While the merits of Holacracy have been hotly debated (particularly in relation to Zappos’ high-profile pivot to a “peer-to-peer workplace”), most of the interest in management skills for non-managers that we’ve seen lately doesn’t involve this kind of extreme shift to a flat organization. Instead, it centers around the trend towards more highly collaborative and…
One of the primary aspects of the retail store manager’s role is helping associates maximize their own potential and performance. That’s why it’s so important for your leadership training to address the issues of associate engagement and motivation. Here are 4 leadership best practices from our research that will help unleash motivation to drive higher…
Task assignments are most often a way of getting something done that needs to happen routinely. Delegation, on the other hand, means giving a person responsibility outside their current job with some degree of decision-making authority. When we teach our module in MSL (Merchant & Support Leadership) on Delegating to Develop, participants are sometimes confused. “You…
In working with retailers to develop their store leaders’ interpersonal skills over the years, one question seemed to come up again and again: What about the other leaders in the organization, like those in the distribution centers and home offices? There’s no shortage of leadership development programs out there, but the retail ecosystem is unique. Management…
Are you a manager or leader? Which should you strive to be? And what’s the difference? Retailers often ask us whether their learning and development strategies should center around management or leadership skills. In many industries, those lines of responsibilities are clear and specific, so separating the two makes sense. But retail is unique. More often…
Clients frequently ask about how to get more accountability in their organization. They also worry about leaders accepting mediocre performance because the thought of recruiting a replacement just adds work to an overburdened schedule. So they struggle with employees who coast or have inconsistent performance. On the other hand, when we read employee blogs about…
Management is about getting things done through people, so all management training programs can teach all managers how to do that. Or so the conventional wisdom goes. But ask leaders and managers in store support and home office roles about what they’re dealing with in the complex world of retail management, and that conventional wisdom…
The other day I met with a team of senior L&D leaders from a well-known chain. They’re looking for leadership development across all levels of the organization—store leadership, multiunit management, and the home office. I knew they’d probably implemented some kind of leadership development programs in the past, so I wanted to get a better…
Over the last few weeks, at least four retailers have introduced themselves to us by talking about their core values. While values and mission statements have always been around, for many there seems to be a renewed sense of importance in connecting core values with learning and development initiatives. These retailers want to make sure…
A new urgency for retail leaders and high-potentials to up their games and take on more responsibility has been driving an increasingly intense focus on retail store leadership training. We’re not only hearing about it from clients; it’s something you can see being played out in the news and in the leadership shuffles among major…
