When Leadership Moves Faster Than the System

Credit: Heather Newsom

How is it nearly March? One minute we were easing into January with all the fresh start energy and now apparently autumn is just days away. Depending on where you live the weather is either glorious or confusing. Retail feels the same.

There is a strange texture in the thinking at the moment. I can see it.

NRF in New York. EuroShop in Düsseldorf. AI accelerating. Convenience compressing. Big partnerships being announced. Bold ideas everywhere. Leaders are trying. There is ambition in the room.

And yet when I walk stores across New Zealand and Australia, something feels off.

Stores feel like they have a split personality. On paper, the strategy is a racehorse.

In reality, what turns up on the shop floor is a donkey crossed with a camel.

It can move. It is technically functional. But it is not elegant and it is definitely not inspiring. The thinking is there. The execution is not.

This week in Australia, Bunnings announced a partnership that will see more than 30,000 products available on Uber Eats with delivery promised in under an hour. It is rolling out in stages and New Zealand is in scope.

That is not a small move. That is a signal.

It says speed matters. It says convenience is compressing further. It says customers are not comparing you to your direct competitor anymore. They are comparing you to whoever made their life easiest yesterday.

Strategically, it makes sense. But here is the bit that is bothering me.

Every time we say yes to something like that, it lands somewhere. It lands in space, in process, in labour, in experience. And too often we act as though the store will just absorb it.

It will not. At least not without consequence. [Note I am not suggesting Bunnings don't have their shit together - this is for illustrative purposes as others will react to this and they will "throw" in a solution to compete].

Right now it feels like parts of the retail sphere are in full rip, shit and bust mode.

Add click and collect.

Add faster delivery.

Add new categories.

Add marketplace.

Add member pricing.

Add in store media.

Add more promotion.

Add more signage.

Add more urgency.

Everything is being layered in the name of growth.

But the 7Ps are not independent levers. Product, price, promotion, place, people, process and positioning are an intricate balance. Shift one without recalibrating the others and the system strains.

What I am seeing is not laziness.

It is desperation without prioritisation.

Front line teams are stretched and trying their absolute best. They are serving customers, picking orders, resetting bays, managing promotions, explaining loyalty mechanics and troubleshooting systems.

And still it is not enough.

Because the ecosystem itself is overloaded.

The store becomes part showroom, part warehouse, part service centre and part marketing channel. None of it has been properly rebalanced.

• Visual clarity drops.

• Adjacencies blur.

• Service becomes patchy not because people do not care, but because attention is fragmented.

• Customers walk in with I see, I need, I want clarity and leave feeling slightly unsettled.

They might not articulate it. But they feel the split personality.

We have seen this movie before.

Department stores were built on the promise of everything under one roof. That worked when the roof was scarce. The internet made the roof infinite.

Once online penetration moves beyond roughly 20 per cent, the economics of large physical footprints shift. We have watched major department stores globally close doors not because physical retail is obsolete, but because undifferentiated accumulation erodes clarity.

Too many categories. Too many concessions. Too much middle ground. Too little definition.

They kept adding. They did not redefine.

Contrast that with what IKEA is doing globally. It is piloting store within store concepts in clearly defined, intentional ways. It is carving out space for complementary partners where it strengthens the destination. That is not accumulation for the sake of it. That is editing the ecosystem.

That is the difference.

Accumulation without subtraction erodes.

Expansion with clarity strengthens.

IKEA store in store concept piloting in Best Buys USA

If there is one thing to sit with as we head into autumn and for many you next financial years plans, it is this.

Be more considered in what you do, how you do it and how you execute it.

Rip, shit and bust is not the silver bullet.

Done is better than perfect. Yes.

But deliberate is better than frantic.

Before the next announcement, ask:

• What are we stopping so this can work properly?

• Where does this physically land?

• Who is carrying the operational weight?

• Are we strengthening the ecosystem or just adding to it?

The store always tells the truth.

And right now, too many stores are telling a story of good thinking and compromised execution.

That is what we should care about.

In the next piece, I look at what happens when leadership designs for clarity instead of complexity.