Meet a Bright Mind: Anna Nicklin

Anna Nicklin is Global Digital Communications Manager at Nouryon. She has been a member of the ConnectMinds network for a number of years and been a great contributor in one of our Digital Strategy groups in the Nordics.

It has been intriguing and impressive in roughly equal measures to follow how Anna has managed to lead and create results while the circumstances around her have changed dramatically; not once, but numerous times. She has gone from leading a dispersed team, mainly split between Gothenburg and Amsterdam to relying solely on a network of external partners and agencies to deliver the global digital communications scope of the newly launched company. She has lead high profile projects as well as one that had to be kept completely under wraps for many months because of all the legal hoops and loops that come with a pending major merger. Common denominators throughout: the teams, suppliers and stakeholder groups are typically spread out over many locations and “hierarchy levels” in the organisation, a typical matrix organisational set up.

In a time when many “skate over things” because they are “chronically super-busy” and rushing from one thing to the next, Anna seems to insist on being well prepared. The scope of the work in hand is clear and well defined. The expected outcome has been agreed through consultation (not necessarily lengthy, but enough that those who should care do care). And she has a far-better-than-average grasp of all the components; the cogs, wheels and wires, the skills and practices that are deployed and relied on at the various stages; not an expert on every detail, but sufficiently read up to be able to challenge and question with authority. The insistence on “being well prepared” and “knowing your stuff” oozes authority; even at a distance. It creates a sense of “things won’t slip under the radar” or “it won’t be possible to get away with cutting a corner here”.

Combine this with an ability to make most situations ‘work for you’ and you have a leader that is hard to shoot down. ‘Making tricky situations work for you’ is essentially about not being defeatist when a difficult situation is seemingly made even more difficult because of a cut, a name change, a travel ban or some other trivial hindrance. Quickly take stock of the situation; the new reality and re-adjust (knock and kick!) any original plans accordingly and take control of the new narrative, almost as if nothing had happened. I have seen Anna do this more than once: The circumstances may have changed, but we’ll still deliver!

Finally, Anna seems to always ‘get her hands dirty’ too - and will go the extra mile when required; put in the hours, get on that plane to see people etc. Something that commands respect and enables the ‘unlocking of the hidden energy reserves’ on a stretched team - even if they sit in different places. So where or how does one learn this type of leadership..? Is it typically based on experience; on having ‘walked the walk’?

“Indeed, it is all comes down to getting your hands dirty, and knowing the audience and business, you build the strategy - or tactics - as much bottom-up as top-down and more importantly about internal and external teams taking on a sense of end-to-end responsibility for the product'' says Anna.”I look at this rather pragmatically, it is handywork and as the head carpenter, I do anything to help our internal stakeholders to reach their goals but guard the scope well - rather do less, but do it well. In that, I think and thereby we build a mutual trust, and help each other out to reach company objectives, whether it means launching a huge digital marketing campaign or fixing a broken link”.

Is it crazy to assume that part of it might have to do with the region Anna resides in and works from; that the grit and determination that signifies her work is part and parcel of being from Sweden’s hub of heavy industry; Gothenburg is a city built on raw materials and engineering. Cars, ships, structures, paint, toilet paper and chemicals. All of them products that (including the loo paper..!) take detailed planning, meticulous attention to detail and leaders that take ownership of the end-to-end process, even when working with dispersed teams. A recipe more digital setups should try! I look forward to following Anna’s work in 2020 and beyond.

Meet a Bright Mind: Anna Nicklin

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