Bed Bath and Beyond Was Doomed From the Start, and Mark Tritton Won Anyway

Let's peel back the curtain on the WSJ article regarding Bed Bath and Beyond and Mark Tritton. Real talk for a moment.

1 - When you get to be the CEO, and you haven't been CEO before, you have pretty much already succeeded. Your next employer will look at the success or failure through their own eyes.

"This person already made all the mistakes somewhere else, he won't repeat them here." or

"This person really turned things around."

Think about that, next time you take on a challenging role. There is a saying I've heard repeated often, "You only fail UP in Silicon Valley". And it is broadly true, I've found. The people out there taking risks are not afraid to fail, and that's why they do it.

2 - The article said Bed Bath and Beyond was executing a winning playbook and lost. I really shake my head at this comment.

There is no such thing as a proven playbook for anything. If you are looking for generic advice, open a fortune cookie.

Two different people baking the same cake from a master's recipe are both executing a "proven playbook". Ingredients matter. Context matter. Equipment matters. People matter. Sequence matters.

You know what else matters? Knowing who your friggin customer is, what they are looking for, and why they came to you.

Which brings me to my next point.

3 - Know why you exist, and what is likely to help you.

The big players in the market have deep pockets and years of investment which set them up for a place where a certain set of strategies and tactics will work.

It is highly unlikely that your company is in the same situation at the same time.

That's why you can't build a plan without assessing where things are. You can't build the same cake in a 75 degree room as you can in a 90 degree room. You just can't. You probably shouldn't make the same "proven cake" if you don't know the dietary tastes of your guests, or if they even want cake. Your proven playbook flies in the face of the obvious: "Why are we here?" question.

4 - It was all doomed anyway.

Look, the company was declining. 10 years ago, a transformation may have mattered. They missed that onramp. Once consumers move on, it is 3x as hard to recover because you need to identify a new, profitable, growing segment of consumers that are likely NOT already your existing customers, and then you need to figure out how to serve them.

And if it's going to be economical to acquire these customers, you better hope they are not being served well by alternatives to your approach.

That does not describe the bed and bath category where Walmart, Target, and Amazon are dominant.

All this to say, pay attention to your context before you start building. Stop looking for the easy answers, and winning playbooks. Instead, clearly define who your customers are, and then learn why they would come to you.

Even these two statements are a journey. It's not an "event."