Hey, it’s Bob. And in this episode of Real Retail TV, we’re going to explore a surprisingly simple way for you to get your team focused, engaged and performing at a higher level.

So when I say surprisingly simple, I do mean surprisingly simple. What I’m going to talk about, share with you today can be explained in two words.

Pay attention. That’s three syllables, two words. But anyway, before you click off and say, well, that’s obvious. What are you doing wasting my time, Bob? Let me tell you a story and help bring it around back to you and being a better leader.

So in the late twenties, early thirties, there, Western Electric had a factory called the Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois. And they brought in a business scientist named Elton Mayo. And nowadays, Elton would be called a management guru. But in those days, he was a business scientist. And they brought him in to increase efficiency in the factory.

So he walked around, looked around, looked around, and he said, maybe if I turn the lights up, it will help them be more efficient. Turn the lights up. Sure enough, productivity went up. Hey. Alright. This is working. But because he was a scientist, he needed to test it against another variable.

And so this time he turned the lights down.

Guess what? Productivity went up. You know, lights up, productivity up. Lights down, productivity up. And he tried this experiment with several other variables. And every time he tested something, productivity went up. And so what he determined and what is now called the Hawthorne effect is that when you pay attention to something, people’s behavior changes.

So what does the Hawthorne effect have to do with you as a retail leader?

It means that you need to pay attention, and that just seems so self evident. But how many times don’t you pay attention? How often are you so distracted by fires, by things, by bright shiny objects, by all the stuff that is happening in your business, in your life that you don’t pay attention to what’s happening on the floor? You know, attention or I’m sorry, energy flows where attention goes.

When you pay attention, they pay attention. They will pay attention to what you pay attention to. This is why sales training is so important. You teach somebody how to sell.

You can’t just let it go. You have to continuously pay attention because if not, they’re going to lose interest. And again, it sounds self evident, but I know my experience. I was in in the early days before I knew what to do or how to do it.

I would hire people and I would literally teach them my three most popular kites, show them how to use a register, show them how to use a credit card machine, and then put them on the floor and hope that they would do well. And they would, you know, they would sometimes follow somebody for a couple days, But basically, I was hanging them out to dry. And then I wondered why they weren’t successful. They weren’t successful because I didn’t pay attention to them.

So there’s a great new trend happening with Retail Mastery System owners that points to the Hawthorne effect.

So we just finished a special promotion for the Retail Mastery System. It ended on Friday.

But what we have found is our best clients who have the Retail Mastery System and all of our best clients have the Retail Mastery System. What they’re doing is they are buying seats for their employees. So what do I mean by buy a seat? So if you have the Retail Mastery System for ninety seven dollars you can buy access, full access for somebody for only ninety seven dollars But what they’re doing is they’re buying seats. They’re investing in people. They’re paying attention to people and saying, look, I would love to invest in you.

Tell me what you would like to learn. And then when you learn it in the retail, I will invest in you. I will buy a seat and you can learn whatever you wanna learn in the Retail Mastery System. I will pay you for your time.

The only thing that I need is I need you to come back to me weekly, biweekly, monthly, whatever you choose, and give me a report on what you’ve learned and tell me how you’re going to apply it in this business. And you see what it is? It’s the Hawthorne effect. You’re telling your team members that you’re paying attention.

Training is the Hawthorne effect. Coaching is the Hawthorne effect. So I’d much rather see you do it badly than not do it all. I’d much rather see you don’t let perfection get in the way of progress.

But understand this, if you just let your team members come in, clock in, go out on the floor at the end of the day, clock out and go home, you’re never going to get the performance that you want from them. They need attention. They need to know that you care. They need to know that you’re willing to invest in them.

They need to know that you’re going to listen to them. They need to be paid attention to. One more time.

Energy flows where attention goes. I’m encouraging you to recognize this truth that the truth of the Hawthorne effect is that when you pay attention, you’re going to get better performance.

All right. I’m Bob Negen. I hope you found this helpful. If you’re watching this on YouTube, I’d encourage you to subscribe. If you have any comments, put them down below. I would love to hear from you. If not, we’ll see you next week.