The business leader who generates creative ideas nonstop will fail as a retailer. A key to success as a retailing leader is implementation of plans that have been critically analyzed. If you're spending all your time generating new ideas, there's no time left for critical analysis of those ideas in terms of strategies and other criteria and then execution of the most promising tactics.
Store staff thrive on new ways to look at the jobs they are assigned to do. But they'll quickly get frustrated if not allowed time to work with their instructions before the rules change. Good staff want to understand, to learn, to try out, to discuss, to assess, to report back to their supervisors and managers, to fine-tune.
For each decision you're making and each plan you're developing which impacts those you lead, keep it clear to yourself and to them whether you're in open minds, open roads, or open wounds gear:
Open minds. Here's where you welcome all sorts of input, realizing it's always easier to tame down an unrealistic idea than to try to make the same old ideas exciting.
Open roads. Here's where you cut back on the brainstorming, critically evaluate what you've got, develop your plan based on what's most likely to work for the long-term, and move on ahead for a while with minimum distractions.
Open wounds: You hope to minimize use of this gear, but inevitably, there will be times the bad news floods in so fast that you must take decisive steps. You might ask others for ideas, but your focus is on short-term bandages.
Great ideas come from building on what's already been tried out. Creatively adapt, but never do things differently just for the sake of being different. Do things differently so they'll make you more money.
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