Treat Your Team Like They're Geniuses

Running a retail team can feel hectic. Especially right now when you're trying to make it through back-to-school alive.

You're trying to do your job, ensure everyone else is doing theirs, and help customers simultaneously. It can be overwhelming.

How do you give yourself a break? How can you work smarter, not harder?

Treat your team members like they already hold the title above theirs.

Here's what I mean

When I led teams, I treated my Lead Sales Associates like Assistant Managers and my Sales Associates like Lead Sales.

Once they were comfortable in their position and with the company policies, I empowered them to take more ownership over the store. I trained them like this so they could handle anything that came their way. It prepared them for pop visits from corporate and unhappy customers and made them resourceful.

My expectations were high, and the team knew it. I was upfront with them. I told them, "Other Store Managers don't have you do this, but I know you're capable."

I let my Lead Sales people call IT, fix register issues, and complete some of the checklists that were technically a "manager" duty. This stuff was not that hard; they only needed to know who to call and where to find the forms.

I let my Assistant Managers handle customer service issues, order supplies, and write schedules.

Not all of them and not right away, but as a leader, you know when people are ready to learn more. A handful of people I worked with knew how to do everything operationally that I did. When I went on vacation, there was a clear direction of ownership, and I could get away without responding to text messages.

What it takes

It's not always easy to set this up in your store but believe me, it's absolutely worth your time.

Getting settled and getting to know your team will take a little while. Once you've done that, you can start treating them like the geniuses they are.

• Have a few sales associates "own" parts of the store that need more attention, like sunglass cases, denim walls, or shoe stockroom organization. Their job is to check on their areas at least once during their shift.
• Be okay with the mistakes that will absolutely happen. Someone will order too much change, or you may run out of paper towels, but that's the point. You can oversee these things, but someone will still mess up at some point, and that's okay. People usually learn after one mistake.
• Get out of the way. Yes, you. Let people take initiative and try things. They'll still come to you for approval; if they don't, well, you'll both learn.

Leading people is an ongoing experiment of what will work and what will not work. I've had people who took too much initiative and did everything wrong. I've had people take zero initiative because they feared messing up. In both cases, we were able to find a happy medium.

"Anyone can answer the phone."

"Anyone can put away supplies."

"Anyone can take out the trash with a manager if you notice it's full."

These are all things I've said numerous times. Teamwork is about all of us. Everyone supports everyone else. We are all allowed to learn, contribute, and get better at our jobs.

Our team is so smart!

When you give people more to do than what their job title tells them they can do, you'll soon start to develop a team that's dedicated, curious, and ambitious.

Pretty soon, you'll start hearing, "I got it!" before you have to run over and help. It's an inspiring thing to watch unfold.

And that, my friend, will make your job easier every day of the week.

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Kit Campoy?is a freelance writer based in Southern California. She covers Web3, travel, leadership, retail, writing, and more. She also writes personal essays on?Medium. Connect with Kit on?LinkedIn,?DeSo, and?Twitter. Give yourself a break, and join her weekly?newsletter.