Her Story
About Nicole
I've been in operations management for about 9 years now, though my journey here wasn't exactly planned. I started at Home Depot loading mulch when I was young, and I just kept taking opportunities as they came and getting promoted. My education is actually in criminal justice and sociology - my plan was to go the restorative justice route. But as I continued in my employment and kept getting promoted into people management, I realized the same skills were applicable: the empathy, the education side of things, learning how to work with people. That's what has helped me flourish in the operations role. I worked my way up through retail management, then transferred into supply chain management and logistics. I did operations management in a logistics facility, then was promoted to transportation manager where I ran the transportation yard logistics for the West Coast Home Depot reverse logistics facility for a few years. I recently transitioned over to Target as an operations manager for the Regional Distribution Center, where I currently have 40 direct reports. I'm excited about this change because while the people management side is pretty parallel to what I'd been doing, Target does things a lot differently, and I feel like I have a lot of good ideas to bring to the table for the efficiency side of things and for the safety of the team members.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Nicole
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would say honesty is the key to my success. Being honest with yourself about areas that may be opportunities for you, as well as just being honest in your situation with people. A lot of times people will say someone is always crabby, but I'll end up being friends with them because I actually take the time to care. Like this guy in plumbing - all it took was me figuring out he liked cooking and making himself a good dinner every night, and I'd ask 'What did you have for dinner last night?' Then we'd have small talk and people would say 'oh, he loves you.' I'm like, well, I was kind to him. It really just comes down to actually being kind and caring about people, and being honest in that. Sometimes being honest means telling someone they're not doing the best job and they can do better, but it doesn't need to be done in a disciplinary way. It can be done in a way that's empathetic, so people aren't feeling like it's an attack on them. I think being able to frame difficult conversations as caring about people and wanting them to do better, and actually meaning it when you say it, is probably the biggest difference. That's been my focus my whole career - just remaining honest and trusting that there's checks and balances in place, and all you can do is be honest.
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