Today I posted some thoughts on the Sears Holdings blog (SHC Speaks) related to the re-positioning of its store portfolio.

Sears Holdings will continue to execute on its plan to integrate its store and digital capabilities, which will include adjusting the size and number of stores it operates. Additionally, Sears Holdings will continue to build and experiment with new capabilities in stores and on its mobile and online platforms, with an emphasis on its Shop Your Way membership program and integrated retail offerings.

I believe that the focus on positioning and adapting Sears Holdings for the future has been the correct one.  Many business analysts and scholars have suggested that companies should disrupt themselves before allowing others to do it to them. This, in part, is what Sears Holdings has been doing. The theory is great, yet, as we have seen, it is very difficult to do in practice.

The attitude of experimentation with a focus on learning from what works and does not work, presupposes that many things won’t work as expected.  Creating a culture that embraces difficult, sometimes painful change as a process of learning, rather than a process of failure, is what I emphasize every day.