The Leading in a Crisis Podcast
What really happens when a crisis hits an organization—and how technology is influencing decisions and reputation impacts. Come hear what happened when experienced leaders were actually in the middle of a crisis—and capture the lessons before it happens to you. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
Your host, Tom Mueller, is a veteran crisis manager and trainer with more than 30 years in the corporate communications and crisis fields. Tom currently works as an executive coach and crisis trainer with WPNT Communications, and as a contract public information officer and trainer through his personal company, Tom Mueller Communications LLC.
Our goal is to help you grow your knowledge and awareness so you can be better prepared to lead should a major crisis threaten your organization.
Music credit: Special thanks to Nick Longoria from Austin, Texas for creating the theme music for the podcast.
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The Leading in a Crisis Podcast
EP17 Leading a retail giant through the pandemic crisis, with Polly Flinn
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Imagine steering a colossal retail business, like the family-owned Giant Eagle, through the stormy seas of a global pandemic. Our guest, the remarkable Polly Flinn, takes us on that voyage. With her at the helm, they navigated treacherous waters by staying in tune with their customers, using real-time data from weekly polls. That data helped the team adjust their store and pharmacy tactics to provide leading edge services to their customers in a rapidly changing environment.
And for a time, it appeared that Polly was part the TV show "Undercover Boss" as she worked alongside employees to keep stores open and customers happy. But this was reality, not a reality show.
Polly Flinn now provides retail consultancy services through her aptly named firm, Flinnstone Strategies. Find them at flinnstonestrategies.com
We'd love to hear from you. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
Leading Retail Business During Pandemic
Tom MuellerHi everyone and welcome to the Leading in a Crisis podcast . On this podcast we talk about all things crisis management and we deliver that through interviews , storytelling and lessons learned from crisis leaders . I'm Tom Mueller , coming to you today from Austin , Texas . I want to welcome my co-host , mark Mullen , who's joining us from Bellingham , Washington . Hey , Mark . H ello Tom .
Tom MuellerOn today's podcast we're continuing our conversation with Polly Flinn , a highly respected executive in the retail space , having served at BP , Walmart and most recently at Giant Eagle . Polly currently runs her own consulting company , Flinnstone Strategies . Today we're talking with Polly about leading a large retail business through the pandemic and how staying close to their customers help that company survive and even thrive through the pandemic . Let's pick up that conversation now . Okay , Polly , there was one other issue we were going to talk about with you on the podcast today and that was your experience leading a company through the pandemic , and obviously that was a crisis situation that companies all over the world had to deal with , but it sounds like that your company was able to sort of capitalize on a couple of issues to keep people safe but actually improve the business during that time . Can you share that story with us ?
Polly FlinnSure , Tom , let me set the stage a little bit for those of you listeners who aren't familiar with Giant Eagle . Giant Eagle is a family owned grocery , convenience retailing and pharmacy business located in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , with a majority of their stores in Western Pennsylvania , Ohio and Indianapolis . They go to market under two banners Giant Eagle , which is the grocery store there's about 300 Giant Eagles in that geographic area that I described and then Get Go , which is a gas station convenience retailing chain of about again and about 300 stores . What's important for the story is that inside all the Giant Eagle supermarkets were pharmacies , and so that was an important element both for internal capabilities . And then , obviously , the pandemic progressed and vaccinations and things like that provided to be a really important part of our ability to help consumers and also get real time information about what was happening from a health perspective .
Polly FlinnSo it was a really terrifying time . I think everybody , you all , both you and Marc , and then all of your listeners if we can all transport ourselves back into March and April of 2000 and you'd say to yourself just remember all the information that we didn't have , remember the terror of not understanding where , how this COVID can be transmitted , what the impact of it could be , and this almost tidal wave that kept on sweeping overview about every day of new horrors and challenges and changes that were happening and then envisioned that you were an essential business . Grocery stores were named as essential business , convenience stores , gas stations were named as essential business , that somehow . And pharmacies obviously somehow , and all of us . You had to figure out a way to keep your staff safe , your stores open and your customers informed . It was quite quite a kind of six months to eight months before things ever started to get somewhat normalized , if you can even say that that they got even normalized in that time frame .
Tom MuellerWell , and you're in a very competitive market there , our business actually , in the grocery and pharmacy places . So how were you guys faring relative to your competitors in that time ?
Polly FlinnSo most of the competitors for us , particularly in Western Pennsylvania , were Aldi and Walmart's and then in Ohio and Indiana , Kroger . What was great about Giant Eagle is because we were a family-owned business without the somewhat challenges of a quarter-to-quarter performance . Also because we were more local , I think we were able to better understand and get a pulse and pivot quickly . One of the key elements that , as I reflect on that time period , that allowed us to get more information more quickly than some of our competitors as it worked with a company at the time called MDCO now it's called Penta and a friend of mine by the name of Mike Berlin runs that company and Mike has a background in polling and market research . And Mike came in very quickly out during the pandemic at our urging and he started to do weekly polls of customers and then we would do it a little bit more less frequently with employees and team members by getting real-time data about what customers were concerned about . Were they concerned about mass ? Were they concerned about what they touched ? What language could be used for them ? What were they looking for in terms of time periods to shop on our stores ? How do they feel about a grocery shop versus a gasoline or a convenience shop or a pharmacy stop .
Polly FlinnSo that real-time data and we continued that polling for months to get us real information . And then we used that to create information and communication to our team members , whether it be email blasts or on-site communication . But we created quite a bit of advertising . I haven't called it advertising , I call it public service announcements about when we were open , how we were thinking about sanitation and safety , what information on vaccinations do our customers need . Online shopping just exploded , right being home , either grocery pickup or home delivery . How we were working our way through that , we were able to versus our competitors . Eventually everybody got there . But I think we had weeks , if not potentially a few months , had start , as I reflect from of April 2000 through that summer , versus our competitors .
Marc MullenWell , it sounds like again that there was a great bunch of initial turmoil as everybody tried to figure out what is this disease and what is safe , but it went on for more than a a few months . That went on for a long time . Did you end up changing your strategy as you moved farther into COVID or did this the initial emphasis and stuff , carry all the way through the whole ?
Polly Flinnresponse . We continue . So as a leadership team , we continue basically three-day a week conference calls . If you remember , Marc , information was literally for the first eight to ten months was changing all the time , right as the government figured it out , as states figured it out , local municipalities weighed in , customer sentiment changed . So really , if you think about managing this crisis , it was almost a crisis that wouldn't end and as a leader , you had to completely re . Most crises end after a period of time , maybe a few weeks , maybe it's a month , but this went on for almost over a year and it affected every aspect of your operations , every aspect of your communications and , in some ways , offers to customers . So , as a result of that , you really had to be in real-time connection with way what your customers were saying , what your employees were saying , and then be how do you actually pivot and take action on that really quickly ? It was a do learn , do moment for marathon . I call it a do learn , do marathon .
Marc MullenYeah , I don't know , tom . Do you remember any actual crisis event that lasted for more than a year ? I can see , yeah .
Tom MuellerI can think of one recently . I dream about it most nights still , sadly . Yeah Well , polly , as you described this .
Leadership Lessons From a Crisis
Tom MuellerObviously there's clearly some emotional aspects to this , as there isn't dealing with any major crisis , the fact that this one just kept going and going . You've got new , different information coming in all the time and yet you're having to make executive decisions that affect your people , your customers . Again . The sort of stress and strain of that , and I'm curious , just from a leadership perspective , how you kept yourself in the game mentally and how you kept your teams motivated through that very difficult time .
Polly FlinnIt was a challenge , no doubt about it . We kept our office open . I felt very strongly about that . If our team members had to work in the stores then we should be in the office . We structured it such , you know , in terms of social distancing we had , you know , when people could come in , but we felt very strongly that the office had to be open and I personally worked there most days . I was also worked in stores quite a bit . I bagged a lot of groceries went and we're helped our colleagues and you know , if you think about it , the turnover that occurred in some of our supermarkets was , you know , 50% increases in sales .
Polly FlinnBut it was really important , again , to show our team members that we were there to help them to work the registers , to bag groceries . You know , in my own operations , you know stocking coolers and cleaning floors and things like that , and dedicated Fridays to being the day that I would , no matter what , be out in the stores , thanking our team members for working and pitching in where I could . So in some ways , tom , that motivated me right being . I mentioned at the beginning , I'm a builder of things and people , being one of them and being in touch with our team members and working alongside them was a big motivation for me . I also started to exercise a lot more . I've always with a , you know , but I needed to get out , you know . I started to do a three to four mile walk along the Three Rivers and Pittsburgh every evening just to clear my head and , you know , kind of get back to nature and recognize that the world was not going to end . But it was a marathon , it was absolutely a marathon .
Tom MuellerWell , this sounds like an episode of undercover boss here , where you're going in and working side by side . No reality show came out of this particular engagement , though right .
Polly FlinnWell , I had a mask . I think that was the only undercover thing about me , but it was . Yeah , I was . It was there . I was there to help , not to , but I did learn a lot . And also , you know , talk about information . We're going to pulling information I mentioned from Mike Berlin's firm , but the you know there's an awful lot of information you got when you're out there yourself . And that was another , you know , data input for me every week to make sure that I was understanding what , the pulse of what was happening .
Marc MullenAnd again , it's a great leadership standard to be there with the people that are being impacted , and I appreciate you talking about keeping your offices open and literally being in the store with your people . That's just a great , great leadership practice .
Tom MuellerIndeed , great leadership by example there . Obviously , Polly , I'm curious - what did you learn from working side by side with your folks in the stores , that you perhaps wouldn't have picked up elsewhere ?
Polly FlinnWell , I think , certainly not to get into cultural wars , but the , the , as you know , as a pandemic . It evolved and masks and no masks , and really understood from real time the challenges of . You know , at the time we were asking our team members to wear masks and even we started for a while to ask our customers to wear a mask , but that was very difficult and so that that the whole mask and no mask element was . It was important for me to see in one story up , I was working in a store and a police officer came in with no mask and I was . I was definitely in a moment where you said to yourself , how can I ask my team members to try to enforce this mask when the police aren't even wearing the mask ? So it's , you know , it was those moments where that we're , we're science , certainly we , you know , mask help , they help protect you , they help protect others , but the reality about how people felt about that and what you were asking your store team members to enforce collided .
Marc MullenYeah , it's the policeman are not supposed to wear masks , the robbers are supposed to wear masks . I always remember walking into banks and for decades you walk into a bank and that's a sign saying please remove all face covering before entering the bank . And now all of a sudden everywhere says please put on your face covering before entering the bank . So it's easy to have confusing messages .
Tom MuellerSo , Polly , from a crisis perspective , then , as you kind of you know , close out here on on the giant eagle story , what's the , what are the critical lessons that you've taken away from that experience ? Now , and if you had to go through something like this again , you know what would those be . How would you apply those ?
Polly Flinnone is you can never communicate enough . I think that's critical . Someone might say that's a bit trite . Of course you can't , but the frequency and the ways that you do it . We became quite creative about how we really shared new news and and to our team members and our customers . But you can't communicate too too much in an authentic , thoughtful , transparent way , and when you do that you win , even though it might be somewhat scary and you might be taking your putting yourself and your business out and brand on a limb , but authentic , transparent and frequent and a crisis works . I'd say that , tom , is one of my key learnings .
Tom MuellerMarc and I both come from public information officer backgrounds , right where that's the goal - to get information out as quickly as you can , accurate information to help people make decisions and at least understand what's happening . And the more you can provide them , the better decisions they can make and , of course , the more positively they perceive you in being helpful in that situation . So that , being helpful as you were at giant eagle , did that help your sales and such for the stores ?
Polly FlinnYeah , we . Our brand value , as measured by , you know , the net promoter score , all sorts of other metrics was never higher than it was during that time period . And and also stock , even as you started to get into 2002 and beyond in 2003 , it's stuck . And so , to your point on authentic , transparent and frequent communication works . Your customers appreciate it . They looked at your that . You build your trust and respect . It was the pandemic helped both businesses significantly . From being a trusted local family member , I'll go so far as to say for the citizens of the communities in which we operated , based on how we executed and worked our way through the pandemic .
Marc MullenJust one more question real quick . Polly , you've been down this road a few times now . This is sort of you're getting experienced at it when you go into an incident like this or into a response like this . Did you have an idea going into these ? How long would it be , or did it take longer than you thought it would each time ?
Polly FlinnYeah , I think I usually . I mean , I think it can always go faster . But yeah , I come in with a bit of a plan . I won't say a preconceived notion , I'll say a plan . But I'm also very thoughtful about willing to pivot If I get new information or I have a different experience , or I decide that something can go fast or something needs to go slower . I'm not afraid to change my mind , I'm not wed to it . So I think you have to go in with a plan . Your team and your customers too are expecting you to come in with a plan . But also make sure that you're not so overconfident in your abilities and what you've learned before you got into the situation that you're not willing to make a change quickly .
Marc MullenSo bring all your skills plus flexibility .
Polly FlinnWell said .
Tom MuellerAll right . Well , polly , thank you so much for joining us today on this episode of the Leading in a Crisis podcast . It's been our very great , great pleasure to kind of hear your leadership examples and those stories you shared . So thank you again and we hope you'll come back and join us again soon on another episode .
Polly FlinnYou guys are great . Thank you for having me .
Tom MuellerThank you , Polly . Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Leading in a Crisis podcast . If you like what you're hearing , then please like and subscribe to the podcast and give us a five star rating . We'd really appreciate it , and please tell your friends and colleagues about us as well , and we'll see you again soon on another episode of the Leading in a Crisis podcast .
