In my last article, I wrote about the importance of articulating the “why” of business to employees, in order to help translate lofty company missions into meaningful activities, and to create a shared sense of purpose.  But answering the question “how” is equally important.  How do you bring to life a company’s purpose and deliver commercial success in a fast-moving world?

 

First, it is vital to reward the behaviours you want to see.  This starts with recruiting the right leaders and making sure they are living and breathing the values in their own way – if they aren’t, no-one else will bring them to life.  But having the right team in place is only the start – you need to make sure that success in behaving the right way is acknowledged and celebrated. 

 

The incentives for this do not need to be simply financial rewards.  At Howdens we reward team performance with a share of the profits, but we also frequently provide other treats, from large trips to small gift boxes, when we want to demonstrate that we value our people, or we simply want to say thank you.

 

Second, embed an organisation structure which empowers employees.  It is not uncommon to find a command and control structure in larger companies.  This will help to manage risk in a diverse portfolio of stores, for instance, and has often grown out of the era in which the retail industry was dominated by brilliant and strong leaders. 

 

But this is not necessarily the best model for a world in which changes in society and disruptions in markets continue to accelerate.  Across organisations today, a top-down autocracy, where the knowledge, experience and ideas of the people on the ground are ignored, will simply fail to create the agility required to respond.   The target must be to create the culture where accountability and responsibility for local performance goes hand-in-hand with linking company-wide as well as local responses to change. 

 

An agile organisation is one that can respond to local needs without constantly having to ask the centre for permission; which has small teams within support functions that feel they can innovate and can persuade local teams of the benefits of the changes being rolled out; and where there is a palpable level of trust between all parts of the organisation.  In Howdens, we use the phrases “do what you say” and “worthwhile for all concerned” to capture this essence of accountability and perspective.

 

Third, testing and innovation.  Someone somewhere is trying to disrupt what you do and make money out of that disruption.  To compete, organisations need to have a ‘test and learn’ mindset that is as interested in learning from failures as pressing the accelerator on successes, and the appetite to cast the net for ideas as widely as possible. 

 

Finally, a listening culture.  Successful retailers have always been good at listening to their customers and being curious about what that feedback might mean.  But nowadays the roar is deafening:  a constant stream of consciousness coming from a spread of digital and non-digital channels including social media, focus groups, Select Committees, business analysts, opinion makers and so on.   And it is just as important to listen to the voices of employees across three to four generations (rather than, perhaps, half a dozen lieutenants). 

 

Gleaning the real insight, at the right time, from all this noise requires processes, systems, but most importantly the right culture for delivering and receiving feedback.   How often are leaders on the front line?  How often are groups of employees feeding back what is and is not working?  How is the feedback acted upon?  How quickly do people see changes happen?

 

Reward, Empower, Test And Innovate, Listen.  Do all that and you will have your organisation successfully competing in the RETAIL game.