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Unit 12: Store Management

Share the big picture: Employees work smarter and enjoy their work more when they know Notes
how their job fits into the company’s success. Many companies have found success by sharing
their financial performance with employees and showing them how they can help improve it.
Treat people fairly: The world isn’t fair, but most people hope it will be. Treating people fairly
means treating everyone with respect, rewarding successful performance, and critiquing
unsuccessful performance.
Create a learning attitude: You will make mistakes as you lead your organization, but that’s
okay as long as you learn from them. Your team members are going to make mistakes too. Be
a role model by discussing your mistakes. In fact, make the discussion of mistakes a regular part
of your meetings. The point is not to focus on mistakes but on the lessons learned for future
applications.

Consider the following three questions to help you learn from a mistake:
1. What did we do right?
2. What did we do wrong?

3. What can we improve next time?
Using these questions at every staff meeting and at the end of every project will help create an
organizational culture comfortable with the truth, ready to acknowledge success, and open to
learning and improvement.
Celebrate successes: When the company wins a big contract, finishes a large project, or reaches an
important milestone, bring everyone together to celebrate. When individuals or teams do well
or reach milestones, acknowledge their results as well. People want to feel part of a successful
company.
Increase responsibilities: When people perform well, provide them with opportunities for
advancement, increase their responsibilities, allow them more freedom to make decisions, or
give them larger portions of the budget to control. Beware not to punish people by overloading
them with too much work: and don’t assume that everyone will find new challenges rewarding.
Trust and ask for input: When you show others that you trust them, they begin to do things on
their own initiative. They create energy for your organization. If you look over their shoulders
constantly, you’ll get employees who will only do what they are told.
Showing trust means asking for help in making important company decisions. When a major
Detroit car manufacturer changed its management approach, one of the workers said, “I’ve been
working for this company for twenty-seven years, and before the recent changes, not once in
that time did anyone ask me what I thought should be done. For the first time they are now
receiving the benefits of my head, not just my hands.”

Avoid micromanaging: Avoid the tendency to be consistently involved in every decision and
every task. Remember that any given outcome can be achieved a number of ways. Encourage
your associates to experiment by trying different ways to improve a task or solve a problem.
Don’t micromanage! Agree on the goals and let the employees figure out how to meet those
goals.
Rather than spending great energy trying to prove that an employee is wrong and the boss is
right, successful entrepreneurs say, “That way is not working; we should try something else.”
Establishing an experimental, learning attitude can turn early failures into success. An
enthusiastic, “We are making this up as we go along” attitude can keep people looking for ways
to improve the way they get things done.

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