Future Here Now: Rework Yourself
Future Here Now: Rework Yourself
SIgnals
The Retail Self-Created Vicious Cycle
https://www.vox.com/money/23831438/shopping-retail-theft-target-walmart-macys-losses
Despite what companies may want you to think, nearly every issue you encounter while shopping is a result of bad working conditions for retail employees…..
“The upshot over time is that you lose market share,” says Neil Saunders, a managing director of retail at the analytics and consulting firm GlobalData. “The business that you run becomes smaller and smaller, customer satisfaction goes down, sales go down. And eventually you enter a vicious cycle.”
The decline of the in-store retail experience — both in terms of its quality and the number of stores that exist — has transformed what it means to work in retail, and how pleasant customers find the in-store shopping experience is inextricable from how retail employees are faring. It’s directly affected by how well-paid they are, how well-trained they are, and how well-staffed their stores are. This link often goes unmentioned; the discontent of customers and the woes of employees are viewed on parallel tracks instead of as mirrors…..
The dissonance between cutting costs — a perennial directive of a profit-seeking business — and providing the kind of store where people want to shop is only growing. And consumer dissatisfaction with this newly austere shopping experience means more stress for retail workers.
This article dates from last year, but the recent announcements of massive closings among several of the retailers mentioned in this article proves how true it is.
One of the reasons why retailers have gotten away with such poor working conditions and pay is that the work of retail sales has been constructed according to an Industrial Era mindset - follow the procedure, push the button, do the thing you’re supposed to do and nothing else. Even for people with minimal formal education, this treatment often feels like an insult - like a waste of their innate creativity and ability to problem-solve. In a context of scarcity, this sense of being undervalued get stuffed down under the reality of paying the bills. But in a time of expanding employment options, and more avenues for making a living than ever, it’s pretty clear that the vicious cycle mentioned above has already taken hold.
Retail will continue to exist, of course but it’s bifurcating. People who love doing customer service will find opportunities (in retail and elsewhere) to put those skills to work. And because being truly good at customer service is a rare skill, it will be a niche service. Eventually, even demanding a level of pay that may make the very presence of a human a luxury experience.
Meanwhile more and more current underpaid and overworked retail employees will find their way to other industries. And the rest of us will make the majority of our routine purchases with minimal human interaction.
Is that good or bad? It’s neither, inherently. How this plays out will depend a great deal on how we handle the unexpected consequences.
In the meantime, how does this trend affect you and your work? Does it change your business? What does a surplus of former retail workers, and former retail spaces, mean for your organization or business? How will you need to do things differently?
The Multi-Dimension Green Bank Solution
While most green banks focus on clean energy, the Massachusetts Community Climate Bank is specifically designed to boost the state’s stock of sustainable, affordable housing. It comes at an opportune time: States can now tap into billions of dollars in new federal funding for green banks under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Each bank is slightly different. Connecticut’s was the first state-run green bank in the U.S. It started with a renewable energy focus but expanded to include sustainable infrastructure, climate resilience, water, waste and recycling projects. Michigan created a nonprofit green bank called Michigan Saves that provides financing for energy efficiency. Hawaii’s state-run green bank boosts solar energy use.
The new Massachusetts Community Climate Bank is solely dedicated to climate-friendly and resilient affordable housing to meet the goals of the state’s Climate Plan for 2050.
That might include upgrading insulation and windows in older housing complexes to make them less leaky on hot and cold days, transitioning to electric household appliances such as heat pumps or adding solar panels and electric vehicle chargers.
Residential buildings are one of Massachusetts’ largest sources of greenhouse emissions, accounting for 19% of the total. Making housing more sustainable would cut those emissions and also help cut emissions in other sectors. For example, rooftop solar panels can reduce the demand for electricity from natural gas-fired power plants, allowing the state to close the plants or run them less often.
This article (also from 2023, but still very relevant) illustrates one of the emerging trends we are seeing unfold, especially in public policy and sustainability. In the 20th century Industrial Era mindset, you solved one problem at a time — you eliminated blight, or channeled cars away from the old city center, or made the assembly line more efficient, or timed your workers to get them to move more parts in an hour.
One of the most profound organizational mindset changes that I first encountered in sustainability work is the idea that multiple issuses can, and need to, be addressed at once. I chaired a national sustainability committee years ago when I barely knew what those words meant, and I was struck by how people who were more knowledgeable about sustainability than I was were always managing to address multiple issues in the same program or initiative.
That blew my Industrial Era mind.
And indicated a whole new level of possibility. Instead of solving one problem at a time (and then later trying to solve the unintended consequences of that first bright idea), the approach I saw sustainability officers making was to look for the intersections between the problem of primary interest, and other important challenges. More often than not, that quick shifting of perspectives, that broader view, meant that better, more resilient, more sustainable solutions came into view, compared to the typical Identify-Problem-Find Solution approach that I and thousands of professionals in my age group had grown up with.
The Affordable Housing Green Bank addresses sooooo many challenges, from funding to landfill overflow to lessening greenhouse gases to keeping older folks in their homes. Trying to solve those problems alone would cost a mint, and probably create untold unintended consequences - which are much less likely to happen here, because the factors that could be affected are already built in.
Rework as Future Ready Creation
Average college students learn ideas once. The best college students relearn ideas over and over. Average employees write emails once. Elite novelists rewrite chapters again and again. Average fitness enthusiasts mindlessly follow the same workout routine each week. The best athletes actively critique each repetition and constantly improve their technique. It is the revision that matters most.
I wasn’t sure whether to include this one. I’ve written many other places (including above) that one of the most crucial skills that we have to learn today is to look outside our silos. The previous story would have looked a lot different - and had much less impact - if that program simply installed storm windows or solar panels, which are typically done by completely different professionals.
Now this one is saying to stay in your space?? And rework your creations over and over again?? What gives??
As I’ve grappled with it, I think the piece that I missed at first is actually the most important element — the bridge between making an actual impact and wandering infinitely through a larger and larger world of interesting side topics. God knows I know that temptation.
I think what the author is getting at is that we ourselves, in how we work and what we produce, become the locus of the integration between our area of expertise - our silo walls, if you will - and the wider world of ideas and experiences that we have to incorporate in order to become Future Ready and avoid getting stuck in our old mindsets. That reworking is the work of integration - pulling new information and insights and approaches into our previous work, and using the new materials to reshape what we’ve done in the past.
I edit and re-edit most of my work, and I would do it more if I felt I had the time. I always thought of that as just improving, making it objectively better. Less typos, fewer weird sentence constructions, excising passive verbs, that kind of thing.
What I think this article is saying — to me, at least — is that the work of reworking is a creation in itself. And a necessary work, since it might be the way in which we actually create the change we need.
That’s the kind of work that allows a passionate employee to constantly improve customer service. And it’s the kind of work that conventional retail employment isn’t letting its employees create.
So perhaps it’s no wonder that conventional retail is falling apart.
What do you think?