It’s not all doom and gloom in retail

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There is an idiomatic expression ‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good’ that frankly should be renamed an idiotic expression.

‘It’s all doom and gloom’ in retail. Wrong. There are two sets of people working in retail who have ‘never had it so good’.

Headhunters and you dear reader, our candidate population. There are at least five searches currently live at chief executive/managing director level and eight at retail/operations director level (all for large national chains) and numerous more at director level within other functions.

There are going to be an awful lot of happy retailers appointed to these positions.

If I know of these roles there must also be plenty more I do not know about.

But are we just ‘shuffling the decks’ or ‘rearranging the deckchairs’? I had a discussion with a chairman the other day regarding this and to a certain degree we are, but, ‘at the end of the day’, ‘when all is said and done’ it comes down to ‘horses for courses’.

We discussed an individual who had been a chief executive for a retailer who frankly ‘crashed and burned’. He is now chief executive of a different format retail chain and ‘his stock is soaring’, but why?

In this case he is working alongside a chairman who will give strong strategic direction, allowing the chief executive to concentrate on the day-to-day managing of the business.

This was something he never had in his previous role and plays to his strengths. So what is the ‘lesson to be learnt’? A setback in someone’s career needs to be analysed and the context understood.

Not all who fail are ruinous. ‘Fit’ and chemistry with the team, both executive and non-executive, and a complementary skill set is of paramount importance. ‘No man is an island’ and no individual ‘has all the answers’.

Finally I must wish Tim Danaher, Retail Week’s own Jedi knight good luck as he heads across to the Dark Side to join the Sith. May the force be with his replacement.