I'm Am Not A Robot

“Select all photos with traffic lights.” 

Have you ever compared your store management life to the robot log ins on purchasing websites? I’m guessing it feels like a never-ending battle to engage and be different from the norm. As you know, retail is a peculiar beast compared to other industries. It isn’t a 9-5 job and each day varies from the last, but sometimes the way you are managed or the way you manage your team can be very robotic. 

Do this. Do that. Not enough payroll. Not enough hours in the day to finish a project. A no call no show. The same customer returns merchandise… again. Another customer makes a complaint for a better discount. Employees crying in the bathroom. Cell phones on the sales floor. More markdowns. Moving merch from the front to the back. Moving that same merchandise from the back to the front. Last minute promos. Trash left in the fitting room. Go backs. “How are you today?” Schedule changes. These are just a few things that can pop up during a day. With so much going on inside the store, why are employees bored out of their minds? 

The answer is YOU. If you are feeling like you are on a never-ending loop, then you aren’t doing your job to the best of your ability. Of course, you like things done a certain way. You have routines. You have been doing it that way for a long time, but how about changing perspective and processes a bit? How about empowering your people? I know it sounds simple, but in reality, if you are going through the same motions of managing your people on a daily basis with all the crazy going on in your store, you are not doing the job of managing. You are just…doing.

Employees crave a sense of accomplishment. Herzberg said it best with his Motivation/Hygiene Theory. I am paraphrasing here; to reach true fulfillment one has to feel like they are a part of something and fulfilled, supported and challenged. If an employee feels no sense of accomplishment or direction, boredom and job dissatisfaction ensue. As the store leader, it is your job to foster a work environment that enhances job responsibilities and makes your team want to come to work every day. When was the last time you expressed an interest or really talked to your people? Asked them what they need from you to feel challenged? Took notes and learned something new? On the other hand, when was the last time your boss really had a direct conversation with you concerning your needs? Meant what they said? Answered the hard questions? Helped with a concern?

I write this with the hope it will help motivate yourself AND those you work with to change the process. You must ask the right questions of your team and open up a bit. It’s not easy, but your people will thank you for it. Your boss will thank you for it. It takes guts to ask for help or change your mind set, but you will be worthier of a management title for doing so. Your team will feel better about their future and your store will run smoothly knowing it is an ever-changing environment where people feel empowered to make decisions and not fear mistakes. So instead of going through the everyday motions of do this or do that, how about taking a more democratic approach by asking someone how they would accomplish the task at hand. Try it. You may just like what you hear.

Restoration

I grew up on a sailboat. Pretty sure I was conceived on a sailboat too. Well at least that is what I tell myself. Water means everything to me. I am a Pisces, if you believe in that type of stuff. Many of the characteristics all make sense to me. The biggest one…I'm a dreamer. That is for sure. I have a million ideas and know that someday they will all become reality. At least that is what I keep telling myself. My husband, however, probably wants the reality to set in sooner than later. I am babbling. My father loved his sailboats. We had many. He even bought an old wooden sailboat to restore. It sat in our front yard until it was too far gone to repair. My point? Restoring ourselves is hard. Really hard. It takes a vast amount of courage and belief in your purpose. It takes a strong sense of character and a support system around you that is not afraid to tell you like it is. It takes time.

We go through many transitions in our lives and to those just starting out on your adventure I want to leave you with some advice. Make sense of who you are. Seems pretty generic, I know, but bear with me here. Through the years in my career, I changed my course several times. I often think back to the movie “Sliding Doors” or, in current times, any multi-dimensional narrative out there in movie land. So many options to take. Which ones are the best? How does a person decide that question? Is it financial stability? Career progress? Save a marriage? Health related? How do you make a choice that will affect you for the rest of your life? I wish I knew the right answer, but I can only share my experiences. The answer is... all of the above.

My career has been a roller coaster. All over the place. (Yep, a Pisces). Did I make the right decisions along the way? I left journalism school for business school. Switched degree programs and universities. Why? In looking back, I think it was because of fear. Yes, fear. I was in magazine and book publishing and I didn’t want to move to New York. Idiot!!!! So, I left Journalism and started over in business school. Seems so prosaic now, but it was retail, merchandising and management. Ooooo much more exciting! This restored my faith in having a career. After all, business is everywhere. Stores are everywhere. So many options for a career path;  buying, management, recruiting, operations, merchandising… I was revitalized! Until I wasn’t.

The one thing I know to be true is people need to believe in you. It only takes one to make you feel like crap and self-implode. I had that happen to me at the height of my career. So, I left and started fulfilling one of my crazy dreams. Entrepreneurship. I started my own business. I thought it would be a dream come true. I would be around for the masses who have experienced all that I have. I wanted to ensure they had the support I never had. I wanted to fill a mentor void I so desperately craved. I have, and I continue to do so, but I discovered I needed more along the way to fulfill the needs of others.  MORE KNOWLEDGE! Even after 20 plus years working in retail developing employees to be their best selves and leading many businesses to success, I wanted more. So, I made the decision to advance myself into the world of strategic HR. I have decided that in order to achieve all that I want, I need to know everything there is to start from scratch. I need this to revive a part of me that embraces employee empowerment and development processes.

I never thought it would be so hard starting over. At my age, a Gen Xer, starting over can be a crazy adventure in determination and deprivation. Studying for the PHR exam has been an eye-opening experience. I haven’t taken an exam or studied, for that matter, in 25 years. My brain has had to reach back into long-forgotten memories to figure out how. Through the course of this new adventure, I have learned so much more than I could have ever imagined. I have learned that many of the leaders, I have worked for over the years, should never have had those positions in the first place. I learned we drank too much Kool-Aid. Retail management means you are your own HR department. You learn from experience. Your policies were probably copied and pasted from other companies and your operations are a hatchet job of ifs and probable’s. Perhaps an employment lawyer signed off on your handbooks, but did they? Now I know this truth. I have taken classes and read over 1700 pages of text. I have learned from those in positions of policy and observed from afar just how much is needed out there. 

Now comes the tough part. What do I do with this newfound knowledge? Reinvent myself…again? I think back on the sailboat rotting in my parents’ yard. Am I going to end up like that? A pile of wood with good intentions of becoming something better or will I sail on the waves of Lake Superior with the wind at my back and set a course of discovery? Will I restore the person who had all the conviction to change the world one store at a time? The Pisces in me says I will discover a new land and live up to my potential. I better get to it.

No Exit

Have you ever dreamed of an exit, but haven't been able to find one nor had the courage to want to? Why are you staying in a position that is causing you to fantasize of somewhere else? Don't we owe it to ourselves to love what we do? Don't we owe it to ourselves to be surrounded by people who support us, believe in us and most of all challenge us?

“I wish I could just leave.” Said many.

If you can’t do anything to make your job life better then you have the power to leave it behind. 

But first… Ask yourselves these questions:

1. Am I doing everything in my power to be a better employee? Am I empowering those around me to be stronger? Am I invested in the well-being of those I manage?
2. What is making me feel this way? Have I spoken to anyone about my feelings? Are my feelings shared by others around me?
3. What have I done lately to contribute to the environment? Have I developed anyone? Have I exceeded a customer’s expectations? Have I exceeded an employee’s expectations?

I bring this up because it takes a lot to start over somewhere else. It is a job itself to find something new. I have found that many are just not putting forth an effort to make their jobs meaningful. They have grandiose expectations of what they should be doing without the mindset to actually achieve those expectations.

Everyday should be a learning experience, if you aren’t learning something about yourself or those around you, then by all means…find an exit. You aren’t doing anyone any favors by sabotaging their success and you sure aren’t doing yourself any good by not being the best you can be.

I have been there. It is a hard decision to make. You have a million different thought processes going on in your head. To actually come to the conclusion that there is nothing more you can do to mentally be happy in your job environment takes a lot of guts to admit to oneself. I am not talking about living on the offered salary or tired of the work load. I am talking about exhausting EVERY avenue and weighing its consequences on you, your team and the business itself. It is not easy. What you do in the end affects the entire business and YOU have to be ok with that. That is a huge burden to take on and one that you will live with. I think for this reason alone is why people stay in their jobs for so long. If you are feeling the desire to move on go back the questions I posed earlier. It will determine whether or not this decision is right for you.

Choose Your Own Adventure

One of my favorite book series I loved to read growing up was the "Choose Your Own Adventure" stories by Edward Packard. It opened my mind to variety of scenarios and gave me the ability to explore adventures with different outcomes.

The memory of these books brings to mind, don't laugh, our current state of retail. An interesting observation, right? As managers, we have the ability to choose many different paths each day. Although there are only 24 hours in a day, those 24 hours can have immediate impact on a single course of action. Albeit, employee development, store appearance, customer interactions, operational systems…you get the picture. It is up to you to determine what kind of impact you are going to make.

I know there are many critics out there saying retail is struggling to survive, but I see it prospering everywhere I go, the problem isn’t stores in general, new stores and small businesses open every day, its people. People are the problem. Managers, YOU are choosing the wrong adventure.

I find that there are two types of managers. Those that can and don’t vs. those that do and choose. All managers have the ability to be successful, but something happens along the way that takes a mindset from a passion to lead to a safe mentality. That something, is usually a wrong decision made either by a superior that affected them poorly or a decision made internally that brought on a negative result. The can and don’ts come from this error in judgement. These managers go with a popular decision process. One that will be accepted to maintain a level of consistency. I am not saying that this is wrong or unsuccessful, but it can become comfortable and underwhelming.

The do and choose are the managers that do whatever it takes and choose not to give up on making a difference. We need more of this type in the business world. Managers that choose to stand out in a crowd and go against the grain in terms of process and people are ones that are always looking for that next adventure. They make unpopular decisions, mistakes and end up being put in an outcast category. Oftentimes their paths are rocky, stressful and a battleground of what if’s. What makes this type of manager interesting is that their decisions and mistakes often bring prosperous results, tenured teams and desired organizational strategies.

Unfortunately, these managers never seem to last long in organizations. WHY?? Wouldn’t it be wise to choose the adventure of rocky paths and individuality over the path of knowing the outcome? Wouldn’t it be wise to choose the manager that isn’t afraid of making a mistake? Wouldn’t it make better sense to choose an adventure that changes the mindset and opens the door to new possibilities? Something needs to change. The store environments we walk into today are filled with disgruntled employees, comfortable employees, lost employees and more importantly, employees ignoring customers because YOU choose the wrong approaches in your leadership style every day. Retail isn’t dying. The successful businesses have grown from their mistakes and prospered. The do and choose managers have opened their own stores and are leading the way in making a difference in communities because the can and don'ts have given them no other choice. It's up to you to choose your next adventure. Choose wisely. Your businesses are depending on you to make the right decision.