A Ted Lasso Guide for Transforming Retail Leadership

Ready to revolutionize your retail leadership skills? Trust us, you don't want to miss this insightful discussion as we uncover seven transformative leadership lessons from the hit TV show, Ted Lasso. We promise that embracing these principles will not only elevate your impact on your team, but will also boost the profitability of your stores, and catapult your retail career to new heights.

What if you could build a stronger rapport with your team by simply being seen? In this episode, we emphasize the importance of acknowledging your team members and sharing personal stories to foster a deeper connection. We also urge you to remain curious as a leader, a quality that goes a long way in understanding and bonding with your team. Delving into the skills of your team, being brave enough to voice your truth, and rebounding swiftly from errors, are vital components in creating a resilient, goal-oriented team.

Lastly, we touch on the importance of nurturing a growth mindset and operating with a higher purpose. When leaders demonstrate genuine interest and foster a sense of connection, it leads to an exchange of talents and ideas, and ultimately a resilient and united team. We conclude by addressing the challenges of leadership and offering actionable advice to tackle them. Whether you're a fan of Ted Lasso or not, these lessons are a game-changer for anyone looking to enhance their leadership prowess. So, tune in and get ready to transform your leadership journey!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:52

Hey there, retail leaders, it's Steve Worthy. Before we jump into our episode that I know you are going to enjoy, I've got a little something that I think you'll like. You know how we always talk shop and we share insights here, right? Well, I put together this newsletter. It's called Worthy Retail News. Here's what it does it allows us to continue our candid dialogue. It's another way for us to provide straight talk conversations and stories and even some more behind the scenes perspectives from top professionals in the retail industry. Just click the link in the show notes to subscribe or, better yet, you can go to worthyretailnewscom. Is just that easy. Worthyretailnewscom, trust me, is worth a look. All right, let's go ahead and dive into the episode Now.

Speaker 1: 1:42

I rarely say on my episodes that there's something mandatory for you to do, but on this episode I honestly feel it is mandatory for you to watch Ted Lasso. You have to watch Ted Lasso. Here's the thing about Ted Lasso. Here's the story. It is of an American college football coach who was actually selected to go over to England and actually coach a lower level, what we call in the state soccer, what they call football team. And most of you will probably think that, oh okay, all right, it's just this story about a guy who's going to go over there and he's going to bring the, bring the club from the bottom to the top. Yada, yada, yada.

Speaker 1: 2:31

Got to tell you what right now. It is so much more than that. Ted Lasso is quintessential retail, and what I mean by that is retail is all about people. Retail is about the human condition. It is about human exchange. It is about understanding the complexities of people and actually providing a service or a product that actually meets their needs. Ted Lasso does an amazing job of breaking down the human condition, how we see things, how we think our little idiosyncrasies that we think no one is watching. But, more importantly, how do we engage and connect with each other on a deeper level? I'm going to tell you right now I'm not going to tell you to stop the podcast and go listen to Ted Lasso, but I'm going to tell you right after you're going to want to watch all three seasons of Ted Lasso. After this episode, let's go ahead and get started.

Speaker 2: 3:35

Welcome to Retail Leadership with Steve Worthy, where we go well beyond the corporate playbook to unpack major opportunities, hidden challenges and critical issues that senior retail leaders face every day. If you're ready to get the insights you need to elevate the impact you have on your team, increase the profitability of your stores and level up your retail career, then keep listening, my friend, because I see a lot more success in your future. So let's get started right now.

Speaker 1: 4:09

All right, so, once again, what does the seven lessons of Ted Lasso have to do with retail leadership? And dare I say, everything. Because retail, once again, at its core, it's about human interaction, the human condition, it's about human exchange. It's about an exchange of time and emotion. I know that sounds super kind of like you know, mystical, steve. What are you talking about? Like retail is all about, like connecting with somebody, giving them a product or giving them a service. I understand that. But before they even get to the store, before they even get to even connecting with you, there is an emotional thing that takes place as it relates to a product or service, even dare say hi to the brand that they actually connect with. And if we have a better understanding about human connection and human condition as a retail leader, as a retail brand, guess what? We can actually improve the overall satisfaction and, dare I say, careers of retail leaders and also the satisfaction of our customers as well. So I want to dive in today to seven Ted Lasso leadership tips that I know you are going to enjoy and they're going to really truly impact you as well.

Speaker 1: 5:32

Let's go do the first one. This first point is I think it's fundamental to the show. It really is, even though it kind of happens kind of like I think it's season two for all three seasons this lesson is really fundamental to the overarching aspect of the show. But I wanted to start with this because I think it's important. As retail leaders, we have to understand how to be a goldfish. And the reason I wanted to start with this one is because and I'm going to play a little clip here is that Sam is one of the soccer players who's kind of growing into his talent and he makes a mistake and he starts to beat himself up about the mistake and it almost to the point where, you know, ted has to kind of take him to the side and say something to him and give him this little pep talk. And it's a very short pep talk. Here's the scene and we're going to get right into all of the lessons.

Speaker 1: 6:34

So we'll get some flowers because this spot here is where Sam died. It's very saddened Boy. Walk away, you little prick. All right, grandad, keep your wig on.

Speaker 3: 6:48

Thanks, roy, you're good. Hey Sam, where's that? Coach? I'm sorry. You know what the happiest animal on earth is. It's a goldfish. No, I know why. No, got a 10 second memory. Be a goldfish, sam.

Speaker 1: 7:07

Yeah, we have to teach our team how to fail forward, how to fail fast. So the first lesson from Ted Lasso is to be a goldfish Think very quickly about whatever the mistake it is that you've made, but be able to move past it very quickly. And then you have to get on to the next thing. Lesson two At the end of the first two seasons, rebecca, who is the manager of the. She's the manager of the club. She always comes to town. It's I'm not giving away too much, but she always comes down and it has this big to do with whether it's a secret or it's something that's been really bugging her and she talks to Ted about it and he, he, uh, she apologizes, she apologizes. When lesson number two is to apologize as a leader, we don't even think about this one um as much as we should. We just talked about be a goldfish and make a mistake. When we, as a leader, have the ability to learn how to apologize for a mistake that we have made, it's extremely important. Now here's the thing the apology may not always be accepted. I'll give you a quick story.

Speaker 1: 8:41

I had a conversation with someone. I was a store manager at the time. I had a conversation with someone and I was writing them up, giving them a coaching, if you will, for, um, I can't, it was a missed opportunity or something, but it was. It was on several occasions that they have done this. So it just got to the point where we actually had to have a conversation. I had to document the conversation, so I documented the conversation. They didn't appreciate the conversation, but of course, back in those days, you have to print everything out and then put it into, you know, your, your actual file in a filing cabinet. So, um, what I did was, um, I had a printer in my office but I, I hit print and I left and went out to the sales floor. I and I locked my door as a store manager should sometimes, because there are sensitive information in there and I ended up walking the store and someone came up to me and was like, hey, there's something in the printer and I'm like what are you talking about? What had, what had occurred? Was that my, my? When I printed the, the, the documentation, it went to what we um at the time and target, called TSC, which is really where all of the HR people and and everybody kind of sits, and even even people who are waiting, waiting the clock in. They sit and just kind of wait and the coaching document actually went to that printer. The printer is heavily used. They printed out plan of grants, printing out signs. It's heavily used. So, needless to say, that coaching document, a lot of people saw it Right and for me, as a leader, I never want to put somebody's um, uh situation out there, you know, in the streets if you will, but they saw it.

Speaker 1: 10:32

Needless to say, this person was um, extremely upset, extremely upset. You know, while the it was, while it was a a simple era in the fact that I didn't check the right um printer, the, the ramifications of this mistake with my relationship with this person, um, was kind of almost irrevocable in the context that, even though I had apologized, our relationship was never the same after that. I use that as an, as an example. I don't want to, you know, paint a picture that, okay, just because you apologize, everything's going to be okay. It's a lot of times they're not. I wanted to use that as an example is that we have to apologize. I have so many other more examples of when I've had to apologize for something that I've done wrong and or uh, or misunderstood or I've miscommunicated something, I actually had to go back and change the communication. So it's important that, as leaders, we learn how to apologize. We have to demonstrate humility, accountability for everything that we've done and, once again, whether they accept the apology or not, it's important for us to take that step as a leader. So that's lesson number two from Ted Lasso. All right.

Speaker 1: 11:58

Lesson number three focus on the longterm. As Ted takes the position as a, as a uh football manager, he begins to realize that the team is not going to be turned around overnight. It's not going to be able to generate the results that one he wants, his uh, his, his co manager wants, or what his um or what his boss wants. He realizes that this is going to be a longterm project. A longterm project, a couple of things with longterm projects, a couple.

Speaker 1: 12:37

One of the things that you want to try to do as best as you possibly can is to get a quick win. Try to find something to get a quick win. As a football manager, one of the things that you want to try to do is actually do that. You actually want to win like a match, right If you are the bottom tier, which which they, the um, the the team was. Ted's perspective was like how can I get a quick win, how can I get something just to kind of galvanize our team around? And once you're able to get like a quick win, what's now? It's becomes a perspective of talent. You have to assess the talent of where you currently are. Then the current talent that you have take you to where you need to be and in a lot of instances they can't. Some instances they can, some is because of the leader. Before you didn't have the requisite skills to take them to the next level. And now you come in and you know your.

Speaker 1: 13:39

Your goal and your focus is to figure out what you have from a team standpoint dynamics, ability, skills and then assess whether or not you can add value um, enough value to bring that person up to a certain level where you can move forward and take the market. I'm going to just go back and back and forth from football to to to retail and be able to take the market to where it is that you need to go. The problem is is that we don't do a thorough enough assessment of our team. We just take everybody at face value and just assume that we can change everybody. That's not always the case. A lot of times you actually have to change your team up, you have to reevaluate your team and to see if they're going to actually be able to take you to the promised land. If you will, you have to be strategic about it.

Speaker 1: 14:32

The last part of this is going to be the goal. When we start to think about our goal, we have to realize that that goal may shift over time. It just it really may. We may want to, and I don't mean the actual end result. So let's just say you want to be number four, five or six or seven in sales. That's the goal. But the direction and the things that you actually have to do to get there may be different, may look different, they may sound different, right, and you have to be okay with being adaptable. That's one of the lessons that we've learned with Ted Lasso. As it relates to focus on the long term is that while the goal was to actually go from one level of the of soccer to the next level, the higher, higher level, he, the team, took so many different iterations in pass in order to actually get there. You have to be okay with understanding that, as the goal may not shift the direction in which you get there and the people that actually go along with you for the ride may shift. So, lesson number three focus on the long term.

Speaker 1: 15:52

Okay, lesson number four pay attention to the detail, details, pay attention to the details, and I know you are probably automatically thinking as a retail leader. You think I mean all the trash that's outside the building. You think I mean all the labels on the end caps are, are, you know, are right? You think I mean that everybody's wearing a name tag. You know things like that. I get it, I get it. You know, initially, when I was, was was creating these, these, these lessons, I was going to go that route, but I actually ended up rewatching, like the entire three seasons of Ted Lasso and I realized was that, you know, I it's.

Speaker 1: 17:58

I wanted to go a little deeper and less surface level with this one because I think it's important. I think when we start to talk about pay attention to the details, we are literally talking about. You know all the different nuances of your team's personality. The different nuances of your team's personality. How do you understand who they are, what they do, where they've come from, the different things that excite them, the different things that actually impact them and who they are. So when we start talking about paying attention to the details, it's about connecting with your team at a deeper level and a broader level, understanding and spending time with them.

Speaker 1: 18:50

When you pay attention to the details of your team, here's are a couple of things that actually happen. You build trust, you enhance the, you enhance your own credibility, you drive excellence. You are also modeling the behavior right. So when we start to talk about a lead by example or inspire trust, one of the things that I often talk about and say is that we have to live by the same expectations that we place on other people. A lot of leaders don't do that. They expect their team to be at a certain level of authenticity and genuineness and approachability and we are not, and we place those undue and unreasonable and unrealistic expectations upon the team when we are not living out those same things ourselves. The last piece that I think is the most important part for pay attention to the details is that when you do that, you prevent overlooking issues. You right, when you pay attention to the details, the smallest little thing could actually be something that is a typical VI Iceberg for something that's very big and the more you are in that, and I mean that as it relates to your team, as it relates to their ability to lead.

Speaker 1: 20:22

I remember having a conversation with a leader and on several occasions I just heard them. They would talk about their team and when they got to this one person, the tone always changed, always changed. And that's okay, I just put it as a one off. Right, I just put it as a one off Because you know, we all have those people sometimes on our team that were like, oh gosh, okay, I remembered, I stored that just on a couple other occasions, same thing happened, same thing happened. And I was like what is going on? And I said and I brought it to their attention. I said, hey, do you realize, every time you talk about XYZ team member, your tone changes and they're like no, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't think about it. I said so what's going on between between, between, between you two? And I won't get into the, to the, to the, to the crest of the details, but there was something that was actually happening. There was a, a, some measure of misinformation and miscommunication that the leader didn't appreciate or didn't like, or something along those lines and in I in they were able to address it because I was able to address it with that leader and my my tone and tenure changed a little bit was like well, you need to address this because it is coming out in your conversation. And if it's coming out in a conversation with me, I can almost assume, I can almost guarantee you, that it's coming out With your peers or their peers or your team Right. So, and when you are paying attention to the details, you are able to see little Nuances that could be just the tip of the iceberg. So we want to make sure that we are addressing those things.

Speaker 1: 22:27

Okay, number five, lesson number five Know your purpose. I know that sounds so big. I know that sounds so big. You know who can say they really know their purpose. Steve, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? I You're, as that relates to purpose, when, when Ted Lasso took the position as a, as a manager, he was really trying to figure out his purpose in life.

Speaker 1: 22:57

He had personal things going on in his life that he still needed to address and when he took the position, he was in the state of really finding his purpose. He was one thing over here in the States, a successful college football coach. When he came over to the UK he was something completely different, but he wanted to use this experience to you in the UK to really truly find his purpose. He wanted to find out what his, what he, stood for. He wanted to find out his value system. So when I say purpose, I really mean your value systems, like what are you going to stand for? What are the, your behaviors, your thoughts, your concepts, your skills that you hold true to yourself, that others can see in you?

Speaker 1: 23:47

An issue is that we once again, I see, is that we we place unnecessary pressure on other people when we don't place that same pressure on ourselves to actually Know what we stand for. Right, even an uncertainty. As a retail leader, you are faced with uncertainty all the time. There is change that happens hourly, right. As a, as a, as a, as a leader, I could come into a market and change the entire complexion of that market. Every store I went into, you the everything that they wanted to do. That day they changed. When I walked into the store they had the best late plans, but when Steve walked in the door, guess what a lot of those, some of those plans just went out the window. Right so?

Speaker 1: 24:37

But as a leader, when you change up kind of who you are, the processes and the routines that are going to change, but what you stand for and your value system should never change. So when I say, lesson number five is know your purpose, know what you're going to stand for, because the sooner you can discover your own values and systems and things that you're gonna stand for, the more you can actually help your team discover theirs Can. Can you imagine a team that understands who they are and what they stand for and where they want to go? Man, there is nothing like that, especially when we think about it as it relates to retail. We want to make sure that we understand our values and our purpose so that we can help others Understands that, understand theirs and we can move forward as a team. Two more to go.

Speaker 2: 25:42

You're listening to retail leadership with Steve worthy.

Speaker 1: 25:47

Alrighty. Lesson six oh, oh, I love this one too. I excuse, number seven is the best one, because I'm glad you, you know Everybody's holding off until number seven's. Number seven is the best one. They're all great, but number seven is has to be the best, but number six, um, every one is worthy of attention and I I didn't. You know, there's no pun intended, I didn't mean to put my name in there, but that's the truth. Every one is worthy of attention, value and acknowledge every team member, no matter their role, no matter their role.

Speaker 1: 26:24

Ted Lasso did an amazing job of this. If you watch, if you watch the show, he had a Unique way of connecting with each and every one of his players, each and every one of his staff members, everybody around him. He had a unique way, and I don't and but here's the thing he didn't change who he was as he connected with everybody. He just met everybody where they were Right. Here is the biggest piece that I want. I want you to get from this one and this is going to change your leadership anytime you connect with somebody here it is Is that most people on your team Just want to be seen. They just want to be seen by you. You have a big position. When you walk into the store, everything changes. When you walk into a market, everything changes. And those people the card attended to cash years, to the person that's working in grocery, to the person that's working in the back they just want to be seen by you. And, my god, if you don't acknowledge them, shame on you. Shame on you. Everyone is worthy of your attention. And then, if you want to take it deeper, here's the thing that I realized about myself. I While ago in retail. In retail, I and I probably in life too, and this is just me telling myself I suck at names. I Really do, I really do. Thank God for name tags in retail, thank God for name tags in retail. But here's the one thing that I, I, I do, I do extremely well and I am just gonna, I'm tootin my own horn here and hopefully, you, you, you have something that you do extremely well that you were able to toot your own horn with as well.

Speaker 1: 28:26

I remember, I Remember stories about people. I Remember stories about people. I can remember, you know a cashier whose son tried out for the soccer team. I can remember a logistics person. Their mom was battling x, y and z. I can remember One of one of my, one of my store managers took a vacation and they they went white water rafting. Right, I can remember certain stories about people and for me that was more impactful than just remembering their names because once again we had the name tag. But that is a level of connection that that helped me, excuse me, it allowed me to see them, it allowed them to be seen differently. Oh my gosh, he remembers that. Right, I remember I'm a Manchester City football supporter and several stores that I would go into they would have, you know, team members who were Manchester United fans, and so that was our little thing.

Speaker 1: 29:34

I, I have to time. I can remember their names because I had so many freaking stores. Right, I Inventory learning names. But I walk in, you know, I walk in and I see him. I'd be like yo, manchester's blue, meaning that's. So that's if you, if you know football, then you know that's, you know it's it's.

Speaker 1: 29:52

There's two rival teams in one city. Manchester City is had, they wear blue, manchester United wears red, and so for the longest they would always say Manchester is Red. But now the tide is turning, the team is crushing it, and so I can walk in and say, hey, manchester, manchester is blue and that's our level of connection. They felt seen, how are you seeing your team? Do you see your team? Listen? Number six was everyone is worthy of attention. Now let's move to number seven. This is the one I know everybody has been waiting for. Well, I love every point, every lesson in this episode. I just love what he talks about, and the last point that we are going to talk about is to be curious and not judgmental. Here's a little clip from that episode.

Speaker 3: 30:56

You know, rupert, guys have underestimated me my entire life and for years I never understood why. I used to really bother me. But then one day I was driving my little boy to school and I saw this quote by Walt Whitman. It was painted on the wall there. It said be curious, not judgmental. I like that. So I get back in my car and I'm driving to work and all of a sudden it hits me All them fellas that used to belittle me, not a single one of them were curious. You know, they thought they had everything all figured out. So they judged everything and they judged everyone, and I realized that they're underestimating me. Who I was, had nothing to do with it, because if they were curious they would ask questions, questions like have you played a lot of darts, ted? Which I would have answered yes, sir. Every Sunday afternoon I had a sports ball with my father from age 10 to 16 when he passed away.

Speaker 1: 32:07

What you just heard was probably one of the most famous scenes in Ted Lasso, where he's battling Rupert doing darts and he goes into the story and he talks about you know how people underestimated him in his entire life.

Speaker 1: 32:22

And he talks about this quote, and this is lesson number seven. It says be curious and not judgmental. Once again, this has to be one of the most powerful scenes. I think it's season one has to be one of the most powerful scenes in Ted Lasso because of the story in which he talks about it. The context is that his entire life people have underestimated him. They said he couldn't do this, they said he couldn't do that and he said no one bothered to ask a question about who he was and his ability to lead, his ability to connect. They were not curious.

Speaker 1: 33:09

There was just a study that was done by Eek Magazine and also Harvard Business School, and they talked about what was the number one trait that leaders need to have in order to be successful. And guess what it was? It was curiosity. It was curiosity. I'll make sure I leave a link to that article if you want to read that. So curiosity as a leader opens up the door for you to embrace change, to handle mistakes, to understand your team's motivations and then also for them to understand who you are.

Speaker 1: 33:47

Curiosity begets curiosity. If I'm curious with you, then they have. Your team is open to being curious with you, with you. You have to be okay with that. You have to be okay with them asking questions about who you are, where you come from, what did you do? What was the failure that you had? What was the success that you had? I'm not talking about getting into intimate personal details. I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about just normal curiosity For me. I'm the youngest of seven Spoiled brat was a spoiled brat growing up and then I would kind of share that story in my team. I'm like, yep, I can see that and it was just an ongoing little thing that they knew about me. Right, curiosity begets curiosity. Here's the thing that I want to leave you with around be curious and not judgmental. Your team will not come to you. If you hold judgment, if you don't suspend your judgment about them coming to you with a complaint or with an issue, over time you are going to lose your credibility with that team. So we want to talk about the be curious. But the last part of that is probably the most important part is to be is to not be judgmental when people are coming to you with a concern.

Speaker 1: 35:17

Here's the thing Every market has has that person. I didn't, it didn't matter, almost right, almost every store has that person, right? That will always say that that cake. Can I see you for a second, right? I mean if you don't raise your hand, if you're in the car, but if you're listening to this, you know what I'm talking about. Every store has that person. I don't know who they are, but when you walk with, your leader walks into the store and they got an issue and they have tried their best to probably talk to their leader about it. Guess what they? They leapfrog you and come right to me and hey, you never talked to you for a second.

Speaker 1: 35:57

And I know in my young leadership I would get so like, like, bent out of shape about those circumstances I really like and I would talk to my leader. You can handle the situation. But what I realized was that I I had a different level of cachet that I needed to be able to utilize and what I would do was allow myself to embrace those circumstances when people would, would want to come to me and then at the end of that conversation I always turned it that, hey, next time go to your boss, and then I would go and I would loop back with the boss and talk to them about, hey, this is something that you really need to kind of think about as well. So, and over time, I was able to suspend judgment and really be able to embrace those issues or even challenges that they had for the store, for the market, and I got a lot of great ideas from those team members.

Speaker 1: 36:56

So number seven be curious and not judge mental as a leader. It's important, it's incumbent, it's imperative All the m's, all the m's for you to understand that if you want to be successful, if you want your team to embrace, change, embrace who you are as a leader, you have to be curious, but you also have to not be judgmental with your team. All right, you know what's coming up next. Right, you know what's coming up next. The North Star is coming up right now. All right, the North Star is that point in this podcast where you know you've been listening to me talk, I've been giving you all of this information and you're like Steve, what does this mean to me? How does this apply to my situation and what does this look like? We we focus in on the North Star because it provides you a perspective of behaviors, thoughts and traits and ideas that you should exhibit if you are implementing what, whatever it is that we just spoke about.

Speaker 1: 38:08

So we just gave you seven, I just gave you seven lessons from Ted Lasso. Here's what it looks like as a, as a leader, as a senior retail leader, when you put these things into place Okay, this is our, these are North Stars engagement with your team becomes more genuine. Engagement with your team becomes more genuine when you start to implement these seven, these seven lessons, your team will. Their ability to connect with you and their ability to kind of go back and forth with you will become more genuine. And here's here's a defining point Um, a good friend of mine. We always talk about um, when leaders, like leaders, will say you know, I'm a great leader, I'm a great leader, and our pushback is always like well, did your team tell you that? Right, we can say that we're a great leader all day long, but then our team tell us that it's the same thing with, with, with genuine team connection, we can feel the genuineness, but guess what, when, when, when our boss comes in and they can feel that genuine connection that you have with your team, guess what? That's a whole nother level. That's a whole nother level. So you don't want to do that for the accolades or the, the, the, the um, recognition of your boss, right? You don't want to create a team just just for that. But when, when someone else can see it, man, that's super important. That goes such a long way. You start to realize that you have something very special.

Speaker 1: 39:46

Number two for a North Star is that you and your team begin to embrace a growth mindset. You embrace, you embrace a growth, a growth mindset. When you are not connecting with your team, when you are um, not um, providing attention, when no one knows their purpose, when no one is paying attention to the details, no one is growing. Your market isn't growing. Your, the, the, your, the stories aren't growing. Everybody has a very scarce, uh, scarce mentality, scarcity mentality. Where they don't want to, they want to hold on to whatever it is that they have leadership, position, team, wise no one wants to develop in and share talent, right, everybody wants to hold on, right. But when you are implementing these, these lessons, the growth mindset of your team. Right, because there's a, there's a genuine interest and connection. Guess what this feeds into? More growth mindset of people wanting to share talent. People wanted to share ideas, people wanted to provide feedback. You know as well.

Speaker 1: 40:50

So when I was I'm going from store manager to district manager um, my peers were so amazing because our boss had created a growth mindset in our market. They knew that my store was going to be under massive scrutiny. You know just as it should, right? And when you reach out to another level, right, people are going to like, come to your store and check it out. And what I realized was that, um, as we were in a meeting and, um, my boss said, hey, steve's going to be going up for interviews. In that meeting, I had the least three of my peers who had been with the company at least, all of them at least 10 years. All of them at least 10 years. I was only with the company for um, about 16 months at the time. That's it, um, and all three of them were like hey, dude, I'm going to come walk your store. And they didn't walk my store with bad intentions. They walked my store in order to help me get promoted. Our entire market had a growth mindset. It was next man up. Who's getting promoted? Let's help them. Who's going for this? Let's go. Let's figure it out, right? So, when you are implementing these seven lessons, you will have a growth mindset and your team will have a growth mindset.

Speaker 1: 42:08

And the last piece is that and this sounds so big, but it's so true is that you and your team will begin to operate in a place in a sense of purpose. And a sense of purpose we just talked about earlier that retail is about the human connection. It's about the human condition. It's about helping people under the, providing people a solution to their problem. Right, we don't think about it that way. We think people just come in and get commodities, and they come in and get soap, they come in and get clothing and underwear, but they have a problem. That's a problem that they're trying to solve, and that product solves that problem. Right, our job is to make sure that we actually have the solution for them. But also, how can we provide more solutions? Right, that's increased, more sales. Right, but how do we deal this with a purpose? How do we do this with a bigger perspective in mind?

Speaker 1: 43:10

If we are looking at these seven lessons and we are applying them. And I'm not saying you actually have to apply these every single day. There are going to be times where you have to throttle one for the next. But if we have this ethos of around, being curious and not judgmental and allowing everybody to be seen, guess what? Overall, overall, our entire market, our entire team begins to look differently. You begin to look differently, you begin to lead differently, you begin to be seen differently by your team, by your boss, by your boss's boss. They can feel the change.

Speaker 1: 43:53

The thing that happened in Ted Lasso I'm going to close with this is that people started to feel the change. They started to feel the purpose and intent that he was trying to create with his team. They started to see the vision. They started to catch the vision. It took some time, it took some changing of the team, it took some hard conversations, it took some people apologizing, but over time, they started to see the vision and things started to change. It wasn't easy.

Speaker 1: 44:34

Listen to me, I say this all the time Leadership will be easy if it wasn't for the people. But guess what? If it wasn't for the people, you wouldn't be a leader, because truly, by definition, a leader has followers, so it wouldn't be the case. I hope that these seven lessons that you will study, that you will take to heart, that you will add to your repertoire or your toolbox or whatever analogy you want to use, that will help you from a leadership standpoint, because right now, this is your time. This is your time as a leader, to understand who you are, so that you can become the leader that you have always wanted to be. Thank you for listening to Retail Leadership with Steve Worthy. I am your host, steve Worthy, which is kind of redundant, but that's the case, that's how I named it. But there it is. Have a great day and God bless.