Frustrated at failed leadership. In today's business environment, status quo isn't good enough.

This week brought news that Sports Chalet, regional retail chain of about 50 B&M stores and an online site abruptly closed down after 67 years in business. Their last profit occurred in 2007. 

While many other industries are different, if you are a retailer who isn't changing direction or heavily investing in some project, you should be returning a profit--maybe not every year in tough times but 3 straight years (let alone 8 in this case) should not pass without a profit before someone wakes up and fixes it.

Sadly what I call "being asleep at the wheel" occurs way too often in retail (as well as other industries such as hospitality). It is a failure of leadership when failures (years without profit or growth) are allowed to continue without changing up the status quo. Well run companies look to improve even in the best of times because your business' path to continued success is rarely a straight line. 

You can not run your business, no matter how great it is today, in a bubble. Every business should look at themselves, their industry and their customers every single year with the help of independent eye and ideas. When I do this for my clients, commonly they realize that their vision has narrowed to what they are working on and even if employees have great fresh ideas, they are not being heard. 

If given the opportunity, could I have been able to save a failing Sports Chalet? Perhaps I could have but even if I couldn't save the existing business as it sat, I could have transformed it into something that made a profit. No one likes closing stores or layoffs, but that path is preferred to everything going away. Without looking at Sports Chalet's financial records, walking their stores and talking to employees, I have very limited information but in every business there is changes that can be made to improve the way the business is run which in turn improves the financials. You just need someone (internally or externally) who can see what needs to be done and you need to trust that person so those suggestions are embraced.

If this post helps even one company realize they need to take action to protect their future, than my time has been well spent. There is not one city or town that doesn't have a empty factory, a declining strip center or an shuttered store front from someone who didn't take the time to adjust to changing customer needs, a changing market place or work on their own inefficiencies. 

No one is saying that running a business is easy these days but there is no excuse for not trying to evolve.