The Day I Tried to Inspire a Team From the Top of a Customer Service Counter

I was 20 years old, working as the assistant manager of a brand-new retail store in England.

We were part of a large national retail chain, operating stores similar to Big W, Kmart, Rebel Sport or Kathmandu. The company was expanding into a new area where it hadn't previously operated.

I'd already been with the company for five years, and the store manager had around 20 years of experience managing retail teams.

Between us, we knew a fair bit about running a store.

Getting Ready for Opening Day

We'd recruited every member of the team, trained them, and worked together to merchandise an entire store from the ground up.

It was an enormous undertaking. Long days, tight deadlines, endless things to organise and the pressure of knowing that, on a particular morning, the doors have to open whether you're ready or not.

Twelve-hour days weren't unusual, and I remember one particularly demanding stretch of 23 consecutive days.

Looking back, it was an exhausting way to work. But it was also an incredible experience.

We had a fantastic group of people, plenty of laughs, challenges to overcome and a shared determination to get everything ready. There was a real sense of teamwork, and despite the pressure and exhaustion, it was a lot of fun.

At 20, I was learning more about business, teamwork and people than I could possibly have realised at the time.

The Speech From the Counter

Opening day finally arrived.

After everything we'd been through together, the store manager and I decided to gather the team and deliver a rousing motivational speech before opening the doors.

We wanted to recognise everyone's hard work, build excitement and send people into opening day feeling inspired.

A perfectly reasonable intention.

Our chosen method of delivery, however, was somewhat less inspired.

We climbed onto the customer service counter.

Both of us.

Standing above our assembled team, we launched into what we clearly believed would be a magnificent motivational moment. In our heads, everyone would be cheering, clapping and ready to take on the world.

And when we finished?

Nothing.

No applause. No cheering. Not even an encouraging smile that I can recall.

Just a shop full of people staring at us.

And then they walked away.

I remember feeling confused and mortifyingly embarrassed at exactly the same time.

What on earth had just happened?

We must have looked like a couple of complete idiots.

The remarkable thing is that between us, we had around 25 years of retail experience. We knew how to recruit, train, merchandise, manage operations and prepare a major store for opening.

But neither of us had anticipated that standing on a counter delivering a grand motivational speech might not be quite the inspirational moment we'd imagined.

The Rah-Rah Speech That Nobody Asked For

I've since come to refer to that particular style of motivational address as the "rah-rah speech."

You know the sort. Lots of enthusiasm, big statements, plenty of energy and an expectation that everyone will somehow become equally excited.

Sometimes they work. Ours most definitely didn't.

Looking back, I think we made a fairly fundamental mistake. We assumed that because we were excited about opening the store, everyone else would be too.

We had around 50 people gathered for that particular speech, ranging in age from 15 to 70. They were individuals with different backgrounds, personalities, experiences and reasons for being there.

Many were part-time retail employees. Some may have been excited about opening day. Others may simply have been looking forward to getting started, doing a good job and eventually going home.

And after the weeks we'd all just been through, I suspect a few were simply exhausted.

We hadn't really stopped to consider any of that.

Instead, we climbed onto a counter and delivered a speech that reflected how we felt about the occasion, rather than thinking about what the people standing in front of us might actually need.

Our intentions were good. We wanted to recognise their efforts and bring everyone together.

But we had completely misjudged our audience.

Having the best intentions doesn't mean other people will experience your leadership the way you intended.

I Always Wanted to Be a Leader

I'd wanted to progress into leadership and management for as long as I could remember.

I was ambitious, worked hard and actively pursued opportunities to take on more responsibility. And it happened early. By 20, I'd already been helping set up new stores across England and leading large teams, and I'd become the assistant manager of a brand-new store of my own.

Which was wonderful.

Except that once you're in the role, there's a certain amount of sink or swim involved.

I had plenty of experience in the technical and operational side of retail, but I was still very young and had a great deal to learn about leading people.

And one of the hardest things for me to understand was why my good intentions didn't always produce the response I expected.

I genuinely wanted the best for everyone. I wanted people to enjoy their work, develop, succeed and feel part of something worthwhile.

So when something I said or did was received badly, it could come as a real shock.

I took those moments personally. Sometimes far too personally.

I'd replay conversations in my head, question what I'd done wrong and spend an extraordinary amount of time reflecting on how I could have handled things differently.

I wasn't always particularly kind to myself in the process.

And some of those early moments have stayed with me for decades.

Looking back, I can see that I was often approaching situations through my own perspective, assuming that because my intentions were positive, other people would naturally see them that way.

But they didn't always.

And why should they?

People bring their own experiences, personalities, ages, backgrounds, motivations, expectations and circumstances to work.

Someone who's 15 and working their first part-time job may see the world very differently from someone who's 70 and has spent a lifetime working.

Some people respond to enthusiasm. Others prefer a quiet conversation. Some want encouragement, others want clarity, and some simply want to be trusted to get on with their work.

At 20, I didn't yet have the emotional intelligence or the understanding to recognise all of that naturally.

I was learning it through experience, often the hard way.

Good communication isn't simply about delivering your message. It's about understanding the people receiving it.

What I Wish I'd Had at 20

Looking back, the whole thing could have been a scene from a television comedy.

Two enthusiastic retail managers standing on a customer service counter, delivering what they thought was the motivational speech of the century, only to be met with 50 blank faces and an awkward silence before everyone wandered off.

It's funny now. It was considerably less funny when I was standing up there.

And while I can laugh about it today, I genuinely wish I'd had more formal leadership development at that stage of my career. Not simply to avoid the humiliation, although that would have been a very welcome benefit!

But because I didn't yet have the understanding or frameworks to recognise why people responded differently, or how I might adapt my approach.

Effective communication isn't just about what you say. It's about who you're speaking to, how you deliver the message, when you deliver it and whether it means anything to the people receiving it.

Emotional intelligence involves recognising that other people don't necessarily see a situation the way you do. Their motivations, experiences, expectations and circumstances can be entirely different from your own.

And good leadership means stepping outside your own excitement, pressure or priorities long enough to consider what the people around you actually need.

I learned these things through experience, often by getting them wrong first.

But I've never believed that leadership and management skills are something you either naturally possess or you don't.

Some people certainly seem more comfortable with them from an early age. Others, myself included, have had to work harder at different aspects.

And I've always believed these skills extend well beyond any particular industry.

The technical work changes. Running a retail store is different from managing a hotel, leading a sales team or operating a business.

But people are still people.

The need to communicate clearly, understand different perspectives, build trust, handle difficult conversations, make decisions and support others doesn't disappear when you change industries.

Those skills can be developed. They can be practised, applied and improved.

And while experience is an incredibly valuable teacher, I don't think we should have to rely on experience alone.

It's better to start developing leadership skills before you desperately need them, and to keep developing them throughout your career.

I can't say that formal training would have stopped two enthusiastic managers from climbing onto that counter.

But perhaps one of us might have stopped beforehand and asked a fairly useful question:

"Do you think this is actually going to work?"

More Than One Embarrassing Morning

Despite that spectacularly awkward opening-day speech, I look back on the whole experience with enormous fondness.

We'd built a team from scratch, prepared a large store for opening and worked through an extraordinary number of challenges together. There were wonderful people, friendships, plenty of laughs and some genuinely difficult moments.

I learned an enormous amount about retail operations, teamwork, responsibility and working under pressure.

And, as it turned out, quite a bit about humility.

The opening-day speech was only one moment in a much bigger experience, but it's one of the moments I still remember most vividly.

We'd put enormous effort into preparing the store and building the team. But in that particular moment, we hadn't stopped to consider whether our idea of motivation was the same as theirs.

We knew how to prepare a store for opening. We were still learning how to lead the people inside it.

Final Thoughts

I've been fortunate to lead teams and businesses across different industries and countries since that day.

And one thing I've come to appreciate is that the technical demands of a role can change enormously, but the fundamentals of working with people remain remarkably consistent.

You still need to listen, communicate, understand different perspectives, manage your own emotions and recognise that the way you see a situation isn't necessarily the way someone else sees it.

There's enormous value in learning through experience. There's also enormous value in being better prepared for those experiences in the first place.

As for that opening-day speech?

More than two decades later, I can still picture the two of us standing on that customer service counter, waiting for a reaction that never came.

I wonder whether anyone else from that team remembers it.

I rather hope not.

Although I suspect they probably do.