48 Inches, a Little Progress Every Day
Steady progress wins the race.
A lesson on top-level leadership I learned years ago still works today.
A big box manager friend of mine was drowning in inventory. He had so much stuff the excess didn’t fit in his backroom, not even close. Pallets of goods sat on the sales floor all day every day. I doubt they would have passed a fire safety inspection.
One day a senior executive and board member showed up unexpectedly. My friend was sure he would be fired as the executive walked the store. Eventually, they got to the swinging doors that lead to the stock room. As usual, pallets spilled out. The exec hadn’t said much the whole time which was even more worrying.
At the entrance to the backroom, he asked an assistant manager for some rope. It seemed this was taking a dark turn. He didn’t say much while waiting. When the rope showed up he cut a few pieces to the length of a pallet, about 48 inches.
He passed a piece to each member of the management team and asked if they can improve that much each day. One pallet, 48 inches. At that moment they had well over a hundred excess pallets sitting on the sales floor.
They agreed they could make that much progress every day. He stressed holding the gained ground as they improved. He asked the manager to report back to him when they had cleared all the excess pallets from the sales floor as well as the backroom. He didn’t set a date or even suggest a process, he set a goal and a follow-up. He left.
Any time a store gets into this kind of a mess several things have gone wrong. To his credit, the manager pulled his team together and included everyone in the challenge. They attacked the problem from several angles. They checked planograms for accuracy, corrected inventory counts in the system, made sure cashiers were scanning properly (yes it is possible to mess that up), and more.
The thing is, he already knew how to fix the problem. When someone is drowning they don’t always see the life ring right beside them. That small daily goal brought things into focus.
In less than a month they exceeded their goal. As you might expect, sales were suddenly trending up.
This one executive store visit demonstrated several excellent leadership examples:
When someone is drowning, throwing rocks doesn’t help.
He didn’t get mad, didn’t demean anyone.
He took time to get a full picture of the situation.
He set a small daily goal. Hold on to yesterday’s gains and gain a little more today.
He gave them a visual, a 4’length of rope.
He didn’t tell them how to do it. Demonstrating faith in their abilities.
He set an ultimate goal without a timeline. Again showing faith that they would get it done.
He set a follow-up.
All that in one fairly short visit to a store. Next level all the way.
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