Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

Around 7 years ago I was hired to help a company take its sales to a new level. I was given carte blanche to do it, at least for a while.

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So how did I do it? Or did I accomplish the goals asked of me?

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To set the scenario so you can understand what was going on, this are the specs of the situation:

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First it was a mature, retail business that has been around for decades. This was one of those stores that was organized in a co-op, which is similar to a franchise. It was not in a large town, so the market was somewhat limited.

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What were the results? I grew it at 20% a year for the 3 years I was there. What were my secrets to doing this?

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I made sure we hired the right people. We went through a painful time of adjustment as I had to release those who refused to even try to improve their performance.

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Once I got the right people, I did everything I could to make what was important to them a priority for me. Whether it was job related or outside of work. Anything I could do to allow them to attend important functions that might interfere with the schedule they had, I did. 

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The last thing I did was to let them know that if I did everything I could for them, I expected them to do everything they could for me. They responded! And it was real, not forced or pressured. 

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This is a situation where the mutual respect and concern was to such a high level that if some of their co-workers didn’t co-operate, they would take matters into their hands to make sure they did or they themselves would suggest that they leave. 

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And if you are concerned that this style of management or leadership could possibly lead to being taken advantage of, you would be wrong. As a matter of fact, because we took care of one another, the standards were actually higher than those I’ve seen you try to do the command-and-control type of leadership that attempts to achieve the same results through threats and coercion. 

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This is not the only time that this has been attempted in my management career. Every time I have done it, it has worked, and it didn’t matter if it was retail, service, wholesale, or manufacturing, I have never seen it fail. 

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Oh, there has to be adaptations to the various needs of the type of business that it is, but I’ve never applied myself to taking care of my workers where they haven’t given me far more than I even asked of them.