Store Lead to Cluster or
Area Lead
Growing from a Store Lead to a Cluster or Area Lead is a complete transformation in leadership mechanics.
As a Store Lead, you have direct control over the daily energy, the visual floor-set, the immediate problem-solving, and individual task execution. Your success is defined by how well your store runs.
As a Cluster or Area Lead, you no longer drive performance through direct proximity; you drive it through influence, system design, and the development of other leaders. Success is measured by the self-sufficiency of your Store Leads and your ability to export talent across the broader business unit.
Core Mindset Shifts for a Cluster or Area Lead
01. From On-Site Control to Influence at Scale
Moving beyond managing through physical presence and direct visibility to driving brand consistency, alignment, and energy through strategic influence and mentorship.
02. From Store Commercials to Macro Business Acumen
Shifting focus from driving the P&L and metrics of a single standalone business to analyzing cross-store performance data and making complex resource trade-offs to optimize the entire cluster's profitability.
03. From Local Root-Cause Analysis to Strategic Reframing and Innovation
Transitioning from fixing well-defined, local operational friction points to synthesizing contradictory data, recognizing unconnected patterns, and reframing complex, system-wide problems to spark breakthrough innovation.
04. From Talent Development to Ecosystem Architecture and Successio
Moving from coaching individual high-potentials within a building to shaping enterprise-wide hiring strategies and cultivating a self-sufficient leadership pipeline.
05. From Advocating for Local Needs to Balancing Enterprise-Wide Trade-offs
Shifting from fighting solely for your single store’s resources, payroll, and stock allocation to acting as a strategic partner who balances regional realities with HQ constraints to maximize the overall health of the brand.
Mind-shifting
Questions
— How do you envision harmonizing On’s
global vision across multiple distinct
store locations, and what challenges do
you anticipate when scaling a singular
brand identity across different local
demographics?
— When analyzing conflicting or
contradictory performance data across
your region, how will you look past
surface-level symptoms to define the
true, systemic root causes of an
underperforming location?
— How will you translate complex, multi-
year global strategies into an agile
directional roadmap that leadership
teams across multiple sites can
independently execute?
— Beyond individual store profitability, how
will you evaluate macro-commercial
metrics (like regional product turn, labor
efficiencies, and cluster-wide shrinkage)
to optimize the financial health of your
entire market?
— What macro retail shifts, competitive
openings, or regional trends do you
foresee impacting your cluster, and how
will you guide your Store Leads to
proactively pivot their operations in
response?
— As you transition to a portfolio mindset,
how will you balance high-stakes
strategic risks (such as talent vacuums or
major supply chain disruptions) across
your stores, and what is your framework
for resource trade-offs?
— How will you mentor and evaluate your
Store Leads to ensure they are acting as
true culture ambassadors, and what
decisive actions will you take if a store's
local environment begins to derail from
the On Spirit?
— Instead of hoarding high-performing
talent to secure a single store’s metrics,
how will you transition into an enterprise
"talent exporter" who intentionally builds
a regional leadership pipeline for the
broader company?
— What innovative frameworks will you
introduce to facilitate open knowledge
exchange, cross-store shadow
opportunities, and collective problem-
solving among the Store Leads in your
cluster?
— How will you gauge and elevate team
engagement and psychological safety
across a distributed retail footprint
where you do not have daily physical
proximity or face-to-face contact?
— In what ways will you foster an enterprise
culture of trust and autonomy that
empowers store leadership teams to
achieve top-tier results without your day-
to-day oversight?
— What does taking complete ownership of
a multi-million-dollar portfolio mean to
you, and how will you maintain structural
accountability when you can no longer
personally control daily shift execution?
— When an entire cluster misses its
quarterly target due to a widespread
market downturn or external disruption,
how will you model resilience and rally
multiple independent leadership teams
toward a unified recovery strategy?
— How will you coach a struggling Store
Lead to conduct crucial performance and
behavioral conversations with courage
and empathy, rather than stepping in to
solve the issue for them?
— Reflect on a time when you had to make a
complex resource or operational trade-
off that benefited the wider area but
temporarily disadvantaged your specific
store. How did you navigate that tension?
— How will you position your cluster as a
strategic asset to the wider business, and
how do you plan to build robust,
collaborative relationships with cross-
functional HQ stakeholders (e.g., global
VM, regional stock operations, and
corporate training)?
— How will you act as a critical
communication filter, ensuring your Store
Leads are shielded from unnecessary
corporate noise while remaining
completely aligned with essential future
directives?
— How will you identify best-in-class
operational or visual practices in a single
store and successfully standardize them
across your entire fleet to elevate
regional performance?
— Moving from direct authority to remote
influence, which advanced leadership
competencies (such as advanced data
synthesis, multi-stakeholder
management, and situational mentoring)
do you need to aggressively develop?
— How will you protect your own cognitive
bandwidth and personal well-being as
your scope expands from managing a
physical building to leading a distributed
network of professional leaders?
— What kind of regional legacy do you want
to build, and how will you ensure your
leadership style inspires breakthrough
innovation rather than just standard
compliance across your market?
— How do you plan to actively source
candid, upward feedback from Store
Leads and remote team members to
uncover your own blind spots as a
portfolio executive?
— Coaches their Store Leads on how to be
more effective at identifying skill gaps
and developing their own people.
— Assesses the overall talent and training
capability across their cluster, identifying
where to focus development efforts.
— Facilitates leadership training sessions
for the management teams within their
cluster.
General Tip: Shift from being the head trainer of a single store to being a talent capability architect for a region.
— Design a macro talent-mapping matrix
that allows multiple Store Leads to
objectively evaluate the core technical,
operational, and leadership skill levels
inside their buildings.
— Host a regional alignment session with
neighboring Store Leads to review their
matrix findings, identifying overarching
cluster-wide training deficiencies (e.g., a
widespread gap in technical footwear
scaling or advanced digital styling).
— Coordinate a strategic training allocation
plan that directs corporate or local
training resources over a 60-day period
specifically to the stores with the
deepest capability gaps.
— Track the subsequent movement in
regional performance data.
— Identify a sub-cluster of Lead Store
Advisors (LSAs) and emerging trainers
across three locations who have high
developmental potential but lack strong
facilitation skills.
— Architect a structured, multi-session
coaching workshop that focuses on
advanced learning principles, real-time
floor coaching, and delivering
constructive feedback.
— Shadow these emerging trainers as they
roll out a new product or service update
in their respective buildings, offering
peer-level leadership feedback on their
presentation and engagement
techniques.
— Measure the success of the academy by
tracking the onboarding speed and KPI
performance of the teams they support.
— Partner with your Area Lead to isolate a
specific leadership capability gap
affecting management teams across the
market (e.g., navigating crucial
performance conversations or master
scheduling).
— Adapt corporate leadership development
materials into a highly interactive,
practical 90-minute workshop tailored
for Store Leads and Associate Leads in
your cluster.
— Facilitate the training session using role-
play scenarios, peer-to-peer calibration
exercises, and objective performance
metrics to ensure immediate behavioral
translation.
— Create a 30-day post-training
accountability framework for the
attendees to measure how the
leadership concepts are being executed
on their respective sales floors.
— the long-term impact of your regional
training initiatives
— your facilitation efficacy
— how you approach coaching vs. telling
— the ROI of your training plans
— assess talent ecosystems remotely
— deliver leadership coaching
— scale corporate educational rollouts
— manage enterprise succession planning
In-store Training
— To be defined
General Tip: Shift from inspiring client relationships within a single building to designing regional blueprints that allow multiple store teams to capture local community heat and systematically turn it into long-term customer retention.
— Identify regional partners (e.g., health
club chains or city-wide run clubs) that
have footprints overlapping your entire
cluster.
— Develop a standardized outreach
strategy that Store Leads can use to
pitch mutually beneficial in-store events,
recovery sessions, or panel talks to these
local partners.
— Act as the central coordinator for a
synchronized regional "Community
Week," where multiple stores launch
localized activations simultaneously
under one unified brand message.
— Track the regional event attendance,
social media impressions, and
subsequent sales lifts to provide
corporate marketing teams with a field-
tested blueprint for future CRM rollouts.
— Identify a highly successful local
community initiative or run-club
activation in your own store that
consistently drives foot traffic and high
sales conversion.
— Deconstruct this local success into a
"Community Playbook" that outlines
scalable logistics, grassroots marketing
tactics, and staff tracking methods.
— Share this playbook with two
neighboring Store Leads and coach them
on how to adapt the framework to match
the demographic nuances of their local
neighborhoods.
— Track the collective lift in new customer
acquisition and traffic across the
participating stores.
— Audit how different stores in your market
currently encourage their teams to
maintain client relationships, identifying
the gap between transactional service
and true relationship building.
— Create a simple, analog "Client
Engagement Tracker" and a set of
conversational prompts that advisors
can use to capture local athlete profiles
during comple fittings.
— Facilitate a cross-store training huddle
for neighboring Store Leads to align
them on how to embed these
relationship-building behaviors into their
daily floor coaching.
— Monitor the consistency of execution
across those test locations.
— the scalability and replicability of ideas
— the long-term commercial value of your
ideas
— your influence on your peers
— anticipate macro CRM trends
— maximize regional event sponsorship ROI
— consistently protect the brand’s premium
global positioning in the community
— work cross-functionally to leverage
corporate marketing assets
Community & Customer Engagement
— Works with Store Leads to anticipate
and plan for VM-related challenges
across the cluster, such as staffing for a
major holiday season or managing a
complex launch.
— Audits stores for both their current VM
execution and their preparedness for
upcoming changes.
— Acts as the key communication link,
ensuring stores are well-informed and
prepared for future VM directives from
the corporate team.
General Tip: Shift from being the master executor of visual guidelines to a multi-site visual strategist.
— Design a comprehensive, objective
visual merchandising audit checklist
based on corporate's premium retail
compliance standards.
— Accompany a fellow Store Lead on a
remote walkthrough of their location,
teaching them how to evaluate their own
floor-set, storytelling zones, and product
density through an auditor's lens.
— Guide them to build a proactive
remediation plan for their visual blind
spots rather than simply fixing individual
display errors on the spot.
— Create a centralized communication loop
where Store Leads in your market can
submit structural layout challenges or
local product feedback regarding
corporate VM directives.
— Analyze these submissions across
multiple stores to separate isolated
layout anomalies from systemic regional
issues (e.g., fixture packages not
matching specific store square footage).
— Translate these findings into a concise,
high-impact regional visual impact report
detailing actionable layout alternatives
that maintain the brand's premium
identity.
— Present this report to the corporate VM
team, establishing yourself as a
communication bridge that protects
floor-set standards while advocating for
regional field realities.
— the objectivity of your VM audits
— the proactiveness of your foresight
— the effectiveness of your communication
between the corporate VM team and
your cluster
— your ability to influence without authority
— audit visual excellence at scale
— predict regional supply constraints
— balance commerciality with compliance
— navigate corporate-to-field pushback
Visual Merchandising
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— Monitors and analyzes key inventory
metrics (like stock accuracy, shrinkage,
and product turn) across all stores in
their cluster.
— Identifies which stores are best-in-class
at inventory management and shares
their successful practices with other
stores.
— Coaches Store Leads on how to improve
their inventory management skills and
achieve their stock-related targets.
General Tip: Shift your mindset from safeguarding your own stockroom to managing regional inventory health.
— Analyze the shrinkage data and stock
accuracy metrics of three stores in your
cluster to identify the most vulnerable
product categories.
— Bring the Store Leads and back-of-house
specialists together to audit their
physical receiving, sensor-tagging, and
high-theft mitigation processes.
— Facilitate a workshop to build a unified
regional shrinkage action plan,
standardizing the cluster's inventory
protection routines.
— Track the subsequent drop in shrinkage
percentages across the participating
locations, presenting the business case
to your Area Lead
— Identify a neighboring store that is
consistently struggling with low stock
turn, stagnant assortments, or bloated
clearance inventory levels.
— Partner with their Store Lead to audit
their replenishment schedule, size
availability on the floor, and back-of-
house consolidation habits.
— Coach the leader on how to analyze their
local sell-through data to build a
strategic stock consolidation plan and
draft a targeted assortment feedback
memo for regional buyers.
— Review their inventory data over a 60 day
period to measure their improvement in
stock velocity and product management
confidence.
— Deconstruct your own store’s successful
stock lifecycle processes – such as your
intake layout, shipment processing
speed, or cycle-counting routine – into a
clear, scalable framework.
— Partner with your Area Lead to select a
test location in the market that is
currently missing its inventory efficiency
targets.
— Guide that store's leadership team
through the installation of your blueprint,
providing remote troubleshooting
support as they adapt it to their physical
layout.
— Measure the lift in their operational
processing speed and accuracy to
validate the blueprint before presenting
it as a cluster-wide standard.
— the scalability of your analyses
— your coaching effectiveness
— the simplicity and repeatability of your
frameworks
— how you balance regional stock health
with the individual operational realities of
each store
— monitor inventory health remotely
— balance cluster stock levels
— intervene on critical stock failures
— influence regional merchandising
partners
Stock Management
— Guides a portfolio of stores to achieve
their best possible commercial results,
coaching Store Leads on how to drive
performance and grow their business.
— Analyzes and compares business
performance across stores to identify
and scale successful commercial
strategies.
— Ensures Store Leads are making smart
decisions with the resources they control
to contribute to the cluster's overall
success.
General Tip: Shift your perspective from managing the variables inside your own building to guiding a commercial portfolio.
— Gather and analyze the commercial
dashboards of three stores in your region
over a 30-day period to map out differing
performance trends (e.g., store A has
high traffic but low conversion, while
store B has high IPO but low traffic).
— Host a joint data-review session with the
participating Store Leads to compare
their operational approaches, formatting
the discussion around resource
deployment and peak-hour management.
— Coordinate a targeted, 2-week
operational sprint where each store
implements a customized tactic
designed to reverse their specific friction
point.
— Synthesize the collective revenue gains
and resource adjustments into a cluster
performance report to present to your
Cluster / Area Lead.
— Identify a Store Lead in your market who
is currently struggling to hit targets
despite having healthy inventory levels
and sufficient payroll allocation.
— Partner with them to audit their current
scheduling efficiency, zone deployment
strategy, and daily commercial action
planning.
— Mentor them through a live trading week,
teaching them how to read mid-day data
indicators and execute strategic pivots
without causing team fatigue.
— Review their end-of-month commercial
results together to measure their
improved operational decision-making.
— Identify an isolated commercial success
in your own building – such as a specific
stock-to-floor replenishment cycle or a
highly profitable peak-hour deployment
map – that can be generalized.
— Deconstruct this success into a scalable
framework that strips away local store
anomalies and focuses purely on core
operational mechanics.
— Package this framework into a "Regional
Strategy Playbook" and guide some
neighboring stores through its
implementation.
— Compare business performance across
the participating stores pre- and post-
rollout to validate that the strategy can scale consistently across different store
footprints.
— your ability to take an unbiased portfolio
(vs. single store) perspective
— the effectiveness of your coaching style
— your data analysis and synthesis
— manage commercial tracking remotely
— balance resource distribution
— intervene strategically, only when a Store
Lead needs active coaching
Daily Operations
Service Excellence
— Evaluates and elevates customer
experience standards across multiple
store locations to ensure brand
consistency.
— Mentors Store Leads on optimizing their
service models and building high-
performing, premium service-driven
teams.
— Works with stakeholders to standardise
after-sales processes across the cluster
to ensure a unified, premium approach to
customer retention.
General Tip: Transition from micro-analyzing your own store's customer journey to evaluating service ecosystems across a portfolio.
— Conduct a comprehensive audit of
recent customer feedback data (e.g.,
NPS or mystery shopper reports) across
three stores in your region to
identify systemic experience variances.— Design a standardized evaluation
scorecard that measures premium
service consistency, focusing on
touchpoints where the brand identity
often gets diluted during peak traffic.
— Lead a cross-store walk with neighboring
Store Leads to assess each location
against the scorecard, mapping out
exactly where service models are thriving
or breaking down.
— Partner with those leads to design a
regional service calibration plan,
demonstrating your ability to evaluate
and elevate customer journey standards
across multiple locations.
— Identify a neighboring Store Lead whose
team struggles to maintain service
standards under varying traffic rates or
during complex customer journeys (e.g.,
technical fittings).
— Host a shadow session where the peer
leader observes how you structurally
deploy your team, deliver real-time
feedback, and keep advisors aligned with
premium service standards.
— Transition into a mentoring role by
shadowing that leader in their own
environment, helping them optimize their
floor-management model and coach their
team through complex interactions.
— Follow up over a 30-day period to review
their store's service metrics, proving you
can develop other leaders into high-
performing service coaches.
— Collaborate with regional stock and
operations stakeholders to review after-
sales trends, return patterns, and
customer friction points across the
cluster.
— Identify the best-in-class retention and
defect-handling processes currently
working in isolation at your store and
map out how to scale them.
— Draft a unified, cluster-wide after-sales
process framework that balances speed
with a premium, personalized customer
experience to maximize retention.
— Roll out this framework as a pilot to a
sub-cluster of stores, measuring the
resulting stabilization in after-sales
metrics to build a case for area-wide
adoption.
— the focus areas of your calibration
scorecards
— your objectivity when coaching a peer
leader
— the scalability of the standards you
propose
— how strategically you approach customer
retention
— audit service consistency remotely
— calibrate and align service behaviors
— leverage cross-functional stakeholders
— de-escalate macro service failures
— Harmonizes On's brand identity and
culture across multiple store locations.
— Mentors Store Leaders to be culture
ambassadors and acts when they're not.
— Has an understanding of engagement
levels across multiple stores and
supports Store Leaders to maintain and
enhance our culture and engagement
levels, taking action when required.
General Tip: Shift from being the primary source of culture in your building to being a remote cultural architect.
— Partner with a neighboring Store Lead to
identify distinct cultural strengths in
both locations (e.g., your store excels at
peer-to-peer accountability, while theirs
excels at celebratory recognition).
— Facilitate a reciprocal "culture swap"
where Associate Store Leads or high-
performing advisors spend a shift in the
partner store to immerse themselves in
that specific environmental strength.— Host a joint leadership debrief to help
both store leadership teams formalize
these borrowed cultural practices into
their daily huddles and routines.
— Track the subsequent impact on team
engagement scores across both
locations.
— Identify a Store Lead in your region who
is currently struggling with low team
morale, high turnover, or dipping
engagement metrics.
— Schedule a series of peer-coaching
sessions to help them dissect their
current store environment and identify
the underlying systemic friction points.
— Support them in drafting and executing a
robust, On Spirits-driven engagement
action plan, guiding them on how to lead
their team through the pivot.
— Offer constructive feedback on their
leadership style while ensuring you leave
them with room to exercise their own
judgment.
— Review the global brand culture and
identify where regional interpretation
typically becomes diluted or inconsistent
across different store teams.
— Build a standardized, digital "Culture
Launch Kit" that simplifies these global
expectations into scalable onboarding
practices and weekly huddle templates
for multiple locations.
— Pitch the framework to your Cluster or
Area Lead, then pilot the rollout across a
sub-cluster of three stores to test its
ease of adoption.
— Gather feedback from the participating
Store Leads to refine the kit.
— your ability to scale cultural alignment
— the effectiveness of your mentorship
— your global / enterprise mindset
— harmonize diverse environments
— diagnose culture issues and intervene
without needing to be physically present
in a store
— address leadership misalignment (e.g.,
“brilliant jerks”)
— inspire cross-functional culture to create
a unified sense of belonging that bridges
the field and office environments
Brand & Culture
Key competencies to develop
— Takes ownership of ambitious, often
ambiguous, goals and drives them to
successful completion.
— Is relentless in pursuit of major goals,
inspiring others with their tenacity and
determination.
— Fosters a culture of accountability,
ensuring commitments are met across
the organization.
General Tip: Shift from driving execution of clear local targets to owning large, ambiguous regional goals.
— Take ownership of an ambitious, high-
level regional directive that lacks a clear
operational playbook (e.g., "increase total
cluster margin by 8% over the next
quarter through product mix
optimization").
— Analyze the diverse sales profiles of
three stores in your market to build a
customized, high-yield product push
strategy for each location.
— Lead the respective Store Leads through
the implementation of this strategy,
keeping their energy and focus high even
when initial weekend numbers fluctuate
or face market resistance.
— Deliver the finalized margin growth to
your Area Lead.
— Partner with neighboring Store Leads to
co-create a standardized "Regional
Commitment Tracker" that visualizes
weekly multi-store KPI commitments and
deadlines.
— Facilitate weekly peer-led check-ins
where Store Leads must report their
progress directly to one another, moving
the role of the "enforcer" away from you
and onto the collective group.
— Coach peer leaders on how to have tough
accountability conversations with their
own ASLs when their local operational
commitments fall behind schedule.
— Track the lift in total regional goal
compliance.
— Identify a period of severe regional
operational strain, such as a major localized
logistics delay, a sudden district-wide
staffing crunch, or an aggressive
competitor opening nearby.
— Convene a multi-store leadership huddle to
realign focus, absorbing the collective
panic and reframing the disruption as a
high- stakes challenge to test the market’s
operational agility.
— Design a coordinated, 4-week "Resilience
Sprint" that pools cross-store resources,
tracking high-impact recovery metrics
across the affected stores daily.
— your tolerance for ambiguity
— the design of your accountability
framework
— your commitment to the region vs. your
store
— navigate massive commercial ambiguity
— inspire multi-site tenacity with various
communication techniques
— foster organization-wide accountability
— celebrate regional achievements
Results Focus
— Synthesizes large, contradictory data to
solve complex and ill-defined problems.
— Recognizes unconnected patterns to
reframe the stated issue and define the
real problem.
— Facilitates robust debate, ensuring ideas
are pressure-tested before a solution is
chosen.
General Tip: Shift from solving clearly defined store issues to tackling highly ambiguous, systemic market friction.
— Aggregate multiple, seemingly
contradictory data streams from three
different stores in your market (e.g., one
store shows high traffic but low
conversion, another has massive stock
depth but declining sales, and a third has
perfect visual compliance but low IPO).
— Look past the surface-level symptoms
and recognize the unconnected patterns
across these locations to reframe the
stated operational issues into the real,
underlying problem (e.g., a regional
misallocation of size profiles or an
outdated local consumer persona
model).
— Present your holistic diagnosis to the
participating Store Leads, showing them
how individual store metrics are
interconnected symptoms of this larger
structural issue.
— Co-create an agile, market-wide
intervention strategy to realign product
distribution, tracking the multi-store
performance lift.
— Identify a complex, ongoing operational
challenge in your cluster, such as a
flawed regional cross-docking process
or an ineffective multi-site training
matrix.
— Convene a roundtable of Store Leads,
Associate Store Leads, and back-of-
house specialists, deliberately
assembling a group with diverse
perspectives and conflicting priorities.
— Introduce the primary proposed solution,
then lead a structured "Red Team" debate
where participants are explicitly tasked
with identifying blind spots, stress-
testing assumptions, and simulating
execution failures.
— Synthesize the debate's output to heavily
refine and fortify the strategy before
rolling it out.
— Gather large pools of qualitative and
quantitative data across your cluster,
blending contradictory sources like high
mystery shopper scores alongside
declining localized NPS comments and
rising after- sales return rates.
— Map these disparate data points out to
identify where consumer expectations are
clashing with operational execution across
your market footprint.
— Trace the systemic breakdown to an ill-
defined cross-functional gap between
store-level service models and regional
logistics timelines.
— Draft an optimized multi-site process
solution that resolves the data
contradictions, pitching it laterally to
regional operations stakeholders to fix the
problem at the institutional level.
— how you account for complexity in the
hypotheses you put forward
— your debate facilitation skills
— your management of ambiguity
— your analytical objectivity
— slice through market-wide noise to
isolate high-impact, systemic business
challenges
— reframe corporate challenges into
actionable strategies
— encourage healthy organizational friction
— deploy systemic pattern recognition
Problem Solving
Learning Agility
— Has deep self-awareness and uses it to
manage their response and adapt their
style in real-time.
— Is a "learning machine," constantly
acquiring and applying new knowledge
to drive innovation and excellence.
— Creates an environment of open
feedback and actively coaches others on
how to give and receive it.
General Tip: Shift from being a master of your own personal growth to becoming a learning catalyst for an entire region.
— Identify an emerging operational trend or
new technology outside traditional store
operations (e.g., advanced RFID tracking
systems, digital queuing tools, or
sustainability circularity models).
— Deep-dive into the technical mechanics
of this concept, to master how it
integrates with the retail environment.
— Design a localized micro-experiment to
test this concept within your building,
documenting the operational hurdles,
team adaptation speeds, and commercial
impact.
— Synthesize these learnings into a
scalable "Innovation Briefing" and
facilitate a session for your peer Store
Leads, showing them how to apply these
new insights to drive excellence in their
own stores.
— Volunteer to support or co-lead a critical,
high-stress regional event, such as a
major flagship relocation, a district-wide
inventory reconciliation, or an emergency
supply chain pivot.
— Prior to the event, map out the diverse
leadership styles and emotional
baselines of the various Store Leads and
corporate stakeholders involved in the
project.
— Intentionally manage your own emotional
responses under pressure, adapting your
communication style in real-time –
shifting from direct command to
collaborative coaching depending on the
team’s immediate needs.
— Lead a multi-store post-mortem session
focused on emotional resilience,
teaching peer leaders how to analyze the
ripple effect of their own stress levels on
their store environments.
— Design a structured, objective
framework that enables multi-site
management teams to safely exchange
candid performance feedback and
uncover leadership blind spots.
— Initiate the rollout by inviting a
neighboring Store Lead to shadow you
during a complex multi-store sync,
explicitly asking them for constructive
critique on your influence and alignment
style.
— Coach that peer leader on how to
introduce the same open feedback loops
within their own leadership team room
without damaging trust or psychological
safety.
— Audit the long-term health of these
feedback loops across the sub-cluster.
— your adaptability of your real-time
communication to different audiences
— the clarity and helpfulness of your
feedback coaching
— your emotional self-regulation
— the applicability and scalability of your
innovations
— set themselves up to absorb complex
information rapidly
— navigate cross-functional friction calmly
— normalize vulnerability at the senior
leadership level
— coach teams through steep learning
curves
— Coordinates key stakeholders to ensure
all teams are pulling in the same
direction.
— Identifies and fixes the root causes of
silos to make collaboration easier for
everyone.
— Role models sharing information as the
default, and helps others see the
business value of being open with
resources.
General Tip: Shift from simply building and network to becoming an organizational weaver.
— Interview Store Leads, back-of-house
specialists, and corporate operations
partners to map out the recurring friction
points that stall regional execution (e.g.,
communication breakdowns during
multi-car shipment drops).
— Facilitate a cross-functional alignment
session with these diverse stakeholders
to unpack the root causes of these
misunderstandings, moving the
conversation away from blame and
toward process design.
— Co-create a standardized "silo-free"
Service Level Agreement (SLA) that
redefines communication channels,
response windows, and shared
responsibilities between the field and
corporate teams.
— Monitor the implementation of this
agreement across three test locations.
— Step into the role of project coordinator
for a cluster-wide commercial launch or
local community race activation, aligning
three distinct store management teams
under one execution plan.
— Establish a default transparent
communication rhythm, hosting weekly
multi-store syncs where payroll
allocation, top-performing product
depth, and marketing assets are shared
openly based on portfolio need.
— Manage the cross-functional
dependencies by acting as the single
point of contact between the store
teams on the ground and corporate
marketing, retail operations, and logistics
stakeholders.
— Review the collective regional results
post-campaign.
— your stakeholder alignment
— your neutrality as a mediator
— the quality of the communication
systems you designed
— your coordination style
— dismantle structural barriers with
process redesigns
— negotiate lateral compromises
— model transparent communication
— unify cross-functional agendas
Collaboration
— Demonstrates strong business acumen,
considering market trends and cross-
functional impacts.
— Advocates for investments and trade-
offs that strengthen the business in the
long run.
— Champions integrity, proactively
addressing potential ethical issues
before they become problems.
General Tip: Shift from protecting the immediate operational sustainability of a single store to advocating for the long-term health of an entire market portfolio.
— Research macro retail trends, changing
consumer behaviors, and regional
economic shifts (e.g., local infrastructure
developments or competitor expansions)
affecting your cluster's territory.
— Analyze how these external factors will
impact foot traffic, category demands,
and staffing needs across three distinct
store locations over the coming year.
— Formulate a comprehensive readiness
roadmap detailing how the cluster can
proactively adapt its service styles,
product mixes, and community
investments ahead of these market
shifts.
— Present this predictive commercial
roadmap to your Area Lead and regional
cross-functional partners.
— Identify a persistent, cluster-wide
inefficiency – such as a repetitive back-
of-house sorting hurdle or an
underfunded local field-marketing asset
– where short-term cost-cutting is
damaging long-term productivity.
— Conduct a cross-store cost-benefit
analysis to calculate how an upfront
investment of capital, payroll, or
specialized training would yield
significant regional returns over a 12- to
24-month horizon.
— Build a structured business case that
clearly outlines the multi-site return on
investment (ROI), detailing how this
strategic trade-off strengthens the
broader brand ecosystem.
— Pitch your proposal to senior regional
stakeholders.
— Review compliance data, operational
logs, and internal team dynamics across
the market to spot early, subtle
indicators of potential values-conflicts or
policy shortcuts (e.g., cutting corners on
safety protocols during high-volume
deliveries).
— Create a scalable "Brand Integrity
Toolkit" that helps Store Leads facilitate
open conversations about ethical gray
areas, compliance accountability, and
company values with their local
management teams.
— Guide a sub-cluster of store teams
through a proactive operational audit
using this framework, ensuring potential
risks are identified and addressed before they compromise the brand's reputation.
— Standardize this preventative routine
across your market.
— your macro business acumen
— the structure and depth of your ROI
business cases
— how you provide an operationally safe
space to surface and address sensitive
ethical issues
— your patience for strategic business
decisions
— navigate long-term market disruptions
and insulate their cluster from sudden
commercial shocks
— advocate for multi-year investments
— uphold enterprise integrity ruthlessly
— balance immediate pressures with legacy
building
Long Term Thinking
— Builds an organizational culture
relentlessly focused on premium quality
and excellence.
— Creates an environment that balances
incremental improvements with
breakthrough innovation.
— Anticipates future needs, allocating
resources to maximize long-term
strategic impact.
General Tip: Shift from auditing local floor standards to architecting an organizational culture of premium quality.
— Identify a persistent operational
bottleneck affecting multiple stores in
your market (e.g., rigid inventory intake
flows or outdated mobile checkout
setups).
— Convene a cross-store task force of
innovative leaders and advisors to
challenge the standard operating
procedures and brainstorm a
breakthrough process redesign.
— Pilot this radically new system in your
own building for 30 days, creating an
environment where the team feels safe to
test, fail, and iterate on the process.
— Document the resulting productivity
gains – such as labor hours saved or
speed-of-service improvements – and
package the design into a scalable
rollout plan for the rest of the cluster.
— Using Cloud CX Track & Feedback or the
Area Lead Store Visit Checklist, lead a
series of calibration walks with
neighboring Store Leads, working
together to spot invisible friction points
and minor visual deviations that erode
the premium customer experience.
— Discuss systemic, root-cause solutions
(instead of quick, surface-level fixes) you
could explore to keep standards
consistently high.
— Track the long-term stabilization of
customer satisfaction scores and
operational audit results across the
cluster.
— the strategic foresight of your predictive
resource model
— the impact of your process innovation
— your influence on standards of excellence
— your ability to view challenges and
opportunities with a systemic lens
— communicate the "gold standard" of the
brand to build a culture of premium
execution
— foster breakthrough thinking
— manage high-stakes resource
deployment to maximize long-term
strategic impact
— balance iteration with standardization
Driving Excellence
Developing Talent
— Models and coaches other leaders on
how to conduct difficult conversations
with courage and empathy.
— Acts as a sought-after mentor and coach
for talent both within and outside their
own function.
— Acts as a "talent exporter," developing
people into top candidates for roles
across the company.
General Tip: Shift from being a direct coach of individual contributors to becoming a master developer of organizational leaders.
— Identify a sub-cluster of Store Leads or
Associate Store Leads who hesitate to
address core performance or behavioral
issues within their buildings.
— Invite these leaders to shadow you as
you prepare for, conduct, and debrief a
high-stakes alignment conversation with
a team member, mapping out your
preparation framework.
— Reverse the roles by shadowing those
peer leaders in their own store
environments during their next tough
feedback session, acting as a silent
observer to assess their balance of
courage and empathy.
— Facilitate a post-conversation calibration
lab to unpack behavioral indicators,
training these multi-site leaders to
independently lean into friction rather
than avoiding it.
— Reach out to regional stakeholders
outside your immediate store function
(e.g., visual merchandising, logistics
operations, or regional marketing) to
identify cross-pillar high-potentials
seeking commercial growth.
— Design a structured, 3-month remote
mentorship framework where you
provide these non-retail partners with
targeted business-acumen coaching and
real-world store visibility.
— Use strategic questioning and reflective
guidance to help these mentees connect
their functional tasks back to the realities
of the physical sales floor, building their
executive presence.
— Establish yourself as a sought-after
mentor across the broader organization,
tracking the career advancement and
functional agility of your multi-
disciplinary cohort.
— Audit the talent landscape across three
stores in your market to build a shared
matrix of high-potential leaders who have
outgrown their current local roles.
— Partner with neighboring Store Leads to
design rigorous, 6-week "Enterprise
Stretch Assignments" that intentionally
place these leaders into unfamiliar
environments (e.g., moving a visually
strong manager to a high- volume stock
operations turnaround).
— Review the development progress of
these individuals bi-weekly, coaching
them on how to package their newly
acquired cross- functional skills for next-
level promotions.
— Actively pitch these vetted, high
performing candidates to your Area Lead
and Talent BPs for vacancies across the
global network.
— your preparation and execution of
difficult conversations
— the applicability of your insights in a
cross-functional setting
— the portability / transferability of the
talent you are building
— your coaching vs. rescuing
— deliver sharp, high-impact feedback
without breaking professional trust
— mentor across business silos
— manage enterprise talent pipelines
— cultivate high-level self-coaching using
advanced active listening and mirror-
questioning
— Shapes enterprise-wide hiring strategies
to build a sustainable, diverse talent
pipeline.
— Cultivates an enterprise culture of trust
and belonging that unlocks the best
ideas and high performance.
— Builds self-sufficient teams across the
organization that achieve top results
with minimal oversight.
General Tip: Shift your perspective from building a cohesive team within one building to architecting an interdependent talent ecosystem across a region.
— Partner with your Area Lead and local
Talent BP and Talent Acquisition teams to
analyze the demographic and skill
profiles across three stores in your
market, identifying future talent
vacuums.
— Design a regional outreach strategy
targeting diverse community hubs,
fitness networks, and universities to
attract non-traditional talent profiles to
the brand.
— Host a joint regional interviewing panel
with neighboring Store Leads, reviewing
together how to mitigate bias and select
complementary skill sets that build
balanced local teams.
— Track the retention and promotion rates
of this cohort across the market.
— Collaborate with fellow Store Leads to
map out the unique leadership and
operational strengths of the ASLs and
LSAs across three stores in your cluster
to identify development mismatches.
— Pair an emerging leader from one store
with an experienced leader from another
location, deliberately creating
mentorship duos where one's growth
area matches the other's core strength
(e.g., pairing a visually strong ASL with a
data-driven ASL).
— Provide the mentor-mentee pairs with a
structured, 6-week framework focused
on building autonomous leadership,
prompting them to tackle real-world floor
challenges via remote check-ins.
— Review the leadership growth and
operational metrics of both participants
at the end of the program.
— Identify a complex, cluster-wide
challenge – such as structural scheduling
friction o changing inventory windows –
that requires input from multiple stores.
— Convene a virtual roundtable with field
teams from various locations, explicitly
setting ground rules that encourage
participants to challenge
existingoperational habits.
— Skillfully navigate the resulting strategic
disagreements, ensuring that less vocal
team members are drawn into the debate
and that all ideas are evaluated
objectively against brand values.
— Iterate and standardize this roundtable
format into a repeatable regional ritual.
— the strategic thinking in your pipeline
design
— your delegation style and how
empowering it is (or isn’t)
— the inclusivity of your leadership
— how equitably the entire cluster’s talent
needs are balanced
— design enterprise talent strategies
— foster psychological safety remotely
— drive macro-level autonomy
— manage cross-store talent mobility
Building High Performing Teams
— Drives the vision for a premium customer
journey within the store, ensuring all
team members are aligned with On’s
standard of service.
— Analyzes customer feedback and
performance metrics to continuously
refine and improve the store experience.
— Monitors after-sales metrics; partners
with stakeholders to inform and help
resolve key trends and themes.
— Reflect on the vision for your store's
premium customer journey, and what it
looks like specifically for your store,
translating the core Cloud CX steps
(Create, Lead, Offer, Unlock, Deepen)
into concrete, observable behaviors that
resonate with your team and your store's
unique context. Share this with your
team.
— Lead regular coaching sessions using the
"Cloud CX Track & Feedback" model.
Commit to coaching and documenting at
least one Advisor and one Lead Advisor
monthly, utilizing "Feedback in the
Moment" for busy periods and "Ask, Tell,
Agree" (ATA) for slower times. Ensure all
team members understand their role in
driving these metrics and are aligned
with On's premium standard of service.
— Dedicate regular time during team
huddles or specific workshops to explain
the "why" behind each Cloud CX step,
linking it to business goals, customer
expectations, and evolving store
realities. Encourage open discussion and
secure team buy-in by highlighting how
these premium behaviors contribute to
both individual performance during peak
periods, showcasing the desired level of
care and expertise.
— Establish a consistent routine for
collecting, compiling, and reviewing both
quantitative data (e.g., NPS/MSP scores,
conversion rates, IPO) and qualitative
insights from customer comments,
online reviews, and direct observations.
Ensure your team actively encourages
customers to provide feedback through
the NPS survey and online review
systems, and educate them on why this
feedback is sought and how it helps
improve the store. Actively listen to
customer feedback on products and
ensure it's compiled for review with
management and merchandise teams.
— Based on your thorough feedback
analysis, convene regular, focused
workshops with your leadership team.
For example, if comments frequently
mention long waiting times at checkout,
brainstorm solutions to streamline POS
procedures. If product knowledge is a
recurring theme, discuss targeted
training interventions.
— Develop concrete action plans with clear
ownership and timelines, ensuring
diverse perspectives are considered,
relevant stakeholders (e.g., product
merchandising, retail operations) are
involved to challenge assumptions and
gather broad input, and performance
metrics are tracked to assess the impact
of these changes. Share successes and
ongoing challenges transparently with
your entire store team during huddles or
meetings.
— Designate a consistent method for
collecting, compiling, and analyzing all
after-sales data from various sources.
This includes returns and exchanges,
warranty claims, and recurring product
issues gleaned from customer feedback,
POS reports, and customer service logs.
Regularly analyze this data (e.g., weekly
or monthly) to identify recurring patterns,
product-specific issues, or common
service pain points.
— Based on the identified after-sales
trends, proactively schedule and lead
regular meetings or communicationchannels with relevant internal
stakeholders. These stakeholders might
include product merchandising, retail
operations, and customer
service/Happiness Delivery (HD). During
these sessions, present the consolidated
after-sales trends with objective data
and specific examples, clearly informing
them of the issues. Then, collaborate to
resolve these themes by discussing
potential root causes and co-creating
actionable solutions or preventative
measures.
— Once solutions are defined with
stakeholders, work with your store team
to implement necessary in-store
preventative measures or process
adjustments. For example, if a product
consistently has a specific defect, you
might refine product education during
the "Offer" stage or improve packaging
rituals at POS. Clearly communicate
these changes and their rationale to your
entire store team, explaining how they
address the identified trends. After
implementation, track relevant metrics to
monitor the impact of these solutions.
Finally, report back to stakeholders and
your team on the effectiveness of the
implemented solutions to close the
feedback loop.
Service Excellence
Mastering Your Role: Store Lead
Brand &
Culture
— Owns a premium in-store culture aligned
with On's global vision.
— Recognises the importance of culture as
a driver of performance.
— Serves as the ultimate ambassador for
our culture within the broader Oniverse
and brings it to life within Store.
— Has a strong awareness of store morale
and engagement levels, knows when
action is required and can build robust
engagement action plans, driven by our
spirits.
— Design a simple, high-visibility program
to consistently recognize team members
who exemplify On's five spirits (e.g., a
"Spirit of the Week" award, a dedicated
notice board, or a weekly shout-out
during huddles).
— Personally lead the recognition during
team meetings, sharing specific
examples of how the recognized team
member brought a spirit to life, fostering
mutual trust and open communication.
— Regularly review team morale through
informal conversations and observations.
Use this awareness to adjust the
program or identify additional actions to
build robust engagement plans.
— Schedule a recurring 15-minute culture
check-in during a weekly team meeting.
Introduce a topic related to one of On's
spirits or a current store challenge (e.g.,
how to embody the feedback culture, or
how resilience helps overcome daily
obstacles).
— Create a safe space for open discussion,
encouraging team members to share
their perspectives and experiences.
Actively listen to gauge morale and
engagement levels, understanding when
action is required to address concerns or
foster a more supportive environment.
— Synthesize key takeaways and
communicate any actionable steps to
continuously refine and bring the On
culture to life within your store.
— Regularly share insights from brand
updates or company communications
that articulate On's global vision and
mission. Translate these into tangible
examples of how your team's daily work
contributes to this larger purpose.
— During daily huddles, encourage team
members to share their own "why" – what
personally connects them to On's vision
and how they feel they serve as an
ambassador for the brand.
— Actively seek feedback on how well the
team understands and connects with the
brand narrative, adjusting your
communication strategy to ensure it
consistently resonates and drives
engagement
— Drives the store's overall commercial
performance and KPI's, creating and
executing plans to maximize selling
opportunities and grow the business.
— Responsibly manages the store's key
resources – the team, the schedule, and
the inventory – to create the best
possible business outcomes.
— Analyzes performance data to
understand what is driving the store's
success and where there are
opportunities to improve.
— At the start of your shift or during a daily
huddle, review the previous day's or
week's key performance indicators (KPIs)
such as conversion rate, average order
value (AOV), or items per order (IPO).
This aligns with your role in analyzing
performance data to understand success
drivers.
— Identify one specific KPI that presents
the biggest opportunity for improvement
for the day or week. Based on this,
collaboratively develop specific,
actionable strategies with your team to
positively impact this KPI. This
demonstrates creating and executing
plans to maximize selling opportunities.
— Ensure the team understands their
individual and collective roles in
executing the plan. During and after the
shift, track progress and debrief with
your team on the effectiveness of the
implemented strategies, similar to how
Lin Xiao uses data-driven decision-
making and rigorously executes plans to
achieve sales targets.
— Identify one existing operational process
in your store that is inefficient, resource-
intensive, or impacting customer
experience or KPIs. This could be related
to fitting room management, back-of-
house (BOH) flow, or cashier operations.
This addresses analyzing data to find
improvement opportunities.
— Engage your Associate Store Lead (ASL)
and key Lead Advisors (LAs) to gather
their input and perspectives on the
current process and potential
improvements. Work with them to
redesign the process to be more efficient
and effective, leveraging their direct
experience and Shan Wu's approach to
improving execution quality and
efficiency through rules and tools.
— Pilot the new process with a small team,
collect feedback, and measure its impact
on key metrics (e.g., reduced waiting
times, improved inventory accuracy,
increased team efficiency). This
showcases your ability to manage key
resources and improve business
outcomes.
— Anticipate an upcoming period of high
traffic, a major product launch, or a
planned store event. Based on historical
data and forecasts, develop a detailed
plan for responsibly managing your key
resources (team members, their
schedules, and specific inventory needs)
to ensure optimal coverage and
productivity. Alphonse Rispoli and
Vivienne Wang both optimized
scheduling based on forecasts and
managed staff efficiently for peak times.
— Identify potential challenges or
unexpected scenarios during this period
(e.g., unexpected staff absence, system
issues, higher-than-anticipated customer
flow) and develop a contingency plan.
This plan should outline alternative
resource deployments, communication
protocols, and decision-making
frameworks to effectively respond to
changes. Gabe Esparza's focus on
proactive decisions to mitigate risks
aligns with this.
— Communicate this plan clearly to your
leadership team and the broader store
team, ensuring everyone understands
their roles and the strategic rationale
behind the resource allocation. Conduct
a post-event review to assess the plan's
effectiveness and refine it for future use.
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— Develops a bold, forward-looking vision
for their function that measurably
strengthens the business.
— Develops a multi-year strategy that
navigates complex, cross-functional
dependencies.
— Defines ambitious goals and ruthlessly
prioritizes resources across teams to
maximize strategic impact.
General Tip: Shift your perspective from translating immediate company goals for a single store to architecting a multi-year strategy for a regional portfolio.
— Identify an upcoming, high-stakes
seasonal launch or a major regional
activation that involves conflicting
timelines between field operations and
corporate headquarters.
— Convene a strategic planning session
with neighboring Store Leads alongside
corporate logistics, visual
merchandising, and product allocation
managers.
— Guide the cross-functional group
through a critical-path mapping exercise,
identifying potential bottlenecks where
delayed corporate deliverables would
stall store-level execution.
— Co-create a unified, multi-site timeline
that aligns all teams toward the same
strategic priorities, demonstrating your
capacity to navigate enterprise
dependencies and keep diverse
functions pulling in the same direction.
— Review the annual payroll budgets,
inventory allocations, and high-potential
labor pools across three distinct store
locations in your region.
— Construct an objective, data-driven
"Ruthless Prioritization Matrix" that
ranks these enterprise resources against
the cluster's highest-value strategic
opportunities (e.g., diverting premium
stock and experienced managers to a
high-traffic tourist location during a peak
seasonal surge).
— Work with your Area Lead to test the
prioritization framework for a defined
period and audit the collective ROI of this
centralized resource redistribution
model.
— your foresight and scale of thinking
— your negotiation and alignment skills
— your objectivity in choosing between
trade-offs
— your ability to bring clarity amidst
complexity
— formulate multi-year visions
— navigate corporate dependencies
smoothly
— prioritize resources ruthlessly
— protect strategic focus under pressure
