Wise Heart
10 Strategies for success in Business & Life
Chapter Three - Sneek Peek
A few years ago, Trade New Zealand invited me to attend the Women’s Wear Daily Apparel CEO Summit in New York. It was, you might say, surreal: a room full of businesspeople from such iconic and internationally recognisable brands as Ralph Lauren and Gucci. I spent two wonderful days absorbing the collective wisdom of the other delegates and keynote speakers.
But amid all the glamour and the useful learnings – like Gucci’s mantra ‘Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten’, which I have used often – one speaker really struck a chord with me. Millard Drexler is the chief executive of J. Crew, which is an enormous mid-range clothing retailer with 250 stores across the United States; famously, Michelle Obama has been known to order her J. Crew clothes online. Their clothes work well
for Middle America – they’re well made, never too fashion-forward, but stylish all the same.
Drexler told us that one day when he was working in J. Crew’s head office, the phone rang. It was a general call that normally one of his team would have picked up, but given his penchant for micromanaging he decided to answer the phone himself. On the other end was an agitated middle-aged woman who had bought the same pair of pants from
J. Crew for years.
‘So what seems to be the problem?’ asked Drexler.
‘You’ve changed the cut of the pants,’ the woman replied. ‘And now they’re accentuating my muffin.’
The ‘muffin’ – a slang term for when a woman’s pants cut in too hard around her middle and a small roll of fat pops out over the top – can be a very real problem for a variety of women. Drexler told us that not only did he not know what a ‘muffin’ was, he was also unaware that the cut of one of his strongest-selling pairs of pants had even changed, or the types of issues that this might present for his customers.
For me, it was an apposite example of the balance between micromanaging and stepping back, between becoming a figurehead for our businesses and still knowing what makes them tick. Every management theory we read says that, as business owners and managers, we have to step back and delegate, and empower the people we employ to make decisions and manage issues for us. As our businesses get bigger, we are told to employ great people, people who are better than us, to not micromanage and to let them get on with their jobs.
All of which is true, to an extent. For me – and for Millard Drexler – an element of random micromanaging is good, healthy even. You need to keep an eye on the fundamentals of your business, and to ensure that all systems are working as they will require you to get involved at a grass-roots level from time to time. It’s finding the balance between an old-style, autocratic ‘command and control’ style of management and a more modern, collegial and visionary style.
On another level, maintaining the connection with customers is incredibly important. Our businesses are nothing without customers and, as business owners, we have to stay in touch with what’s happening on the ground. If my customers stop buying my frocks or my magazines, I simply don’t have a business.
I learn so much about my operation when I get my hands dirty and micromanage every now and then. I’ll spend some time on the floor of our stores, just to get a feel for what is happening in the marketplace. It’s not structured or defined but, if I’m visiting a store at a particular time and I find myself with half an hour to spare, I like to get involved and hopefully sell. I enjoy working with the sales team as I am always learning from them, and seeing firsthand how my customers react to my frocks is always very empowering.
In a way, my ‘muffin’ is women’s knees. Many women above the age of 40 hate their knees: spend any time in one of my stores and you learn this very quickly. Every time, I am reminded of just how important hem length is. Regardless of international trends, my hemlines have to look good on real women: too long and they look frumpy, too short and you expose too much and the knee challenge arises. Halfway down the knee is even worse! I’ve also learned that dresses with sleeves will sell 10 times faster than sleeveless ones in certain collections.
It’s all very well for me to sit in our head office, designing beautiful clothes that look amazing on size 10 models and even better on the catwalk, but if I don’t think about my customers in the provinces, I handicap my income stream. Women shopping in these provincial stores want a great retail experience, attentive, knowledgeable service and gorgeous frocks. But we are not dressing supermodels, we’re dealing with normal women who have had two or more children, who are conscious of their muffin and any other figure fault they believe they have. And if we don’t do our job well, they have choices. These daily reality checks are crucial for my business survival.
Recently in our Ponsonby store in Auckland, I made a wonderful observation. I love that store; it’s in a heritage nineteenth century building with exposed brick walls and beautiful kauri floorboards. Upstairs, there is an area flooded with light from tall sash windows that I often use for meetings when I am in Auckland.
My appointment was running five minutes late, so I was catching up on some reading. As I did, I could hear the store manager greeting customers as they came into the store. You would swear that she was greeting old friends. She was upbeat and positive. ‘It’s so good to see you,’ she’d trill as they came through, but it was completely genuine and you could hear the customers responding positively.
As I sat there, I thought, ‘These girls are great. They are so much better at this selling role than me.’ It was a few weeks before the business turned 18, and it was just such a pleasure to think about the talented team I had built and empowered. I reflected on the fact that these days, women like that manager are just as much a part of the success of my brand as I am.
In the past few years, the business has got to the point where I am more of a figurehead, a leader who needs to decide on strategy and create a structure to carry out my vision. If our business is to carry on growing at the phenomenal rate it has for the past 18 years, I have to use my energy on more high-level activity and create a structure in the business that allows other people to pick up much of what I do on a day-to-day basis.
I have Tony looking after the day-to-day engine of the business as our general manager. As we’ve grown, our focus for the past few years has been to bring people through the business who can take on some of the jobs that I do.
I’ve tried employing senior management from outside our company but it never works. They can be expensive and typically spend six weeks getting their heads around the business, and often never quite get the culture. Put simply, there are very few people who are equipped or prepared to work at the pace that we do, and even when we do find capable people outside the existing team they simply become overwhelmed by the collective experience that exists in-house. It is hard for them to get traction and credibility, so promoting from within has definitely been a lot more fruitful for me.
As you grow your business, you have to surround yourself with people who fit your culture and live and breathe the brand and its vision. Over the years, we have realised it’s much easier to bring these people through the business. They know what’s expected of them and are capable of achieving the outcomes that this company now needs in the required timeframes. And as we discussed in Chapter one, because we only employ people who tick nine out of the 10 boxes for us, we can be confident that our team is up to the job. If you’ve employed well in the first place, you’ll find your senior team are right under your nose.
What are the benefits of such an approach? You end up with people in positions of authority who know your business inside out. They know what it’s like to work on the shop floor or at grass-roots levels within head office and they know the customer demographic. They learn your management style intimately. And after a few years, people know that my standards are high and they know to always endeavour to exceed them.
Just as in my Ponsonby store, you will end up with people who are better at their roles than you are – that’s part of the process of letting go, of realising that there are people who have stronger skills in certain areas than you, and embracing this rather than fearing it. Ask any of my girls in any of the stores, and they’ll tell you that my attention to detail frustrates the hell out of them. If I see something that isn’t right I will immediately fix it, rather than wait for them to get around to it – our visual presentation is so important, and I am simply very immediate, never putting off for tomorrow what can be done today. Regardless of their protests and the knowledge that they will do it better, at least I have started the process and hopefully encouraged them to keep on top of some of their chores, even just out of frustration that I will interfere and upset their flow!
These days, when I’m threatening to get in there boots and all, my girls shout, ‘Annah, stop!’ and virtually hold me back. ‘Just leave it to us, we promise we will get to it!’ Many of them are so talented at what they do – so much better than I am, and I love just that.
But you also need to create an environment that the right people will find difficult to leave. Capable people who fit the culture and the brand will always be hard to find, and Generation Y, or Gen Y, in particular, are fickle. They believe that they are entitled, without necessarily proving themselves. In some ways, that’s great – they’re ambitious and they believe in themselves. But by the same token, it takes very little for them to seek work elsewhere if they believe they’re not valued or they can find a better deal.
In recent years, I’ve sought to really challenge and extend some of my team, to listen to them more, to bring them into the decision-making process. We have identified key people in the business who we know are going to drive my vision forward and we have challenged them. They love it, and continually strive for higher goalposts. As we’ve done so, we’ve created a workplace that they know will continue to promote and extend them. As long as we keep doing that, we create advocates and longevity of employment within the team.
Take our manager in Christchurch, who started on the shop floor with us. She’s now one of five store managers around the country who we have trained to work at a higher level in an assortment of different areas, playing to each one’s individual strengths. Setting up new stores is incredibly important: it’s about sending a message in that particular area about the brand and the demographic that it fits. It’s challenging, exhausting and time consuming, so much so that Tony and I can’t do every one now. So we have trained five key managers to do it for us.
When we opened in Melbourne last year, rather than set up our own store, we decided to go into a shared space in a concept store in the Docklands. Our Christchurch manager was tasked with overseeing the opening. I didn’t go over for it; such is my belief in her ability. She flew over, and as soon as she arrived at the store she realised that things were in disarray. Stock hadn’t been put out, there were team problems and the opening was rapidly approaching. When she got back to New Zealand, we had a debriefing session and I congratulated her on her handling
of a very difficult scenario. She told me that a year ago she would have panicked, but she didn’t. Instead, she took a deep breath and thought, ‘What would Annah do?’ Then she rolled up her sleeves and made it happen.
When I saw pictures of the space I was rapt, and I realised that not only had she done a great job but also I couldn’t have done it better. I simply could not have got it looking so cohesive and so exquisitely merchandised in that timeframe. The space was beautiful, every inch a reflection of our brand, and she sold to the store’s customers as well.
Those five women just keep on extending their skills. T–hey are constantly flying off around the country to support our growing portfolio of stores. And every time they tackle a new scenario, I introduce another challenge to them. They are always up to extending their repertoire of skills; we’ve employed right, we’ve trained them well, we’ve guided them and now they’re growing the company in new directions.
But you do need to be mindful of your team as you do this, particularly when you employ as many women as I do. Women are different from men. They run households, and care for their families. If they’re older, they’ll often have elderly parents to think about as well. Many of the women I employ have had relationship break-ups and are single parents or are in shared custody arrangements. Drive them too hard – even if they say that’s what they want – and they will simply have to make a choice. And their family will always be the biggest pull.
If those women find themselves in a position where they constantly have to choose between their job and their children, they will always choose their children. I fully understand that, because my children will always be my first priority. It’s this sort of juggling and constant feeling of guilt that makes women resign. The worst thing is, as their employer, you’ll usually be the last to hear about it, and you may have been able to make a difference.
To run a business with a wise heart, you have to understand women’s backgrounds and you have to work with them. That means knowing something of their domestic schedule. If they share custody, is it a kid week or not? It involves creating an environment where, if your team say that they can’t do what you need, there are no reprisals. They need to feel comfortable when making a request or saying no. I pride myself on teaching women to confront rather than avoid; it is all part of a healthy employment process.
As in all things, though, there is a balance. Although I think about my team and I am conscious of building a culture in our business that makes them feel valued, I’m also acutely aware that they are not my friends. There’s a difference between being a responsible, proactive boss who thinks about more than just the eight hours her employees are at work, and someone who makes friends with her team. It’s a mistake that you often see in small and medium-sized businesses; one of two things happens. Either people employ their friends or they wind up part of the family because they work so closely together.
It’s understandable: you’re often working very long hours to build up the business and small businesses often compensate for not being able to pay as much as they’d like by being collegial and fun, but I have seen it go too wrong too many times. The problem is that if you get too close to your employees, you are no longer capable of making objective business decisions in relation to them. Through all of this, you need to remember that business is business, and you have got to be able to divorce the personal heart from the business head.
The sheer number of businesses I’ve dealt with where an employee has wound up stealing from the company at the same time as they are going to their employer’s for Sunday dinner should be enough to put anyone off this approach!
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