What we have here is a failure to prioritize...

So I am often allowed to step away from my store to go do something I absolutely love and am passionate about- helping open / acquire new locations. My last trip took about two weeks and stretched over two states. During that time, our new District Manager (DM) was conducting spring cleaning white glove inspections of the stores. The goal was for us to go through every nook and cranny of our stores, clean the things that often are missed or never see the light of day, find and resolve all of the hidden ninjas, and set us up as neat and orderly as possible for the new year. From the date of this assignment to the evaluation, I would set foot in the store only once and it would be for a very large event. I would love to tell you my large team of senior associates, to include two future manager candidates, did well… but they didn’t. We failed dismally. I was disappointed, frustrated, and hurt by how poorly my store was cared for in my absence. I had to hold my team accountable for their choices and behaviors, which is never fun. And now, all I can do is try to make a plan to better motivate them to execute correctly in the future.

After a painfully deep dive into assessing as many aspects of this as I could I’ve come down to what I think is the heart of the issue (or at least one that I can affect) and that is Prioritization and Efficiency. In preparation for an upcoming training on this, I’d like to post here the different things I learn on the way that might help anyone looking for help in this area, or in figuring out how to teach it.

Context...

• I’ve worked for family businesses all my life but my first paying gig was as a referee for a private soccer club. Since then I’ve worked at a stuffed animal shop, in food services, for youth centers, as a soccer coach, and even in a warehouse for a time. All the typical relatively short lived jobs of the teen and early twenties.

• In 2006 I began what would later become my primary career path when I started working for a retail sales and service company. (For the sake of not getting sued it shall henceforth be known as "The Music Store".)

• I worked for the same manager in that same location at “The Music Store” for 9 years. Some of my worst work related experiences happened there; for serious, some borderline abusive and moderately sketchy stuff happened there. It’s hard to hate though because some of my strongest relationships were built there too.

• When that manager position “became vacant” in 2015 I was no ones first pick, not even my own. Yet, for various reasons, I was offered and accepted the position.

• Through a lot of hard work and a little bit of dumb luck, the only other remaining team member and I managed to pull that store from the literal ashes (fun story for another time) and make it grow into one of the companies most profitable locations. We grew increasingly in every single measurable channel over the next few years.

• In 2018 an opportunity (or setup?) was presented for me to move to another location across the state to see if I could do the same thing again, only on a way larger scale. I laughed and said no. Then some life stuff happened and the universe threw a proverbial anvil on my head, so the next time it got brought up I said maybe. Some more anvils and a few pulled heart strings later and the last time they asked I said yes.

• I wish I had recorded the process this last time. I was give the keys to a burning pile of rubble and told “you got this” before everyone above me walked away. This experience taught me some things, but mostly it just slowly ate my soul and chipped away at the person I had spent three years trying to become.

• Two years later, in 2020, the fires were put out, the entire team changed over, the debris removed, and a truly solid foundation was laid for the future. I was on track to move up in the company and had even trained up several successful new managers.

• That’s when some more things happened and I finally quit “The Music Store” company that I’d work at for nearly 15 years and walked away from it all toward something completely different.