How an iconic American brand has been driven to the edge of bankruptcy
One morning in late 2015, on Sears’ vast Illinois campus, more than a dozen employees huddled in a videoconference room on a floor dubbed “B6.”
There two mid-level employees were preparing a presentation for the CEO, Eddie Lampert, when their boss rushed in with some last-minute advice.
On a chart pad he wrote three words.
“He looks at the presenters and says, ‘Do not say these words to that guy,'” according to a former Sears executive who described the meeting to Business Insider. “That guy” meant Lampert, who would soon appear on a giant projector screen at the front of the room, beamed in live from a home office inside a $38 million Florida estate — 1,400 miles away from headquarters.
The pad with the three words was out of sight of Lampert’s video feed. One of the words on it was “consumer.”
Read entire article here in Business Insider