Interesting discussion last Friday
among us CVS managers.
During our annual one-day
pre-Christmas tour of each other's stores, the debate over how
to judge a store's appearance came up. Judging one retail
store's appearance on a specific day against another retail
store's appearance on the same day seems pretty simple on the
surface, but when you have 14 different managers looking at 100
different aspects of different stores of different sizes in
different neighborhoods with different sales volumes and
different customer trends at different times during the
day, well, the judging can get a little muddled. And what
us managers realized this year is that you can't really have
this kind of superficial competition between stores. There
are simply too many variables. But we also came to another
very different conclusion that says a lot about us
as managers and how we do things at CVS.
First, though, a word about this
whole Christmas tour thing. Our Christmas tour is sort of
a friendly contest between all 14 stores in the district to see
which one is the overall best decorated, best in-stock, best
merchandised, best signed, etc. The contest day is usually
in mid-November after all of the stores have converted from
Halloween over to Christmas. Setting up for Christmas
really is a bitch because CVS stores pretty much sell everything
one needs for the holidays and it takes a hell of a lot of work
to get it all out on the sales floor. From gift wrap to
candy, from toys to candles, from trees to ornaments, we got it
all. And then some (we're even selling the goddamn Clapper
this year).
So, in an semi-elaborate ploy to get
all of the stores tip-top and ready for Christmas, the district
managers have this contest between stores. From Halloween
night right through the Night Before The Contest, all the stores
pretty much work around the clock to get everything just
right. On Contest Day, all of the managers and the
district manager then pile into cars and go out and look at all
the stores and rank them from best to worst. And then, if
we're all not quite dead yet from working back-to-back-to-back
80-hour weeks, we hit the bar and have a half of a beer before
falling asleep on the stool.
Anyway, the debate over how to judge
stores was between four of us managers at the bar that night:
Tony R, Michelle, Wahab, and myself. We were all quick
to agree that with all the variables there was really no way in
which to fairly pick the best store. Sure, you could tell
the top three from the middle three from the bottom three, but deciding
between the sixth-best store and the seventh-best store is too
arbitrary. And not only is it arbitrary because of the
store's particular factors (volume, customer base, etc.), but
also because of who's doing the judging. Tony might
deduct a few points from a store for concentrating too much on
decorating and therefore missing a couple of shelf signs,
whereas Michelle might overlook the signing and give the store a
few more points for the extra decorating. And as a manager
of a high volume store, I may look harder at quantity of
merchandise on the shelves, whereas Wahab--the manager of a very
low volume store--may look more at general neatness, rather than
how much you can pack onto the shelves.
So the debate wasn't much of a debate until I took it a step
further. Or rather a couple steps further. I argued that
the competition wasn't really store versus store anyway, but rather
manager versus manager in terms of how well a manager knows
how
to get a store ready for this contest. And following that
premise, it all really boils down to which of us managers know how to
impress our peers and our bosses, which is exactly who
we shouldn't be trying to impress. As everyone knows,
it's the customer who counts. So, I surmised, our
Christmas contest was actually bad for the business.
Michelle tried to shoot holes in my theory right off the bat. "Well, first of all, I think the contest is manager versus
manager, but not in terms of who knows how to win or not. It's
manager versus manager in terms of who's a good manager and who's
not."
I stopped her right
there. "No, that's not true. Take me for example. I think I'm a
pretty good manager, but not on a consistent basis. I
definitely have my ups and downs. Just ask the boss.
Yet, every year, I finish in the top three in this contest.
Every
year. This year I finished third and next year I'm sure
I'll finish right up there too. I'm not being cocky, I
just happen to know what it takes to do well in this stupid
contest. Just because I know how to make my seasonal aisle look nice
doesn't automatically mean that it looks nice all the
time. Trust me, it doesn't."
Tony, who's been around
forever, nodded vigorously in agreement. Maybe a little too
vigorously, so I elbowed him in the ribs.
"Okay, fine, I'll accept that," Michelle continued,
"but even if this contest isn't a reflection of how good a
manager you are, how can you say that it's bad for
business? Did you see these stores today? For the
most part, the stores were full, well-signed, beautifully decorated,
and clean. How is that bad for business? This
is the nicest some of these stores have been all year."
Wahab, the rookie of the group, had to agree with that.
"My store has never looked better and I doubt it will ever
look this good again--until next year's contest," he said.
"Well, that's kind of my point right there," I
said. "Only when it comes down to facing our peers or
our boss do we step it up and make the stores look the way they
should
look all of the time. The contest itself may not be
bad for the business, but the concept of having a contest
is what's bad. We kill ourselves for 3 weeks just to have
our stores look as close to perfect as possible. And for
what? For you all. And for me. And for the
bossman. And what's perfect for us is not necessarily
perfect for the customer. A lot of the time it is, but for
this contest, a lot of it isn't. Does a customer care if
your stockroom floor is swept? Or does a customer care
about having no lines at the checkout and being able to walk
into a store and find what they need easily? I think we're
too worried about what other people think within the company
rather than what the customer thinks. Maybe not all of the
time, but a lot of the time. This contest tends to
reinforce that somewhat. And I'll tell you what: 90% of
the managers sitting here tonight won't be at work this weekend
and they probably won't even care what happens at their
store this weekend. I know I won't, on both accounts,
simply because I'm so freakin' tired from trying to make my
store look beautiful for all of you guys."
Big speech over. Tony and Wahab were pretty much in
agreement with me and I think Michelle was starting to see the
point I was trying to make.
"Look, all I'm
saying is that we're doing this contest for all the wrong
reasons. Maybe we should have the customers judge the
stores instead," I said to a chorus of groans.
So in the end, although it's kind of tough to take, the truth is
that we're not always focused on the customer. Way too
often do we have that Holy-Shit-The-Boss-Is-Coming Syndrome.
It's not right, but that's the way it is. And I'm just as
guilty as the first-place store and the fourteenth-place store.
But then again, all things being equal, I'm definitely happier being nearer to
the first-place store than the fourteenth-place
store. If nothing else, I suppose, the contest is about
pride.
