West Chester CEO Claire Watts has climbed the corporate ladder at Macy’s, Walmart, Limited, Land’s End and now QVC, but she did it by working backwards.

“I began to understand that there was a plan that needed to be put together to work,” she told The Wall Street Journal in a recent interview. “It was sort of like, how do I work backwards? Begin with the end in mind and make sure that you’re taking the steps backwards and you’ve got the right resources against each of the steps to get things done. You have to communicate, communicate, communicate. You have to delegate.”

In the candid Wall Street Journal Q&A, Watts shared her experiences about being a manager, a female executive, work-life balance and recognizing a good job fit, including what she learned at her first management positions.

“It takes skill to learn how to manage your time and someone else’s time, to understand what it is they need to learn, and how the two of you become a team,” she said in the article.

Read more about Watts’ life and advice in The Wall Street Journal here.

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Top image courtesy of the Wall Street Journal.