An OmniChannel Success Story: 7 Habits of an Effective Leader

Best Buy, a retail bellwether, specializing in one of the most challenging categories: electronics, has been on the front pages of corporate voyeurism for several years, at the heels of Amazon becoming a serious rival to electronics, books and mass merchandise retailers. Saddled with Q-on-Q declining same-store sales, nosediving stock prices, lagging e-commerce sales and marketshare, Best Buy perceivably was headed in the direction of Radio Shack and Circuit City in 2012. In four years, Best Buy has re-written the retail playbook, transforming itself into a resilient thriving retailer, through innovative strategies such as price matching, omni-channel order fulfillment beyond the distribution center, training store associates, amping up in-store services, visual merchandising and customer experience, revitalizing eCommerce, supplier coordination and collaboration, energizing loyalty programs, offering world class service around its products (Geek Squad). But I write not so much about the stellar retail transformation case study that this is, but about Hubert Joly, CEO, who orchestrated one of the biggest turnarounds in probably this entire decade.

So impressive is the man and the mission, as outlined in this article (source: Fortune Magazine) and the 7 tips, that I felt compelled to pen down the powerful but subtle nuggets herein. What makes a great leader who can effect real tranformational change?

1. Focus on new wave thinking and execution: Instead of tweaking strategy, focus on disruptive higher thinking, steady attainment of goals, moving forward with checks and balances, making small tweaks to stay on track, with manageable byte-sized work streams.
2. Focus on people: Think beyond lay-offs and extreme measures, people skills, listening skills and EQ are underrated traits. Trust, motivation and positive reinforcement reduces the need for overarching organizational change management while retaining knowledge, skills, and creating a collaborative culture to effect transformation.
3. Empower others: Hire the (diverse) A-team, partner or supplier and empower them to bring out their best. A.k.a. share the credit and be human. Making a decision (fast) is better than no decision at all.
4. Spread mirth and "attitude": Perception is reality. Positive energy is infectious, it makes everyone a believer, and believers bring passion, ideas, energy to the job. In retail stores, that translates to better customer service, and happier (returning) customers.
5. Lead by example: Accountability, follow-through and credibility cannot be taught or enforced, rather they are traits which are emulated and followed and form the fabric of the organization culture. A true leader sets the bar high.

6. Plan, move, sell and back-up plan: Leverage the known and failure-proof the unknown, plan for the best and prepare for the worst.

7. Take Risks: Industry knowledge, Wall Street or technology background is dispensable for a true visionary with drive, passion and well, plain old-fashioned guts.

A more recent update: https://youtu.be/dXvTywAswXI