SAN DIEGO—Racecar driver and color commentator Derek Daly knows a lot about speed, and the Formula One racer shared with ICSC attendees his tips for speed in his keynote address at the “Start Your Engines”-themed Western Division Conference here last week. Daly said, “In my business, 'start your engines' means you're going to go against your completion and you're going to go as fast as you can.”
If you don't win the race, he said, you try to figure out why you weren't fast enough, and “How fast can you get fast?” This is what retail experts are faced with today, in the age of Internet sales and ever-faster technology that aims to deliver retail products to customers' doorsteps at the turn of a dime. The speed of doing business has increased in the last 10 years, said Daly, and we now value speed as a core competency.
“The key to success is not going faster, but being faster,” said Daly. “And the key to being faster is the ability to remove speed bumps that might slow you down.”
He spoke of building trust among your team, by taking what you know and sharing it with those around you to make them—and ultimately you—better. A question every retail professional should ask is, “Where am I in the starting grid today for the race I'm in every day?” You cannot over-prepare for what you do on a daily basis, he added.
Looking for new, different and better ways to do things has worked for brands like Ferrari, Daly pointed out. He also said you need certain skills and tenets for success, including teamwork; commitment to excellence, desire, determination, unrelenting pursuit (borrowed from fellow racecar driver Mario Andretti); and “Don't make excuses” and “You don't accidentally show up at the World Series” (borrowed from Derek Jeter). Facing up to tough realities is also important, like “What got you where you are today may not be good enough to get you where you want to go—you might have to go beyond your best.”
Daly left his audience with his own list of “5 Factors of Fast”
- A company only becomes fast when enough people in it become fast.
- Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
- A to-do list is good—a to-stop list might be even better.
- Make sure you are doing the right things as opposed to doing things right.
- You don't decide your future. You decide your habits, and your habits decide your future.
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