TWIG Trailblazers Past and Present Share Insights at Grocery Impact
Along with this year’s Top Women in Grocery honorees in the Senior-Level Executive, Rising Star and Store Manager categories, Progressive Grocer trained the spotlight on two of the award program’s standouts – 2024 Retail Trailblazer Lynette Ackley, group VP drugstore, pets, hardlines and consumables at Meijer, and 2020 Retail Trailblazer Susan Morris, EVP, chief operations officer at Albertsons Cos., during the publication’s Grocery Impact event last week in Orlando, Fla.
In a panel session moderated by PG Editorial Director and Associate Publisher Gina Acosta, Ackley and Morris discussed their respective journeys through the retail industry, with Morris humorously describing her peripatetic progress as more like swinging on “a jungle gym” than walking on a straightforward path. “I jumped around a lot,” she explained, adding that she “spent probably half of my career in merchandising and half in operations. … It was sort of a mix and match.”
Asked about the current retail landscape, Ackley, who rose through the ranks at Target and then Meijer to her present position leading a team of VPs, noted: “The fun thing of retail is that it’s always changing. Every day is a little bit of a different fire drill at times, but it’s fun in that sense. Our customers [are] more knowledgeable and more connected than ever. … [and] when there’s so many choices for the customer, our store teams are just such an amazing asset for us.”
“We’re competing for great people just as much as we’re competing for customers,” added Morris. “[Both] are looking for companies that they can feel connected to, that align with their culture, that agree with their values. … I think it’s a brilliant challenge for us as retailers to find ways to continue to deeply engage with our associates, because they matter as much as our customers.”
The way to do that, she suggested, is to “get the right people into the right situations that match their skill sets and abilities, and then help fuel their growth, give them the right training and education and information and then ongoing development so that they stay.”
In discussing her leadership style, Ackley explained that she takes aspects of each of her previous mentors and incorporates them into her own relations with associates, including such attributes as courage when it comes risk-taking, the use of humor to defuse tense situations or the effective deployment of long-term strategic planning.
[RELATED: Kroger, Giant Co. and ADUSA Leaders Share How to Unlock Your Career Potential]
“We all, I would say, are definitely the result of all of the amazing people that we’ve had the pleasure to work with before,” noted Ackley. “And then how … we continue to pass that along to our teams is really our role. The fun part about being a leader is being able to share and tailor your experiences and your ideas to all of the great people you get to work with.”
Morris then imparted her “great secret” in this area: “Great leaders surround themselves with people way smarter than them. It makes your job so much easier if [you have] the right people around you, empower them, hold them accountable and let ’em go.”
Morris and Ackley went on to talk about the opportunities and challenges of leadership. “Our success is not really our success, it’s the success of our team,” observed Ackley. “So how do you find people and encourage and provide that support to see them break through and then do amazing things, and then see them get the credit for it? That is one of the most fulfilling parts.”
Both admitted to struggling with difficult decisions regarding team members, with Ackley pointing out that one quality in particular is useful in such situations: “Empathy is just so important to who we are as leaders.”
A bit later in the session, when the topic of women in the grocery industry came up, Morris was direct in her response: “I think one of the biggest barriers that we have is us, and when I say us, I don’t mean each other. I mean, my biggest barrier is me. I see that often in people and more often in women. … I think we’ve all heard the [story] of there’s a job posting out there, and a woman will look at the job and go, ‘Wow, there’s 10 qualifications and I have nine. I’m not quite ready.’ Whereas other people, sometimes men, will look and go, ‘I have three. I’m in.’ [Women are] so hard on ourselves, and we need to give ourselves grace.”
[RELATED: Kroger Exec Traces Her Path to Career Success]
Talking about how to nurture new ideas that may not be popular initially, Ackley emphasized the importance of being face to face with store-level associates to get their feedback and work through any issues, rather than sending an impersonal email. Morris elaborated on that idea of evolving together as a company by noting that “there’s magic in helping people understand the need for change. … People want to feel that they’ve had a hand in shaping the future.”
As the session drew to a close, the executives shared their advice for women looking to rise in their own organizations. “Raise your hand and tell somebody what your aspirations are and enlist their support and allies and advocates to help you work through your rough spots to make your strengths towering strengths,” urged Morris, echoing Ackley’s earlier comments on this topic. “But raise your hand.”
