July 27, 2009 Monday Mastermind

Friday, July 24th, 2009
by Joe

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Interview with Mark Skogen

It’s the last Monday of the month and that means we have an interview with a local Brander-in-Chief! This week, I talked with Mark Skogen, President of Festival Foods grocery store. I spoke with him about the subjects of leadership by authority and customer experience. Here’s what he had to say:

Leading By Authority

The biggest thing that has changed over time is leadership style. If you think back to years ago, people lead with power. They didn’t have to explain their reasons for assigning a job. They just gave their employees their marching orders and went on their way. Employees didn’t expect reasons and simply did as they were told.

That approach doesn’t work today. Employees demand more of their leaders and if they aren’t happy with something, they find other employment. People leave bosses more than they leave companies (ie the reason people choose to leave a company is not necessarily because they don’t like the job description, but rather that there’s a communication issue between the leadership and employees). Leaders need to be straightforward with their reasoning today because transparency has become expected in business. When leaders explain what they want/need done and why it needs to be done, they create a relationship of trust between themselves and the employees.

Customer Experience

Shopping at Festival Foods is often described as different. The reason for this is, at Festival, there’s a real focus on making the customer’s experience the number one concern. You only get one chance to impress a potential customer and if you fail, they may never come back. That’s why Festival strives to create a consistently great experience for every person that walks through the door. It’s this focus on their experience that keeps the company in business as there’s not much to distinguish between grocery stores/commodity businesses.