July is the quintessential vacation month, and, like many of you, I’m taking the opportunity to do some traveling this month. Over the course of my career in retail store operations, field leadership, and learning and development, I’ve been able to travel to many different places for work, leaving just three states in the U.S.…

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The start of a new year serves as an opportunity for many to set new goals and commit to better habits. That means January kicks off with grand plans and best intentions. But what about now, four weeks into the new year, as January winds down and the everyday pressures creep back in? Research shows…

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retail change management

Dealing with constant change has always been part of the job in retail, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Even tougher: successfully leading others through change. District, regional, and other multiunit managers know this all too well. So do the merchant and store support leaders working in HQ and DC locations. Leading change requires getting…

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Retail Leadership Skills

“Do more with less.” Is there any more tired phrase? In retail, though, it is, without a doubt, the everyday reality. Retail multiunit managers are struggling to deal with effective execution in the stores, retention issues, labor shortages, pressures on payroll, online competition, and on and on. These issues are always present to some degree,…

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When people talk about technology in retail, invariably they’re focused on things like omnichannel, mobile payments, robots and automation, product displays, and data analytics, among other digital tools and solutions. But there’s another way technology influences everything that happens in the retail environment, and that’s through internal communication. Particularly for multiunit retail managers like district…

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