What Nordstrom Teaches About Family Values
If you’re remotely interested in fashion or have someone in your household who is, you’re likely aware that the much-anticipated Nordstrom Anniversary Sale is just around the corner. For Nordstrom fans, this is a big deal, representing great discounts on quality merchandise. Fashion bloggers have been anticipating it for months, and social media news feeds are blowing up with titles like “My Nordstrom Sale Top Picks.”
It may surprise you, but Nordstrom offers some worthwhile lessons for families.
The retailer is unique for its unswerving focus on the customer, and it works hard to promote values that enable the company to provide industry-leading customer service. Author Robert Spector has been writing about what he terms “The Nordstrom Way” for almost 40 years. In the Introduction to the newest edition of his book, The Nordstrom Way to Customer Experience Excellence, Spector and coauthor Breanne Reeves argue that to accomplish its goal of providing the best customer service, Nordstrom adheres to and promotes a specific set of top values. They write that “The Nordstrom Way” is best summed up in three sentences: “1) Stay true to the values of the culture. 2) Attract people who share the values of the culture. 3) Teach and coach based on those values.”
Take, for example, one of Nordstrom’s “top value,” that of trust. Nordstrom is famous for having one rule for its employees: “Use good judgment in all situations.” This is a pretty astounding rule, and it also eliminates a lot of red tape that might get in the way of providing the best possible customer service. Nordstrom trusts the “good judgment” of its sales representatives. Can you see many American retailers saying, “Forget the rule book. Just do what you think is best”? Of course not. Because those retailers don’t focus on fostering a culture of respect for customers, and hiring only those people who adhere to their own top values—people in whose “good judgment” the company can trust.
Families can learn from this.
One of the first steps for families in their quest for purpose and identity is to identify the values they hold to be most important. Values are crucial; they set the parameters for how a family behaves on its journey to fulfilling its purpose. Say one of the values your family identifies is “teamwork.” It may be inconvenient from time to time to act as a team. With small children in particular, it’s often a lot easier and faster to load the car yourself for family vacation, for example, than to invite them to join. But if teamwork is a top value for your family, you’ve got to stick to it—even when it’s inconvenient. Values are not easily changed, and they cannot be compromised. They impact thousands of day-to-day decisions.
But values don’t exist in a vacuum.
In an organization, the founder(s) set the values. John Nordstrom set the tone for the culture he wanted, and the company has ever since focused on hiring people who also uphold that culture. In a family, values often come from previous generations, family faith, personal experiences, or educational background. You can’t simply pick what sounds appealing to you in the moment. Rather, the process of selecting your family’s top values will likely take a lot of introspection—into what you value, why you do so, and what is worth keeping and what might be worth phasing out.
Equally important in this process is creating a sense of buy-in for your family. Unlike Nordstrom, you can’t simply hire team members who possess your own values. So how do you adopt family values that aren’t dictated or forced? How do you honor the values of family heritage while acknowledging values from elementary-aged children, or worse, teens?
After everyone in your family completes the values exercise in the FamilyWorks app, you may think about holding a family meeting. Talk about the top 4 family values generated by the app. Do you agree? Examine where they came from. Re-visit in a few days, or a week. To make these values stick, make sure all members of the organization (your family) have opportunity to talk about them.
Values are also crucial in creating your family’s culture.
In his Introduction to the third edition of The Nordstrom Way, former Starbucks president Howard Behar writes, “People will rise or fall to the expectations that the organizational culture puts on them.” This is true for families, also. It is far too easy to fall into ruts that formalize a negative family culture—one of anger or yelling, of unkind jokes or criticism. But with work, we can turn those negative cultures around. We can identify top values that encapsulate who we really are and where we want to be—kindness, positive attitude, honesty, strong work ethic, or a myriad of others. We can be intentional about speaking of these things to each other and making choices that align with them. We can create expectations for our family to live up to.
It may seem daunting, but identifying your family’s top values can actually be a really fun, rewarding process. It is the first step in creating the sense that your family is “in it together.” There are probably things already that you particularly value or promote, that you’ve simply never verbalized.
With the FamilyWorks app, you can easily identify your family’s top values in a fun and enjoyable way.