When confronted with a major challenge or threat, leadership often neglects their best resource – their employees. We use the term ‘lever’ in the grocery industry to identify specific areas that can help turn around difficult situations. This includes things like pricing (what we charge customers), expense reduction, product assortment, and branding messaging to name a few. The one lever that we grocers too often neglect is the wisdom of our employees. You know, those who are closest to the action and doing the work that matters most. Let me share an example of how this works.

While at Food Lion, I was promoted to Divisional Vice President and assigned to turning around an under-performing region. As the new guy coming in, the presumption by my team was that I had ‘the solution.’ Nothing could have been further from the truth. I would visit stores, desperately looking for what needed to be done only to come up empty. The problem was that store managers knew I was coming and worked hard to prepare to make their stores look like a grand opening absent customers. In addition to this, I learned quickly that store employees were conditioned to not speak with visiting VIP’s. I got kind greetings and polite smiles and nothing more.

After doing these pre-planned store visits, I changed my approach by showing up to stores unannounced with no entourage of directors, district managers, or specialist. I drove to store after store with only one goal in mind – to learn from store employees what they would do if they were in my shoes. As you might expect, at the beginning, people were weary of my intentions and didn’t trust me. As the word got around that I wanted honest, even brutal feedback, people began to loosen up and speak their truths. When an employee, would begin their comments with, “Do you really want to know the truth…” I know that what followed would be like gold.

A strategy emerged from these visits that we named, Fresh Start. This was appropriate given we wanted employees, and customers to see Food Lion in a new way. The management supporting the stores did most of the hard work making the changes happen supported by people at corporate. Store associates felt unleashed to finally be giving customers what they wanted.

There were two take-a-ways for me from this experience. The first is that the ideas and changes we implemented were so much bolder and better than what I or my team could accomplish on our own. The second is that the ownership that emerges when people feel heard and respected accelerates the speed of change and makes it so much more sustainable. I have no doubt that leveraging our most important resource, our people, made the difference.

And oh, if you are curious about the results, the division turned profitable and outpaced other divisions on success metrics. Finally, some 20 years later, a division that was facing closure or being sold, still contributes to the phenomenal success of Food Lion.

My Twitter now known as X profile begins with, “I am a humble grocer from Maine committed to making the world a better place by nourishing others.” It was intended to be a bit tongue in cheek but upon reflection, I believe it captures the essence of me and my brand. I spent the first 15 years of my career working in grocery stores. I chose being a grocer because I felt that bringing fresh, wholesome food to communities was a noble pursuit. It was here in stores where I cultivated my leadership and learned how to run a business.

In my early thirties, I had an epiphany that I was more drawn to the people side of the business and decided that a career in HR, particularly OD, was where I wanted to be. I spent the next 15 years in leadership and development, corporate strategy, and helping organizations create a positive workplace culture. I worked with leaders and their teams to grow personally and professionally. I didn’t know it at the time that I was acting more as a coach by nourishing people’s curiosity about breakthrough and striving for things they never thought possible. I loved this work so much that I decided to start my own coaching practice.

After 35 years in the grocery industry, in 2011, I launched my own business as a certified ICF coach working with executives and their teams. It was great working in different industries, with a diverse group of leaders, I witnessed the positive impact that my work was having on my clients and their organizations but, like many people when Covid struck, I became restless and wanting more from my work and life.

Three years ago, I partnered with a life-long work colleague and friend to launch a podcast, Bob ’n Joyce Talk HR & OD. This led to our wanting to work more with internal HR and OD practitioners. I like to think of Joyce and me as OD Elders who help leaders navigate today’s challenging work environment. As OD elders, we have a blend of wisdom and curiosity to provoke new thinking and breakthroughs. And yes, like other consultants, we do have a bag of OD tricks, tools, and interventions. But more important than that, we bring curiosity and a fresh set of eyes in our work with clients. We are not consultants that tell clients what to do. We use a coaching, collaborative approach where we co-create together.

We also guarantee our work. If you are not 100% satisfied with what we create, we will fully refund our fee.

Early in my career, I was told that the expectation of me as a leader, was to have the answer and take charge. I was taught that I must evoke confidence and to fake it until I make it. I was told to tell people what was expected of them to meet my expectations and then check on them. I was encouraged to set guidelines and guardrails to assure consistency and control the thinking and actions of my workers.

I achieved success but it was an exhausting way to lead. People would stand around and wait for me to tell them what to do. I conditioned my workers to see it as my way or the highway so there was little encouragement to take initiative.. Something had to give.

If what I shared seems familiar to you, It is the command and control model of leading. Unfortunately it is still all too prevalent in the workplace today but that is another topic for a later article or podcast.

After about 5 years of supervising a region of drugstores, I had an epiphany when a manager I trusted described my leadership as intense and restrained. That was a punch in the gut but she was entirely right. I shifted my focus from telling people what to do to inspiring them. I went from seeing employees as a problem to be solved to possessing the answer. I started asking more questions to understand and learn other perspectives. I began, with the help of some great bosses, to see my role as bringing out the best in people and inspiring greatness. I began to be less controlling and let others take the lead. I ultimately felt more comfortable in my skin with this new way of leading which resulted in less stress, greater satisfaction, and yes, better results.

As a leadership coach and organization effectiveness consultant, most of my business comes by word of mouth. I had a website, was active in my local chamber, and did some pro bono work in my community to help get the word out. It all helped but I was ignoring my best marketing tool – me. A mentor of mine asked me how often I talk about my business. I replied that I didn’t much because I was too busy ‘doing’ the work. He challenged me to talk about my business with my entire network. To be clear, I began telling stories about how I help individuals and organizations to achieve success. I also got comfortable talking about my coaching practice with total strangers like at my kids sport events and people sitting next to me on a flight. I didn’t have a pitch per se, I just got good and folding my message into a conversation.