With a rich history in fashion industry, dating back from 1901 when John F. Nordstorm and Carl F. Wallin opened their first show store, Nordstorm has known a tremendous development stretched on more than a century of good business, supported by strong customer service and leadership strategies. At the foundation of the company’s business philosophy, there was the constant concern for offering the best services to the customers. This philosophy was grown and developed throughout the years and it is continuing to be developed through various developmental processes that define Nordstorm organizational behavior as a learning organization. In the current downturn economic context the company is pursuing the optimization of its resources through continuously applying leadership development process, meant at enhancing the employees’ capabilities keeping them satisfied and motivated to work for Nordstorm and achieve great performances, contributing to the company’s growth by maintaining happy customers (Lyman, 2009).
The leadership development process is a complex organizational procedure that implies identifying talents, training people into becoming leaders, working with others, understanding and learning from others, applying and embracing necessary changes, while permanently maintaining a focus on the values of the ethical leadership (Marsh, 2013).
A successful leadership development process implies seeking to permanently inspire and motivate others by first motivating oneself, communicating visions and directions as a result of various personal or professional experiences, looking outside of the team for achieving knowledge, setting stretch goals for pushing the team higher, applying and embracing change for keeping the pace with the competitive business world, encouraging collaboration with other departments, other business units for learning from each other (Zenger & Folkman, 2013).
The business environment, as any other institutional environment, requires rapid adjustment to changes, but many times this is challenging for managers, as sometimes it is necessary to adapt the company’s business philosophy to the changes that occur, and this would imply training the employees on how to best cope with the changes while not losing focus from the organizational values and business philosophy. Assuring adequate resources, mentoring, supervising, applying experiential leaning are several strategies for coping with the change while maintaining the focus on the company’s goals and business philosophy (Billot, 2011).
In this sense, Nordstorm is a flexible organization, rapidly adapting to change and leading its employees to embracing the need for change, because it assures the necessary resources and mentoring programs meant to attain the employees’ development adapted on the permanently evolving fashion industry.
For a more efficient adaptation to change, studies have identified that leaders and managers should anticipate change and require the team members to brainstorm regarding what they would consider as necessary to change within their work, as related to the external environment that affects the business (Zenger & Folkman, 2013). As such, they will be much better prepared to cope with change, as change is planned inside, before the external factors impose it.
Nordstorm is actively pursuing this strategy, as in the company’s training and mentoring sessions there are involved not only the employees that need to grow within the organization, but also senior employees, who are willing to achieve new business visions from their colleagues, to understand how they think and to elaborate on what they are being taught in the formal training or mentoring sessions, for preparing the change as a fluid and flexible process. Moreover, the company is engaged in the latest technology and it employs up – to – date business strategies to motivate the personnel and maintain the employees happy with what they are doing, by promoting their achievements through internal newsletters and intra net sites, engaging them to become better salesmen everyday so that they can benefit of the various prizes and benefits that the company prepares for them (Lyman, 2009). Like this, coping with change is as natural as drinking water for Nordstorm since accomplishing good results implies adjusting to the permanently evolving and transforming business environment.
Experiential learning model also sustains the leadership development process and the development of ethical leadership and it states that “adults develop, grow, and learn through experience”, holding that the virtues are developed through experience, which include both traumatic experience and encounters with differences (Marsh, 2013, p. 578).
Within Nordstorm, the experiential learning is transmitted mostly through encounters with differences (learning from others’ experiences), because the workers are sharing knowledge and learning from each other in an open and friendly environment, sharing as organizational values credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie (Lyman, 2009). These values permit for the experiential learning to be well established within the organizational structures, allowing for the accommodation of leadership development process.
Assessing the organizational behavior within Nordstorm, there can be identified the fact that the company is seeking for “nice people” to join its team, who are focused on selling and on delivering great customer services. Regarding its leadership development process, the firm develops a shared leadership program, based on the “each one teach one” approach, meant to ensure that employees will reach success and professional growth (Lyman, 2009). As such, transforming life experiences into meaning leads to transformational learning (Lyman, 2009).
Starting with this day to day approach on employees’ professional development, the company further invests in its people, being permanently concerned with their growth and integration as in the team leaders roles, through the “New Manager Development” program, which prepares individuals for new managerial experience through experiential learning.
Sales representatives employees are content with this leadership development process that the company operates, because they receive various compensations or facilities for their sells performances, therefore, their effort translates into rewards. The employees who are pursuing leadership positions within Nordstorm meet the involvement of the company that is committed to invest in its people through dedicated trainings, coaching and mentoring programs.
For the managers who are implementing the leadership development process the focus of their concern is the employee growth, knowing that the quality of the services is provided by the sells people. Moreover, the company’s leadership ability to smoothly adapt to changes, its servant leadership approach and the other values characteristic of Nordstorm organization (“hard work, persistence, loyalty, honesty, ethics, competitive spirit [] customer focus”) allow the managers of leadership development process to align the company’s business goals with the permanently changing microenvironment in which the company operates (Lyman, 2009, p. 5).
With this assessment of Nordstorm’s leadership development process, there can be stated that the company is successfully implementing this organizational behavior component, efficiently adapting to change, including experiential learning, motivating its people, promoting an open, friendly and collaborative working environment within teams and among teams, permanently training employees for achieving performances and training individuals for becoming leaders. All these assets are key to a successful leadership development process and Nordstorm company’s market shares and sales figures, plus the customers’ satisfaction reflect the brand’s equity and its long – term focus on quality and great customer experience business vision.
References
Billot, J, (2011) “The changing research context: implications for leadership”. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management. Vol.3, no. 1, pp. 37 – 46.
Lyman, A. (2009) Nordstorm – great service for over 100 years. Best company for 25 years. Great Place to Work Institute, Inc.
Marsh, C. (2013) “Business executives’ perceptions of ethical leadership and its development”. Journal Business Ethics. Vol. 114, pp. 5565 – 582.
Zenger, J. & Folkman, J. (2013) Inspiring & motivating to achieve top performances. Hemera/Thinkstock.
