1 - Ok, storytime, and it is time to criticize me for a moment.

Start with the image below. We're going back to when I worked at Nordstrom, in 2006.

2 - Back in 2006, I was responsible for a team that determined sales potential for each zip code.

This data was fed into a model created by my team, a model that determined how a new store at any location in the United States "might" perform.

3 - Needless to say, I was "confident" in this system.

I was so confident that I was blind to what was happening all around me.

4 - So when Nordstrom told me they were paying McKinsey $750,000 to revamp our "Market Potential Models" I was caught a bit off guard.

It was like they were bringing in Management Consultants to do my job!

5 - The McKinsey folks were assigned a "war room", and my team was there to "support" them.

Oh, how I hated this.

6 - I typically got to work at 7:00am (ish). By 7:30am the phone would ring.

I dreaded the calls.

"Hi Kev, Robert here from McKinsey, could you come down to the war room for a few moments? K-thx".

7 - I'd trudge down to the war room. There's be a nice array of bagels and cream cheeses set up.

"Kev, grab a bagel and sit down."

My first instinct would be "Dont' call me Kev, only my wife gets to do that ... you don't call Harry 'Hair' so drop the fake informal tone."

8 - Now, let's be honest here.

Who has seen more applications of Market Potential Modeling?

a) McKinsey.

b) Kev.

They answer is (a).

9 - The McKinsey folks couldn't tell me that they worked with Neiman Marcus or Saks or whomever ... all they could do is hint that "other brands" were approaching this problem a certain way ... so they'd ask me questions to get me to "think".

I didn't want to "think". At all!!

10 - So I applied all sorts of awful logic based on the four characters below.

11 - I applied "The Know It All" ... even though it was obvious they knew more than me I'd talk loudly about what I knew about MY industry and MY data. I scored every zip code!!

When I did this, McKinsey would ignore everything I said!

12 - When I left my morning "touch base" with McKinsey (fuming), I'd become the Quiet Dissenter ... telling those I trusted how these wombats had the nerve to tell me how to estimate sales by zip code.

13 - I'd become "The Lizard" ... becoming binary in my thinking ... "You can't do X because of Y (though you could do X because of Z and Q and P, of course)".

14 - What I should have recognized is that my days as "The Climber" were over. I was on my way down.

15 - When the project (mercifully) ended, my boss shared the findings. I recall her telling me that the Cincinnati Market had $40,000,000 of sales potential. I told her that the models my team managed for the past five years suggested that number was accurate.

16 - I then made a fatal mistake.

I asked my boss "We've know that fact for five years, why wouldn't you trust us to ask us what we thought the right number was?"

17 - And she just looked coldly at me and said "if you've known that for five years, why did you never take the initiative to package the data that way so we wouldn't have had to pay McKinsey $750,000 for the information?"

18 - Within six months, I was done at Nordstrom.

19 - Why tell this story?

20 - I've noticed something over the past two months.

I've noticed really, really defensive professionals (probably me included).

21 - Professionals working alone, at home.

Businesses failing, or businesses struggling.

Pressure. Huge pressure.

Industries crumbling.

Lies everywhere ... spreading 10 times as fast as facts spread.

22 - So when you tell a person who is struggling to balance teaching kids algebra while having to do a Zoom with co-workers about saving a business that is -17% while desperately trying to hold on to a job and not get the plague that they might be wrong? Oh boy!

23 - Lots and lots of defensiveness.

At first, as a consultant, I'd think negatively of this.

But six months of this behavior?

It's clear I should have empathy instead.

24 - So my approach (as a consultant) has to evolve and change.

I can't be cold like the McKinsey folks.

And I can't be judging of defensive professionals who have a reason to be defensive. They might want to "think" ... but are under much pressure.

25 - Hence, I have to change my approach.

That's going to be a key focus of my work over the next year.

Anyway, that's storytime for today, September 26, 2020.