Kris Safarova  01:00

Welcome to the Strategy Skills podcast. I’m your host, Kris Safarova, and this show is brought to you by our firm, firms consulting, the team behind StrategyTraining.com. If you want to have stronger strategy skills, be a more effective leader, we have built StrategyTraining.com to be your go-to platform. We offer advanced training used by clients at major companies and consulting firms. And to get you started, you can get free resources. One is the Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies. You can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach. You can also get McKinsey and BCG-winning resume, which is a resume that got offers from both of those firms. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumePDF. And lastly, you can get a copy of one of our books. It’s called Nine Leaders in Action. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/gift. And today we have a very special guest, Marcy Syms. Marcy was the youngest female president of an NYSE-listed company and led Syms Corp, a 16-state retail chain, and she oversees a 60-million Grant Foundation and serves on the boards of NPR and Harvard’s Women’s Politics and Policy program and those are just some of the amazing achievements. Marcy, it’s such a pleasure to have you with us.

Marcy Syms  02:28

Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I’m looking forward to this.

Kris Safarova  02:33

So let’s start with your early days. What first drew you into the world of retail? I know it’s a family business, but what were some of your initial thoughts as you were starting your career.

Marcy Syms  02:43

I never wanted to go into retail. My father started working in retail when he was young, and he became a salesperson in his father and older brother store. He didn’t go into his own business and opened his own store until I was about I was nine years old, 10 years old, about and all I knew was we never saw him. He was always working. So to me, retail was about, almost like servitude. There was nothing servant leader about it. It was just servitude, and I pursued my own career in broadcasting, and was very, very pleased to land what I considered to be my ideal job in broadcasting, as assistant to a president and a radio producer, and I did that really up until the time that my father’s asking me several times to join him in the business, I finally saw that his business not only inspired me, but the scalability of the business was really inspiring and exciting. And I also felt that at that point in my career, I had something to bring to the family business. We were a family business. At that point when I joined the company, there were four stores we had about five years after I joined the company, we had 11 stores and took the company public. But it was really the joy of having my name on the door. It was the joy of being able to be an entrepreneur and pursue anything that I felt the business needed, you know, going to fit to learn textiles, or going to NYU for a real estate program, or getting involved with local philanthropies to help the public real. Translations of a whatever it was. The opportunity as an entrepreneur was just, I couldn’t leave it it. It got me into as soon as I was there with my dad for a store opening, and contributed to that, I was hooked. Do you remember your first day? Yeah, the first day, I guess, not just the first day of joining my dad, because that was kind of telling that when I did, I only joined for a three month trial period. I asked him if we could do something where I would be a consultant for the media and marketing campaign for the opening of a store in a new market. We were opening in Washington, DC, outside of the New York, New Jersey area, where the company had been in operation for 18 years. And the the agreement was that I would be in charge of creating this media campaign to introduce Sims to the Washington DC market. That being said, my father had already done advertising in the New York market, so I was very much bringing an expertise, but at the same time anxiously learning what he knew about media and media planning and his brilliant messaging, an educated consumer is our best customer. And that was something I felt so akin to. It was something that he did in 1974 really tapping into this whole idea of it was no longer consumer beware. It was you as a business. You are responsible also for educating your consumers, not for trying to get something over on them and just getting the money, but teach them something. If you teach your consumer something, they will feel more loyal to you, and so the first day was a lot of learning.

Kris Safarova  07:15

Educated consumer is our best consumer. Can you tell us more? What does that actually mean?

Marcy Syms  07:20

It means that, in our case, the more we explained what a customer was looking at in the store, the more they’d realize what an incredible value they were getting. For example, when we were selling a name brand shirt or sport coat or women’s suit or dresses, whatever. You could go to a department store at that time and see what it was actually selling for, and then you could come back to Sims and oftentimes see the same thing, and it would be at least half the price we were selling at off price, which was new off price as Sims executed that idea was a disrupter. We were disrupting the supply chain to consumers. We were saying to the vendor, we will take your overproduction, we will take your end of season, and we are going to find a price where we’re going to be able to sell it. We’re going to pay you in 30 days, whether we sell it or not. In that time, they call it the rubber band agreement. A lot of vendors were making goods for department stores that they would get back at the end of the season if it didn’t sell. So the vendor was stuck with goods and couldn’t turn those goods into cash. That was really one of the ingenious ways in which Sims got into business. So if consumers knew what prices were and understood the value of the name brand they were looking at. They were educated enough to not let that bargain go by. They were going to buy it. We also had a saying, the more you know about clothing, the better it is for Sims. And today, we can think of other name brands, regardless of whether it’s in technology or home goods or whatever it is. You look at that item, you see a brand name, you see the manufacturer. You bring expectations to your purchase about how good it’s the performance is going to be, how you can trust their certification of reliability. You bring that name, that brand name stands for something, and it creates loyalty. So we were. Standing with the vendor to create this education of the consumer.

Kris Safarova  10:06

Marcy. And when you started in the business, and you started being involved in making sure that you select the right items, because you still had to pay the vendor whether you sell it or not, was that stressful? How did you approach it?

Marcy Syms  10:21

It’s always, always stressful, because we did not profess to be fashion forward or fashion leaders in the industry. Remember, we were getting things at the end of the season or things that had not sold. So we knew that it was always on the buy. For example, off price meant that we were buying below wholesale. So if a department store sold something for $100 they paid $50 for it. We would never pay $50 we would buy that same $50 wholesale for perhaps $30 and then still take a shorter markup for the consumer, we would the guideline for our purchasing was within 10% of the wholesale price. So you can imagine the difference in the number between what a consumer would see at the department store, and what they would see at Sims. If something didn’t sell, we’d have to find a price where it did sell. And that’s why we always said the margin is in the buy because if we if we bought something, the price that we paid, if we could not sell it for a price where we made enough of a margin that buyer wasn’t good at what they were doing.

Kris Safarova  11:44

That is very true. So when you started in the business, or maybe even that is something that your dad did. But what do you think you guys saw about off price retail that no one else saw at the time?

Marcy Syms  11:59

Well, you know any entrepreneur, and I’ve studied a lot of entrepreneurs, and I consider myself an entrepreneur, and no one just starts in a business from nothing. You have to have experience in that industry. You have to understand the dynamics. What we understood were the dynamics of the manufacturer’s relationship to the department stores and where that was broken for the manufacturers. So just by getting four or five manufacturers to sell us these incredible bargain prices was enough to get into the business, and once they saw that, we were able to pay them within 30 days. They wanted us to grow my father’s first store outside of New York and New Jersey was because Gantt shirt asked him to open, could you open more stores? They wanted a store for Gantt shirts, summer shirts in Miami and a another one in Buffalo. New York, for large sizes. And it was because he was such a good partner. It was really a partnership with the vendor.

Kris Safarova  13:15

Yes, because it was helping vendors with their biggest problems. How do we sell? What we create? And you guys were able to help them. Yes, yes. When you started, what were the most challenging parts of the business?

Marcy Syms  13:30

You know, to me, the it was so exciting, and I was very curious. And I love learning new things. To me, some of the most challenging things had to do with the people in the business, and their assumptions about me, their assumptions about being a woman, their assumptions about being the daughter of the founder. And those things were challenging and took a while to figure out. One of the things that I think helped me a great deal were some of the organizations that I later became involved with, like the committee of 200 which is an organization of women entrepreneurs, or the Women’s Forum of New York, or even a Young Presidents Organization where I was able, although there weren’t many women at the time, I was able to hear about the stresses of working in a family business and and hear some of the solutions, meet some of the coaches, meet some of the consultants. Understand that there were places you could go to find people who understood what you were going through. I also think you have to be pretty open to see mentors wherever they show up. I was taking night classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology to learn about. About domestics and textiles, and the whole area of study that I had never known and I felt I needed to know to understand the cut, make and trim, and the man who was teaching the chorus was accessible and kind enough to spend a little extra time with me and in a way, become a mentor in the first early years of working. And if you don’t take up those opportunities, it can be very challenging and lonely to be one of the few. But being an entrepreneur is lonely too, because you have to constantly reinforce your belief in your mission. You have to constantly reinforce your belief in your vision, even when things don’t go right.

Kris Safarova  15:55

That is very true. So as you were scaling a retail chain across 16 states, that is a lot of work. Do you feel that there was a decision that was the most difficult decision you had to make during that period?

Marcy Syms  16:09

Well, it was many years. I mean, I was there for over 30, almost 35 years. And I think whenever there is a change in the business environment, as we saw in the 1990s when factory outlets for name brands took place. We know the like Tanger today is one of the largest managers of factory outlet malls, and they were a direct competitor to us. Whenever those kinds of things happen, and depending on what industry you’re in, they happen much quicker than what I experienced, which was major change every like seven, eight years, it got faster the further along we got with the introduction of online buying. But the greatest challenges are, how do you respond to that change in the environment? How are you going to re imagine? What values do you hold on to, what tactics need to be changed. I believe that you always need to stick with the value of your proposition to your customer that can’t that’s non negotiable. The value has to continue. And I just, I don’t mean just dollars and cents, one of the values that our customers always experience was respect. I mean, one of the things that is was unique to the experience at Sims was the departments were always in the same place in the store. We did not move things around, so that when you walked into the store that you were used to shopping in, you’d go, oh my goodness, where are the where’s the lingerie department? You know, we always kept it because we respected the time of the consumer, and we wanted to make sure that if you had 20 minutes to go in and out of the store, you’d find what you were looking for quickly. There were so many decisions that we made that the core principles having to do with respect and value, were the reasons that we came up with those solutions. Whenever there was a disruption.

Kris Safarova  18:37

Such a critical insight that you guys realized, and then you had motivation, drive consistency, to actually stick to it. Yeah, do you feel that there was something about what clients wanted that you initially didn’t realize, but then you learned, and you were surprised about?

Marcy Syms  18:55

You know, we didn’t look at it that way, although there was, there were, there were, there were a couple of things that weren’t core to the business, but they were definitely affecting the customers experience. One was we never accepted credit cards. It wasn’t until almost 1998 we had been in business for almost 30 years before we were accepting credit cards, and this was something that fundamentally, we felt that if you wanted this great deal, it should be cash and carry. But we also understood that in order for most people at a certain point to budget themselves. They were using credit cards, and the most convincing argument was that we were actually with bad checks. We were actually losing as much money on bad checks as it would cost to pay for the 2% or whatever at that time to the credit card company. 90s. So that was some and our customers were thrilled that we finally accepted credit cards. Another thing that was again, the consumer experience was about being open on Sundays. We weren’t open on Sundays until the late 90s. So those were more operational things that had to do with our relationship to the customer. And the reason that I said that we didn’t look at it that way is that we were not telling the customer how they should dress. We were telling the customer this is a great deal. Most of the people who were Sims shoppers were people who had confidence in their taste. They had confidence in what they knew they looked good in. They had confidence to buy more than one if they found it in their their size, in another color. These were not consumers who needed to be cajoled or romanced into making a purchase. So our relationship was quite unique in that regard.

Kris Safarova  21:09

So interesting. And how did market segments that are your key? Market segments change over time. For example, now versus few years ago versus then 20 years ago.

Marcy Syms  21:20

You know, there’s been so much change. I mean, in the retail business, besides the factory outlets, remember the going vertical? We had those early on Benetton, which was a European vertical company, but h and m now, and we had Express back in the 90s, in the naughts, these were retailers that really made most consumers comfortable with disposable fashion. Now we’re trying to educate people that disposable fashion is not great for the environment. That’s for sure. You know, I try to promote resale shops. Now that I’m not in selling clothing myself, people ask me, Well, where do you shop? I say, I go to resale shops. That’s what. That’s how I, you know, feel like I’m making the right decision. It’s quality, and it’s not the first user, but, but that changed our attitude towards brands, because you could go even to a Zara, and you could have very fashion forward looking, but they wouldn’t be expected to last more than two seasons, kind of at the most. You really didn’t expect that you were making an investment. Most of the shopping at Sims was investment shopping. So with this change in attitude, this change in expectations, was very much a fundamental change in the viability of an operation like Sims that was so loyal to not diluting the brands. See, Sims could never have been a TJ Maxx or a Marshalls because there wasn’t enough product that was being legitimately manufactured with those designer names on them, in order for there to be enough merchandise, even when we went public, we told Wall Street, we don’t imagine we’ll ever have more than 50 stores, because there’s just not enough merchandise. That’s first run merchandise. What changed was the manufacturer’s relationship with their own name, the economics of manufacturing, the fact that we went to six seasons of clothing so constantly having new inventory, needing the pace of marking things down, the pace of The consumer expecting to see something different. It really the whole economic structure has changed.

Kris Safarova  24:06

Marcy, and did you guys ever thought about creating your own clothing as well, your own brand?

Marcy Syms  24:12

We did. We did. That’s a it’s a kind of fun story. We in early on in my joining Sims, we purchased a very, very elegant and well known men’s kind of carriage trade retailer where things were custom and bespoke, and the name was Salka, S, U, L, K, a, and we owned Salka For almost a decade. We sold it eventually to roushmont. Rochemont, who, at the time, owned Dunhill. But it was during that time in understanding the make of more expensive that we said, you know, we could take some of this product, do it in natural fibers like. Cashmere and silk and 100% Oxford cotton, and we could perhaps do it in China. So in 1981 early on, we went to China. I was there with a couple of people from Sims, and we were able to provide for our customers incredible value for a time, but the customer did get confused when we started having what we call the s label, the customer got confused because we were then saying we’re making choices about fashion for you, and we weren’t doing that when we were just representing other designers. So we did, we did that for about 20 years, and then it Petered out.

Kris Safarova  25:50

So interesting. So you recently wrote the book. Was it difficult to select the topic? Because you would have so much you could have written about?

Marcy Syms  26:00

Well, you’re right. I certainly I started out thinking that maybe there’s something I could write about the not for profit world running a foundation for as many years as I did, but honestly, it was during my talks with students at the sysim School of Business, and having those students not know who sy was, or now that there aren’t stores to visit to see what the business is, not understanding that we morphed into a real estate holding company traded on NASDAQ and but They didn’t know the story of my father, sigh, whose whose vision it was to see that Yeshiva University had a business school. So that was the germ of it. And what was so fun about it, I found out things about my grandfather, who I never met, my father’s father, who came from Russia that my father didn’t even know, because no one really took the time to find these kinds of things. And I found out that he came to America at 14, and by the time he was 24 he had already gone bankrupt twice. You know, he was such an entrepreneur and such a go getter. It was, it was terrific. And I tied this in in the book, in the beginning of the book, because the book covers a great deal of decades. But I tied this into the spirit of entrepreneurship. And so much of the spirit of entrepreneurship has to do not only with survival at its very base, but this absolute thirst to be creative, a real thirst to create something.

Kris Safarova  27:54

Yes, that is the only way you can survive. You have to create a lot of value for people yes and do it over time, consistently.

Marcy Syms  28:02

So the irony there is that you you’re impatient, because you can see it as the entrepreneur. You see the way it’s supposed to look, and then you have to explain it over and over and over again, and never get tired of explaining it to everyone who comes in your path. Who you want to be part of your team, or you want to be your customer, or you want to do business with, you have to explain it over and over and over again and never lose the passion.

Kris Safarova  28:33

Yes, especially with people who will tell you all the reasons why it is a silly idea. This is not going to work.

Marcy Syms  28:40

Yes, that’s right. And there’s nothing more satisfying than to, for instance, go back to a vendor. And when we did this over the years, many times, that’s how we got into the women’s business. We said, look, we’ve been in the men’s business for 20 years, and they haven’t been hurt by US selling at these crazy prices. Try it, and that’s how we got women’s vendors to agree to sell us.

Kris Safarova  29:11

What is the hardest story you included in the book, and why did you decide to keep it?

Marcy Syms  29:15

The hardest story I told was about the what I call the beginning of the end, when we saw that our market share was dwindling, that we were not able to grow. In particular, our women’s market, and a venerable name that we were quite familiar with, Filene’s Basement, became available, and I and the board and my father, who was still alive at that time, thought that this would be a very good acquisition. It was affordable for us. We were able to actually purchase it a. A with our bank revolver. We didn’t have to go into debt, in extra debt, I should say we did have to use the revolver. And it seemed that it was a perfect match in terms of markets and bringing that 30 year old woman into the fold. And it was a very, painful time for me. It was a period of time that I realized, not even seven months after the purchase, that it was not exactly what it was supposed to be, and it was also a time that my father passed, and it was a time that I needed to focus more of my energies on the implementation and the integration of this new concept, where we had both of the stores together. We are the tag was one good thing leads to another. Sims leads to Filene’s, and file liens leads to Sims, and we had terrific marketing and all that. But it, it was not the deal that it was presented as. Let’s, let’s put it that way. The reason I included it in the book is that there’s valuable lessons here for people in business, not just entrepreneurs, but anyone, don’t be the smaller one in a deal. You just don’t want to be the smaller one if you’re in a merger. And also don’t stay public if you no longer find yourself appreciated or understood or covered by the public markets, neither of those situations ends well.

Kris Safarova  31:54

Those are such important insights. Thank you so much for sharing. Was there something you wanted to include but didn’t?

Marcy Syms  32:00

You know, I sort of wanted to include more about being a woman and some of the challenges that have to do with yourself internally, the self examination, the at the time, the scrutiny that you’re put under in your physical appearance and your voice, your intonation, but I decided that that was, gratefully more something that was of the past, and not so much right now. I don’t think we’re at all in a position where women are treated equally or even fairly, and that has to do with my fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment and having, if you’re not in the founding document of a country, how can you feel respected by that country? It’s something that since leaving corporate America I’ve worked very, very diligently on.

Kris Safarova  33:08

That is a very important issue. Thank you so much for working on that. Thank you. What leadership advice in your book you think people will disagree with, not everyone, but many you think will disagree, and why you think they should still give it some serious thought?

Marcy Syms  33:25

Yeah, I think from the overall message of the book, which is about the foundational aspect of respect, which has to do with transparency, it has to do with availability, it has to do with clarity. It has to do with commitment. It has to do with communications. Some people might see that as something that comes from the top and can be forced down, but respect really, once a founder or leader lays it out. It can only come from the bottom. It can only come from those people dealing with how the money is made every day. It can only come with those who are engaging in a way that informs them about how the the company is perceived, what are the successes of the company? So I think that there might be some disagreement about the, you know, what they call the servant leadership, which I think is not the greatest, you know, title for it, it’s, it’s really about a leader who respects everyone else, who’s part of the team, and listens and adapts because of what they’re learning and what they hear, and even those people who feel that for some. Reason they can’t explain what they’re doing. Look at yourself as a leader. The problem is therefore with you. If you can’t explain why and what you’re doing and why it’s good for everybody.

Kris Safarova  35:15

Do you feel that many people do not understand certain things about having influence within the organization, and how could they grasp it?

Marcy Syms  35:25

What do you mean by influence?

Kris Safarova  35:29

Well, I don’t like the word power as much, because it can have some negative associations, but often within an organization, you have to get things done. Yes, always. And so do you feel that people misunderstand something about having power?

Marcy Syms  35:44

Nothing gets done without influence, nothing gets done without persuasion, but persuasion has to be done in a respectful way. Persuasion is not coercion. Coercion is we have 30 days to get this done one way or another, you better get it done. That’s a little bit like blackmail. You know, there’s nothing sticky about that. It’s very transactional. Get it done in 30 days. And that’s that influence. Influence takes time. It takes energy, but influence sticks. I’ll give you an example, as a member of the board, as a board, an outside board, not even the Sims board, but the in times of stress when you as a board have to make very difficult decisions, and there might be, for instance, an activist shareholder who comes and wants to depose the CEO, or wants to have seats on the board, and as a board, you’re not going to be able to get to the best solutions in time of stress unless you actually pick up on those people and the relationship you have with them. When someone’s kid gets into a school, or someone else’s mother is in the hospital or something, those human contacts. You know, How’s your mom doing? Oh, is there? Oh, does your kid like the school? Oh, I know someone there. They want interest in the photography club. I know someone in you know, in photography, that’s how influence happens. Influence is something you have to have building blocks for and it’s something that stands the test of time because it takes an investment, but you get the best outcomes when you have spheres of influence that you can tap into.

Kris Safarova  37:59

Yes, people get motivated by much more than just compensation and so on. There’s loyalty, right?

Marcy Syms  38:06

Well, we know that right now in the American workforce, about a third of of employees are suffering what they call quiet cracking. That means that they are already checking out while they’re getting a paycheck. They’re either not fully engaged, looking for something else to do, or even bad mouthing their company where they work. And why does this happen? It happens because the company is really, in my opinion, not taking the opportunity to engage people in a respectful way. The people, they have to be heard, they have to be valued, they have to be seen. They have to be part of the process of being influential. Don’t you want all the people that represent your company to feel influential? How powerful is that?

Kris Safarova  39:10

It is incredibly powerful and very important. Marcy, if you would run this company today again, what would you do differently?

Marcy Syms  39:19

Well, you know, in retrospect, I would not have gone public. I think that we were very seduced by the idea of my father, particularly, and I understood he worked hard and long and made a lot of sacrifices, but he wanted to take some chips off the table. He wanted some he wanted to start living a little larger, and going public certainly made that possible. He became a very wealthy man, and he had a sizable foundation. But the trade off if you’re. A family business is, in a sense, losing control you you lose your destiny. You lose how your relationship with your destiny, you lose the relationship with the decisions that you make to fulfill what your vision was. So I am in my dealings with family businesses and as a consultant, I’ve always say only go to the public markets as an exit strategy. It is not a growth strategy. So that, fundamentally, I would have done that differently.

Kris Safarova  40:38

I agree with you. I think even having investors is also not ideal.

Marcy Syms  40:42

Not ideal at all.

Kris Safarova  40:46

I want to ask you something about mindset. Mindset is such an important part of success. Maybe 80% of success. What do you feel is different about how you think versus how you see many other people think people who are less successful by your definition of success?

Marcy Syms  41:07

I’m not. I’m not sure that. I’m not sure that there is a real appreciation for the work ethic. I know that sounds very simplified, but it means you have to do and work for as long as it takes to get it done to the standard that you’re trying to reach. It’s not just checking the box. A worth work ethic involves aspirational goals about getting something done in a certain way. And I think that that’s underestimated. You know, sometimes people are called the ever ready battery. You know, they’re they’re always ready to go and do. But are you always ready to go and do with the focus that you’re going to accomplish a particular goal in a particular way? And I think successful people have that in mind and use that work ethic in that way, not just to be the ever ready battery and always be on the go and always be doing something, but they’re very focused, and there’s a constant, constant striving for improvement.

Kris Safarova  42:33

And are there some key things about your mindset that shifted over time, that you feel comfortable sharing?

Marcy Syms  42:41

I think in many ways, over time, I appreciated more the things that I observed in my father and those entrepreneurs from his generation, where they were just just saw the possibilities. They never contemplated defeat. It was, it wasn’t in the cards. As they would say, defeat was not a possibility. And you know, it really made it not only fun for them, but it also made it fun for people who worked with them. I mean, there’s not too much success around pessimists. I don’t think pessimists build companies. You have to be an optimist. You have to believe. And if you don’t make it one way, you’ll make it another way. I think that that I appreciate more today than I did before, something that I miss a little bit is having the aspects of integrity and whatever what that implies, integrity of character. Integrity of purpose is something that never goes out of style. But I do think we have to remind ourselves that it’s not easy. Integrity is something that gets tested and it’s difficult. It’s not supposed to be easy, and that’s that’s why it’s not so common.

Kris Safarova  44:35

That is very true, and it is so valuable to have people in your life, in business and personal life, people who have integrity.

Marcy Syms  44:44

Yes, yes, and you really at the foundation. With respect and integrity comes trust and without trust. You know, we often hear about trust. Based in marriage, and how one infidelity can break a marriage, and all that. Well, it’s not so different in business, not so different at all with all relationships and all businesses is relationships.

Kris Safarova  45:16

That is very true. I also want to ask you about AI and technology so AI and other tech advancements really changing everything for us very fast. What do you think leaders need to do now to remain competitive?

Marcy Syms  45:33

Well, I believe first and foremost, they have to look inward. I know there’s an awful lot to keep up with right now, but they really have to look inward, and how does their How is their workforce, first and foremost, going to have to change their skills, and what is their workforce going to look like with AI, and then you can, then you can see what It means to your customer, but first, to protect your own business proposition, you have to understand, Will you be needing to lose the first tier of employees in your business? I mean, we’ve heard about this for law firms, accounting firms, you know that the first level folks are going to be wiped out, and what’s going to happen to all those jobs? Well, the leaders in those areas, they first and foremost. They need to be thinking about this. They need to be making plans now. They need to be trying things out now. We can’t wait for two years from now, and you’re all of a sudden up, you’re on a cliff because you your competitor, has wiped out a good section of cost. And then what do you do for those people who need to be retrained? How are they going to find other employment. These are really decisions and considerations that business leaders need to be part of. We as business leaders need to be in on how is this going to be handled, what is it going to look like, how is it going to be regulated and how do we know when there’s a need for a pullback?

Kris Safarova  47:29

Do you feel there is maybe one long term risk that you see few people preparing for, specifically leaders, but they should?

Marcy Syms  47:38

There’s more than one long term risk that leaders should be preparing for. I think the geopolitical destabilization is something that often doesn’t get dealt with because we’re concerned about taking sides. But the universe of geopolitical disruption is something that’s not just for insurance companies, and it’s not just about the environment. It’s about our futures, and that is whether it’s scenario building or off sites to role play and maybe bring in some outside thinkers to create scenarios that are bizarre. It’s it reminds me of an Eisenhower. He had some very wise expressions, and one was about planning. And he said plans are dispensable, but planning is indispensable. And the amount of planning that today’s leaders really need to do, along with their boards and their C suite and their management, all need to understand the very strong currents of geopolitical moves and changes.

Kris Safarova  49:10

Since you mentioned there are many, maybe you could say one more risk people should really pay attention to.

Marcy Syms  49:18

Well, if things continue as they are, the risk for an American company is to learn how the world feels without being the world currency. What does that look like? We’ve had it now for a long time in America, we’ve built our belief structures and our expectations solidly around that assumption. I think that should be part of the role playing, that should be part of the risk scenarios that are looked at. And I. What does that look like?

Kris Safarova  50:01

Last question, my favorite question, over the last few years, or even maybe your entire life so far, what were maybe two, three, aha moments, realizations that really changed the way you look at life or the way you look at business?

Marcy Syms  50:15

Well, the first one, the first one happened when I was 11, when I became a feminist, and it was my mother who was pregnant for the sixth time and had experienced two postpartum depressions, wanted to have her tubes tied, and in order to do that, as a grown woman with five healthy children and one in in her body about to find life, she had to get three doctors to sign off on this. She also had to get her husband to sign off on this, and that changed my feeling about being a woman forever, that made me a feminist at 11, and I’ve never looked back at that. Another epiphanal change in my life was when I was a teenager before senior year, and I was diagnosed with a difficult disease, and there’s nothing that makes you value every day and every breath more than being told it might be the end. So I do recommend that that kind of an insight you shouldn’t wait till you’re confronted with something that threatens you with this is your last day, or this is your last breath. It’s more than trite, but it is worth contemplating that you might not wake up tomorrow morning. You just might. It doesn’t matter what age you are. Listen, I lost a six sister at 37 she died of a heart attack, and you don’t know when it’s gonna and that’s why every day is so precious. So that’s to my mind, that’s a good argument for being filled with integrity and good deeds.

Kris Safarova  52:24

Marcy, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here. Where can our listeners learn more about you? Buy your book? Anything you want to share?

Marcy Syms  52:31

Well, I love I’ve learned, because the last book I published was 1992 before Amazon, I learned that it makes a big difference to order the book before the launch date. And leading with respect, is launching on August 26 that’s the day of the woman. And if you could please write a review once you read it. And like my grandmother used to tell me, if you don’t have not something nice to say, please don’t say anything at all.

Kris Safarova  53:11

That is a very, very important advice from your grandma. I agree 100% because for anyone, including authors who put in the heart and soul into the work, and they’re not really making anything from the books. The royalties are so small, so getting those negative reviews is just really heartbreaking.

Marcy Syms  53:29

Yeah, it is. It is. It comes from someone who probably has no other outlet for their negativity. So we don’t want to do that, and if you want to know more about you could go to the marcysyms.com or the sysymsfoundation.com.

Kris Safarova  53:48

Marcy, thank you so much for being here.

Marcy Syms  53:50

It was a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.

Kris Safarova  53:54

Our guest today was Marcy Syms. Check out her book. It’s called Leading With Respect: Adventures of an Off Price Fashion Pioneer. This episode is brought to you by StrategyTraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies. You can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach. You can also get McKinsey and BCG-Winning Resume example, which is a resume that got offers from both of those firms. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumePDF. And lastly, you can get mainly the selection one of our books, which is actually co-written with some of the listeners of the podcast and some of our clients. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/gift. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I’m looking forward to connect with you all next time.