Down the street a few miles from our home here in Naples they're building what will become a Nordstrom department store, rumor has it in late 2008. Jane and I can't wait. We know what's coming.
Here are three things we can all learn from Nordstrom. There are plenty more, but today we'll stick with just three.
Lesson One: Nordstrom hires for attitude.
I asked my friends at the Nordstrom corporate headquarters in Seattle, and they tell me they haven't selected a general manager for Naples yet - they won't until just a few months before the store opens.
Ah, but once they assign the GM to Naples, this is what will happen. The GM and her top managers will move to Naples and get settled in their new community. They'll dine out. They'll go to the bank. They'll go to all manner of events around town; art festivals, kids' days at the park... you name it. They'll go grocery shopping, and buy insurance, and get a haircut, and stock up on vitamins, and do everything else a person does when she moves to a new place.
...And all the while, they'll be recruiting. Nordstrom managers are bred to poach talent from wherever they find it. Tomorrow's leading sales pro may be today's animal shelter receptionist. Just wait and see.
Nordstrom's smart. They hire people for attitude, almost entirely disregarding resume. After all, why untrain all those bad habits from an experienced retail sales clerk, when they can start fresh with someone they meet at the dry cleaner's?
Coine used to hire staff from ads we'd place in the newspaper and online. That rarely worked out well for us. When you think about it, you're fishing in the toilet bowl.
Today, we hire exclusively from three sources: through referrals from professionals we admire, through sharp and ambitious people who approach us looking to join our company, and through a lot of the type of poaching that I just described.
This has transformed our firm, and made managing our people literally headache-free. If you hire for your company, I suggest you do the same.
Never run a help wanted ad again. Instead, poach talent.
Lesson Two: Nordstrom inspires its people.
Poaching is easy for a Nordstrom manager, too. That's because Nordstrom is a truly inspiring company to work for. Top sales talent makes all sorts of money. The people who fit their corporate culture - an not all do - perform at the top of their game, because they really feel a part of something special.
Here's one reason: when the new hires arrive for their first day of training, they will be given a five-by-seven card, the employee handbook. On one side, it will read,
"Use your best judgement at all times."
On the reverse, new hires will read,
"There will be no additional rules."
That's it. That's the Nordstrom handbook. Pretty cool, huh?
Well, maybe not to everyone. When my trainers and I present this information in our "C-Level" (CEO, CFO, owner, chairman, etc) workshops, we earn a lot of incredulous looks. The room often falls silent. I delight in watching these big cheeses shift in their seats. Finally someone will speak up.
"If we did that in our company," they say, "we'd be out of business in a day." That earns them a lot of sympathetic, uncomfortable laughs.
It's probably true, too. That's why most companies aren't as successful as Nordstrom.
Treat your people like adults, and guess how they'll act? Some will prove worthy of your new found respect; many others will wash out.
Good. Let them go. Then get out of the office and poach their replacements.
Lesson Three: Nordstrom top brass gets it.
If you're familiar with my work, you probably expected this presentation to go like this: Hire for attitude, Inspire through pride in the company, and Train for skills. It's our HIT model, and we can't stress its importance enough.
Yes, do the Training, which will be easy once H and I are in place. But today, I want to focus more on the Inspire part of HIT.
Nordstrom really inspires its people, all throughout its organization. The handbook - and more specifically, the spirit of that handbook - is one way they inspire pride. The inverse pyramid is another.
If you look at Nordstrom's organizational chart, it will depict a pyramid, with the board of directors, the Nordstrom family, and their top executives at a point, managers all through the middle, and a broad base of front-line employees there to interface with the customers. Just like every other company out there.
...Except that the Nordstrom pyramid is upside-down. The Nordstroms and top managers are on the bottom of the pyramid. The front-line workers are at the top of the pyramid. And above them, you'll find the customers.
The customers are the most important part of the Nordstrom organization. The sales clerks on the floor are the second most important. Department managers are directly below the sales staff, there to help, not to command. Each store's general manager is below his management team: it is his job to serve his managers and sales staff.
Nordstrom's corporate staff exists to serve its stores. Its tippity-top leaders go to work each day with the mission of facilitating front-level sales in any way that they can. They don't go to work to be served; they work all day to serve others.
Just a catchy wall ornament? Ask any Nordstrom employee you meet on the sales floor.
Nordstrom is coming to Naples, and the town will never be the same. Service will increase dramatically, as the bar is set that much higher. Some businesses will suffer, because their top performers will be stolen. And they'll deserve to lose these people. Sorry, guys: treat your people right now, and they won't even consider a better offer.
Hire for attitude by poaching top talent wherever you find it.
Inspire your staff by treating them like adults.
Serve your staff, who in turn will serve your customers.
That's the Nordstrom Way. Can you handle it?
