In Blog #130 I talked about how change in our lives are lessons.In this blog I want to talk about why it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

I drive up to the SF store to get my purchase orders approved. It was nice to see the store again. I had a lot of fond memories here. When I got there I saw several reps waiting to speak with him. I went into his office and I told him there was a line out the door. He wasn’t doing anything either. “They can wait” he said with a wry smile.

We went over my orders and he approved most of them after I explained the thought process. I then pulled out my Ugg backup. It was huge because last year we sold out way too early. My team spent a lot of time calling other stores for the sizes they needed. This year I want to step it up. 

Denied

Way too big, was his response. I went over the thought process, it made total sense, in fact you could still argue we needed more. “I am not signing off on a 1,000 pair backup, it’s too big.” Before I came to see him, I figured out we sold 100 pairs in a week. Uggs didn’t have any more in stock so we were out of luck. This year I also wanted to have some to take care of exchanges after the holidays. Denied…

On the drive back I was pissed. I knew I was right. We could have a great end of the year by stepping up. This could add another 100k to our volume too. I got back to the store and figured out I would need stockroom space in order to stock all these shoes too. I started making trades with other stores to do this.

It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission

My decision was I was going to do it anyways and take the heat later. I called Miles our Ugg rep and we worked out a nice order that both of us felt good about. The rationing was other stores in the region could use pairs if it was too much. How much heat would I get from doing this I wondered.

It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission when you know you are right. Often times people will play it safe but no guts no glory as the saying goes. This would cap off our year and put us over as having to best year yet in Palo Alto history. I just hope I still have my job afterwards…