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Why was a change needed?
About a month after our Forward Institute leadership exchange, Ade texted me that a test operation had been undertaken and under-age MPS cadets had successfully purchased knives over the counter at a Tesco supermarket. Ordinarily Ade would have dealt with this locally by issuing a warning to the store manager in question. However, because of our connection through the Forward Institute and our conversations about the state of violent crime and Ade’s foresight to think bigger than the immediate problem, he asked me, “Tom, is there anything you can do to get the message out not to just this one store but stores across the country?”.
I jumped on this challenge not only because I was embarrassed that under-age cadets were able to buy the knives but because I felt I had a responsibility to prevent this happening again. Within my remit of trade planning, we were used to sending communication to stores but I also felt there was an opportunity to make a bigger difference here.
What did you do?
My first port of call was to our retail director who looks after all UK stores, to ask him whether he’d support a widespread message to remind our store managers to ‘think age 25’ as we put it, when selling anything of this nature. They immediately jumped on it and a communication was sent to all stores in the UK on why knife crime matters and what they needed to do when someone tries to buy a knife who is suspected as being underage.
But then I had a further conversation with Rachel, our security director in the UK, who is responsible for safety issues in all of our stores. Rachel was really keen to help think about how we might get rid of this issue completely because she'd also been dealing with a couple of incidents at that time, where knives bought at Tesco had been involved in crime incidents. This gave us an incentive to work together and see what we could do.
If we thought about it, knives were not our core business and violent crime with knives was a growing problem in the country. Therefore, it was a real opportunity for us to lead by example and help mitigate this problem.
I had access to a senior team in Tesco because of the job I do on a daily basis, so I was able to informally voice this to a couple of the UK leadership team whose reaction was incredibly supportive. If we thought about it, knives were not our core business and violent crime with knives was a growing problem in the country. Therefore, it was a real opportunity for us to lead by example and help mitigate this problem.
We undertook some business modelling to understand who buys knives, the impact on sales and customer perception if we removed knives completely. To cut a long story short, what came out was a proposal that went to the UK leadership team, which was signed off and we took all single knives out of range in Tesco Express and most of our shops across the UK – that is 3,000 stores. For about 400 of our biggest stores cooking knives are still on sale, but not on shelves and so a customer would have to pick up a leaflet to take to a customer service desk to request a knife, and then take it to the checkout, which gave us two moments where colleagues could ‘think 25’. This was a serious deterrent for someone who wanted to casually buy a knife.
I am really proud that we made this change happen, which was a combination of Ade’s plan to think bigger than a local store and the fact that it was easier than I could have possibly imagined getting a colossal change made across 3,000 UK stores.
What’s your advice on how to go about change?
My advice is twofold. Firstly, if you are trying to make positive change then there will be many allays within and outside of your organisation. Secondly, it is really important to explain why you’re making change, measure impact and not be afraid to make changes if needed. In this case re-instating knifes with a safe procedure in 400 stores where there was a genuine customer need. Keeping the change in perspective is also important.