He started out as a shoe salesman under his father's guidance. He had a family of three to support by his early twenties. Today, Tom Miles is a director at Al Futtaim Group Real Estate. Nargish Kambatta finds out why growth is often dependent on taking risks.
Never have preconceived notions when meeting someone. Never have high expectations when watching a film. Never over-promise and under-deliver.
Tom Miles, a key player in the success story of the Dubai Festival Centre (DFC), lives by these three maxims. The Senior General Manager and Director of Shopping Centres for the Al Futtaim Group Real Estate properties travelled half way round the globe from Los Angeles to Dubai to do what he loves best – retailing. Compassionate but nobody's fool, suave yet sensitive, Miles comes across as someone who has been there and done it all.
Having lived in two boom towns, he has the necessary skills to make his team ride the wave at the crest and yet keep the fiscal balance by relying on manoeuvres that emanate from the luxury of experience. A much loved and admired boss, yet a hard taskmaster, he thrives when busy, but maintains that he is not a workaholic. Not one to duck for cover when the going gets rough, he stands his ground and applies a sensible work ethos to weather whatever storms come his way.
Miles started out as a shoe salesman – his father wanted him and his brothers to learn to be humble yet tough.
Soon, under the guidance of his parents, who were grocery store owners, he managed to take the art of experiential retailing to an elevated level. An avid sportsman, Miles says that he enjoys fierce competition and working towards innovation.
I, ME, MYSELF
I come from a long line of retailers. I was practically born and bred into the retail business. My grandmother and grandfather were storekeepers. They lived on the first floor of a building and ran a bustling corner grocery store which was situated on the ground floor. It was the typical American tale during an era when customer relationships were more important than salesmanship - a virtue now considered old-fashioned. As far as I am concerned, if I am not valued as a customer and the salesman is not doing his job, I will not buy anything from that store.
I value the lessons in one-on-one salesmanship. My dad taught us these values very early in life. He ensured that all of us started out as shoe salesmen. He always said that when you are at the servicing mercy of your customers, you can't help but learn the ropes in a hurry. I was a trifle shy and self-conscious during those early days, but developing my skills as a good salesman gave me a kind of raw power and a sense of being. It's almost as if you adopt a different persona when you are selling, and that really helped me overcome my initial unease in the job. The lessons I learned during those early days still stand me in good stead. Although my brothers and I were all very good at it, I'll take the number two spot for salesmanship, relinquishing the crown to one of my brothers who still sells shoes and has made a successful business out of it.
I get annoyed when I come across frontline sales staff who are indolent. I remember walking into a shoe store when I first came to Dubai. I went in with the intention of picking up three pairs of formal dress shoes, but I was so put off by the saleswoman's attitude and apathy towards me – the customer – that I walked out without making a single purchase.
I prefer to face the brickbats myself, and share the bouquets with my entire team. I believe the way you are as an adult can be attributed to your upbringing. A collective long-term memory bank of past experiences is subconsciously reflecting its diverse facets in your personality traits. You are the sum total of your past experiences; but the way you handle your current self, will determine the kind of person you will become in the future.
I thrive on competition. As kids my siblings and I were all very competitive, be it in sport, academics or business. We played so many sports and every Sunday, my dad would take us to play golf. Competition is hard-wired into my DNA. Today, I am constantly evaluating the competition and will not rest until I am sure that my team and I have done everything to the best of our ability. In our line of business – managing malls and properties – you have to be innovative and a people's person. If a customer complains, we take the complaint very seriously indeed. If you sort out the problem for him, the tale will be told around the dinner table, at a social gathering or at the workplace; it will leave him satisfied and he will surely come back to your mall – in all probability with friends and family in tow. When a client spends their hard-earned money, we want to make it a worthwhile experience for them. Why should
they accept anything less than the best service or the best treatment? I wouldn't!
I graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in retail management and then moved to Milwaukee where I worked for five years at a department store. I became the manager and then a buyer for the store before I moved to Alabama. Those days, working as a buyer was fun. I'm not too sure what it would be like now. In my day, we had an archaic system and I just loved the buzz of the job. Whether it was a sweltering day, or a day when the sub-zero temperatures in New York made your ears numb with cold, you had to follow your nose in the hope of finding that one beautiful piece of merchandise that you knew was going to create a stir with the staff back in the office. You wanted to find that item that would be loved by the sales people and was sure to fly off the shelves and make you a star within the company. It was a heady feeling, and sometimes I miss that. But I guess one moves on and there are so many things about my current job that I enjoy too.
I believe that the wisdom, clarity of thought and vision that you acquire as you go through life are heightened with every encumbering experience. You learn to be comfortable in your own skin, come into your own and value your intuition.
I try to be innovative as far as possible. I'm not so sure that there is such a thing as an original idea. Most ideas are adaptations or variations of [something] already in existence somewhere. The trolley valet idea that we introduced in DFC was a variant of a service that I had worked with when I was in LA. (The trolley valet is a gratis service where our attendants will take care of your trolley after you've shopped).
I, ME, MYSELF
Me and my struggles
I fell in love and married the girl of my dreams when I was a starry-eyed sophomore. By the time I graduated, we had two kids and I had to get into the real world very quickly. I took my career extremely seriously. Three people, who were very important to me, were entirely dependent on me.
That was the defining time in my life. Sometimes it was difficult to put enough food on the table and my ex-wife and I would often feed the kids and then make do with what
was left over.
We managed somehow and slowly I started to do better and earn enough to keep us comfortable. At 20-something, if you can run your family on your own without help from anybody else, it is a very liberating feeling.
My youngest son who is 23 shakes his head in disbelief and says ‘how did you and mom manage all that, dad?
At my age, I can't even take care of my dog,let alone a baby!' I guess when you are young and optimistic and head-over-heels in love, anything is possible and you think you can take on the world!
Me and my family
My dad passed away ten years ago and it was a big blow for us. We were a close-knit family and I have many warm memories of the times we spent with him. I was fortunate to have imbibed my value system without the preachy monotone that some of my buddies were facing on a daily basis, and for that I have to thank him.
My mom is a strong woman and lives on her own in Detroit, but my sisters live closeby and so she is well looked after.
My own brood of four are all independent. There is excitement at home at the moment, because my daughter is going to have a beach wedding in Tampa, where we have
our family home.
Me and my fitness fad
Having always been an active sportsman and a regular golf player, I keep fit with my newer passion, which is road running. I've run nine marathons and 11 half marathons. Even when I travel, I run wherever I am.
Me and drumming
Once when I was running along the California coast between Malibu and Santa Monica, I saw a congregation
of 400-odd people on the sand and heard a very primal drumming emanating from the group. I was hypnotically drawn to it and I became an active member of that weekend drumming circle.
When I came to Dubai, I realised drumming had local flavour too. I bought 14 drums, lured a percussionist who took the germ of the idea and expanded it beyond my expectations. We now have a drumming circle here in DFC too, and both kids and adults love it. Inhibitions are shrugged off and everyone has fun. Some days we even have drums on the abras and encourage people to sing traditional songs and add to the festivity.
Me and my lifestyle
I love my work and feel elated every morning when I come to my desk, raring to take on the challenges of the day. On weekends I enjoy spending time with friends and go to the Areesh Club for a swim and a rigorous workout in the gym.
I don't like to mix my work with my leisure time. If I am tempted to relax for too long, I remind myself of why I am half way around the world. I love watching the day don different hues from my office window. I find it therapeutic to walk around the mall. DFC is such a complete, integrated, waterfront property that I hardly need to step out. (Although I do venture out to scout out the competition!) My friends enjoy teasing me about my three year old car's ‘steep' mileage!
I, ME, MYSELF
What is so special about DFC that draws the crowds in?
In a nutshell, people come to DFC for the festivity. We try to live up to our name and generate a sense of excitement and festivity every single day, more so on weekends. We encourage mass participation in programmes that combine social awareness with fun. The Whatever Floats Your Boat competition that we held recently, required schoolchildren, teachers and adults to put on their thinking caps and come up with a boat made entirely of recyclable material that would float. They then had to race it. The participants loved it and every one had loads of fun for a good cause.
The Festival Car Art event had people converting 10-12 almost throw-away cars into pieces of art. The art cars were astounding. People love competitions and I believe in constantly challenging folk to channel their creativity. We try to maintain the fine balance between mall ambience and entertainment.
What makes you a successful and much-loved general manager and director?
Am I? I don't subscribe to the theory that your boss must be a grim, dominating, boorish taskmaster.I believe in strong leadership. If you ask my staff, they will probably tell
you that I am stubborn, obdurate, single-minded, nagging and hopefully, very supportive. My team is a culturally diverse group of motivated people reading off the same music sheet. I give them the vision, motivate them, give them the tools they need to get the job done and then get out of their way so that they can do things creatively. I like to treat the staff the way I would like to be treated: with respect, compassion and trust.
I enjoy chatting with the workers who are in the background quietly doing their work. I often shake hands with
my security and housekeeping staff and ask them how their day was. I remind myself of the days when I was a shoe salesman, struggling to make ends meet with many mouths to feed. I have this innate ability to communicate with people from all walks of life. There is a thread of commonality to all of us.
What parallel do you draw between the retail business and life in general?
You feel only as good as the day that you've had. If you've had a good day, you feel on top of the world, but if you've had a bad day, when you put your head down on your pillow at night, your mind is buzzing with the ‘what if' and the ‘I should have' reels that play over and over again in your head. Our line of business is cyclical. We often see a steep climb that peaks just before a crash.
I have worked in ‘boom towns' and have been an active part of the upper end of the curve. I was in Silicon Valley, San Jose, during its heyday. I saw expansion beyond everyone's wildest dreams, and then the contraction that knocked the wind out of many businesses. As Warren Buffett says: only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked!
Today California's business is strong and thriving though I don't think that it will ever be the crazy place that it was during its boom time. That said, adjustments can ensure stability.
What is your view on businesses cutting back?
Having had experiences in San Jose, I sat my team down and discussed a strategy to deal with the situation.
While businesses were cutting back, we decided to go the full haul – make a noise and reach out for a larger piece of the market share. This strategy has worked as we are now experiencing footfall 50 per cent higher than the same time last year.
