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What's the best way to break in a new executive? Put him to work on the sop floor. If you ask
Henry Nasella, he'll tell you few experiences can match it for letting a manager see the company's problems firsthand.
Nasella had been a supermarket executive for two decades when he became president of Staples Inc., a $200-million
chain of 40 discount office-supply stores with headquarters in Newton, Mass. He knew nothing about the office - supply business, so he spent a
couple of weeks of his first month on the floor of one store, unloading delivery trucks, stocking shelves and working the cash registers.
"I got a good handle on what we did well and didn't do well," says Nasella. "The things we didn't do well came
through loud and clear."
When he took over operating responsibility a week later, Nasella was up to speed on how the business worked -- a
process, he says, that would have taken many months if he had stayed in the office.
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