Improvise, adapt and overcome;
That’s the unofficial motto of the United Sates Marine Corps. It summarizes how Marines accomplish their mission objectives in difficult circumstances.
I have never been brave enough or tough enough to be a Marine, but then, few people are.
I have always been impressed by how succinctly those three words; Improvise, Adapt, Overcome, encapsulate exactly what it takes to be successful .
No plan can ever anticipate exactly how things are going to go in real life. In the business world, no plan can ever predict exactly what the competitive environment will look like, how the customers will react or even how well your own staff will execute.
That’s why retailers in the future, meaning now, would be wise to take a page or two from the Marine Corp handbook. They need to make sure that the people they bring into their organizations have the ability, and the freedom, to Improvise, Adapt and Overcome.
In the future, as in right now, retailers that want to succeed need to:
- Hire the right people
- Compensate those people competitively
- Train those people
- Give those people clear mission objectives
- Instill in those people a culture of success
Successful retailers hire the best people then can possibly get. It sounds trite to say that every employee should have the potential of one day running the company, but trite as it may be, that is exactly the type of person you should be hiring. Successful retailers look for people who want grow along with the company. They need people who are committed to learning and who are looking forward to taking on progressively more responsibility. They are looking for people who think like owners.
To get those types of employees, successful retailers offer competitive compensation. That’s more than just a good hourly wage. It includes health benefits, career training, sufficient time off, potential for profit sharing and a clear explanation of what it takes to progress through the organization.
Also, successful retailers look for employees that are not just interviewing with the company, but who are also interviewing the company. The effect of the recent economic unpleasantness has people looking for solid, well lead companies that can be competitive in the future. The right employees will ask about the company’s commitment to technology, their plans for growth and maybe even ask to see the company’s financials. This should be seen as a sign that you are looking at the right person rather than as an imposition. Today’s productive employees think of themselves as independent contractors looking for a business partnership as well as a job. At least, the right employees are.
Getting the right employee is a great start, but you won’t have them long unless you give them the right training. In addition to learning the basics about company policy, proper procedures and suitable conduct; successful retailers are teaching employees how to read balance sheets and P&L statements. They are conducting seminars on product development, vendor relationships and the ins and outs of overseas sourcing. They are providing sales training that goes beyond the meet and greet to courses on proper body language, overcoming objections and developing meaningful rapport with customers.
There is a wealth of training available that can be delivered in written form, though community college classes and via the internet that smart retailers are capitalizing on. Successful retailers hire employees that want to learn and then they are offering them the tools to gain tha t additional knowledge.
Smart retailers are also using employees as trainers. Nothing cements a culture like the passing down of knowledge from an elder. Having employees teach each other attaches validity to the information that is critically valuable.
Well chosen and well trained employees are most successful when they can internalize the company’s overall objectives. Clear objectives, broad in scope and set in the mid to long term (6 months to 3 years) work best. Don’t try and put objectives on a coffee mug. They need to be clear and simple, not catchy and overly cute.
While there should be as little restraint placed on the employee trying to achieve an objective as possible, do set limits. Engaging employees in the development of specific strategies helps them gain an understanding of what the company wants accomplished and creates self imposed parameters. Employee participation in strategic (and later tactical) development gains the all important employee buy-in and acts as a built in B**L S**T detector, you can never be too aware of just how out of touch with things on the front lines you may be.
Set milestones to measure progress and to prove you are serious. What gets measured, gets done. Ongoing reporting will help to direct employees towards those milestones and will re-enforce the company’s commitment to that progress. Along with the reporting should be a system for providing guidance that will help employees in reaching the company’s objectives. Guidance can be stories of how others have succeeded, a demonstration of how progress to date is affecting the growth and or health of the organization or specific training given to high performers as well as lagging employees.
This commitment to achievement brings us to the last point: Creating a culture of success. You can hire the best, compensate them better than anybody else and give them the best training in the world, but unless you expect great things, great things will never occur.
Set high expectations and celebrate the achievement of those expectations. Tell the stories of heroes, those who have Improvised, Adapted and Overcome. Create a mythology surrounding past achievements and continue to look for opportunities to add stories to that mythology.
Reward those who do an exceptional job and… as harsh as this sounds… get rid of those who simply can’t cut it. Nothing builds morale better than the termination of an employee who clearly is not achieving. Now, don’t mistake this for using termination as a motivator. No one works well under the pressure of losing their job. I’m talking about removing an employee who has been given every chance for success and for one reason or another has not been able to succeed.
In the end, the retail world of tomorrow, which started yesterday in case you were wondering, will be a place where success or failure happens in the stores. Wining retailers will be flexible, nimble and instantly responsive. Successful retailers will staff their stores with people motivated to improvise, adapt and overcome.
Already, smaller companies are stealing market share from big box stores by focusing on having the right management and staff, and by committing to giving them the best training possible. Then they give them clear and concise business objects for them to accomplish.
Once you can do that, then you can have your management and staff meet any business situation, no matter how difficult by allowing them to Improvise, Adapt and Overcome.
