Have I told you my Sainsbury's story?

A simple lesson in management

16 years ago I finished my last shift at Sainsbury's.

From 16 to 21 I stacked shelves during school term time and later when I was back home from uni.

I worked in the fresh foods department so if it was in a fridge, I stacked it – our section of the store also handled the eggs.

This will become important.

Aside from the ridiculously heavy boxes of cheese, I loved it.*

One particular shift sticks out, with a simple, but memorable example of management.

(*Side note: add to that aside, the time I turned one of the giant chillers in the back into a milky ice rink… not a euphemism! Not my finest moment.)

A late arrival in Leicester

Firstly, for context, this didn't happen at my store.

I was asked to help for four days at a refit of a store in Wigston, south of Leicester.

The store was shut to customers and, after a professional team of shop fitters did their work, Sainsbury's staff from around the region were called in to help get it ready for opening.

Me included.

Now it was memorable for another reason before the point of this story.

I got extremely lost on the way as I'd assumed, youthfully and stupidly, I'd remember the route I'd planned the night before.

I also didn't have a sat nav… it was the early 2000s!

I arrived an hour or so after I was supposed to, exceptionally annoyed and flustered, making my apologies to the Sainsbury's manager leading the refit.

This was followed by a brief intro where he asked who I was, where I worked normally, and what I was studying at uni.

Simple questions but asked with genuine interest.

Small gestures, big impressions

For the rest of day one and the next three days I cracked on, making up the time for being late, and fortunately not getting lost again!

There was nothing much else to report apart until the very end of the fourth and final day.

As my shift came to an end and I was ready to clock out, the manager grabbed me with a simple request that I can almost remember word for word:

“Dave, I know you’re about to go home but can you use your fresh foods experience and stack all the eggs before you go please.”

Now this may not seem like much on the surface, but for many reasons, it still sticks in my mind today and definitely mattered at the time.

Despite a brief chat on day one, and I’m sure some general “Hey, how’s it going?” chats during the other three days, I don’t remember speaking to him very often.

In that brief exchange, plus a thank you after the fact, he’d paid attention to who I was and what I did at my store – importantly treating me like an individual.

If you take that sentence again and break it down (without going too High Performance Podcast about it), you can see why it means a great deal to me – and inspired this blog!

Quite clearly being personal, showing an interest and recognising someone’s skills are a brilliant example of management.

Well, it worked with me anyway.

Long in the memory

I hope you see why that has stayed in my head all these years.

I still hope I'll one day bump into that manager too– I owe him a thank you and a beer.

On the rare occasion I visit the Sainsbury’s store I used to work in (and it really is rare as I am a Tesco/Co-op/M&S loyalist), those four days in Leicester immediately spring to mind.

My example is not life-changing or career-defining, but it’s something I still remember all these years later.

The simple point I’d like to make is that respect, no matter how small, and positive feedback can leave a big impression, especially from someone in a more senior position.

It can have a much bigger impression than you might realise if you’re the one delivering the feedback.

As does actively listening and showing you’re ‘bothered’ about the people working in your team.

Remember that if you’re talking to the more junior members of your team.

Make an effort for them and they’ll make an effort for you.

Oh and yes, I did learn a thing or two about better planning when it comes to going anywhere!