Reflections #9 | How Culture can be a cut above the rest! A view on the Decathlon way.

Experiencing with my own eyes as a former team member, and observing over the years on what makes the heart-beat at the core of an organization encouraged me to capture this.

Having quietly studied different organizations I've been fortunate to be a part of, it brings forth an intuitive yet gripping need to understand what makes us tick, and why it's important to nurture that one thought towards scale. That is the CULTURE at the core.

According to me, Culture is something we do because we believe it's the right thing to do, and not because it is politically correct!

Company culture is often something you can feel, even as an outsider! (https://shorturl.at/fiPfB)

And in a right cultural setting, people always come first, and this directly affects company performance in key metrics, including employee retention, finances, customer service and innovation. The WILL TO DO from our people is almost guaranteed with a great culture in place.

I believe that when the basic tenets get shaken, falling back onto our core values helps us as a guiding path to overcome whatever complexity in decision making we might face.

Recently a colleague mentioned how during Covid, his company founder told them - Go out and save anyone you can in your friends and family, and just send the bill to me, I'll reimburse it! I mean WOW, his chest swelled with pride as he mentioned it! THAT is the core value!

That reimbursement costed the company about 80 Lacs, but what was the ROI? a lifelong commitment and loyalty of the people to do right, because deep down they believe they're doing right for the people they're serving, and that feeling is something money can't buy......

So what is it that has made me a Lifelong fan of Decathlon you ask? Here is why:

• Keeping things simple (processes): We humans are built on emotions, individual respect, recognition of talent, authority and challenges, and equal opportunity to succeed. Everything else are skills or knowledge that we layer on top of these basic tenets. And Decathlon has done this beautifully well by focusing on 'doing right' for our customers and team members.

Anecdote: I recall an incident at Decathlon Sarjapur back then where one of our colleagues had raised an issue as to why we don't have CCTV monitoring inside our stores, for which the leader had responded saying - we must focus on the 99% of people that are doing right, and not waste energies on the 1% that might still want to cheat! At that point, the whole thought process shifted in our minds. All the process setting went into how we can encourage good practice internally (from teams) and externally (from customers) so that the need to cheat itself goes away..

• Instilling Discipline (repeat best practices daily): Especially in a retail environment, there are many variables at play at varied intervals on a daily basis. So adapting to such an environment requires commitment, basic fitness, discipline and knowing that whatever best we do today, needs to be repeated and improved upon tomorrow - sustainably. To instill this kind of discipline requires a close focus from the leader to continuously converse with the team member, encourage questions and provide feedback constantly, and keep referring back to the company objective and values. Over time, this becomes sort of a hypnotic setup where the person himself starts emulating the expectations on a daily basis.

Anecdote: If a store needs to be opened at 7:45am, it has to be open at 7:45am, period. Now this is a discipline that supersedes any reasoning not to do. How does one go about doing that? In the initial few weeks of the first Decathlon store launch, the India leader used to come and stand at the entrance at sharp 7:35am to demonstrate how important it was to expect and nurture the same on the ground. We rarely encountered delays after that, often followed through with warning letters given out to us if ever repeated just to instill this discipline being in place....

• Doing what's right, not just what's profitable (profit always follows): For every product that we sold at the store, we were well ingrained with the idea of suggesting the product that is suitable for the intensity and utility of the sport being practiced, not the one that would've given the highest revenue for the store. This was almost unheard of back in 2009 am sure. Also a no questions asked returns policy where money is returned back to customer. Satisfied or Satisfied!

Anecdote: There was a customer on the floor who were going snorkeling on their holiday as a family. So when they came to the diving section, the suggestions we gave was on what is suitable to their need and not just to choose the most expensive of the lot. Now that had a profound impact on the customer that day, and they became lifelong fans of the organization! Isn't that what we need? They ended up coming back again and again with their extended families thereby increasing profits for the company.......

• Demonstrating Trust for Ownership (with people and customers): At 26 years of age and the authority to sign a cheque of up to Rs. 10 Lacs on behalf of the company was true empowerment. This is a double edged sword where one can either think of misusing authority, or on the other hand develop a sense of Ownership, with a feeling as this is MY company and I need to do right. So negotiations, compliances, adhering to company guidelines all become almost automatic. Lately trust extended to teams are rather hard to come by, for natural reasons of disengagement of trust built overtime or say it's just easier not to trust as an outcome. This is a commitment an organization needs to make with built in repercussions that has a profound impact on long term sustainability and ownership.

Anecdote: When on a visit to a bicycle factory in China, we had to make available spare parts as consumables available for customers. Upon placing orders, it was noted that we made a mistake of selling spare parts in bulk rather than internal consumption for servicing of bicycles in store. This started to bleed our logistics supplies with unusually high consumption of parts vis-a-vis volume of services in store. So post facing a dent around this, we made course correction to change this policy. Company didn't blink to allow this trust in making the mistake and learning from it.

Another decision was to launch a Bandana as a small item to sell as part of cycling apparel locally produced. It was a massive failure where we hardly ended up selling quantities. Here again we were encourage to try and fail and only question asked was what did we learn from it...

• Nurturing talent (people development): Each hire that we made thereon was on identifying the passion to sport and understanding what drives then, and the energy to serve they bring on the table. We placed many filters in hiring to ensure we only allow those who demonstrate the will to problem solve, work with a team, and think beyond themselves in doing right.

But the major difference in the Decathlon way was the inherent mandatory one-to-one interactions between the mentor & mentee each month with a sort of reflection and progression decision making on the job. This was called the Individual Decision Meeting or the (IDM). This I believe has been the core differentiator in instilling the core values into the team members from day one and act as a bridge to nurturing talent.

Some of the basic tenets being:

1. Your Pleasure and Displeasure on the job at the moment - Motivation, what you enjoyed on the job, what you didn't enjoy, talk about anything and everything with the primary goal being to share. Because venting out helps clear up the mind.
2. Achievements & Failures in the last 4 weeks - Decisions made, what worked, what didn't work, and what you learnt from them. This helps instill confidence in individual decision making and taking ownership of the outcome and build on it further.
3. Results of the Decisions taken - What has been the outcome of the goals taken for your Job and the store mission. It's a opportunity to understand each subject line and check how we're progressing, and if we need to course correct it.
4. Your Development - The skills required to deliver the job is discussed mutually. What all is being demonstrated, what is not, and what are the improvement to make in order to stay in line with the company objectives. This helps reflect on self-development and gain confidence that one is improving daily and support is being provided to us.
5. Future Decisions to make - What all focus areas will be made for the next 4 weeks and how we would act on them to achieve and by when. A clear timeline given so that the project stays on track to achieve.
6. Half-yearly Appraisal - As a mandatory 2-tier appraisal per year, first half being a reflection if we're on track, and the final one being the reward. This helps to ensure that we feel heard regularly, a chance to sharpen our own mentoring skills, and acts as a repository when a team members needs to be handed over to another mentor or new leader.

This has been a POWERFUL differentiator in Culture and Values setting into each Decathlonian in my opinion. Of course, the better the quality of Debrief with the leader, the better the team member development to serve the company.

What have been some of your observations on the impact Culture makes in building amazing teams and organizations?

Do share your thoughts. Thank you for reading.

#Decathlon #Culture #Values 迪卡侬 Decathlon Sports India