Aram Zucker-ScharffDec 29, 2022

I've seen a bunch of people sharing this and repeating the conclusion: that the success is because the CEO loves books t/f you need passionate leaders and... while I think that's true, I don't think that's the conclusion to draw here. The winning strategy wasn't love, it was delegation and local, on the ground, knowledge.

This win comes from a leader who acknowledges people in the stores know their communities and can see and react faster to sales trends in store...

https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/what-can-we-learn-from-barnes-and

What Can We Learn from Barnes & Noble's Surprising Turnaround?

Digital platforms are struggling, meanwhile a 136-year-old book retailer is growing again. But why?

The Honest Broker
Show threadAram Zucker-ScharffDec 29, 2022

It's a mistake to assign the value being created here to the CEO, all he did was realize upper management needed to step out of the way & remove the bad incentive structure that stopped local stores from making their own decisions.

It's the realization the people in the bookstore are going to know what sells faster than execs waiting for a report in HQ and it's acknowledging that people who work in bookstores live in their communities and understand how those communities work & what they like

Show threadAram Zucker-ScharffDec 29, 2022
The lesson you should take from this parable as a manager isn't about passion, it's about what your job is: unblock your employees, trust the people you hired for their capability to manage your front lines, and a million analysts can't beat on the ground real-time knowledge. Especially when it comes to community businesses like bookstores, the most detailed knowledge and complex models aren't going to create a better plan to work with the community than the people in the community.
Show threadDan Sinker
@Chronotope YES YES YES YES YES
Dec 29, 2022 at 2:41pmWeb