Integrity is an important and powerful quality. To be referred to as a person of integrity is the ultimate compliment. I have come to realize that my life experience is about the journey toward wholeness, and to seek wholeness, is to live from a place of integrity. To me, conscience is the psychic energy of awareness. Conscience is the alarm that goes off when integrity is at risk, when wholeness is splintered.

“The meeting of our inner and outer lives is called integrity, and the health of our integrity often determines our inner strength and resilience in meeting the outer world. This is the purpose of integrity, to balance the outer forces of existence with the inner forces of spirit,” Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk. One of the most useful definitions of integrity comes from Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man: Integrity is the ability to listen to a place inside oneself that doesn’t change, even though the life that carries it may change.

So living from integrity is when our actions, our outer life are in sync with our inner life; our heart, our soul, the essence of our being. Businesses too must live from integrity. When the actions of a business are incongruent with their beliefs and values and essence, crises will inevitably arise. The conscious of a company is the collective conscience of all who work for that company. The actions of all employees must be in sync with the inner beliefs and values of the company. When organizational integrity happens there is a wholeness and richness of connectedness between employees and customers alike. We will always have integrity issues but the more aware we are of our actions being in tune with our center, with the quintessence of our being, the more joyful and meaningful our life experience.

High activity is a sequence of related smaller activities aimed at positioning your store as the best in the areas you select. Strategic Positioning means performing different activities from rivals or performing similar activities in different ways. Differentiation arises from both the choice of activities and how they are performed. Activities, then, are the basic units of competitive advantage. Overall advantage or disadvantage results from all of a company’s activities, not only a few.

Activities Have Cumulative Value

Activities don’t have an ending date. They continue even though your store(s) may overlap them with other activities. The more you are able to do—and the more effectively you do it—the better they work.

Small day-to-day achievements grow into momentum. Once established, momentum is easier to sustain than it is to start again once it is lost. The key is to keep developing and executing activities that are consistent with the long-term mission and objectives of your company.

Once momentum is established, work becomes fun, which makes both customers and employees more excited about your store(s). Once the momentum builds, employees gain confidence and develop new ideas to widen the gap between the performance of you and your competitors. Customers tell other people about your store, and the momentum feeds on itself.

Developing a Highly Active Store

• Select major areas where you believe your store can become the best in the market. They can be areas that the market truly desires; where you can add value to what the customers receive.
• Decide the best seasonal time to introduce each new activity.
• Determine what needs to be done to get ready: research, training, procurement, operations, merchandising.
• Develop a plan to continue emphasizing the activity, such as advertising, in-store signage and so forth.
• Develop your pricing strategy.
• Prepare a final budget.
• Introduce the activity.
• Keep widening the competitive gap between you and your competitors.

It’s both simple and difficult!

Away back in 1970, I read Future Shock, a great book by Alvin Toffler. Future Shock was about change, and the affect that the accelerated rate of technological and social change had on society. From an historic perspective the speed of change from the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 18^th century to the “super-industrial society” of the 1970′s was mind-boggling and it has only intensified thousands-fold since then.

The supermarket business too has gone through radical changes and its rapid transformation continues. Remember only you can control your reaction to changes in your business. Everyone filters information through his or her personal background, wants, needs, fears, hopes, prejudices and beliefs. The result is often the development of urban “myths” about change. Let’s explore some of those myths—and the reality of business.

Myth: This will go away.

Reality: Change is here to stay.

Myth: It will help if I get upset with this.

Reality: Controlling your emotions increases your control over the situation.

Myth: This is a bad thing for my store(s).

Reality: Progress often masquerades as trouble.

Myth: I can keep running my store(s) as I always have.

Reality: If the world is changing, you probably need to change too.

Myth: All these problems prove that change is bad for my industry.

Reality: Problems are a natural side effect of the change process.

Myth: I’m not in a position to make a difference.

Reality: You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem.

Myth: The changes weren’t really necessary.

Reality: What’s necessary now is to make the changes work.

Since you can’t stop change, try to be an agent for change. Here are some things to consider:

• Control you attitude.
• Take some ownership of the changes.
• Control you attitude
• Choose your battles carefully.
• Keep your sense of humor.
• Don’t let your strengths become weaknesses.
• Practice good stress management techniques.
• Invent the future instead of trying to redesign the past.
• Control you attitude
• Accept the past, focus on the future and anticipate.
• Consider what’s coming, what needs to happen and how you can rise to the occasion.
• Stay loose. Remain flexible. Be light on your feet.
• Instead of changing with the times, anticipate the future and change a little ahead of the times.

So embrace change and have fun with it, for a change!

You don’t have to have the lowest prices on everything. You don’t have to be priced the same as your competitors. You must have your customers leave your store feeling like they received a value for their total shopping experience. This goes beyond shelf prices and integrates operations and retail execution.

When consumers do not perceive any differentiating attributes of a product or service, price becomes a factor. This becomes very evident when various competitors carry identical products. This is why you must find ways to differentiate your store(s) in other ways.

How do you identify your most price-sensitive items? Which items are most sensitive to your customers? Using some type of movement data is sometimes a good way to measure the sensitivity of an item or category. It is generally believed that the fastest selling items are usually the most price sensitive.

However, item velocity can be influenced or even manipulated by lower price points as a result of using promotional dollars from the manufacturer. Price sensitivity can also be a seasonal consideration. Some items, at peak times of year, can be very sensitive to the consumer. Items unique to the holidays or influenced by changing seasons take on different levels of significance for consumers. It’s important to be aware of these items. They tend to be less price sensitive to customers, but are still an important price consideration. Back-to-school products are a great example.

You must stay focused on what is important to your customers. Their perceptions—not yours—will keep you on track in building positive-price perceptions.

In the end, pricing and promotion strategies will only be successful if they are designed in a consistent way with all other merchandising and operational elements that provide value to the consumer. Top retailers establish a relevant point of differentiation to provide distinct value to their target audience. Base prices, promotions, assortment, service, private labels and visual merchandising all combine to create a value-to-price relationship.

To help us get our arms around the too many meeting syndrome, Ryan Joy, V.P. of Creative Services, was charged with researching the nature of meetings. His findings were enlightening to a meeting weary organization. As a result of his research we decided to define the types of meetings we held and develop meeting criteria for those assigned to lead meetings. Understanding the unique nature of meetings with their differing goals and objectives has helped us improve the quality, the efficiency, and even the quantity of meetings we schedule. Still much work needs to be done to refine and improve our meeting process but we’re living in a much better place.

Here is a portion of Ryan’s findings; Three Kinds of Meetings by Seth Godin, bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change. Keep in mind these are general classifications and vary by author. We selected the Mr. Godin’s model and customized the meeting types to fit our organizational needs.

"Meetings are marketing in real time with real people." (A conference is not a meeting. A conference is a chance for a circle of people to interact).

There are only three kinds of classic meetings:

1. Information. This is a meeting where attendees are informed about what is happening (with or without their blessing). While there may be a facade of conversation, it’s primarily designed to inform.
2. Discussion. This is a meeting where the leader actually wants feedback or direction or connections. You can use this meeting to come up with an action plan, or develop a new idea, for example.
3. Permission. This is a meeting where the other side is supposed to say yes but has the power to say no.

PLEASE don’t confuse them. Confused meeting types are the number one source of meeting ennui. One source of confusion is that a meeting starts as one sort of meeting and then magically morphs into another kind. The reason this is frightening is that one side or the other might not realize that’s actually occurring. If it does, stop and say, "Thanks for the discussion. Let me state what we’ve just agreed on and then we can go ahead and approve it, okay?"

While I’m at it, let me remind you that there are two kinds of questions.

1. Questions designed to honestly elicit more information.
2. Questions designed to demonstrate how much you know or your position on an issue and to put the answerer on the defensive.

"There’s room for both types of questions, particularly in a team preparing for a presentation or a pitch. Again, don’t confuse them. I like to be sure that there’s time for the first type, then, once everyone acknowledges that they know what’s on the table, open it up for the second, more debate-oriented type of question." Seth Godin

Meetings are a critical business activity, and it’s important to evaluate them periodically. Hopefully you will find the information in this blog is helpful.

I named my company DW Green after myself. It is easy for me to remember and I wanted to honor my parents. Neither is named DW, though DW is my father’s initials. Ries and Trout might still approve because DW Green is only 5 syllables long! And green is a popular word now.

When I incorporated DW Green, way back in 1988, my choices from Alaska’s Corporation Commission were Corporation, Inc., or Company. I selected company because of its many positive connotations:

• a number of individuals assembled or associated together; group of people.
• a guest or guests: We’re having company for dinner.
• an assemblage of persons for social purposes.
• companionship; fellowship; association: I always enjoy her company.
• one’s usual companions
• society collectively.
• a number of persons united or incorporated for joint action, esp. for business: a publishing company; a dance company.

Our official, legal business name is DW Green Company Inc. The word company is warm and represents relationships. The word corporation is tepid and represents an entity.

What’s In A Name?

As my Dad tells the story, his best friend in WWII was named JC. JC was from Texas. They went through boot camp together and fought side by side in the invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Normandy. Towards the end of the war, Dad and JC fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Sadly JC was killed. My dad made a battlefield vow that if he survived the war he would name his next born son DW (my Dad’s initials) in honor of his good friend JC. So my legal name is DW Green. Incidentally, the name on my draft card was DW(IO) Green. IO initials only!