching at night changed the accreditation standards that required a Master's Degree and work experience equivalent and I didn't have either at that time. I heard about Cummins and that they would pay for your Master's degree. I joined Cummins in order to get my Master's degree and teach full-time. However, I spent over 21 years at Cummins in various roles for finance.
Let's go back to why you wanted to be a nurse.
It’s caring for people and seeing that you could make their lives a little brighter during the day. I remember one gentleman. He had bad emphysema and he would come repeatedly back to the hospital and seeing him and making his life a little bit brighter. That was what drove me to want to care for people.
Was there anyone in your family that was medical? How did you start volunteering there?
My mom was what was called a red coat. She had heard about the Candy Striper Program. I did that when I was a freshman in high school. I enjoyed it.
You did that for how long?
About a year, then I started working at McDonald’s. That was my high school job, checking out people when they would order their food and so forth.
What made you want to be a flight attendant?
The interest of travel, getting to meet new people, new cultures, and see the world. That was the big draw on flight attendant.
Facing Fears: Caring for people and seeing that you could make their lives a little brighter during the day is reason enough to be a nurse.
You became an accountant. Was there anything during school that was influential to you and making the decision of which direction you were going to go with it?
It was Dr. Patricia Isaacs. She was my Accounting professor at Berea College. She taught me Accounting One, Two and Intermediate Accounting. She appreciated my work that I did or my course, I did well in a class. She was a great professor and was able to explain the accounting concepts quite well. It was more like she was a friend, not a professor far removed. She insisted to call her Trish not Dr. Isaacs. Another colleague at the college, Marty, was another big influence on my life. She taught Business Law and she also taught accounting too, but I had her for business law. Both women were very influential.
How were they influential? How did it pivot with what you were going to do?
This is deep and I don't know that I was planning to go there. I come from very humble means. Both my parents never completed high school. Neither did my two older brothers. One of my older brothers did go back and get his GED later and so did my mother. However, when I went to college, I didn't think I could do it. I had this self-doubt and in my freshman year, I had a 4.0. I was like, "I can do this." I got active in a lot of things. Having them as professors too and then seeing that I could do it and they encouraged me. Encouragement was the big key.
Was it because they were women or did they know your family background?
I don't even think they did know my family background. They had that care and touch which also inspired me to want to teach deep down.
With your family never going past high school, were they supportive of you going to college?
My mother, yes. My dad, not so much because he wanted me to stay home with him because I was his little girl and he thought I was doing fine. I was doing okay, but I knew that I would never go very far if I did not get a college degree. He later came around and was very supportive. I remember a tough semester, I was about to jeopardize my 4.0 because I had gotten too involved in different organizations on campus. I called him and I said, "Dad, I'm ready to quit school. I want to come home." He's like, "You're doing so good." He became my biggest promoter. The next day, he calls me back after he had pushed me to stay at school and he said, "If you want to come home, you can." I said, "No, dad. I want to vent a little. I'm fine now."
What was it then that drove you to do this? Even before those professors, you didn't have examples in your family of doing this. What was the driving force inside you not only to have the confidence to go do something that’s not in your territory, that you've never seen before or been modeled, but also that you'd want to?
I had worked at another company called Robus Leather Corporation early on my career. I went to IB Tech. It's a Technical College for Legal Secretary Technical Certificate. When I finished that, I went to work at Robus as the secretary for about six months and then I was promoted into customer service. I was taking care of all of the customers at this small company. I wanted to be part of the sales manager group because I felt I could do it, but it was very male-dominated. I was never given the opportunity. I stayed and did the customer service thing. I saw other positions posted and it required a Master's degree and I'm like, "I think I could do that." They're never going to give me the opportunity if I don't have an education. That's what drove me to start thinking about, “I'll never get a chance if I don't get a college degree because it's required.” That's what made me drive that path. Why I chose Berea College? My sister-in-law, which is quite interesting because she was in Nursing there. She quit and married my eldest brother. That's how I found out about Berea College because no student pays tuition. All students have to work on campus.
Where is this college?
This is in Berea, Kentucky. There are about 1,600 students that attend there and about 85% are from the Appalachian Region, 10% are from other parts of the US, then 5% are about international students. It's a phenomenal program and all of these students have to work at least ten hours a week to help run the college. That's how I ended up there. That's where I got my Bachelor's in Business Administration. I love the college. I was like, "Free, yes. I'll be done." If I tried to do it on the side.
Do they still do that?
They do. They have a huge endowment. It's phenomenal. They call it the little Harvard for poor kids. It's wonderful. It's such a good college.
You graduate, what's your first job in accounting? You didn't become a professor obviously.
My first job in accounting was teaching accounting. It would have been my first job. I did that for two semesters before I went to Cummins. My first job at Cummins was not in accounting. It was an engineering change control. It was an hourly role. My whole purpose was to get in there so I can get my Master's degree. That was the whole purpose. It was about education, not working there. I was there for about a year and a half and then I transitioned into a cost accounting role. I did cost accounting for a couple of years there and then I was promoted to fixed asset manager. At the same time, I was working on my MBA at night.
I finished that in May of 2002. I also had transitioned our fixed asset work charged here in service location in Nashville, Tennessee. That was my spring semester. When I finished that role, I did a cost analyst role and then finance manager role. I did a Six Sigma Black Belt role in finance. I did an Oracle Systems Implementation in Japan, China, Korea and Singapore. After that role, I was asked to be the XPI Controller. It's a small business unit, a mini business unit at three manufacturing locations. I was the controller for that at Cummins. It was a joint venture with Scania.
Going into that first job, how did you know how to act or go about your day? What were you looking to for examples or how were you feeling as far as your confidence starting that job?
In the first cost accounting role?
Yes.
Doing the engineering change control made an amazing segue into the role because I was already familiar with the bill of material structure which is critical to any cost accountant. It was a simple costing role at that facility because we did process costing. We had the bill of material structure and all of the product we made there was the same. We spread our manufacturing expenses over the quantity that we produce. That was fairly simple. I moved later into our corporate costing team that did some of the more complex costing which required allocations of costs and things like that because every product was unique. Those products were much more difficult to roll up the cost and do the allocations and so forth.
How did those roles come available to you? Were you looking for them or did someone tap you to take on that next role?
The first cost accounting role, the company had done a separation package and quite a bit of finance and accounts. It was in finance, HR and IT. That was back in '98. Quite a few people took that package and then that opened up a role for me in '99. That's why I heard that role was coming up.
You heard it was open and you decided you wanted that.
Facing Fears: The absence of a proper succession plan can cause harm to the company and the other employees left as well.
The second corporate costing role, I had heard about that role as well as I was being tapped for the managed expense, planning forecasting reporting finance person at the plant where I was doing costing. I opted for the more corporate costing role because I only had to worry about me and I was working on my MBA at night. I didn't want to have to worry about a person reporting to me. The person that was going to backfill me, learn my role, teach all of those people, plus do my MBA at night. I decided to take that corporate costing role. I have to worry about training the person that was backfilling me plus do my job at the new role.
When did you start supervising people and how did you have the skills to do it by then?
My first supervisory role was when I was the fixed asset manager. I have to say that it was one of the most difficult roles and rewarding at the same time. I had been their boss for about six months when we decided to move that work to Nashville, Tennessee. It was because I love people and I never want harm to come to them in any way, shape or form. These two employees that reported to me were phenomenal. They had been at the company for a very long time. They knew that those jobs were going to move. We decided to move earlier mainly and it was for them because there were about 35 roles that were going to be made available to any employees that were available.
I wanted them to have first choice because they had the highest seniority. I had talked to my boss and said, "Can we move this work now?" I explained all the reasons why. It was a tough call. We decided to move early and I tried to orchestrate things. They knew that we were trying to think for their best interest in them to get the other opportunities there in that location. When I told them, they were glad the way I handled it and it's an office union. I couldn't tell them or ask them. I had to try to make the decision and coordinate with the labor relations team who coordinated with the union and all of that. I wanted to be the one to tell them. It worked well and they were grateful. It's not easy. The first supervisor role was tough.
That helps set the tone of your leadership style from there?
I think so. I’m always trying to look at what's good for your employees and how do you help them get to where they want to be and think about them in their future.
How do you do that now when you're leading people? How have you put that into practice?
I'll shift back to prior to leaving from Cummins. I had one employee that English was his second language. I kept getting feedback that people don't understand him and I had no issue. I completely understood him quite well. He had never had accounting so I had him take an accounting class. I also had him do Toastmasters and said, "Do that during the day when you're here at work. Do that every Tuesday." When he came into the role, he was not very confident. He inherited something where he had to clean up some stuff. He was afraid to deny savings projects and things like that. I said, "David, that's your job." I remember that because I was that way when I first had started denying purchase requisitions. I'm like, "I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings." You'll get over that because that's your job is to control the cost. I got him to where we define the roles around the cost savings projects and people got to love and respect him. That gave me so much more joy than anything, to see him excel and have confidence. He had a lot of respect from the whole team and they appreciated him. That's one area.
My other person encouraging her, I sponsored three Six Sigma projects for her so that was on her to-do list. She called me and told me she completed her Bachelor's degree in accounting and I was so proud of her because she's not young. She's got a lot of wisdom and has been working for a while. She's such an amazing, smart person but never had that opportunity. Her family is similar to mine. They didn't see the value in education per se at the college level. To see her get that done and then to call me and tell me was like, "I'm so proud of you." It gives me a lot of joy to see them excel and she's got her Six Sigma Green Belt Certification and now she's got her Bachelor's.
Her son is going to college now which makes her very proud too which is awesome. She's broken that in her family, that tradition of you can do more, you have more value than you think if you find the support and encouragement you need to do that. That's what I enjoy. Trying to say, “Where do you want to be? How do I help you get there?” I'm thinking about who's my replacement even now? How do I groom them and make them be extremely prepared if I leave for whatever someday? They need to be prepared and never put the company in a bad way. If you don't prepare with succession plan well, you cause harm to the company and the other employees left as well. That's important.
What it sounds like is you nurture people individually rather than trying to do a one to many because that can easily happen where people get branded like your story with English as the second language happens so much where people don't have the time to help that person along even though you can see potential. Where they feel supported along that path not only helps them in their career but creates more happiness in their roles, I would assume.
It's interesting because you hit the nail on the head about the one-to-one versus the one-to-many. I love mentoring. My Six Sigma Master Black Belt role, that's what I did a lot of because you're mentoring individuals on their projects, you're helping them see the patterns in the data. When they see it and they're like, "I get it now. I understand." Seeing that excitement for discovery in an individual and their learning and so forth is a lot of fun. The mentoring and imparting knowledge, so their lives are better.
You can see how your story has translated into your leadership that you're trying to help other people like you that have gotten it, that it's possible. That was in your nursing side, but then you have this travel side that you've been able to incorporate into the work that you do through the IMA. How did that path go? How did you even get started with IMA and have the confidence to take on a global board role you have?
It did not happen overnight. It started when I took that first Cost Accounting role. Cummins is a big supporter of IMA. They had their own local chapter which are mostly Cummins employees. There are some other businesses that also have numbers that are in our chapter. For the most part, it's Cummins. I had a colleague that worked with me and said, "Ginger, you should come to a luncheon and check out IMA. You should get on our chapter board," all these kinds of things. I had no idea what I was doing, quite honestly. I was pretty green. I had Ron Luther, he's been a mentor for a long time for me. Ron had reached out to me and said, "Ginger, would you to be our student rep at the council level?" I was like, "What does that mean?" He said, "If you come to four meetings, we'll pay your way to San Diego." I'm like, "Of course."
They paid for my conference fee and everything. I went to the conference and all of the learning that happened there was phenomenal and I was hooked. They talked about XBRL early before it ever became in corporations. I had heard about it before it ever was a thing in corporations. It's facing your fears because I'm a small-town girl. I didn't even live in town. Big cities are scary. They make you anxious if you're from a small place. The more times you expose yourself to those things, they suddenly don't become fearful. You're the only one that feels that fear. The other people around you don't even notice you're fearful.
You travel around the world. How do you communicate back to your family what you do and what your life is like?
They don't even know all of it. I've given them some of the magazines where I've written the articles for strategic finance but they don't even know and that's okay. They know me as me and who I am. They do know that I travel. In Cummins, I remember I traveled quite a bit in Morris, when things were not very safe down there. Cummins always keeps us safe when we have to visit the plants. My mother always knew and it always worried her. She has faith. She prays, and I appreciate that. I feel a great deal of protection from that. I tell my mom that I'm going to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jordan, all these places. She's like, "Okay."
How do you integrate those two sides together? For any of us are, our backstories, it is what turns inside of you while you're trying to show the face of who you are to the world and what you want to be but not lose yourself in the process as well. When do you think you became comfortable merging those two sides of you?
My family doesn't necessarily realize that I talk to a room with 1,400 people. I don't ever tell them that, "I talked to 1,400 people." They have no idea. I'm just me around them and it's more about them. I don't talk about myself much. When I'm with my family, it's more about them. I care about them. I want to know what you're doing. They don't necessarily know that I talk to large groups of people or whatever. When I hear when I've had a talk that it's changed somebody's life, it's almost you've touched that one person and maybe more than one person in that group. To know you've made a positive impact, that's what life's about for me.
These are the stories that bring color to the people around us. Everybody is walking around with who they are at work but you don't understand all the facets to them or pieces that made them who they are along the way. It makes you even more fascinating. A lot of times, people hide those things because they're like, "What would they think of me if they knew this?" Instead of like, "That's amazing." I do some rapid questions at the end and you pick a category. The category you can choose from is either family and friends, money, spiritual or health.
Family and friends.
Things or actions that I don't have that I want with my family and friends?
More time.
I can only imagine why. Things or actions I do have that I want?
The connections, the lifelong friendships and connection to family.
Things or actions I don't have that I don't want as far as my family and friends?
It’s drama. I don't have too much, thank goodness. I don't want drama but I don't have too much so that's good.
The last one, things or actions I do have that I don't want with my family and friends?
I have distance from my family and friends. I don't want that. It's what it is right now.
Is there anything you would like from this conversation that people take away from your story or from anything that you do that you want to make sure we close out with?
Don't be afraid. I've heard other people say, “Face your fears, live uncomfortably.” If you do face those at some point, they become somewhat comfortable and it helps you grow. Being uncomfortable helps you grow. Find a professional organization like IMA, the Institute of Management Accountants. That organization has helped me grow tremendously and my leadership capabilities. Make sure you have positive encouragement around you. Not to say that all of those interactions will always be positive. You may also have some challenging people you have to deal with and that's part of the growth.
Find someone to debrief with that you trust in certain situations. You may have different mentors along the way. People that you've met, they mentor you in one area or another. As you grow and you're at leadership skills or within your companies, you may find hard things going on and you need somebody that you trust that it doesn't affect the company that you discuss challenges with and they're going to keep it in confidence. That would be some of my words of wisdom. Don't be afraid to ask people you respect for a mentor. I've done that a few times and it's worked out quite well for me so that's important.
Thank you so much for sharing your story. I'm sure a lot of people are going to have a lot of lessons to take away.
Thank you, Amy. Thanks for the opportunity. I really appreciate it.
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For our Mindful Moments with this interview with Ginger, which I found fascinating as I do so many times. I love learning people's backgrounds and stories. Hers, in particular, was extremely interesting with her growing up in the Appalachia and breaking the generational patterns and moving on to go to college when some of her family had never completed high school. When you think about this path, and so many of us have different stories that we grow up with and take into the workplace as well. It's important to think about how these stories affect us in the way that we lead and work with others. There were so many turns where Ginger could have had self-doubt of whether she could be good enough. Instead, she observed and followed the path that was in front of her.
For many of us, we can let that self-doubt take over rather than stepping back and allowing the path to happen. Being aware of what's happening but knowing that there is a path. There may be times in our career that we enjoy more than others, but each thing leads to the next thing. One of the lessons she talked about was when she was young of the types of things that she liked to do. One of them was volunteering at the hospital because she loved having that impact of caring for others. The other was a dream of becoming a flight attendant, so that she could travel. This is important. When we think about our origins and our stories of how we're able to apply those feelings of what serves us and what creates value for us personally into the jobs that we do now. Did she become a flight attendant? No. Did she work in a hospital? No. In every one of her stories, you could see the through-line of caring for others of how that helped her in her career.
By her taking on different roles, whether that be through her career or through the IMA, she's able to achieve that joy of travel, learning new cultures and being able to see the world in a world that she was sheltered from growing up. As homework, it's important to step back and think about what are those values that we hold dear that we want to put out into the world? What is the experience that we want to create with other people? When we can see how we do that in our daily life, we can gain so much more satisfaction and other sense that we made an impact in the world, even if it's a tiny impact. That we mattered to somebody else that we created value for someone else, passed on our knowledge to somebody else that they could be able to gain from and improve their lives. When we can see we make that impact, it makes everything we do more meaningful.
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