Hello and welcome to the Retail Podcast and you may recognise
the legend The Man. The strong start.
Which the Steve Dennis for and we'll, we'll get into Steve.
We're here at the National Retail Federation conference
here in Singapore and I had the great fortune.
Obviously I've been stalking you through NRF.
Yeah, New York purity has been have been tightened here.
Let's see to relate the legal team.
But I've been following Stephen when his new book came out.
Actually, this is the thing because I heard about it in the
US. Is it on global release now?
Almost all right. OK, Yeah.
You get a few markets a little bit later for reasons I don't
understand. UK is a little bit later,
Australia is another month on SO but.
Soon very hence why I couldn't get it when I went to the school
but admitted to saying that I stole this copy shop talk in Las
Vegas and the press room. It was me.
Sorry if you were like what happened to my version of the
book. Anyway, Steve, for those who
don't know you, why don't you give us a a quick overview of
who you? Are sure well I've been in
retail most of my career I did a couple of things a bit a bit
earlier I spent a little bit of time in the food business worked
for a big consulting firm, but in the early 1990s I joined
Sears Roebuck and company in Chicago some people will know at
one point Sears was the biggest retailer on the planet today,
not so much that's. Maybe something we'll we'll chat
about a little bit, but I spent time on corporate leadership
side most recently before I went out on my own.
I was at the Neiman Marcus Group as the head of strategy and
innovation and a few other things.
But the last is about 15 years now.
I've been doing strategy consulting.
That's morphed into keynote speaking, morphed into writing
and podcasting. And now I've written a couple of
books, most recent one, the one we were just talking about
called Leaders Leap. So kind of a Renaissance man.
And I think I'll have. Obviously I'll post such honest
leaders leap Yeah, so you you can see it.
And the first book was remarkable retail.
Remarkable retail, right, came out right as the pandemic was
starting. Not the best timing to release a
book by the way, but then I did a second edition a year later.
Just kind of update it for the the emerging post COVID world.
Oh, fantastic. So I guess before obviously
there's so many someone like yourself, there's so many areas
we can go in. I'd love to talk about your
thoughts on retail right now because in your podcast you
always start off with like the where are we?
What's the economy, the economy looking like?
Yeah, I just wanna from you've been around the world.
Like we're in June, you've already been around the world.
What are the things that you've noticed?
What surprised you? I think what surprised me
relative to the US in particular is how much more impactful a lot
of the retail is in in other markets.
Like I look at the shopping malls in the US and in Canada
and for the most part they're quite boring.
Then I come to a place like Singapore or Dubai or go to some
of the department stores in London, for example, and they're
just much more elevated. I know it's popular to say
experiential. I don't particularly love that
word, but I would say much more of an emotional connection, much
more elevated, much more fun places to be.
Yeah, with interesting things going on, not only the products
themselves, but the environments and just the energy.
Yeah. So that's one of the things I've
really noticed. I think it's a missed
opportunity for a lot of retailers.
A lot of the conversations, though, still kind of the same,
lots about AI. Certainly retail media networks
are managing as a point of conversation.
The interplay between digital and physical.
I mean, all these kinds of things are pretty common topics.
I think they happen to be. I'm looking out towards the end
of the year. What, what, what are what are
the highlights that you've got? Where else are you gonna be?
Where are people gonna find you throughout the year?
I'm hoping to travel a little bit less actually.
Alright, so most most travel domestically for the for the
balance of the year. It's been a pretty crazy year
and a half. I will I will be a shopper baby
grocery shop and you know, a few private events, things like
that. But yeah, China the last year
and a half between finishing my book and and some of the travel
has been a little chaotic. So I think I'm I'm old.
I need a bit of a rest. OK, let's get into the book.
I mean, I as a in my stolen copy, I've read, you know, the
first, the first part where you talk about your career is
serious. And ultimately I get the sense
that you're poking businesses to do more than the sense that I've
got. But you tell me.
I mean, world's the journey that you're going to take a reader on
through the. Book, yeah, the, well, the
impetus for the book it a lot of respects was in some way, shape
or form. And this really did start when
not, not right when I got to Sears, but into my career at
Sears in the 90s as Sears was really losing relevance, losing
market share, profit performance was deteriorating.
One of the things that of course we talked a lot about in the
management side and I was working on is how do we regain
our glory? But the bigger question is how
do you go from being the biggest this powerful retailer on the
planet? Yeah, and and go through this
dissent and ultimately basically Sears doesn't even exist
anymore. Then as I got to Neiman Marcus,
which is much stronger company, there were still lots of
opportunities that we didn't seize, lots of market share.
We let in some respects not let but happening that we were
leaking market share to many competitors.
And then as a consultant, I spent a lot of time working with
clients, studying companies that have failed to keep up with this
massive pace of disruption. And so one of the questions that
kind of kept coming back to me was, well, if the world has
changed so much, because I think everybody would agree the retail
world, yeah, absolutely quite a lot across the last 2025 years.
But, you know, just even in the last three or five, if the world
has changed so much, why have you changed so little?
And in some cases, the you is the brand.
In other cases, it's new, the leader, Yeah, because we just
see time and time again companies that go from iconic
positions in many cases to either irrelevance or in many
cases, complete extinction. Yeah.
So that was the question I wanted to take on and I wanted
to try to take an on in a way that other people haven't
covered and hopefully give some advice that's useful.
So one of the frustrations I have in in when people refer to
retail, they're sort of everyone in the same bucket, irrespective
of whether you're working IT operations, watching, don't
think HR and the type of retailer that you are, you know,
fast moving goods or whatever type, right.
So from your as you were writing the book, who did you have in
mind as the reader? What type of executive?
Because although it's for the exec, yeah.
What type of executive did you? Have in well, primarily as I was
writing it, my focus was on those leaders that really drive
strategy because if you're going to transform that for the most
part has to be coming top. Now, I think there are plenty of
lessons to be taken away for people in different positions,
but for the most part it's really directed towards the
C-Suite, the board, apps, investors, but people that can
really influence the long term strategy.
So. It's actually been crossing the
street. There's more business orientated
rather than lead to. All this is about just to be
clear, it's not a retail book is I believe it has applicability
for for profit companies. Yeah, nonprofit companies,
retailers, hotel industries, you know, whatever any kind of
business that is facing significant disruption and needs
to transform to minimally keep pace, but ideally create
distance between them and the competition.
I I think that the lessons here, even though I draw my retail
experience, I use retail examples.
I use plenty of other examples as well, so it is very much
industry agnostic. OK.
And, and to be fair, as I was reading that it, it almost felt
like one of these Harvard Business Review type things
that, you know, it's like a business lessons from the modern
executive. Yeah.
Well, what I was trying to do is I guess yes and no.
I mean, I one of the things I absolutely didn't want to do.
Yeah, I always make it overly academic.
There are a lot of great books, including books that I have in
the big biography that I reference, books like the
Innovators Dilemma, Blue Ocean Strategy, Good to great.
These are fantastic books, but I think they are often too left
brain, too intellectual, too academic in their approach. 4 or
500 pages, 50 case studies. And I wanted to do something
that is serious but much more inspirational.
And I think part of what those books Ness is, they often point
out the flaws and strategy, and that's incredibly useful.
Yeah, but I wasn't necessarily going to add much to that, to
that equation. What I wanted to say is even
yeah, and I do make some struggles and points.
Yeah, sure. But even if you ohh not just
eating that my experience has been that many leaders and it's
definitely my experience at Sears is definitely experiencing
and Marcus, it's been my experience with clients.
It's been my experience studying companies.
Most of the time, those leaders know what to do.
Yeah, but they don't do it. So what I wanted to get into is
not to say here's how you come up with a new strategy.
Yeah. You know, if you're in the
department store business, you've known, at least in the US
Yeah, it's true in some other markets as well.
You're the department services as one example.
You've known for more than 20 years that you are haemorrhaging
market share to many of them, all competitors as well as
folks, folks like Amazon. Yeah, every year, Macy's, JC
Penny, those brands, every year they're performance has gotten
worse. Yeah.
Every year the data shows that this, this is going.
Yeah. And why?
Yeah. But half measures availed them,
Nothing. They have been doing very
instrumental things that have made have not made a significant
difference. So why?
Yeah, in a lot of cases, it's the failure to breakthrough, the
denial that they are facing, the throwing motion crisis.
It's fear. It's sworn.
It's these kinds of things. Yeah.
I wanted to take on what are these mindsets that prevent
leaders from doing the things they know they must do.
Make some strategy once along the way.
Yeah. But I mostly wanted to get into
this idea. How do you become fundamentally
a more courageous leader? And that's really not OHH, I'll
take it on by the Clayton Christensen's and yeah, there's
no matter how important those looks at.
And I did create protecting Christians course, obviously
he's obviously passed away, yes. So I love it.
Ohh, I don't wanna give you I don't want you to sort of spoil,
but readers journey. But is that like you said, you
you come away with several, the reader will come away with
several things, right. What peeing was like the thing
that you felt again, the one thing, you know, practical
advice or a executive reading your book will come away.
Obviously you said there's going to be some, you know, four or
five different conclusions. So one thing for you that was
like, as you were reading, it was like something you get
goosebumps when something comes into your head.
That's that's strong, but well, so just quick context.
So one of the things I talk about kind of the heart of the
book or what I call these seven mind leaps.
And it's where I challenged the reader to say, OK, I approach
things in one way today. Yeah, but I want to move you to
to a different way of saying. So there's seven of those.
But the one that I think answers your question is the chapter
that deals with the OR that's titled Safe is Risky.
And I think that what we see a lot is that we think that
incremental change is actually the smart thing to do.
It's slow and steady sort of wins the race.
And that was probably true and it still is true in some cases.
But when you look at the pace of change frequently becoming more
exponential than linear the slower you go in the face of
shifting consumer demands, shifting technology,
particularly Jenna is. And I obviously something we've
seen, you know, disruptive editors coming along with slower
you go the further and further you fall.
Yeah. And that rightly risks an
existential crisis. And we've seen this laying out
or even see the exception. So.
So somehow we have to understand that that this incremental
change is often the most risky thing we can do.
Yeah. And and change our relationship
to risk. But it's hard.
You know, we're just not wired as a species.
Yeah, too. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, we've been taught through evolutionary biology to
protect ourselves. And, you know, my own experience
as a leader, oftentimes, like, I don't want people to see that I
don't know what I'm doing. I don't want people to see that
I'm afraid a lot. Yeah.
I don't want to get fired because I go after some ideas.
So there's a lot of personal and cultural barriers that often
keep companies from taking the risk.
They must, you know, go back to the department store example.
It would have been far wiser 20 years ago for Macy's to have
made significant investments in office retail.
They have lost massive share in cosmetics to players like Ulta
and Sephora. It's, it's, it's so crazy how
much value is migrated. Alta is an example.
I know they're on us, so may not resonate with their leaders, but
also just in their small stores, they've gone from nothing.
The 1400 stores, their market value as just selling cosmetics,
yeah, is more than five times the value of all the top five
U.S. Department stores combined.
So abysmal performance, Yeah. But you know, you have to see
and respond to that instead of just trying to make your core
business incrementally better. So I think this understanding or
changing our relationship to rest, I think is a really
fundamental thing. So that's that's the thing I
think I would most like people to see.
And you know, it's easier said than done.
Like that's a nice hippy thing to say.
Trying to give examples. Of I said on conclusion said
there's no spoiler alerts still get the book yeah we need to get
through the seven things if if I feel so incredibly because it
feels like my own episode of remarkable reach out He's also
going for you apart from your Co host is missing in terms of just
quick tangent I think we were both set.
I'm curious on your opinion on the CEO of Macy's and their new
vision of going into what's then blue, their new.
Form bold new strap they've got. Bloomberg Careers.
Mercury. Which might not available
anywhere else on every race, but I'm just curious ringing or saw
or heard what he was seeing at Congress, sure that I'm not
gonna get to turn that around. No, it's.
OK, it's. All too little, too.
Alright. I mean, I hope they will, but I
think ultimately it's too little, too late.
And one of the problems, particularly with the publicly
traded companies, is that end, you know, we faced this, I would
say it's years, more than 20 years ago.
Even if we had a brilliant, bold strategy to turn things around,
yeah #1 there's no way you're going to get Wall Street to
support things you need to do. I mean, Macy's needs to change.
I mean, I just think they started too late.
But yeah. But even if that's not true and
I'm wrong about that, they have to go so much faster and it's
going to take many billions of dollars.
They have to completely reconfigure their real estate.
And the business is, you know, it's been decelerating for 20
plus years. Maybe it's a little bit pulled
out of their dot. So I suspect their performance
might include through marginally, but they're they're
not going to be growing market share to any significant degree.
And the nature of that business is very difficult.
But I wouldn't say and I don't know Tony sprang at all.
I know people that I know that know him say great things about
it. I'm sure the impression.
One stage. Yeah, presentation.
Yeah, Yeah. And, you know, to me, it's like
when bad jobs happen to good people willing to believe he's a
great guy. His predecessor was a great guy.
But, you know, when you watch the last 20 years happened to
you, the reality often is that options are not available to you
anymore. Yeah, I think the door probably
shut on Macy's five or ten years ago.
I hope I'm wrong. Yeah.
The best thing that could probably happen to Macy's
through their success is for a couple of the other major
sources to go out of business because it's a shrinking pie and
if they could somehow grab more share.
But a bunch of things have to happen.
And I, I, I will unfortunately be pretty sceptical about that.
So the lesson, you know, really for for company, but still have
the ability to change is if you're losing relevance, if
you're not aiming higher and the value that you deliver to
customers and and and perform in a way that they exceed your
competition and you aren't moving faster, then now is the
time. Yeah.
Because as time goes on and as the pace of change accelerates,
you just fall further and further behind.
You might get longer, you can't catch up.
He talked to you but so much longer, but I wanna be
respectful to your time. The show 4 that we've got called
the Doppler ourselves here, Steve.
It's been absolutely fantastic to catch up learning about the
book. So the book wobble on hopefully,
I mean this podcast will go out imminently.
So it will be on general release.
You can get it from. Yeah, you could.
You could really pre-order if it's not available in your part
of the world. Yeah, you can preorder it
everywhere. I'm pretty sure side to the
book. And yes, there's a how about my
at stephenpdennis.com. Just go to book.
You could see it. But yeah, you could pre-order it
anywhere. It's also immediately available
everywhere on Kindle and on Audible.
So, but you might have to wait a few weeks to get your hands on a
hard drive. OK, fantastic, Steve.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Sir, pleasure.