Some might say that retail is an inherently reactive industry. Is it not a shop assistants job to react to the customers coming into the shop? This may be true at the coalface of the retail world, in the store, but there are many roles that sit behind this coalface that should not be so reactive, yet they are.

Most organisations are driven by urgency and reactivity, and this drags productivity down. Over the last few years, the pace of business has accelerated, and most of us have more to do, with tighter deadlines, than ever before.

The introduction of email into the workplace has increased the expectation that we respond to communications immediately, and let’s face it, most of us let our inboxes dominate too much of our day. Email was designed to be an asynchronous tool – ie, I send it now and you deal with it in your own time. But it has somehow now become a synchronous tool, which requires us to watch our inbox like a hawk all day long in case an ‘urgent’ email comes in. How did that happen?

This increase in urgency can lead to a real drop in productivity for many of your team. They end up working in one of two reactive zones – either reacting in a knee-jerk way to things the minute they come in (email is a classic example), or leaving things until the last minute. In both cases, the quality of the work goes down, and the stress levels go up.

Workers in any industry should spend 80 per cent of their time working in what I call the ‘Proactive Zone’. That is, doing work in a timely way as much as possible. I sometimes call this the ‘Goldilocks zone’ – not too hot, not too cold – just right! Of course, we must deal with truly urgent things as they arise, but that should be the exception – 20 per cent of the time, max.

Having a proactive approach to your work means that you take the time to anticipate and plan. In a retail environment, stock issues can be avoided if staff take the time to identify low-stocked items early.
Customer accidents are less frequent when staff proactively check for occupational health and safety hazards. Staff retention is higher when managers make time to train, motivate and listen to staff. Unfortunately, we are often so busy that these things slip, and get left until the last minute, which can be too late.

As leaders in a retail organisation, you also need to consider your role in driving the urgency culture. You can send your staff on all of the time management training that you like, and get them focused on all the important objectives you like, but if you are forcing them to react to your last-minute urgent requests, you are a part of the problem.

There are four types of urgency – real, false, reasonable and unreasonable. Real urgency is, well, real, and definitely needs a quick response. But many things masquerade as real urgency, but are actually false urgency.

Other people have worked out that the best way to get what they want done is to scream load enough, and this causes unnecessary reactivity. At the same time, some things are urgent, but only because someone has left them until the last minute, and now they are sitting in your lap. Of course, you do this to yourself as well.

Dialing down the urgency within the organisation is a critical role of a leader. Building a culture that values importance above urgency is a must, and not just paying lip service to this. Skilling staff up to get organised and work more proactively is a part of the solution. But the leadership team must also support staff in working proactively.

Delegate work in a timely way, set clear expectations about when work is needed or due, and empower staff to say ‘no’ or negotiate deadlines. These are the behaviours that will foster a proactive culture. Most of all, retail leaders need to lead by example. If you have a reactive workstyle, is it any wonder that your organisation mirrors this and becomes reactive too?

Dermot Crowley is a productivity thought leader, author, speaker and trainer. He can be reached at[email protected] .