Throw Your Name Into The Customers Hat For Hire!

The Dreaded Job Interview Is Coming Soon!

Yesterday was an interesting day.  I put my name in the hat to apply for a divisional leadership position with a slightly troubled retail organization.  They have experienced five leadership changes in the past decade.  Five hopefuls have come aboard to try to correct a floundering operation.  Five of those leaders have left the ship with troubling results.  When the leadership slot opened up this time, I threw my name into the hat.

I am a junkie for this kind of challenge.  I see holes in their bucket that I would like a chance to see how well their people can learn how to plug them.  Most business models are suffering through this terrible economic period of time.  However, some retail business models stand a better chance at making it than others.  The ones who seem to be reporting good numbers are managing better shaped business models.  They have good management in place.  They have good plans moving about in the hallways of their daily grind.  They are always working to improve the ship they are trying to operate.  They have grown in good depth for the kind of people they hire and employ.  They have a great sense for seeing what changes need to be addressed and managed.  Those are the companies that have found a way during these tough times to report great volume growth in an otherwise rotten economy.

I track some of these winning business models.  I like the way they function in these tough times.  I like to frequent their retail operations.  They seem to have good employees with very friendly approaches to the kinds of things they do well.  They go to work with great respect that they are at that place to help their customers get served in the best way possible, without slobbering all over the guests.  It is usually a refreshing experience.  I also like the way the product gets discovered, chosen for sale and how timely their products continue to be added to the total mix of their offerings.  I like to examine the winners.  One of my most current retailers I like to examine is the Pier I Company.  They have become one of my favorite shopping experiences.  I have noticed how much they have improved their management and product work in the past ten years.  Their model deserves some praise and recognition.  I recently decided to check them out financially.  My suspicions were peaked enough to go visit a website that revealed their economic status.  Guess what I found?  Their numbers are very good.  I am not surprised.

When a good model catches our attention we tend to refer them to our acquaintances.  It is a natural thing to do.  I like to share good ideas and good recommendations to my friends and associates.  It adds credibility to my library of life contacts.  This kind of living pattern has good value.  We usually like to be known as someone who offers good suggestions to the people we know.  It is part of the reason why we gather friends in the first place.  This kind of positive exchange increases our self worth.  We like that kind of stuff.  I am just as much a junkie for that kind of stuff as I am for finding good business models to talk about.  Pier I is one of those nice finds.  They are good at what they do and they surround themselves with employees who want to be there and who want to add more value to what they do.  It is kind of unique in how they arrange their timeliness to match the desires of the people they employ.  It is a piece of great leadership management.  Competitors should take a short field trip to study such a good model.  Go become one of their customers for a day.  Go to examine how well they do what they do.  Go there to pick up some tips on how your own model can benefit from duplicating some of their winning ways and concepts.  It might become a great working exercise.  I do these kinds of things often.  It helps me sharpen my skills.  I recommend it.

I Actually Like To Receive Interviews, Not Give Them!

My name has landed in the hat of applicants for a retail division manager someone is looking for.  I would like the chance to end their frustrating trip down the lane of failures they have walked during the past eleven years.  I think the business model has some good things going for it that will help it to turn around nicely.  It does not appear to have enough losses to cripple its future ability to be able to turn itself around and function more on the winning side of the fence.  I have joined other losing ventures that were too deep to get turned around.  Those models waited too long to hire a good leader.  The best they could do is to scrounge up a cheap replacement that lacked the real skills to get their model righted in time to make the best difference in how they produced winning ways.  Once a business model gets too deep in debt, it cannot attract a good leader.  If you are faced with this pattern of need, make sure you do not wait too long before you go out to find a good leader.  Too deep only ensures that you may only attract unwanted talent.  Get the good ones interested before it is too late.  Decide early on that you need help.  Do not wait until your only choice is to go get help.  That is a very bad place to land when your model is falling.  Learn how to grab the walls for help before you hit the bottom of the fall.

Repair work of broken business models is very tricky work.  I have been placed in four business models in my career to do exactly that kind of work.  It is not as easy as it seems.  Most people believe it is easy to do.  It is not.  Here's why.  Broken business models have developed some very bad habits.  Those bad habits have hung around long enough to become invisible to the key people who are employed.  When a new leader comes aboard and reveals those bad habits to those employees and staff members, a complicated series of denial techniques become heavily engaged.  The human dynamics get set on fire.  Enemies arrive and the shooting quietly begins.  Every single model I have stepped in to repair is exactly the same.  Bad habits rule the roost.  Bad choices are heavily supported.  Bad information is flowing heavily in the hallways and meetings.  Wrong decisions are skipping around like they are trying to find a temporary home.  Hope is usually differed.  Arrogance has grown out of control and ego's have settled into their protected spaces.  Broken business models guard their broken ways with all of their ingenious might.  Allies for proper change are very few.  The business army does not truly know what side of the winning fence they belong.

The changes a new leader must successfully inject must respect this kind of complicated understanding.  Patience will be the key.  Tolerance will need to be heightened.  Unique moves that play well with the current dynamics will need to be discovered.  The leader that wins in this kind of environment will need to manage how they move like a chameleon walks in a threatening forest.  Adaptation techniques will need to remain as stealth as the leader can imply.  All of this work must be performed with the highest level of integrity.  It is an interesting challenge and carries some huge risks.  When I find one of these kinds of business models who is looking for someone to perform that kind of work, I am in.  I like this kind of challenge.  I want to lay my name down into that hat of applicants to see if I can become that new leader who is given the right to test and sharpen my leadership skills.  Throw me into the middle of the dogs.  Let's get to work on making something good come out of this effort.  Let's find the players on this team who want to do that same kind of work.  Let's go change how we approach winning.

I will not know about my chances for hire in this new application.  I know a little bit about how they have been failing, however.  I suspect this might become one of my slight edges to the process.  The CEO who decides who is hired to lead the way knows that I recognize what is wrong with where they have been going.  I have worked with him in the past with some challenges he has had to endure.  We will see how much respect I gained with those past experiences we shared.  This is how the world of leadership work usually unfolds.  The connections and leadership work completed in the past usually becomes the future view of how much that leader can bring to the table of desired results.  If you own a business model, your customers are looking at your business model in the very same way.  You may not know this truth, but that is how they decide where to shop.  That is how they decide whether or not they will become one of your regular customers.  You and your business model have placed your name into their hat for hire!  They are trying to select you or someone else to do that duty.  Your model gets this kind of evaluation going on every single day.  Your success will come from how well you perform your business leadership skills to the customers you serve.  Your business model is on trial.  Your business model is waiting to see how that customer hires your model to do what it needs to have done.  Customers select who they want to hire.  The process is the same.

I hope they hire you.

Until next time...