Roles and Communication at Tuckernuck
Roles:
Having spent about a month and a half at Tuckernuck I’ve made several observations about the leadership and roles people have at Tuckernuck. Everyone has an assigned job, however there is also the mentality that no job is too small. Yesterday we had an office ‘clean out.’ We had a lot of inventory sitting in the office that amounted to a lot of money as well as there was a lot of stuff that was unorganized. The entire office stopped what they were doing and worked for 2 hours to re organize the office. We sent a lot of inventory back to the warehouse so that it could now be purchased by customers, made other pickable, and started getting everything organized for a sample sale that is coming up in a couple of months. Everyone from photographers, to interns, to heads of departments, and even one of the founders helped during this process. I think it is pretty unique to work in a place where you see your boss sitting on the floor folding inventory to be shipped out. For me that moment epitomized the idea that no job is too small.
Communication:
Being at a smaller company means that everyone has to pitch in even if it is not necessarily what their hired job is. There is the understanding that in order to have a successful business and company everyone needs to work together. There is a never ending cycle at Tuckernuck. The buyers go pick what is going to sold that season and create a book of when everything will arrive and their sell by date. We then receive samples, they are shot on models for product shots and campaigns, images are edited, put into production, and uploaded. The marketing team is in constant communication with the buying team, who is constantly talking with the publishing team. The merchandising and marketing teams are always in communication with these groups know exactly when pieces are coming in, being shot, and going up on the website so that they can plan accordingly and know what emails to send out, what to highlight, and what to run ads on. I think the most important thing at Tuckernuck is communication and collaboration and it is these two things that have made Tuckernuck into the company it is today
So, seems that you are all interacting formally and informally; perhaps more formally when interacting with customers, representatives from different lines, etc. As for communication, it would be interesting to think about the various ways in which you communicate (face to face, virtually, whether you use any kind of work-flow/project management software, etc.) and how those various methods/modes interact and work with (or against – perhaps sometimes) one another.