It is late; the store shut its doors to customers many hours ago. Footsteps ring out as a solitary figure walks the aisles between silent racks of clothing and waiting displays. That figure is Philip Green, chairman of Arcadia Group, one of the United Kingdom’s most successful retailers.

Green learnt his trade many years ago while running under-performing clothing stores and turning them into cash-generating machines before selling them on again. But he is no venture capitalist, merely concerned with juggling numbers and generating profit regardless of how it is achieved. Philip Green is first and foremost a retailer: and he understands the dynamics of the business intimately.

That is why he sometimes visits his stores late at night. Without distractions, his senses tuned, he can truly experience the store as only a seasoned retailer can. That display is too confusing; that sign is hidden; customers would find it difficult to find that product; why is that litter not cleared? He visits stores during the day too, of course, to meet customers and staff and see what they are experiencing. It is this hands-on approach that has led Philip Green to become the fourth richest man in the United Kingdom and the Arcadia group to be the most successful private retailing group in Britain. In the 22 months since Green bought the group, operating profits have more than doubled to £280 million.

Most chairmen or CEOs rely on hard data like market research and profit-and-loss accounts to run their business. Green understands that these are vital yet insufficient. They are merely lagging indicators, and therefore fail to give him the insight and early warning that seeing a store first-hand provides. Only direct observation reveals the difference between a store that is well run and one that is not, long before this shows up in the bottom line. That is why Green is famous for being engaged with every aspect of the business, from buying to store locations to merchandising. Experiencing reality yourself is very different from seeing the world through the insulating screen of data. It is the difference between reading the weather report and going for a walk on a beautiful spring day.

As Gordon Ramsay, the Michelin award-winning chef and successful entrepreneur, said in a recent speech at the European Customer Management Conference, “Customers don’t tell you that you are no longer their favorite restaurant. So It is vital to be hands-on and engaged because if you are not you’ll find out five or six months down the line when the numbers fall.”

Ramsay’s approach, like Philip Green’s, is about seeing for yourself. It is the antidote to two-inch-thick research reports, two-by-two grids and too-smart young MBA’s.

During the research we did for our first book ‘Uncommon Practice’ we were struck time and time again at the instinctive approach that many entrepreneurs and successful business people seem to take. As we interviewed people like Charles Dunstone, Richard Branson, Stelios and John Russell, it became apparent that they share an instinctive, passionate, sometimes irrational approach to running their businesses. They may refer to research and data, but only as a support, not a crutch. Instead, they seemed to rely on their own grasp of the market place and engagement with customers.

Yet, all too often senior executives are insulated from the reality that their customers experience. It seems the more we have developed the science of market research in an attempt to know our customers better, the more we have in fact distanced ourselves from them. Focus groups are no substitute for first-hand experience.

We think there are three crucial skills to ‘Seeing’ in business:

• Expert eyes: interpret from your own accumulated experiences and intuition; make sense of what you see by trusting your own judgment.

• Soft focus: don’t treat observing your customers like a forensic, scientific investigation. Instead simply ‘experience’ it. See what is to be seen; don’t get in the way of yourself.

• Big picture: link what you see to the broader context in which it is happening.

In our book, we examine each of these in detail and use case studies to bring the principles alive.

Find out more in our book SEE, FEEL, THINK, DO.

Top of page >>