I was driving down the highway when the car slowly drifted to the right and onto the rumble strips. As I corrected my line, my daughter Jane asked what the loud sound was. I told her that they are rumble strips along the side of road that warn a driver he needs to steer his car back into the lane. She asked, "So we almost ran off the road?" I assured her that we had not and that all was fine.
A few minutes later I ran onto the rumble strips again and once again corrected my line. From the backseat Jane said, "Dad. You started to run off the road again." I said that wasn't the case but that I had just drifted over a bit. Jane responded, "So the rumble strips had a false alarm?" I told her no, the car actually has to run onto the strips to make the sound and vibration. And like any smart kid she asked once more, "So you were running off the road?" What could I say? I was busted.
For the rest of the trip home I paid attention to my driving and avoided any more rumble strips. The more I thought about it the more I realized that Jane was on to something. The rumble strips had indeed alerted me to a problem but I hadn't seen it that way because I could easily explain it away.
The same thing happens in our stores. We have "rumble strips" that can, if we choose to heed the warning, alert us to steer away from a potential problem. Take for example a store or employee's average daily sale (ADS). If a store's ADS has been trending down for the last two months a manager or owner might be blame it on current economic conditions. They might be right. They might not. But it's a warning and only by taking time to analyze it will they be sure.
And even being able to explain something away doesn't mean it isn't a problem. If I hadn't taken corrective action after running on the rumble strips I would have indeed run off the road, to certainly dire consequences.
As we finish the first half of 2008 I encourage you to review all of your potential rumble strips. First and foremost are your store metrics. Take a hard look at sales against goal and LY, UPTs, average sale, store traffic, sales per payroll hour, etc. What is that information telling you?
Other rumble strips include staff morale and turnover, customer experience scores, mystery shops, customer feedback, store standards, and even the freshness of the inventory.
Are you speeding down the highway or are you getting noise and vibration? And if you are, don't try to explain it away but make the effort to determine what corrective action you need to take - and then do it.
As my daughter pointed out, drifting is just another way to say you're running off the road. Here's to speeding down that open road!
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