Results Count ... everything else is conversation.: In order to survive & thrive … don’t breathe your own exhaust

Biggest threat to today's retailers lies within the walls of the ivory tower

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The biggest challenge and competitive threat to retailers' today lies within. Traditional retailers have rich legacy of improving how to sell products through stores. These successes have the effect of creating habits or patterns, which become "accepted standards". The danger is that today's consumers are challenging many of these standards by their new patterns of how they shop anytime and everywhere. If managers "breathe their own exhaust" they tend to miss important trends and fail to ask the right questions. To thrive even in the near term requires both the courage and discipline of asking the tough questions, rather than repeating the "party line". Those retailers breathing their own exhaust are expiring at an increasing rate.

Why this is important: It is very easy to fall into the trap of over estimating how good you are today. Tomorrow's success requires management to ask the tough questions of what is NOT being done to meet consumer's changing expectations.

The dangers of breathing your own exhaust

Ok, let's be clear upfront. This exhaust maxim is not about actually breathing the toxic exhaust from your automobile. It is intended as a graphic descriptor of what happens when individuals and companies are too internally focused.

"Breathing Your Own Exhaust … is when you create something, you can fall in love with it and aren't able to see or hear anything contrary. Whatever comes out of your mouth is all you're inhaling…" Daniel Gansky.

Breathing your own exhaust can produce very toxic effects for today's retailers. The lack of critical self-examination also greatly impacting long term survival. When managers, especially executives, spend too much time in the "ivory tower", there is dangerous fallout from being too insulated and myopic. There are in fact two critical aspects of "breathing your own exhaust":

Breathing your own exhaust by definition means that managers are internally focused and miss dynamic trends and threats that are disrupting the market.
The even more dangerous aspect of breathing your own exhaust is that you start believing all of your own "hot air" … justifying what exists. The result is an over estimate of how good you are, and underestimating competitive threats.

The dangerous legacy of incrementalism in an age of disruption

Traditional retailers have a long legacy of "product centricity". Before 21^st century, retail business models were based upon buying and selling products, primarily through stores. The path to growth and profitability was focused on incremental process and systems improvement to reduce costs, improve margin mix, and generally sell more products to customers that came to stores. In short, they developed successful store models … ideas that they fell in love with because they were successful for era of big box retailing.

Breathing your own exhaust for big box retail has proven toxic to a number of retail powerhouses that since perished. I was an inside witness to Circuit City's internal conversations that overestimated how good they thought they were, and underestimated how fast and dramatically they needed to change. One can only imagine dynamics of Blockbuster breathing their own exhaust as Netflix completely disrupted video consumption, and put them out of business as streaming replaced video rental stores.

Old habits die hard!

There is an old adage that especially rings true today: "Old habits die hard!"

As a behavior psychologist, I remember reviewing countless research studies of how hard it is to change a pattern of behavior. A habit becomes a very ingrained way of doing things, because it has worked successfully in the past. This is equally true for individuals and organizations. And, this is true for bricks and mortar retailers, who have ingrained habits based on a legacy of proving how to sell things through stores.

An old habit is not a bad thing, if things remain relatively constant. What is so different about retailing today is the rate of change. And, what's changing at the speed of light is consuming shopping behavior … any time and everywhere!

5 Ways to stop breathing too much of your own exhaust

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In the fast paced world of today's retailing, breathing your own exhaust is a dangerous, real threat. It's simply not enough to say that we must "rethink" strategies, or "think outside of the box". The retailers who are today's major disruptors systematically engage in 5 behaviors to ensure that they don't breathe their own exhaust:

Get out of the ivory tower regularly!

Sam Walton visited stores every week and insisted that his managers do the same. Sam not only visited Walmart stores but the competition. Those infamous Saturday meetings were not about high fives on all the things Walmart was doing right … but more often focused on how to better serve customers. While Sam is now gone, it is interesting to watch today's retail disruptors get out of the ivory tower for a reality check. There is a reason for Amazon's mantra: Tomorrow is day one!
Never turn down a chance to talk with an actual customer.

The biggest reason retail management breathes their own exhaust is that they primarily talk amongst themselves. There is no greater reality check than to talk to actual consumers. If it is not possible for senior management to meet customers in stores, they should field some customer service hotline calls … monthly!
Walk a mile in their shoes.

Let's face it, retail executives are NOT typical consumers for their own stores and websites. They need to experience the customer journey of today's omnichannel shopper. If they can't do a "shop along" with a son or daughter, they need to take a millennial to lunch at least quarterly.
Reverse mentoring.

Most retail senior management the Board members are of the same general age and generational experience. This is a classic scenario, where it's easy to fall into the trap of stilted thinking and lack of questions from a different point of view. We have posted previously on "people power" and the role of a sales associate. However, there is real value in bringing on younger team members, especially millennials, who can provide an entirely new generational perspective on consumer experience.
Challenge everything, and make it acceptable to do so.

We live in an age of "political correctness," where it is easier to just go with the "status quo". But, in this age of huge retail disruption, it is more important than ever to challenge everything, especially those things "accepted" as successes or self-evident.

We all love the accolades and to celebrate successes. But we are never as good as we think. In today's omnichannel world, good is never good enough. Something better is always lurking around the corner (just ask Circuit City, Blockbuster, Radio Shack).

The recipe to survive and thrive in today's retail world … Don't breathe your own exhaust.

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