Between bankruptcy, labor force reductions and navigating Covid-19, Tasha Leilani Grinnell has had a whirlwind experience at Neiman Marcus Group.
Grinnell is the vice president, assistant general counsel at Neiman Marcus Group. She started working for the company in March last year. It’s been a tumultuous year for Neiman Marcus Group, and Grinnell said the biggest lesson she’s learned is that leadership emphasis needs to be changed permanently.
“It’s going to take a lot of thought, commitment and training to truly lead with empathy, which I believe is going to be required as the workplace continues to be reinvented,” she said.
Grinnell said as the company weathered the pandemic and subsequent labor force reductions, it was important to remember how decisions impacted employees and customers in the community.
“I believe that you have to lead with love,” she said.
In March last year, Neiman Marcus Group temporarily closed its stores and rolled out a selling and styling tool to sell products remotely. This transformed the way Neiman Marcus Group employees interacted with customers, Grinnell said, which is just one way the retailer is adjusting to COVID-19.
Grinnell spoke with the Dallas Business Journal about lessons learned over the last year and where Neiman Marcus Group is headed in the future.
What opportunity for your company has you the most excited for the next year?
In April, we announced the development of the company’s first environmental, social governance team, which included the strategy and some improvements, frankly. Now more than ever, environmental sustainability is top of mind for the fashion and retail industries. We’ve committed to the elimination of products that contain animal fur… We’re closing all of our existing fur salons, and we rolled out our animal welfare policy…
As a leader in retail, I really believe that it’s our responsibility to take action and address sustainability issues for our associates, our customers, our investors, and the future of our company.
How important is a diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce to your company’s success, and how do you keep that at the forefront coming out of the pandemic?
About 70% of our corporate and store employers are women, and 50% of the company’s 9,000 associates identify as minorities. This diversity of thought is integral to the success of our company. Coming out of the pandemic, Neiman Marcus Group continues to recognize the contributions that lead to great results every day. We celebrate our team members and their contributions.
In addition to your other duties, you ran the in-house legal department for a while. What are the keys to running a successful in-house legal department?
In addition to recognizing and hiring the best talent, I believe there are six keys to running a successful in-house legal department. The first and probably the most important is to listen. We have to listen and really hear our team (and) our customers, especially after the isolation and separation from each other…
The second is to communicate… We have to rely on our emotional intelligence and our legal training in order to lead. Third, I would say empathy. I try to understand our people and the institution.
Knowledge (is important). We (need to) know our stores, our partners, suppliers and our customers. It’s important to know that they’ve also faced challenges during the pandemic. We need to be forward-thinking as a legal department. We’re forward-looking and forward-thinking while maintaining the strong traditions that Neiman Marcus was built upon.
Finally, a key to having a successful legal department is positivity. Our outlook is always positive, and I try to be positive even in the toughest times.
Tasha Grinnell is a 2021 Women in Business honoree and was honored at an event on Aug. 24. For more information on the DBJ’s honorees, click here.