In Blog #129 I talked about  the Turning Point for Palo Alto. In this blog I want to talk How change in our lives are lessons

Right when things were going great, Scott gets promoted to the Corporate office. I was going to miss him, he was such a great guy to work with. He was very patient and took the time to explain things thoroughly. Scott was also very supportive in our game plan. Then it took a turn…

So far in my career at Nordstrom I have always worked with great RMM’s. What made them all so great, was they were great coaches and I learned something along the way. Things would change with the announcement of our new RMM. This new RMM I would learn a lot from too, but in a different way. How not to treat employees…

The Lesson

I’ve decided not to mention his name here, but rather call him “The new RMM”. He was on a power trip and lacked people skills. It wasn’t just me, most of the buyers would start complaining about him and even more reps. It was tough and something I wasn’t used to. But with everything else you need to find solutions and not focus on the problem. 

So once again I learned how change in our lives are a lesson.  It’s identifying the lesson at the time that makes it challenging. This was actually a good lesson for me and it helped me become a better leader down the road. I just didn’t realize the lesson until I was away from it many years later.

New Rules

The first “new rule” he initiated was we had to drive to SF to have our PO’s signed off. I never had anybody do that before. This was a total power play to control everyone. Scott would ok things over the phone, as did most RMM’s. Even if you were overbought (which I was on occasion) a phone call should be enough. 

To get through it, I tried to take the “No Problem” approach which I learned the very first day of my Nordstrom career. They had just a few rules for us to follow. Use your Best judgement &  have a No Problem attitude. Try as I may it was difficult.

A Different Approach

Daryl had a different approach. He was always a light hearted guy and just the mention of our new RMM’s name would get an “O’Boy” response. Thats how he dealt  with it. A little humor goes a long way and Daryl would  add a little of his humor to get through it. We became closer friends through this too. He confided in me his thoughts more and we talked through a lot of things that were frustrating together.

“I think an adult beverage is in order” he would say more frequently around 5:00. Maybe just one I’d respond…

I made an appointment to see the new RMM to get a bunch of key reorders approved. I lived how change in our lives are lessons before, the questions now would be,” how much change?”