simplerich

My job is changing soon. I’ll be going from District Manager to something else. I’m not allowed to say yet, but I’m allowed to say it won’t be District Manager of any District. My stores all know I’m a short-timer already. The memo hit on Monday. The responses varied from sad to see me go to fear of the new guy. I’ve written down the names of those who didn’t say they’d miss me and I’m destroying their employee files as we speak! (That’s a joke!!!)

I’d like to say this, in an open letter to all my direct reports. All of you with whom I worked directly over the past 3 years as a District Manager. Thank you. I’ve had a really good time working with you. We’ve come so far from where we were when I first got here and you’ve done a ton of work. Our customer service is head and shoulders better than it was before. I believe our facilities look better, and our merchandise is better presented and displayed. None of that is because of anything I did. It’s because of the work you and your crews have done. I got here just as the economy was preparing to do unprecedented things and while there have been store closings none of them were mine and that’s a testament to the hard work you and your employees have been doing.

We’re not done. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us and I want you to know that your new District Manager will notice things I missed and that’s OK. Don’t ever feel disloyal to me when he sees something I messed up or dropped the ball on! I make mistakes! He will prioritize things differently from me and things I didn’t care about may rate high on his import-o-meter. Don’t feel like you have to cover for me or like you should throw me under the bus either. LoL. I still work for the same company he’ll be able to phone me and say, “Did you really say to hide all this product in the bathroom until they had room to put it out?” I’ll not only tell the truth but I’ll know which of you it is making that one up! You know who you are you back-stock addict!!! But seriously. I’ve worked directly with your new DM since 2005 and I enjoy working with him. He’s been a great boss to me and is a helluva guy in real life too. Even when we disagree on things he’s respectful and he listens. We talk about it and then I do it the way he told me to. LoL. Remember, with him, as with me, sometimes we’ll be crazy, let us… do the crazy thing and let’s watch it together!

The main point I’m trying to make here is we’ve done a lot together. We’ve come a long way together. You’re going to hear that we’ve got a long way to go yet. You’ll hear we’ve got a lot to do yet. Don’t let that invalidate all you’ve done! You HAVE done a lot. But that was then. Keep those accomplishments in your heart and in your mind as real accomplishments. They count and they matter. But we’re not going to stop there. We’re not going to dwell on them. We’re not going to hold them up as trophies and say “We’ve arrived!” Where we’re going isn’t a place. We’re going on a journey so don’t expect to “get there.” Don’t think that one day you’ll walk in and be perfect and we’ll all have a week or month or year to put our feet up and relax. That day will never ever ever come. Don’t look for it. When we quit trying to improve we’re done. Our competitors won’t rest so we can’t either.

We’re not moving forward chasing the competition. We used to be. Not any more. Today we’re moving forward and are pulling ahead of them. I believe some of the new hires made recently are part of that sea-change we’re feeling. I’ll talk more about this in future posts. We’ve gone from the best we could be under doing things the old way to a new level… a level of we’re going to start doing things a new way now, a different way, with different approaches to some of the same problems. Hiring from outside the company for a leading position? That’s crazy talk! They don’t know anything about us! How can they possibly lead well? Really? That’s not even a real question. Sure, there are specific things about our company that a person wouldn’t know off the street but we’re in retail. We’re in customer service. Anybody who has a solid background in that is going to bring things to the table that we need there. Things that weren’t our primary focus years ago. I’m honest enough to realize that our attention to the customer was primarily in how much he’d leave at the counter. That used to be enough. It’s not any more. I once attended meetings of DMs and it was day TWO of the meetings, after lunch, before any of the speakers even mentioned the word “customer“. I know because I was waiting for it, listening for it. That was years ago. It’s not that way now. More on this later.

I said working with you has been good, and it has. Some of you never called or bothered me. Some of you managed your stores just fine with no bugging me at all. You just clicked along on your tracks like a mining car hauling stuff into and out of the mines. Others of you felt like I’d forget to pay you if you didn’t call at least twice a day. If you ran out of a product that you thought was selling well my phone would ring immediately after you noticed it. If I didn’t get back to you when I said I would my phone would ring. Most fell somewhere in between those extremes. Seriously. I preferred working with the pests. You made me a better DM by holding my feet to the fire. You expected more out of me and made sure I did what I said I was going to do. Those of you who said, “Oh, he must be too busy. I’ll ask him next time I see him or next time he calls me,” frustrated me so much.

As a manager, my best advice for you is please, advocate for your store. Be a pest for your store. Work hard to make sure your new District Manager doesn’t forget your store. Don’t be the place that the DM goes to rest. Be the place that he goes to get stuff done. Be the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Hold his feet to the fire. If you don’t fight for your store who will? Seriously. If your new DM thinks you don’t care enough to call and bug him to take care of your store… what’s that tell him? I tried to call and touch base with people on a regular basis. Some of you knew that and used that as a reason to not call me, and that’s great. That’s what that communication from me to you was for. But don’t put aside important things waiting for me to come to you.

Don’t do that to the new DM. Maybe he won’t call as often. Maybe he’ll get busy and forget for a few days. Don’t do it. If you need something ask for it. If you don’t get it ask again. But don’t stop asking. That’s my biggest failure as a DM in this area was those of you who weren’t big enough pests. I should have either fired you and replaced you with people who would be a pest for their store, or I should have managed somehow to convince you that you had to make sure I paid attention to you and your store. Obviously firing is not the best choice in that situation.

Advocate for your store. Be a pest! The owner of the chain was recently in the stores with me and said to one of the managers in front of me, “Keep being a pest. Keep making sure you get what you need.” I was so glad he recognized that she was one of the pains in my butt. She is and was a great manager and the owner knew it. It says good things for a manager when the owner knows you’re a pest and encourages it. All of you should learn from that example. All of you should advocate for your store to your new DM. You should be pushing him, not him pulling you.

PS: When I say be a pest I hope you know what I mean and don’t call him for stupid things on Sunday nights or his time off just so he hears your voice. Some of you do that to me to this day… and you  know who you are lol… being annoying isn’t advocating for your store.

The Changes: Looking back – 1 of 3 by Rich Griffith, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.