WHEN the supermarket group J Sainsbury was in its heyday, the store managers were powerful figures, enjoying high levels of responsibility and accountability. Then various initiatives were introduced, such as the creation of a centrally driven supply system, and more control passed to head office. This led to a strong sense of disempower-ment among store managers, who felt that their roles had become to some extent meaningless.

This story about the store managers losing heart comes from a recently published book, Meaning Inc, written by Gurnek Bains and his colleagues at the YSC business-psychology consultancy. Bains describes how the managers reacted when their freedom was circumscribed. “By the time Justin King [the present chief executive] had arrived, store managers were being assessed and monitored on a plethora of different measures to the extent that they felt they couldn’t move without contravening some control or other that had been placed on them.”

Bains describes the impact this was having. At a meeting King called with store managers shortly after he took over, the managers had seemed open, suggesting they had an independent way of thinking — “something we had not been led to expect”.

After the managers had gone, King noticed one of them had left a sheet of paper on the table. On it were all the questions King had been asked.

“The whole thing had been scripted by the senior management and the store managers had gone along with the charade because being micro-managed was what they expected,” said Bains.

King quickly moved to make changes at head office and give power back to the stores. His moves have had a palpable impact on the promotion of managers and their sense of accountability and responsibility for what happens on their watch. It also proved a long overdue turning point, with Sainsbury’s market share rising for the first time in years.

The roll-out of the Make Sainsbury’s Great Again Leadership Campaign came after the board decided that a step change in leadership capability across the group was needed.

Diana Breeze, head of human resources at Sainsbury, brought in Bains in 2004. King was keen to identify a set of values that would provide organ-isational glue for the business. By working with the board and Breeze, Bains was able to establish a set of leadership values.

The next step was to embed these behaviours into the company’s top 1,000 leaders before the critical preChristmas trading period. Center Parcs was chosen as the location for the two-day training session. The villa accommodation lent itself to the bonding of small groups, and the cohabitation of store managers with their target customers — young families — made for some interesting conversations on the cycle tracks.

This led to Sainsbury having its most successful Christmas for years. The programme was rolled out to 9,000 of the company’s front-line managers, a move that has contributed to the outstanding financial results predicted for the end of this month.

“The crux of it was an underperforming business with a new chief executive. The aim was to shift it to a new culture — which is a very difficult thing to do,” said Bains.

Breeze said: “We could see the impact through the feedback the shop-floor staff were giving us.”

There was a question of, what does the business need to take us through to the next stage? The decision was that it didn’t need anything. It was a matter of doing things better rather than adding any new process or framework. “The programme was centrally managed and organised by my team in the HR division,” said Breeze. “Over six months the feedback was tremendous.”

The delivery was done through the 33 regional managers. Each held up to 10 one-day programmes across the region. A board director attended every event. It gave people the sense that the most senior executives in the organisation were behind it.

On the programmes the level of activity was intense. There were coaching and feedback sessions as well as various exercises, one of which included inventing a new product for Sainsbury. The winning idea had to be presented to an executive who took on a role like Sir Alan Sugar in the television programme The Apprentice.

There was a long debriefing and the day provided an opportunity to explain to everyone attending what the programme meant for them and what was expected of them.

For the next phase the management will probably sit down at the end of this month and carry out a review. There will be a follow-up programme in the summer. They will go back and do some work with the teams. With the aid of colleague opinion surveys they will measure the success of the development programme.

Each store will do a survey once a year, giving a steady stream of information about the programme’s effect. A leadership capability index from

each store will perform a similar task.

From this the management can see that each store has made good progress. Staff are reporting that they are being managed in a much better way. And Sainsbury is living up to one of its own new values — Getting Better Everyday.

Meaning Inc: The Blueprint for Business Success in the 21st Century, by Gurnek Bains et al, is published by Profile Books

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