ecognition of smells. When you smell coffee brewing, you’re breathing in coffee molecules. The second scent-detecting process is called the accessory smelling system. Nerves from both the accessory and the main systems communicate to the part of the brain that deals with emotional perception and response. So apart from obvious observed behaviour, the human sense know exactly what management is all about and we often refer to this as part of the corporate culture. Symptoms of this are varied. “Unless we can get this company right, we will close in three years”. It’s amazing how quickly three years flies by with apathetic staff lulled into an energy-less torpor. “We cannot make these changes right now because we have other priorities.” “Our staff are not capable to handle the change,” (You bet they aren’t with management like that). “We cannot get good people,” (Again – you bet you can’t). Inaction is infectious. At a meeting, certain decisions are made and perhaps a few deadlines are set. The next meeting is cancelled – something foreseen came up but nobody foresaw it. The following meeting many of the decisions that were made are forgotten and no one has done anything anyway. They all know that there will be no repercussions and so they drift off until the next meeting is called. An exaggeration? Maybe. And of course not one of the comments above apply to you or your organisation. OK – you slip up now and again but generally all this stuff applies to other retailers. After all, the results weren’t too bad last week, last month, last year. As a consultant, you know when it’s time to walk away when the CEO responds to a suggestion or comment with the type of response, “Well we are not doing too badly” and yes, I have heard it from top management, but not often thank goodness. The hard question is how do you as a highly intuitive and intelligent CEO/COO/GM who recognises some of the commentary being applicable to his/her organisation, change this toxic and baleful rot? One option which is quite tempting but suicidal, is to fire almost everybody. Not only would this be silly but unfair. This kind of attitude has been bred. Maybe cull a few and bring in a bit of new stock while at the same time making sure that there is a grand rebirth with all the glamour and glitter to herald the new future. Stuart Bennie is a retail consultant at Impact Retailing and can be contacted at stuart@impactretailing.com.au or 0414 631 702. Want more Inside Retail? Subscribe to Inside Retail Weekly now and get our premium print publication delivered to your door every week.