As I was returning from CSP’s Outlook Leadership conference, thoughts of writing this article were spinning in my head. I knew I wanted to talk about next-generation convenience stores, but I was looking for some inspiration.
Talk about inspiration overload! The conference featured many great speakers with an inspirational twist on a common theme: leadership. We have all heard the saying, “Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.” This conference was definitely geared toward those who wanted to be leaders of the industry.
Inspirational Triumverate
Three of the speakers seemed to be talking directly to me. Howard Behar, former president of Starbucks and author of “It’s Not About Coffee,” talked about how to build a culture unlike any other. The Starbucks culture did not happen by accident; it was cultivated over time to be the outlier culture that you see now.
“If you regard employees and customers as human beings, everything else will take care of itself,” Behar said. He also said he hates the word “training” and would rather approach employee relationships as an opportunity to educate and inspire. Instead of job reviews and evaluations, he wanted to have a constant conversation with employees to help them understand the Starbucks experience so that they were prepared to share that experience with guests. Howard was a true leader.
Retired Air Force Maj. Dan Rooney is founder of Folds of Honor. He talked about his life story and what he feels is his most powerful word: volition, which is defined as the ability to make a conscious change. He spoke about it in the context of personal choices, but I think the same holds true for business choices. We can, of our own volition, choose to be a follower, or we can choose to challenge the norm and do something new, innovative and challenging. Failures of yesterday make us stronger and prepare us for the challenges of tomorrow, he said.
The third speaker who resonated with me was Andrew M. Davis, the author of “Brandscaping: Unleashing the Power of Partnerships.” He described how different the world is today compared to years past, and how we must position our businesses accordingly. His example of his search for meatloaf left us all dizzy and laughing as he described all the choices and information sources at our fingertips. Looking at the world through the eyes of a millennial was both fascinating and exhausting.
Heavenly Inspiration
So there I was, more confused than ever on what to write. What I needed was a sense of focus on the single key takeaway from the conference. I got the leadership theme, but where were we to lead this industry?
The day I wrote this, I received the answer at church. Who would have thought of finding inspiration while in church?
Our minister was preaching on 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Paul was trying to bring focus to a church that had lost its way. They were struggling with their identity as Christians.
Paul told them that faith and hope, although important, were not as great as love. Unconditional love was what we should seek, and that is where this great leader wanted to lead the church at Corinth.
So I asked myself: In convenience, what are the three pillars of our industry? I came up with quality, service and convenience. But the greatest of these is convenience.
Have we lost our way? Do we need to refocus on this key pillar? I think Howard Behar would agree that quality and service is important to Starbucks, but it’s not about the coffee. He would say that creating the unique culture was what propelled the company to greatness.
It’s not about the Cokes, smokes and Twinkies. Maj. Rooney would probably counsel us to use the lessons of yesterday and today to create a new and improved version of ourselves. Of our own volition, we can create a convenient environment and experience that will leave traditional convenience in the dust. Davis would have us focus on game-changing technologies out there to redefine convenience for the next generation. He would have us embrace the next generations to help us redefine the new unconditional convenience.
If we are honest with ourselves, we are no longer more convenient than fast feeders or companies such as Amazon that deliver right to our door. What does the future hold for convenience, and how can we leverage technology and innovation to reinvent ourselves? I think the great companies in our industry’s future will focus on unconditional convenience. Convenience without borders: I don’t know exactly what that will be, but I think the journey will be a lot of fun. Stay tuned!
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