I have been watching the Sainsbury's series (I'm Running Sainsbury's) on my Sky Plus (hence this might seem rather out of date) and just had to remark on the insights it gave in to how big business treats ideas.
The concept of going back to the shop floor for ideas that could transform the business seemed a good one to me. It is something we at Blaire Palmer encourage and arrange for our clients. Often the people who work at the coal face have a much greater appreciation of what customers want and how to delight them than those stuck in head office.
However, it was disappointing to see how little support was given to the people with the ideas to help implement them successfully. The first mistake was to assume that the person who had the idea was also the right person to implement the idea. In fact, people who are good at originating ideas are rarely good at the implementation. Two completely different mindsets are required. A creative person tends to have a preference for the big picture rather than the detail. But successful implementation relies on getting the details right.
Some of these ideas might have been more successful had the originator of the idea buddied up with someone who was great at the practical, implementation side.
Also, these new ideas were given little time to prove themselves. They had to get results within a week. In one instance a staff member wanted to capture and deal with customer complaints. He was inundated. So much time was spent collecting the complaints that there was little time to deal with them. By the end of the week about 50% had been resolved (he actually exceeded the target he was set). Clearly some issues take much longer to fix and cannot be done there and then on the shop floor.
Rather than being shocked by the dissatisfaction of customers and throwing more resource at the issues presented, Sainsbury's decided the idea would work on occasion e.g. when a new store manager was taken on or where a store had been through a refit. One was left wondering why the company was so afraid of hearing complaints.
None of this should have been a surprise of course. Such attitudes are pretty typical (not amongst my clients, who tend to be those who really want to make significant changes in their business and are willing to go through the discomfort this entails) and explain why so many businesses are struggling right now. What is needed at the moment is a culture which responds quickly to customers and to the marketplace in general, which faces up to its problems and addresses them, which is brave and forward thinking.
The problem also creates a dilemma for the consumer (in other words, for me). I have gone off Tesco since seeing how they treat their chickens. Now I am disappointed by Sainsbury's because of their attitude to new ideas. Where shall I shop instead? Aldi?.
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