0:00

Banking with Capital One helps you

0:02

keep more money in your wallet

0:04

with no fees or minimums on

0:06

checking accounts and no overdraft fees.

0:08

Just ask the Capital One Bank

0:10

Guy. It's pretty much all he

0:12

talks about. In a good way.

0:14

He'd also tell you that this

0:16

podcast is his favorite podcast too.

0:18

Ah, really? Thanks Capital One Bank

0:21

Guy. What's in your wallet? Term

0:23

Supply. See Capital one.com/Bank. Capital One

0:25

N-A member FDIC. Are

0:27

you looking for fresh perspectives

0:29

on how we live, work,

0:32

and lead? If then, a

0:34

podcast from Stanford Graduate School

0:36

of Business delivers research-based insights

0:38

to help you navigate a

0:40

rapidly changing world. Join me,

0:42

Kevin Cool, for If Then,

0:45

a podcast from Stanford GSP,

0:47

where we explore the forces

0:49

transforming business and society today.

0:51

Find If Then on Apple,

0:53

Spotify, or wherever you get

0:55

your podcast. You

1:03

are listening to Fixable, a podcast brought

1:05

to you by Ted. It's hosted by

1:07

me, Anne Morris, and me, Francis Fry.

1:09

Francis and I are professional fixers, so

1:12

companies call us in when they need

1:14

help solving workplace problems fast. If you're

1:16

a longtime listener, you know we're deeply

1:18

committed to this goal, and we love

1:20

it when we get to Spotlight companies

1:22

who are getting it right. And the

1:25

thing we love about the spotlight is

1:27

when we get to show you the

1:29

ones that really shouldn't have been able

1:31

to turn it around. And against all

1:33

odds, they still can do it. Because

1:35

it gives all kinds of a hos

1:38

on how we can go do it

1:40

ourselves. A hundred percent. And Francis, you

1:42

are in luck because today we're delighted

1:44

to host James Daunt on the show

1:46

to discuss the incredible work he's done

1:49

as CEO at Barnes and Noble. He

1:51

is the driving force behind the

1:53

company's revival. It's really a resurrection,

1:55

which is set to open 60

1:57

new stores this year. I can

1:59

scarce. believe you just said that

2:02

sentence that Barnes and Noble which

2:04

I wasn't sure if you had

2:06

asked me I'm not sure I'd

2:08

pass the test is it still

2:10

around because the last it was

2:12

on the last gasp it was

2:14

on its last gasp and now

2:16

it's opening 60 news stores this

2:18

I hope is chock full of

2:20

operational detail I can't wait to

2:22

learn how the heck he's done

2:24

it in a world of Amazon

2:26

ascendant the probability that this company

2:28

was going to find its footing

2:30

was quite low and yet it

2:32

hasn't just found its footing. This

2:34

organization is dancing down a street

2:37

near you. So let's bring James

2:39

in and learn all about it.

2:41

James Don, welcome to fixable. Thank

2:43

you for having me. We're truly

2:45

excited to have you on the

2:47

show. We've been admiring your success

2:49

from a distance. We wrote about

2:51

you in our last book and

2:53

here you are, we couldn't be

2:55

more thrilled. Thank you. That's slightly

2:57

embarrassed. That's how we'd like to

2:59

start all our interviews by embarrassing

3:01

our guests. Yeah. I'd love to

3:03

start with your personal story. You

3:05

started out as an investment banker.

3:07

Talk to us about the road

3:09

from banking to independent... bookstores which

3:11

is not an obvious path. I'm

3:13

ashamed to say you just turned

3:15

up at a career service at

3:18

your college and they said I

3:20

hear all the jobs you can

3:22

do and then in my case

3:24

chosen American Bank simply because I

3:26

wanted to come to New York

3:28

and that sounded more fun than

3:30

being in London. It's a great

3:32

thing. I did it for not

3:34

very long. I greatly enjoyed it.

3:36

I was the rightful age of

3:38

24 when I left without any

3:40

idea at all. to what to

3:42

do, and I thought it had

3:44

to be something very close to

3:46

my core interest reading and travelling,

3:48

and I opted for the reading

3:50

part and opened a bookshop, just

3:52

as the first Gulf War started,

3:54

and the economy went rather badly

3:56

immediately. I do know what it's

3:58

like when your back is against

4:00

the wall, and that sort of

4:02

sense of I suppose caution is

4:04

a helpful one for anybody in

4:06

business to understand. Absolutely. So then

4:08

if I'm following your story correctly,

4:10

you got pulled into the turnaround

4:12

of waterstones, which was a not

4:15

so independent bookstore chain. Was that

4:17

the next plot point? Yes, there

4:19

was a sort of a long

4:21

period in between when I just

4:23

was a shopkeeper and I... attended

4:25

my bookstore and actually we did

4:27

extremely well or increasingly well and

4:29

I opened new shops and got

4:31

to a point when the big

4:33

chains were in trouble and consolidating

4:35

a lot of independent bookstores closing

4:37

as well generally the industry not

4:39

having a nice time. I was

4:41

having a perfectly nice time. What

4:43

were you doing differently even at

4:45

that point? I was just running

4:47

a really good bookstore and people

4:49

liked it and my customers liked

4:51

it and for very simple reasons.

4:53

took great care with the books

4:55

that I chose to display and

4:57

sell and I had very nice

4:59

people working for me and that

5:01

created an environment that people wanted

5:03

to come to and we had

5:05

increased sales literally every single month

5:07

for 21 years. I've just I've

5:09

never heard another company make that

5:11

claim. And we've kept it going

5:14

and still keep it going. other

5:16

than during COVID. I think if

5:18

you stick to your knitting and

5:20

have an expectation of excellence and

5:22

you're a retailer and you're lucky

5:24

enough to be in a central

5:26

London location where people can find

5:28

you. Meanwhile, in the world of

5:30

books, all was not going well.

5:32

The guys in Seattle had obviously

5:34

set up shop and were doing

5:36

rather well and Amazon just ate

5:38

everybody's lunch, particularly the big chains,

5:40

and Waterstone's, which was the sole

5:42

survivor by 2011, was itself then

5:44

effectively. a background business and I

5:46

was very keen that it didn't

5:48

close and felt that it could

5:50

be saved if it returned to

5:52

the corporate schools a good book

5:54

selling and failed to find anybody

5:56

to back me with it for

5:58

a very long time until I

6:00

chanced upon ceram distrists. a Russian

6:02

businessman who was prepared to put

6:04

up money. So then you become

6:06

captivated by the challenge of turning

6:08

around this other brand waterstones. And

6:11

why make the leap? Was it

6:13

the challenge? Was it the opportunity

6:15

to learn? I think a combination

6:17

of things. I do feel quite

6:19

vocationally motivated. I am a vocational

6:21

books or I love the trade

6:23

and I love the fact that

6:25

bookshops are not remotely as important

6:27

as libraries, but they are nonetheless

6:29

important. And in particular having... bookstores

6:31

in more deprived locations and less

6:33

advantageous communities. They're really rather wonderful

6:35

and if the circumstance and unfortunate

6:37

circumstances is it all becomes concentrated

6:39

in a single large business, the

6:41

closure of that is going to

6:43

have quite long-term ramifications in those

6:45

places. It won't in the smart

6:47

places and the leafy middle class,

6:49

the university towns and... they will

6:51

have their independence, will gradually replace

6:53

the big guys, and that will

6:55

be fine. But in the wider

6:57

world, that simply isn't going to

6:59

be the case. There's miraculous that

7:01

they exist, be it waterstones in

7:03

the UK or Barcelona in the

7:05

United States. It's a miracle. But

7:07

if they go, they're never coming

7:10

back. And I thought that was

7:12

just a real shame, and so

7:14

totally unnecessary. And therefore, I felt

7:16

I could do something about it,

7:18

so I would. We're going to

7:20

get to Barnes and Noble in

7:22

a minute, but what did the

7:24

experience at Waterstone's teach you? It's

7:26

a little difficult. In fact, to

7:28

turn around bigger businesses, you have

7:30

to be extremely patient and go

7:32

at the pace that everybody can

7:34

understand and adapt to, but if

7:36

you just keep at it and

7:38

remain patient. You can change cultures

7:40

and ultimately if you trust people

7:42

and let people get on with,

7:44

in our case, running decent book

7:46

shops, it'll come good. It won't

7:48

be linear, but you will be

7:50

fine in the end. You started

7:52

to make some unconventional. choices at

7:54

Waterstone's. And this was a theme

7:56

that you continued in your leadership

7:58

of Barnes & Noble. What gave

8:00

you the courage to start breaking

8:02

the rules? And what did you

8:04

learn from that? People are listening

8:07

to this. They can't see my

8:09

eyebrows shooting up at the idea

8:11

that I'm unconventional or break rules.

8:13

I endeavor to follow the simple

8:15

mantra that if you allow the

8:17

team in a bookshop to run

8:19

the bookshop, they will be run

8:21

it perfectly sensibly, allow common sense

8:23

to... to rule and while some

8:25

of them will make it a

8:27

lot worse, most of them will

8:29

make it better and ultimately if

8:31

you can get the good people

8:33

to talk to the not so

8:35

good people it'll all come good.

8:37

Within that there are just then

8:39

occasionally a few decisions that you

8:41

have to make and the obvious

8:43

thing if you're running something is

8:45

just make decisions. In my case

8:47

I'm very happy to change my

8:49

mind also quite frequently and try

8:51

never to look in the rear

8:53

view mirror. I make a mistake.

8:55

I change my mind as quickly

8:57

as I possibly can. Pretend I

8:59

never made the mistake and go

9:01

in a better direction. I love

9:03

it. Take us back to Waterstones.

9:06

What's one example of something that

9:08

you did differently from the other

9:10

big retailers? One of the things

9:12

that we do genuinely let the

9:14

shops run themselves, most people when

9:16

they talk about this sort of

9:18

say and articulates let the manager

9:20

do that and you will hopefully

9:22

never hear me say let the

9:24

team. And I think it is

9:26

putting a structure in that as

9:28

far as possible eliminates hierarchy or

9:30

at least supports hierarchy. And yes,

9:32

of course you need a... shop

9:34

manager, store manager, but you want

9:36

to put a team around them

9:38

and you want to make the

9:40

role of that manager as easy

9:42

as it possibly can be because

9:44

otherwise since it's an intolerable and

9:46

unrealistic expectation that a single individual

9:48

will cover all of the skill

9:50

sets that you need within even

9:52

a relatively small enterprise that a

9:54

single bookshop is to allow that

9:56

to flourish. We play a game

9:58

called Rugby Union. and the UK. And

10:01

it's very unlike any of the

10:03

American sports, because maybe a little

10:05

bit like American football, but not

10:07

altogether. You have every size of

10:10

human present on that field. There's

10:12

a team of 15, and there's

10:14

a position for everybody. There's one

10:16

for little five-foot people who can

10:19

run and be nimble. There are

10:21

positions for great six foot nine

10:23

hulking monsters. There are skinny fast

10:25

people. There is a role for

10:28

every... type of person. The totally

10:30

uncoordinated individual who can just

10:32

shove has a role. They're

10:34

really coordinated person who can

10:37

do extraordinary things kicking and

10:39

with hand-eye coordination of the gods

10:41

they have their role in. But

10:43

none of them work independently. And that's

10:45

what putting together a bookstore team is.

10:47

You need all of the skill sets.

10:50

Whereas traditionally, I think we've always thought

10:52

that you need excellence in every role,

10:54

that there is this perfect person, and

10:56

everybody needs to be some as far

10:58

as possible identical of that. And I

11:00

simply don't believe that. And once one

11:03

can embrace all these different sets of

11:05

skills, you can create much more effective

11:07

teams and much more supported ones. We

11:09

often hear

11:11

the metaphor

11:13

of we're hiring

11:16

for the best

11:19

athlete and

11:21

that would go

11:23

completely

11:26

against what you just

11:28

said. Completely against. Yeah.

11:30

in a good way.

11:32

He'd also tell you

11:35

that this podcast is

11:37

his favorite podcast too.

11:39

Ah, really? Thanks, Capital

11:42

One, Bank Guy. What's

11:44

in your wallet? Terms

11:46

of supply. See Capital

11:48

one.com/Bank. Capital One NA member

11:51

FDIC. Elon Musk, Doge, and

11:53

Donald Trump are weaving a

11:55

web of technological corruption. Suddenly,

11:58

the eyes of the industry... are open

12:00

to things that had been obvious to

12:02

lots of other people for months. Isn't

12:05

it a conflict of interest that the

12:07

President of the United States who regulates

12:09

crypto has his own coin? I'm

12:11

Lizzie O'Leary, the host of What

12:13

Next TVD, Slates podcast about tech,

12:15

power, and the future. What Next

12:17

TVD covers the latest on how

12:19

Silicon Valley is changing our government

12:21

and our lives. Listen wherever you

12:23

get your podcasts. Let's

12:38

get into the Barnes and Noble story.

12:40

By the time you got there, the

12:42

world was really starting to give up

12:44

on this whole category. Amazon's

12:46

musling in, there's this e-book

12:49

phenomenon, just the e-commerce in

12:51

general is captivating everybody's imagination,

12:53

but you very much saw

12:56

a place for real stores

12:58

attracting real people who are going to

13:00

read real books. Why do you think

13:03

you were able to see... that opportunity

13:05

at a time when everyone else was

13:07

looking somewhere else. I think simply because

13:10

I was running a very good book

13:12

store and knew and could evidently see

13:14

it every single day that a nice

13:16

bookshop is a pure pleasure to people

13:19

and knowing that's also true in almost

13:21

every single community where one is lucky

13:23

enough to be able to have a

13:26

bookshop. Yes of course at times of...

13:28

great economic stress, perhaps in the most

13:30

deprived environments, there will be more pressure

13:33

than in affluent ones. But beyond that,

13:35

people will still be coming into the

13:37

store and enjoying the store. And by

13:39

the time I got to the US,

13:42

I obviously had the UK experience awardsters,

13:44

where in particular we didn't close any

13:46

of our... stores in deprived environments where

13:48

everybody else did. I mean, I

13:51

still have bookshops up and down

13:53

the United Kingdom in high street

13:55

locations where every single other mainstream

13:57

retailer has left. Banks have gone. all

14:00

the food people are gone, the pharmacies

14:02

are gone, everybody's gone, let alone all

14:04

the clothing people. They were once there,

14:06

but now they've gone. And we kept

14:08

our bookshops open and the bookshops have

14:11

actually continued to do really well. They're

14:13

actually central to those communities and I

14:15

know that there is a thirst for

14:17

it, but you need a real focus

14:19

on the quality of the shop commitment

14:22

from the team within it for that

14:24

to work. Are you sure that Barnes &

14:26

Noble, what year is it? So which

14:28

is a terrible time if you're a

14:30

retailer like us because you've got the

14:33

holiday that just hits you straight away.

14:35

All you do is turn out and

14:37

try and get to December the 24th

14:39

and then through the sale period. So

14:42

that's what I did. I did thankfully

14:44

do a few other quick things and

14:46

then we were shut down by COVID. So

14:49

the timing was not great. So

14:51

a lot of retails did not

14:53

make it through the pandemic and

14:55

you used it as an opportunity

14:57

to go back to the drawing

14:59

board, redesign stores, figure out

15:01

how to work in the context

15:04

of what was truly a surreal

15:06

moment, personally, economically. Talk

15:09

us through the decisions you

15:11

made in that moment to

15:13

lay a foundation for your

15:15

success here. It's fortunate to

15:17

have an owner who is

15:19

prepared to back the business,

15:21

and that's not a given,

15:23

but I did. And my

15:25

hypothesis was that Frankly was

15:27

that if we never opened up in

15:29

this thing, and of course at that

15:32

point we didn't know, by keeping sort

15:34

of the core book-selling teams employed and

15:36

getting to work on the stores, if

15:38

we ended up never opening again, a

15:40

little bit more money would have been

15:42

lost, but if it was such a

15:44

catastrophe anyway, perhaps when there was a

15:46

time we could be forgiven for this

15:48

sort of a little extra, but if

15:50

in fact the world opened up again,

15:52

it least used this moment to really

15:54

improve our. stores so that when we

15:56

do open we've got something much much

15:59

better and a reasonably obvious

16:01

bet that if people have been locked up

16:03

in their homes they would be getting stir

16:05

crazy and when they came out if you

16:07

had better stores they're probably going to be

16:09

really filled up with people quite quickly and

16:12

we might therefore spur a rebound in the

16:14

business much more effectively than otherwise and that's

16:16

what we do and we kept the lights

16:18

on in the stores, everybody turned up to

16:20

work, they moved the stores around, they went

16:23

through their stock. In the US it turned

16:25

out to actually be a relatively short period

16:27

that we were closed, a bit longer on

16:29

the East Coast, but longer on the West

16:31

Coast, in the middle, some places, not at all.

16:34

But we got to work, and by the time

16:36

we did reopen, but teams had rearranged their stores.

16:38

And I think most importantly, we still

16:40

employed them, we still had them. So we

16:42

didn't have that difficulties in getting a lot

16:45

of people did, which a lot of people

16:47

did, which was just just... rebuilding their labor

16:49

force. Ours hadn't gone away, so we were

16:51

okay. How did you rearrange the stores

16:54

into what end? The intention was

16:56

to move from what were these

16:58

very linearly arranged bookstores that those

17:00

of you who went to a

17:02

Bonzanovole pre then would have would

17:04

understand, and those are not something

17:06

that looked very like a library.

17:08

I remember. The bookstore up until

17:10

that point, and this is, they

17:12

were obviously designed in a pre-amason

17:14

age. predicated on the basis that

17:16

customers would come into the bookstore

17:18

and say, do you have this

17:20

book? A nice bookseller would say,

17:22

yes, follow me, and you'd find

17:25

the book and they'd take the money off

17:27

them and they'd leave. They were places to

17:29

find the book that you wanted, that you

17:31

knew that you wanted. They were a physical

17:33

Amazon, as it were. Obviously, Amazon

17:35

replaced that altogether and much more

17:37

effectively and efficiently, and we needed

17:39

bookstores that people wanted to spend

17:42

time in. So we created what

17:44

we call rooms. organize the furniture

17:46

into squares and hs and all

17:48

of these shapes which allowed us

17:50

to create different sized rooms so

17:52

full of books and then you

17:54

could put your history in one

17:57

room and your biography in another

17:59

and your romance in a third

18:01

and so on, which makes browsing

18:03

much more enjoyable and also puts

18:05

that allows customers to navigate the

18:07

shots in a more intuitive way

18:09

and different customer groups can enjoy

18:11

themselves. We had a huge success

18:13

creating, for example, new manga rooms.

18:15

Manga was not something that they've

18:17

all done before and we made

18:20

a big bet on that manga

18:22

was going to be the particular

18:24

thing that people wanted as they

18:26

came out of COVID and... people,

18:28

boys. We have one of those

18:30

boys. And in they came and

18:32

we also bought all the manga

18:34

stock that there was just about.

18:36

So if you wanted manga you

18:38

had to come to Bonsa Noble.

18:40

So we were doing things like

18:42

that and it created just much

18:44

more fun stores. Yeah. Banking

18:47

with Capital One helps you keep

18:49

more money in your wallet with

18:51

no fees or minimums on checking

18:53

accounts and no overdraft fees. Just

18:55

ask the Capital One Bank Guy.

18:58

It's pretty much all he talks

19:00

about. In a good way. He'd

19:02

also tell you that this podcast

19:04

is his favorite podcast too. Ah,

19:06

really? Thanks Capital One Bank Guy.

19:08

What's in your wallet? Terms Apply.

19:10

See Capital one.com/Bank. Capital One N-A

19:12

member FDIC. When

19:29

you look back at the decisions

19:31

that were most important in your

19:34

success, what else is on the

19:36

list? I think keeping some reasonably

19:38

simple principles, trying to be nice.

19:40

I use the word nice a

19:42

lot. To each other, to customers.

19:44

Yeah, just to each other and

19:46

to customers and create a nice

19:49

working environment in which people are

19:51

nice to each other and be

19:53

respectful and pleasant. That's not always

19:55

easy. It's definitely not easy. for

19:57

a retailer which is a very

19:59

operationally driven business. Retail is a

20:02

tough trade and most retail, including

20:04

then, Barnes and Noble, was predicated

20:06

on the necessity to get your

20:08

store open at 9am and closed

20:10

at 9 p.m. and in between,

20:12

with absolute rigor, ensure consistency from

20:14

one store to the next. That

20:17

requires immense operational exactitude and proficiency

20:19

and what it doesn't encourage is

20:21

niceness. Historically, it hadn't encouraged a

20:23

lot of local decision-making. And that's

20:25

a tension that you have beautifully

20:27

navigated. How did you resolve that?

20:30

Hopefully beautifully, but are in the

20:32

process of navigating rather than navigating

20:34

it. This is a slow process.

20:36

And one of the problems also

20:38

is the nature and structure of

20:40

retail, which is an chronically and

20:42

inherently low- margin, low-profit business. cost

20:45

is on everybody's mind all the

20:47

time and the employment model will

20:49

tend to be a very small

20:51

number of full-time employees on reasonable

20:53

salaries and then the vast majority

20:55

of people part-time and on the

20:58

lowest possible wage that that can

21:00

be which is the retail wage

21:02

and then you don't have to

21:04

pay anybody benefits and your costs

21:06

are as low as possible. That

21:08

of course makes... retention and the

21:10

accumulation of knowledge extremely difficult. So

21:13

we've had to work through a

21:15

completely new organizational structure in which

21:17

you put in career paths and

21:19

ladders and very overtly and explicitly

21:21

say we're going to be employing

21:23

far fewer people in order to

21:25

pay them much more, but in

21:28

so doing have much greater efficiency.

21:30

productivity to use the operator's words,

21:32

but hopefully have people who enjoy

21:34

the job and are committed to

21:36

the job of vocational around it.

21:38

And when you've got those people

21:41

in place, you can then start

21:43

being much more sophisticated about what

21:45

you're able to do within the

21:47

store because you've got much better

21:49

people. When you have fewer better

21:51

people, can you give us one

21:53

illustrative example of something that used

21:56

to take a lot and then

21:58

you could do it with fewer

22:00

because they were these more committed

22:02

folks? One, you have to have

22:04

far few people in your head

22:06

office because you're no longer directing

22:09

and instructing and giving all the

22:11

planograms and so on. And the

22:13

first thing I did was reduce

22:15

the number of people that we

22:17

employed in our home office. The

22:19

key advantage was that was before

22:21

March I was able to close

22:24

both of our. offices in the

22:26

city, which were otherwise hugely expensive

22:28

to rent, let alone to staff.

22:30

You need far fewer people. Within

22:32

the stores themselves, we let them

22:34

run their own stock now. They

22:37

decide what to sell, where to

22:39

put it, even what price to

22:41

put on it. And one of

22:43

the advantages that is you manage

22:45

inventory dramatically more effectively. If you

22:47

manage inventory, a lot of the

22:49

tasks, so the labour attached to

22:52

inventory, drops away because there's less

22:54

of it. As a bookseller you

22:56

can send books back. what we

22:58

call return books to publishers which

23:00

you don't sell. That was roughly

23:02

about 70% of new books that

23:05

came in as new books went

23:07

back as returns. Overall about 25%

23:09

of everything that came in through

23:11

the front door went back out

23:13

as returns. That's now down to

23:15

about 8% and it all has

23:17

been running at 3-4% now for

23:20

many years. Just the mathematics of

23:22

having 20% less come in and

23:24

then that 20% go back is

23:26

roughly half your labor disappears that's

23:28

attached to inventory. It's much more

23:30

difficult to get things back out

23:33

running in two different directions and

23:35

just in one direction. James when

23:37

did you know your strategy was

23:39

working? I managed to take over

23:41

at Woodston's which was in an

23:43

absolute crash of unwinding awfulness as

23:45

it went down towards bankruptcy. quite

23:48

soon after, just as I began

23:50

to think I know what I've

23:52

got to do here and I'm

23:54

making all these steps. That friendly

23:56

Mr. Bezos at in Seattle launched

23:58

the Kindle Paperway and a free

24:01

headline was that no one was

24:03

ever going to read a physical

24:05

book again and Kindle and the

24:07

e-books were the only way. So

24:09

I think I had a little

24:11

brief moment of that everything was

24:13

going to be okay and then

24:16

the rain clouds descended and it

24:18

took me probably about four or

24:20

five years to dig Waterston's out

24:22

of that hole and we did

24:24

so I think that's where the

24:26

experience of my early years at

24:29

Dawn Books was helpful which is

24:31

you just have to be very

24:33

patient and very stubborn. work your

24:35

way through it and wait. I

24:37

didn't know that good bookshops will

24:39

be popular and successful. And I

24:41

always had, as I do at

24:44

Barnes & Oberlin, I always had

24:46

a water since, which is a

24:48

few fabulous booksellers running fabulous stores.

24:50

They were so self-evidently doing well.

24:52

It was merely a question of

24:54

getting the others to be like

24:57

them. I'm just imagining myself in

24:59

the situation, seeing you walk through

25:01

the door. Not telling me you've

25:03

got everything figured out, but bringing

25:05

other things into the room that

25:07

are energizing. This can-do energy, creativity,

25:09

knowledge of the industry. What was

25:12

that like and what do you

25:14

advice you have for other people

25:16

in similar situations? Everybody does it

25:18

each hunt their own way. I

25:20

may not sound like it, but

25:22

I'm... deeply introverted personally but I

25:25

know that there are these amazing

25:27

inspirational leaders who are on a

25:29

so box leading the troops from

25:31

the front. I'm somebody who probably

25:33

just shuffles around behind but does

25:35

try to sort of quietly encourage

25:37

people and know that if you

25:40

give people support and allow them

25:42

to do their best generally they

25:44

will do amazing things for you.

25:46

And I think we've done all

25:48

so sensible things to make working

25:50

for us as pleasant as possible.

25:53

We are very un-hirarchical, which I

25:55

think is very helpful. We're in

25:57

an industry which has traditionally been

25:59

run by men, and that's very

26:01

peculiar when most of our employees

26:03

are sat near. at the early

26:05

stages of women. How do you

26:08

make yourself a very good employer

26:10

of women? You better put your

26:12

maternity policies in place and put

26:14

flexibility at the core and everything

26:16

that you do. And again, create

26:18

a gentle environment that will produce

26:20

a workplace, which isn't for everybody,

26:23

but which is for some. And

26:25

you then are able to create

26:27

a team, which is, in my

26:29

case, at Woodson's. then was very

26:31

young, still is, to my mind,

26:33

extreme, but very tight-knit and very

26:36

effective. And I'm in the process

26:38

of doing the same advanced and

26:40

noble. Yeah, and I just want

26:42

to dwell on this for a

26:44

minute because here in America, we

26:46

do have this idea of the

26:48

turnaround leader as this very extroverted,

26:51

strong bias for action. follow me

26:53

energy, you have been wildly successful

26:55

on a different emotional frequency than

26:57

that. Yes, I'm the one in

26:59

the meeting who is quietly in

27:01

the back. And what I try

27:04

and encourage is that people think

27:06

through what they're doing. And I'm

27:08

also actually quite a believer in

27:10

writing things down. Maybe he has

27:12

a bookseller that's a sort of

27:14

simple enough thing to do. But

27:16

when you write them down, it

27:19

does force you to confront them.

27:21

Is that actually what we mean?

27:23

write things concisely. You can talk

27:25

your way into something which sounds

27:27

fantastic and fabulous and sensible and

27:29

all the rest when it isn't

27:32

at all. It's just a very

27:34

articulate and perhaps inspirational string of

27:36

words. Just for the absence of

27:38

doubt, when you say write things

27:40

down, are you writing things down

27:42

for yourself? Are you asking for

27:44

your team members to write things

27:47

down and make their case on

27:49

paper? Where does writing show up

27:51

in your management practice? I think

27:53

when you're trying to do something

27:55

not as an essay not as

27:57

a PowerPoint not as a bit

28:00

just as I depending on your

28:02

skill at writing, either just putting

28:04

down bullet points. This is what I

28:06

mean by this initiative or that

28:08

initiative or this idea or that

28:11

idea is as short and concise

28:13

as possible. One of the

28:15

differences in America people write

28:17

at very great length in

28:20

their emails. Huge. I get

28:22

emails from lots of... paragraphs.

28:24

Books that is known no novellas.

28:26

Often in the process being highly

28:29

contradictory in what's in and so

28:31

what I'm asking for is just

28:33

single pages. Let's have a quick

28:36

little bullet point of actually what

28:38

we're trying to do here and I

28:40

think the value in that is

28:42

forcing a reflection upon what actually

28:44

do we mean here. This is where

28:47

Blaze Pascal who famously got us

28:49

to say, I apologize for writing

28:51

the long letter, I didn't have

28:53

time to write the short letter,

28:55

I suspect that your single page

28:57

is a lot harder to write.

28:59

Much harder, much harder. In an

29:01

interview on San BC, you talked

29:03

about not seeing Amazon as a

29:05

competitor anymore, I'm talking on the

29:07

anymore, but as a force

29:09

that's actually benefited the company, so

29:11

tell us how that has worked

29:14

because... The world still loves to

29:16

tell a story of Amazon as

29:18

a destroyer of businesses, but you've

29:21

experienced something different. No, I definitely

29:23

think Amazon is a destroyer

29:25

of businesses, but partially because

29:27

businesses were unable to adapt

29:30

or justify their position in

29:32

a world in which Amazon

29:34

could be so extraordinarily efficient

29:36

and proficient. In my case,

29:38

I've always thought of them as, and

29:40

anybody who sells books can't

29:42

be that bad. And I

29:44

have always been most respectful

29:47

of all of libraries, and

29:49

those guys give away books for

29:51

free. And we just walk in

29:53

there. I mean, at least Mr.

29:56

Bezos makes you playful. So I

29:58

always felt that they were... probably

30:00

going to help book ownership, expand

30:02

book ownership, which I do think

30:04

has happened. They are fabulous in

30:06

selling all the boring books, so

30:08

we don't have to have them

30:10

in our bookstores, because we used

30:13

to. Even I had to have

30:15

just the most tedious books of

30:17

my shelves, imaginable, because people kept

30:19

on coming in and asking for

30:21

them. What's an example of a

30:23

tedious book? Perfectly, virtuous ones, you

30:25

know, how to, you know, wire

30:27

electrical electrical appliances. You know, there

30:29

are endless books of that sort.

30:31

books about careers. I mean I

30:33

personally don't sell in my own

30:35

books. I don't sell any business

30:37

books. Trust me, we write them.

30:39

They're very tedious, James. Oh we

30:41

unapologetically have how-to in our titles.

30:43

I assure you they belong on

30:45

Amazon. Oh no, we write self-help

30:47

books for sure. I was thinking

30:49

more of this and how to

30:51

do your accounting, how to fill

30:54

in your tax return, how to

30:56

do all of those, you know,

30:58

just manuals. They're not books books

31:00

books books. Right. And now Amazon

31:02

can do that work for you.

31:04

they can do all that work

31:06

for you and they popularize books

31:08

and clearly life is a little

31:10

bit more difficult when they're around

31:12

you better be on your game

31:14

otherwise you're in trouble but it's

31:16

not a bad thing and certainly

31:18

the popularizing of book ownership is

31:20

fantastically helpful and I also don't

31:22

particularly mind whether people, how people

31:24

read if they want to listen

31:26

to books, but that won't change

31:28

my role in selling physical books

31:30

because that's what I do. And

31:33

I think the more people who

31:35

are engaged with books and ideas

31:37

and thoughts and the rest, the

31:39

more people ultimately I'm going to

31:41

have in my store. Let's talk

31:43

about another wild card here, which

31:45

is book talk. So book talk

31:47

for listeners who may not know

31:49

the handful of you out there.

31:51

It's the section of Tik where

31:53

users. share their favorite books. Exposure

31:55

on Book Talk has catapulted authors

31:57

onto the bestsellers list. It's credited

31:59

with drawing young people into bookstores

32:01

like yours. Talk to me about

32:03

the role of Book Talk at

32:05

Barnes and Noble today. How has

32:07

it changed the business? I don't

32:09

think book talks changed the business

32:11

at all, other than that forever

32:14

and as I say, I'm a,

32:16

whatever it is, 35-year book, still

32:18

veteran now. Books and the talking

32:20

around books, particularly amongst young adults,

32:22

has been a constant part of

32:24

that time period. And just in

32:26

its most obvious example, in Harry

32:28

Potter and the huge success. But

32:30

Harry Potter's just... the biggest of

32:32

them every few months often every

32:34

month another book rolls through and

32:36

it has done for 35 years

32:38

how the kids have learned about

32:40

this has changed and Snapchat was

32:42

doing it for a bit and

32:44

you can go through the sort

32:46

of the litany of social media

32:48

but before social media I think

32:50

they were probably borrowing their parents

32:52

telephones kids love talking about books

32:55

and they love collecting things and

32:57

they love in on the trend

32:59

now it just happens that book

33:01

talk is just brilliant at it

33:03

and so it's whipped up another

33:05

wave of enthusiasm around books but

33:07

it doesn't feel new to me

33:09

it feels entirely old-fashioned actually we've

33:11

got people queuing up at midnight

33:13

two days ago for the Suzanne

33:15

Collins and we sold a hundred

33:17

thousand copies but we were doing

33:19

that you know I was doing

33:21

that in my stores back in

33:23

the 90s it's now book talk

33:25

is just another brilliant way of

33:27

doing it. I have no idea

33:29

how it works and I've never

33:31

looked at it. I just know

33:34

that everyone tells me that's how

33:36

the kids are doing it but

33:38

they've always done it one way

33:40

or the other. Where is this

33:42

industry going do you think and

33:44

what's going to be Barnes and

33:46

Noble's role going forward? Well I

33:48

think the publishing industry seems to

33:50

continue to go from strength to

33:52

strength and on the back of

33:54

greater engagement books and we know

33:56

we are. might feel at times

33:58

that isn't the case, but generally

34:00

as a society we're becoming better

34:02

educated and slightly more affluent and

34:04

more and more... people are reading

34:06

and engaging with books. Certainly there's

34:08

a huge continuing aspirational aspect for

34:10

every class of family. You want

34:12

your kids to be better educated

34:15

and have better life chances and

34:17

getting them to read will help

34:19

with that. So I think publishers

34:21

will continue to benefit from this

34:23

growing market. Whether we as book

34:25

sellers can continue to be central

34:27

to the discovery of books and

34:29

the enjoyment of books, I would

34:31

hope so if we're good at

34:33

our... role, then that's the case.

34:35

I hope that libraries continue to

34:37

be supported. They're definitely under huge

34:39

pressure in the United Kingdom, financial

34:41

pressure, different sorts of pressures here

34:43

in the US, but again these

34:45

are probably deep roots within their

34:47

communities which will ultimately enable them

34:49

to prevail even if the respective

34:51

governments are unable to do. So

34:54

I think books are probably in

34:56

a very good place and I

34:58

think as long as we stay

35:00

true to our principles, which... I

35:02

know everybody working for us will

35:04

endeavor to do. I think we've

35:06

got a very good future. Do

35:08

you think of it as enabling

35:10

the discovery of books? How do

35:12

you think about the role that

35:14

you're playing in that world? I

35:16

think there's a real importance that

35:18

booksellers drive discovery and particularly new

35:20

authors. And then I think within

35:22

our communities as a place, a

35:24

safe, nice, enjoyable place for. You

35:26

can almost time it during the

35:28

day in the mornings first things

35:30

where after it's where people after

35:32

they've dropped the kids off at

35:35

school come and it's a place

35:37

that you gather it's where lunchtime

35:39

you get a different large you

35:41

get the elderly the lonely will

35:43

be in our stores early and

35:45

in those quieter times and lots

35:47

of particularly elderly citizens young kids

35:49

at different times then after school

35:51

boom all the teenagers are in

35:53

there having fun evenings we are

35:55

in there having fun evenings we

35:57

are the introverts dating place and

35:59

we play all of these different

36:01

roles within our communities and we

36:03

provide really nice employment as well.

36:05

flexible employment and a bookstore plays

36:07

an important part in that sort

36:09

of general tapestry of a community.

36:11

Yeah, I think it's much bigger

36:14

than books. It's almost a sacred

36:16

place for a lot of people

36:18

and I think I would put

36:20

myself on that list. There's also

36:22

the piece about connecting to our

36:24

humanity. There's a lot of... the

36:26

writers who are no longer alive,

36:28

we have their art in front

36:30

of us, we connect to the

36:32

past, there's a sense of possibility

36:34

in the future. I think in

36:36

moments of high uncertainty, there's a

36:38

sense of order, even just the

36:40

kind of the rows of books

36:42

calm our nervous systems down. I

36:44

just think these are very powerful

36:46

places, and you have played a

36:48

huge role personally. in protecting these

36:50

spaces and bringing them back to

36:52

life when it wasn't at all

36:55

clear they were going to make

36:57

it. I think yes, but in

36:59

terms of mine, all what I

37:01

in fact have done has facilitated

37:03

these bookstore teams to do it.

37:05

I mean, I don't mean to

37:07

imply you did it alone because

37:09

that's not who you are. One

37:11

of the great joys is the

37:13

less I do, the more effective

37:15

I am. But just in that

37:17

respect, one of the things that's

37:19

previously having traveled through, having traveled

37:21

through JFK, where they're not. perhaps

37:23

the friendliest of immigration experiences. But

37:25

now I have a visa and

37:27

I obviously turn out on a

37:29

fairly regular basis and they say,

37:31

what do you do? And I

37:34

say I run Barnes and Noble.

37:36

Which case? They more or less

37:38

roll out the red carpet. They

37:40

melt. They melt because they went

37:42

into a Barnes and Noble bookstore.

37:44

or their kids are. These are

37:46

very nice spaces and there is

37:48

almost always a very quiet sense

37:50

of goodwill within bookstores. Yeah. Beautiful.

37:52

I'm going to ask you two

37:54

final questions. One very unfair question.

37:56

We're trying to reinvent government here

37:58

in America. From

41:42

building a business, to building

41:44

an ecosystem, to

41:46

building a legacy Overcome

41:49

tomorrow's challenges together with

41:51

our partner ecosystem

41:53

Transform the everyday the Siemens

41:57

Banking with Capital One helps you

41:59

keep more money in your wallet

42:01

with no fees or minimums on

42:03

checking accounts and no overdraft fees.

42:05

Just ask the Capital One Bank

42:07

Guy. It's pretty much all he

42:09

talks about. In a good way.

42:11

He'd also tell you that this

42:14

podcast is his favorite podcast too.

42:16

Ah, really? Thanks Capital One Bank

42:18

Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms

42:20

Apply. See Capital one.com/Bank. Capital One

42:22

N-A member FDIC. FDIC.