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.