happy Sunday from the rainy Midwest,
i can feel the fall weather slowly making its arrival. Kevin and I got caught up binging Million Dollar Nannies on Hulu on Friday, thanks to a rec from my daughter and Hulu dropping straight into it after the last episode of Project Runway. has anyone seen it? it follows a group of elite celebrity nannies setting up an agency in Ibiza for the world’s 1%. it is unbelievably ridiculous, and a juicy workplace drama with all the works.
also, still can’t believe Dolly is gone 😩
this week, it’s been rough for brands. it just feels like everything is getting way worse, which maybe means it’s darkest before dawn?
it is really hard to watch Target, one of my favorite beloved brands, become a leading candidate for a Harvard Business Review case study about the cautionary tale of the financial, socioeconomic and cultural impact of betraying black consumers who once loved you.
i have some thoughts for the current Target CEO, Michael Fiddelke, but first…
five things you need to know right now about the culture of work…
Karen Attiah got her job back after being fired by The Washington Post for having an opinion as an opinion writer, an independent arbitrator just ordered the paper to reinstate her immediately with full back pay. we wrote about the implications her win may have on the future of unions.
to stop the trial over the child and teen tech addiction, Meta abruptly agreed to pay a historic $17b settlement with 47 states. this massive deal forces major changes to FB and IG, including mandatory nightly access blocks and strict two-hour scrolling limit for teens.
Lovesac foolishly clapped back at its own customers after the CEO posted a sarcastic video mocking someone who complained about the grueling assembly process for his $7000 couch. then the brand account doubled down, triggering a massive PR disaster that ended with deleted videos and a public apology.
Golf giant Callaway completely imploded its lucrative partnership with Good Golf after greenlighting an ad that depicted a male golfer physically shoving a female player to the ground. major retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods and Target (ironic) instantly pulled all co-branded merchandise from shelves, forcing Callaway to cut ties and pledge $1 million to women’s safety organizations to stop the bleeding.
the high-profile female exodus continues at Open AI. Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser and robotics head Caitlin Kalinowski bring the total number of prominent women departing the company’s top ranks to six.
dear Michael Fiddelke... (the current CEO of Target)
you know things are bad when Academy Award-winning actress Viola Davis is screaming at you on the internet. God bless the comms person who crafted the apology and said, guys, we cannot even skate around this, we just have to own it and say, ‘we know we messed up.’ that was very wise and i sincerely hope they didn’t have to fight to get that approved.
this is the part that is so hard for me to reconcile… Black people universally loved you. and it is so rare for a brand to achieve that status within our community. we gave you the nickname tar-zhay. we had so much pride in wearing the classic red polo as a first job. and as the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the world, it was a badge of honor for Black women to get partnerships and distribution inside Target. you were a north star.
you were a fundamental part of our weekend routines. some of my favorite memories as an early mom were getting up and going to Target with my daughter and grandmother with no other intention than to just browse and wander. every weekend. for hours. spending money we didn’t need to spend. the holy grail of retail.
i’m not sure if you fully realize that Minneapolis has become a political mirror for the country, representing exactly where America stands today. growing up there, i always loved the city’s underrated superpower…a fierce, underlying political current that most outsiders didn’t notice until recently.
since 2020, our hometown has become the epicenter of national activity. when the crisis of police violence reached a breaking point, Minneapolis became the powder keg with George Floyd, sparking a global reckoning. two years ago, Governor Tim Walz was chosen as Kamala Harris’s VP pick in one of the most consequential campaigns of our time. last year, when a radicalized gunman targeted our state leaders, tragically killing Speaker Melissa Hortman and severely injuring Senator John Hoffman, it exposed the terrifying reality of incited political violence. and earlier this year, after Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE agents, protests erupted with Minnesotans marching in sub-zero weather to fight for justice.
and Michael, i’m not sure if you know it, but you all represent something politically too: the cowardice and lukewarmness of our corporate leaders in this political era.
there are only really three kinds of people: the fearful and insecure who are deeply afraid of progress, the brave and courageous people who fight for progress and the lukewarm people who just pretend none of it is happening and are too paralyzed to pick a side.
now your predecessor, Brian Cornell, clearly picked a side. the second he experienced even an ounce of political pressure to rollback dei stuff, he was quick to be like ok, we’re done! we all saw what happened next, you lost billions in market cap and bore the brunt of one of the longest Black boycotts in modern history. his actions produced results that proved he chose the wrong side because it literally tanked the business. so he had to go, and you got appointed.
and since you’ve been in office, it’s clear you’re trying to engineer a corporate turnaround by avoiding the so-called political stuff. so you don’t mention the dei policies at all. you stayed completely silent when your own employees and the teachers’ union demanded answers about ICE operations on Target properties. instead, you stick to the script, repeating corporate talking points about reclaiming your “merchandising authority,” elevating the guest experience, and driving efficiency.
but this is what i don’t understand… your moat and competitive advantage has always been your brand and your reputation. you don’t have a supply chain advantage or a proprietary technological innovation. your value is determined by how we feel about you.
while Black consumers may only represent 10% of your customer base, we control over $2 trillion dollars in purchasing power and hold the keys to the brand and cultural relevance kingdom. we are the cultural gravity that makes Target cool to the other 90%. and because brand reputation is your only real differentiator today, a betrayal like this is a lagging indicator. it won’t immediately show up in the hard metrics. constantly focusing on short-term quarterly targets like comparable store sales, guest traffic and inventory turns won’t fix a broken brand. it’s a critical blind spot. and i’m sure your CI and brand teams have been desperately trying to flag to you.
in order to maximize shareholder value, you have to regain the trust and love of the Black consumer. and because Black people, and particularly Black women, are currently under political attack, trying to remain neutral is a wild strategy. you have to take a stand. even Milton Friedman would tell you that if your brand relies on cultural trust, protecting that trust isn’t a political distraction, it’s your fiduciary duty.
idk, business leaders have convinced themselves that dei is just a warm, do-gooder feeling. but it’s not. it’s an economic advantage and multiplier. just look at your competitor Costco. they doubled down and the stock has gone up, been up and stayed up. and their CEO has publicly declared that their decision to double down is the reason they’re experiencing explosive growth, unprecedented employee retention and deeper trust with their customers.
by acting as an apolitical operational corrective you are actually being fiducially irresponsible and leaving money on the table for shareholders, yourself and your employees.
and the most devastating, unspoken tragedy of this story is the deep loss of morale and faith your employees must be experiencing.
there is no greater joy than waking up every day to work for a company you love. one that genuinely stands for something good in society. it is the very thing everyone is searching for: a place you can be proud of, an identity you are excited to share out loud with friends and discuss in private moments with your family. our work sits at the absolute epicenter of our lives. it is where we spend the majority of our time, and the experience we have within your walls dictates and determines the quality of our lives outside of them.
when Target turned its back on dei efforts, leadership unknowingly shifted the entire life trajectory of its workforce. over the last eighteen months, your Black employees, especially, have had to bear witness to something they love turn into something they hate. that shift manifests in heavy, deeply personal ways.
it starts on Sunday evening. where employees used to look forward to the week ahead, they are now consumed by an intense, paralyzing anxiety as they think about re-entering your environment tomorrow. all week, they have to walk through your hallways while your white colleagues stare at you with immense guilt in their eyes. the nausea, the sleepless nights, the dread of logging onto a meeting just to navigate the gross negligence of their peers and leaders is exhausting. and because the job market is incredibly difficult right now, they cannot afford to leave. they have to grin and bear it.
and then when they are looking for relief on the weekend, they have to figure out how to cleverly withhold where they work, because the brand has become an embarrassment and a public joke. they are forced to actively manage crisis communications in their own personal lives, fielding texts from relatives and family members wondering what the hell is going on over at Target?!
the feeling of being trapped and contained in a place they were once so enthusiastic to sign up for has turned a dream job into a psychological prison.
now you haven’t asked for my advice, but i’m going to give it anyway. here are 5 things i would do immediately to start the process of repairing trust with the people who matters most right now, which are your employees…
1. fire Cara Sylvester immediately and every single person within the merchandising org that could’ve touched this project. including by not limited to the agency or internal person who pitched it, the person who over saw product details, the creative marketer, the comms lead the hr person attached to the org, everybody. has. to. go. now. i don’t care that Cara is a longtime Target employee who rose through the ranks. there had to be at least 10 levels of approval internally for this and every single person missed it. someone at the very highest levels needs to be held publicly accountable. any other employee would be fired for less.
2. after firing the people involved with the project, then care for the family that is the victim of this project. personally call the Black family who’s child that was, apologize and give them a ton of money for the present and future damages this has caused. there is real emotional damage and distress this family is experiencing right now. i’m not sure if they knew what they were signing up for. but even if they did, they should not have been put in that situation in the first place.
3. once, everything on the project has been handled, halt anything and everything Black from going out the door until you’ve personally been able to review it. this should feel inconvenient and impractical, because it is. the best way to learn what’s really going on is to get your hands in the work immediately. this means any image, product, partnership or campaign that’s in the works. you cannot afford another misstep, Michael. since you all stripped all dei infrastructure, you do not have the internal mechanisms and you do not have the right people in place you can trust. trust is built on character and competence. somewhere along the line, the character of the people in your organization decided this was okay, and there was absolutely zero competence to stop it.
4. only after you have taken those first three actions can you gather your Black employees for a genuine apology in both word and deed. prove your apology is real by offering your salaried Black employees a minimum of three months of paid mental health leave, and give immediate hazard pay to your Black retail staff on the store floors. do not look them in the eyes and apologize if you haven’t properly handled firing the people on the project and caring for the family involved. and do not make them do the labor of submitting FMLA leave on their own. do it for them. they don’t need any more gaslighting. and hope and pray they aren’t gathering their collective therapist and doctor notes to file a class-action lawsuit against you for the hostile work environment they’ve had to endure and exist in.
5. begin the process of pulling together the definitive business case for your board on why you’re going to reinstate some kind of effort to double down on Black employees and Black consumers. make it clear that this is the most viable option to continue to generate billions in market value over the next 10 years. this should include everything from hiring Black executives at the highest levels of leadership, to launching authentic partnerships, and heavily investing in targeted marketing and brand protection. let them know at the next vote you are going to vote on issuing a transparent public apology for the harm Target has caused and then, you are going to get to work.
Michael, don’t just be the CEO that just manages business metrics. be the one who builds a legacy that’s worth being remembered for. a turnaround is possible. nothing is ever too far gone. you can keep playing it safe. or you can choose to save your brand. but you cannot do both.
sending u so much love,
m
This is excellent!!!!