The challenge with living in a post-truth world is that lying, or bending the truth has become an art form, where people know that half truths and lies are being told, but it occurs so often that people are either desensitised to it being bad, or can find something to explain it away.
There are numerous fans of Line of Duty on the BBC and their chasing of police corruption, from people on the sick but working elsewhere, or fiddling expenses to a network of corrupt officers who are running organised crime groups.
It’s often referred to by the legal advisor to the Police and Crime commissioner (herself later revealed as being on the wrong side of the fence) that people “want the police to find the odd rotten apple but not so many that the public lose confidence in the police.”
Indeed, finding too many and it becomes full scale corruption, resignations and all that goes with it.
But that’s an example of where the truth falls down, straight away, those not being admonished for their crimes are allowed to get away with it, under some banner of keeping the public from being angry, or losing confidence.
Whichever way one looks at it, it’s not telling the truth, or being creative with the truth.
The truth about retail
For retail, this has gone on for an age. The mere prospect of an announced visit would see overtime shipped in from all angles to fill the shelves, get the out of stock lines from nearby stores and put on a real show for a visting director.
He would wave, have a presidential style walk around, then leave, happy, presumably that all was well.
But that’s a little like the queen’s butler. He doesn’t tell the queen that the Corgi relieved himself on her favourite chair, they clean it up, sort the chair and the queen is none the wiser.
So how much of that culture of a royal visit is about the director not wanting to see a store that hasn’t been filled for a week, where things are dire and where checkout queues are regularly longer than your average arm?
Or how much of it is about the self preservation of those beneath the director who don’t want a kicking, or sacking even, for the state of one of their stores?
I think that if a senior person in retail doesn’t know about a terrible store that is literally no excuse.
If they don’t know, they’re not doing their job. If they do know, then what are they doing about it?
It’s a catch 22, which is the worst crime?
Post truth retail world
In the post truth retail world that we can find ourselves in, not knowing is preferable to knowing and having an action plan to sort the store. But you have to ask questions if a senior executive doesn’t know that a store is having a bad time, it’s their job!
But not knowing is preferable; because that action plan takes time to implement and results are not immediate. Thus not judged. Or judged less harshly.
A poor store on turnaround often gets worse before it gets better as the metrics get worse as the truth has to come out. You can’t lie to yourself, or others, forever.
If availability is weak = then shrinkage goes up as the store actually counts things properly and nils out things that aren’t there.
Dare I say labour also rises as the store uses overtime and buses people in to start turning the screw, indeed, wastage may also rise as stock is found and accounted for properly. The list goes on and on.
Time becomes the issue and in a short termist industry, it’s always a problem, but that’s no excuse for losing sight of the truth, or the right way to do things or that the customer comes first.
Because there’s no excuse for it.
