Everyone wants to fix everything. I get it. I tried.
Coming from a mid-sized grocer with strong shrink numbers, solid routines, and decent operator buy-in, I thought I had the formula. When I transitioned to a national chain with high shrink and a maze of competing priorities, my instinct was to go full throttle. More training. More process. More audits. More everything.
What I got? More noise. A few improvements here and there, but nothing that stuck. Because progress isn’t volume. It’s velocity in the right direction.
The truth? Most LP teams aren’t failing because they don’t care. They’re failing because they’re drowning in scope. Casting a net too wide, hoping something works. But when everything’s a priority, nothing is. That’s not discipline. That’s a mistake.
What changed for me was choosing to do less… on purpose. Solve the biggest issue. Repeat it until it’s muscle memory. Then move to the next. You don’t scale success until you’ve stabilized something first.
It’s easy to be overwhelmed. Shrink is up, expectations are high, and everyone wants results – yesterday. But if you’re chasing every fire, you’re never building fireproof systems.
You want to make noise? Cool. But if you want to make progress – pick a lane, get ruthless about execution, and let the wins build a reputation you don’t have to defend.
Getting great at everything is a fantasy. Getting great at one thing at a time? That’s how culture is built.
You don’t need a bigger net. You need a sharper spear. And if that sounds backward to everyone else, good. That just means you’re going Against the Grain.