LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 219 Ft. Mike Lamb

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

In this episode of the LPRC CrimeScience Podcast, Dr. Cory Lowe talks with long-time industry expert Mike Lamb about his career journey. They explore how loss prevention is continually evolving and how the need to build robust technology ecosystems can help better protect the average consumer.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to crime science. In this podcast, we explore the science of crime and the practical application of this science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners as well as other professionals. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everyone. Welcome to the crime science podcast. My name is Corey Lowe, and I'm the director of research here at the LPRC. I have the great, great opportunity to talk to Mr. Mike Lamb today. Mike, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Corey. It's a pleasure to be on with you, my friend. Yes, sir. So I always like starting off just, you're a pretty known quantity in the industry. But for anyone who doesn't know who you are, can you just give us a little bit of background about yourself and tell us about how you got into LP and where you went from there? I'd be happy to. It's a 45-year story, but I'll try to capture it in two minutes here, Corey. Yes, sir.

You know, when I was attending the University of Tennessee way back in 1976 through 1980, I was looking for a part-time job to help, you know, just have some spending money. I had a dear first cousin that worked with an apparel store there in the Knoxville area. And he said, look, I think I can get you a job doing something over here. I said, hey, let's do it. So I was looking for something part-time, and I actually began my career, putting price labels on cosmetics, if you can believe it. So I was the S.A. Lauder Clinic, Borghese guy.

And then about six months into that, this was 1979. A gentleman, a dear friend of mine who's long since passed, Danny Williams came to me and said, do you want to work in security? And my first question as a young kid was, does it pay more? And the answer was, yeah, yeah, we can give you a little bit more than you're making. And I said, okay, let's give it a run. And thus began my career in September 1979 in the world of retailing. And so it spans some 45 years, Corey.

I worked in the apparel business for a while. Then I moved into home improvement in 1980, what was in 1989? I went over to the Home Depot. I progressed to the position of vice president of asset protection. I stayed with them for approximately 13 and a half years. And then from there, I moved to Walmart where ultimately I ran the, I said protection and safety organization for Walmart U.S. Great learnings, great experience, great company.

I was there for about five years and Kroger came calling, the Kroger company out of Cincinnati. And initially I was very content to stay where I was, but we had some personal issues with my wife's father who was ill at the time. Cincinnati was much closer to our hometown of Knoxville than was, and was Bentonville, Arkansas. So I made that career jump and joined Kroger in May have 2017. They were in a bit of a quandary in a sense that they had two different verticals managing

their shrink and loss. They had an LP team and then they had what they called a shrink team. One focused predominantly on theft and malicious activity. That would be the LP team. The other team, the shrink team, focused on the mechanics of accounting and all the other issues that drove loss and waste in the business. So they merged those two. Created a VP position. I was very excited to take that job, and I soon did in May of 2017. At a three-year stint, I retired. I was asked about a year later to come back. I did so under the agreement of being there about a year,

and then ultimately retired in February of last year. So I've been out now for about a year and a half, but I still love the business. As you know, I still do a little consulting and just love the industry and the people in it. So that's my story, my story. friend. You did a fantastic job condensing, you know, over 40 years down into, what, a couple minutes here. During that time, I mean, I look through the industry and so many of the people that are, you know, major names in the field today still really started under you on your teams. And

I can go through naming a bunch of those, but there's a bunch of them. And it's people I'm still learning that were on your teams in the past. So I really wanted to start off and just ask about, you know, what were some of the principles that made you such an effective leader that you have so many people out there that you've trained and developed and have gone on to do things, amazing things in the industry? Well, first of all, thank you for that for that compliment. I've been very blessed, Corey, to be able to join companies that have outstanding talent on them, as was the case with, for example, Walmart. Martin Paul Jekle and ultimately Tom Riggi, who now serves in a leadership role with you at LPRC, Andy Stefanik over at Florendacore, and others, of course, and I'm sure I've left one or two out and I apologize, probably more. But I always felt like that one of the basic guiding principles of leadership was to treat those in the manner in which you would like to be treated. And that doesn't

mean you do favors. It doesn't mean you are forgiving when performance expectations aren't there. But you just have a philosophy where you want to support them in a way that makes them successful because smart leaders know if they're successful, their subordinates are successful, the direct reports are successful, then ultimately they'll be successful. So a lot of very smart people that I had the privilege of working with. And I would tell you, I've learned as much from them, arguably as they have for me, Tom O'Riggi is a great example, always, you know, not kiddingly, but I'd say you're one of the smartest guys I know, because I can have an idea or some ideation thought, and Tom does a wonderful job of, for example, taking it to the next level.

But, you know, you've got to be firm but fair, you know, and you've got to have a little humor, I think, Corey, in the work environment. Look, you know, we're not splitting the atom in retail. We're not curing cancer. you know we're there to do a job but it's okay to laugh on company time and that used to be one of my principles let's you know we all work hard so let's let's have a good a time as possible in doing so excellent thank you for that now you we went through your career and covered a lot of ground in a few minutes but one of the things that really struck me thinking about your career is that you went a couple of years. You had a couple of years of consecutive quarters of shrink

reduction at Kroger. What would you say were the primary factors enabling your success in, I mean, years of success over at Kroger? Yeah, well, you know, look, it's, I kind of liking it to sports, right? You know, as you probably know, I'm a major fan of. college football. And if you looked at Kroger's shrink performance when I took over, they weren't necessarily a winning team, right? They had some challenges. So my approach going in to the Kroger job, and I think it's one of the primary reasons that we were able to string along the success, and I think it was 14 quarters consecutively of improvement. I'm very proud and I'm very proud of the organization for accomplishing that.

But when I first came aboard, in my first week, I wrote what I thought was a fair assessment in the form of a SWAT analysis. So what are the strengths of the organization that could be leveraged? What are some of the weaknesses that I saw and observed in the first couple of weeks I was there? And I know these things can change, but you get and you understand just in talking to your own team and others what some of the weaknesses are. Opportunities, meaning they may not be necessarily weaknesses, but we weren't exploiting opportunities to take more shrink off the table. And then lastly, threats, you know, what's happening with the competition, what's happening in

the industry, how are things evolving? So I sat down over the course of several days, and I wrote a SWAT analysis, and I put in the SWAT analysis, the strategy, and the plan for the first 18 months at Kroger. And I cut it into three months. So what did I want to accomplish in the first three months? And one of those, Corey, was to seek to understand before I sought to be understood. And I didn't want to come in guns blazing. And we need to do this. We need to do that. I wanted to understand things before I put a footprint on many of the objectives that we set. So I had a three months, six month, 12 month, and an 18 month plan. And because you you know, hope's not a strategy.

So whether operationally it was trying to gain some traction on waste in the business because grocery is a unique form of retailing, or whether it was just the criminal side of the house and the malicious loss that Kroger was suffering and how did we leverage technology and what were some of the goals? One of the things I found at Kroger, and they would tell you this, so it's no secret, is there was not a lot of consistency across the 2,700 stores. You'd go division to division because there were some 22 divisions of Kroger and each sort of had their own way of doing things. So one of the first things that I sought to accomplish was one way of working.

How do we standardize things? Because if something makes a lot of sense in Atlanta, Georgia, it probably makes a lot of sense in Los Angeles, California, and everywhere in between. So from prosecution standards to how we went to market with technology to deter theft, to technological, to identify theft, and even operational structure. One of the things I had great support from the Kroger leadership team, and I said, look, I need an executive on my team that helps support me with merchandising initiatives. Because we love our merchants. They buy the product, the customers purchase, but they're not always in the same

camp of you in terms of, you know, more is too much. And in this world of waste and grocery, more is not always better. Just right is what you aim to achieve. So I wrote out that slot analysis. And one of the things I'm most proud of, Corey, I was reflecting on this just recently, ironically, was of the, I don't know, there were probably 18 initiatives that I had down there. We probably accomplished somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 of those where I said, look, I want to have some form of technology at self-checkout that helped us identify me.

malicious behavior. I want to ensure that we have standards across operating procedures in 22 divisions. I want the AP team to be reporting in centrally that 70% of what they do ought to come from us, 30% of what they do should be up to the divisions to set those parameters. So we're very proud of those milestones. And it was an 18-month plan. And quite honestly, because I was there nearly five years, after 18 months, it started kicking in. And here. And here's a lot of Here's the other thing I would tell you is don't walk away from a good plan prematurely, right? You know, you can't have flavor of the month. You can't say, I'm going to do this, and then two months later, you do something else.

I think you have to put the proper thought into that plan. What does that strategy look like? Tactically, under that strategy, what are you going to do? And you do them consistently enough that you don't walk away too soon. Now, if you've got something in place for six months or a year, it's not working yet. Maybe it's time to reassess, but don't be afraid to stick to your plan. You know, there were some great leaders I've had the privilege of working for. One used to tell me having a simple plan doesn't make you a simple leader.

So, you know, it's got to be something folks can understand. And Corey, you know, I've done podcasts and all kinds of things over the years. And so the audits may have heard me say this, but I'll say it again. I had four leadership principles when I went into any company, whether it was the Home Depot, whether it was Walmart and ultimately Kroger. One was with my team, my direct reports and their subordinates, one was attitude, and it was expect to win, right? What college football team or pro team or any team athletically goes in and says, you know what, we're not going to win today, right?

Because if you have that attitude, you won't. So, and Kroger was an organization that hadn't won a while on the shrink front. So it was expect to win. The second one was take it personally. If you're not winning, look in the mirror. You don't look out the window because what are you doing individually that helps the team as a whole? And are you taking it personally when those accomplishments and those objectives are not being and those goals are not being reached. Three was be relevant.

You know, you can't be a wallflower. You know, in the world of AP, you've got to insert yourself. You can't wait to be invited to the party, right? And we all know that, but you've got to practice that. You know, it's been said a lot, but you've got to practice it. So I insisted with the team, hey, you're in a leadership role. You're there to help carry forward the objectives of our department, be relevant in doing so. You know, invite yourself to the meeting.

And then the fourth one was take a swing, right? Unless you get hit by the ball, you're not going to get on base unless you swing. And I used to tell these guys, swing for the fence, right? And we'll take a single. We'd love a double. Triples better. Home runs great. Grand slam.

Beautiful. But take a swing. So four principles. Expect a win. Take it personally. Be relevant. Take a swing. And in both Walmart and Kroger in particular,

every time I had national meetings and we had the team together, I said, look, this is the rules that I have followed. and tried to adhere to as a leader. Now, maybe not perfectly. Maybe not every scenario. I hit it out of the park. But these are the four things that are my guiding principles for leadership. And I would ask you to personally assess, are they right for you?

Fantastic. I feel like I've sat through a master class because I've been sitting here taking some very, very deep notes here. But I wanted to go back to something you said earlier, which is seek to understand before seeking to be understood. I have a feeling that that might be a big part of why you've been so successful with cross-functional partnerships, right? When you were doing some of the things that you did at Walmart and Kroger, you got some technologies through, entire ecosystems through, that I don't think many people could have done.

So can you tell us a little bit about your strategy, getting some of those business cases through to legal and HR and IT and all these partners? in the business, and how does that seek to understand before seeking to be understood play into that? Because I'm sure that it does. Yeah, you know, I think all of us, Corey, learn from the leaders that we've had the privilege of working for. And we learn from what we observe are really good qualities. And then we learn from those that perhaps we look at and go, that's not a quality that I want to emulate. And I've worked for leaders who would come in and just systematically change out teams. You know, they, they would come in as the number one in

asset protection, and then, you know, 30, 60 days later, they brought in three people from another company. They bring in their own playbook from the last company they were in before really pausing to listen and understand the culture, the broader objectives of the organization that they've joined, and they just throw the playbook down and say, we're going to do this. And I've experienced that. And it, and, And it doesn't work. Now, are there certain things from those playbooks? Do we all bring with us fast experiences that we know are good to new companies?

Yes, we should. But it can't be cookie cutter, right? So for me, the seek to understand before you seek to be understood is about understand what is the broader objective of the organization, right? What is the mission statement for the company? And then align yourself cross-functionally with those leaders and those very, various departments. And so, for example, with merchants, I didn't go in and say, hey, guys, let's control shrink. I'd go in and say, hey, look, let's sell more and lose less.

Yes. Because for the merchant, they want to sell. And this sell more to lose less. I didn't coin that for aides. It's been around a long time, but I meant it. Look, I even said, heck, let's sell more and lose the same. Because even if we do, I win. So, you know, how can I help you grow your top line while you help me protect the bottom line? line. So you just, you work on those relationships. And here's another lamb saying. And I don't know if I heard it from somebody 50 years ago or, or if I just made it up myself. But it is you don't have to win every battle to win the war, Corey. You don't have to win every battle to win the war.

So know when to compromise with some of your strategic partners in various departments, whether it's IT or legal or finance or human resources. And people will do more for you than they will and spotty of you. You know, be a good, be a good ambassador for your company. Don't make it just about your business all the time. So when you sit on with the, you know, with the vice president that oversees meat and seafood, how are sales, you know, how are your comp sales doing? You know, what, you know, what can I help you with? Do you feel like that we're locking up sales in some category that I could lean in. So, you know, be that partner because they'll appreciate that.

And if they don't, they probably shouldn't be in their roles. And for those that didn't appreciate it over the years, they probably weren't in those roles a long time. So I have found that collaboration with a dose of compromise is a really good approach as a leader. Thank you. Thank you. Now, that plays into some of what I've been working through lately, which has put a lot

about frictionless retail and it's always seemed like a pipe dream to me because walls are friction doors are friction there's always going to be friction in brick and mortar retail so it seems like we need to be more efficient with friction so for example when we have we have doors we have walls and then we have doors and we channel people through those doors and we use that as an opportunity to advertise when people come through through the door right so I've been thinking in terms of how do we leverage some of that friction to achieve operational goals and broader organizational goals? Can you tell me how you've used that a similar approach when you were in leadership positions at whether Crover or Walmart or wherever you were? How did that type of

thinking, you know, inform what you did? Yeah. Well, you know, it was probably true in all three organizations that I supported, maybe the verbiage was a little different. But, you know, what leadership wanted, executive leadership from CEO down was you wanted a good customer experience, you wanted your associates to be friendly, and you wanted to be in stock on the product that that customer was looking for. And if you could accomplish those three things, chances are you were going to, and you were price competitive, you were going to be successful. So when I looked at friction on the floor of the store, I took those three things into account and said, for example, you know, how can I replace a lock with technology that would allow me to, for example, unlock sales? In fact, one of the projects I'm working on now as a consultant is, you know, you're going to these home improvement centers, you're going to just about any retail shop, mass merchandising, home improvement, even great.

grocery and you walk the aisles and you can't get to the product, right? And look, I get it. You know, companies are trying to protect the bottom line, but at the same time, you're killing your top line. So you're spot on with this notion of, you know, how do we go about leveraging technology and people? Because it takes both to unlock sales, for example. I mean, you go into the orange colored box or the blue colored box and home improvement and you go into the hardware department and you're not going to find anything of any value that's not under lock and key. So how do we come up with a solution technology-wise where at least maybe for your pro-contractor, your best customer, your preferred customer, that they can shop with ease versus having to wait

on someone to get to them, to service them? And friction comes in many forms, right? you know we've heard the old maxim for decades that the best to turn to shoplifting is great customer service right so you know you know how do you drive that in a store and you know I was talking to who was out oh I was talking to Ed Wolf the other day an old colleague of mine and you know it was it was very interesting that we said you know one of the things that fundamentally that maybe some companies have walked away from is just have a friendly greeting associate and and the difference that that will make uh in in terms of the bad

guy going away but the good customer continuing to shop because you and our customers right we're going to retail stores you want to get in you want to get out you want to be fast you want to be friendly uh but as you walk into some of these stores and god bless them i understand i'm not being critical here i'm just saying there's got to be a better way you know uh was it the walgreens CFO maybe the CEO said, look, we made a decision to start locking up product. But what we found was, in locking up product, we were locking up sales. So I think there's a big move of front out there to say, you know, how do we make it easier for folks to shop?

You know, if we're not careful, this whole locking up everything, in my opinion, is going to push more people to online. A lot of people love that bricks and mortar experience. My mother-law, for example, said, I don't want to order my groceries from Kroger online. I like being in the store. I like the feel, I like the smell, I like the shop, and we're always going to have that. But more and more people are looking for convenience, and they're looking for competitive pricing. And when you offer those two things, for many, it doesn't matter whether it's setting it on their sofa or walking into the store.

But if I walk into a store and it's locked up, you know, I might prefer to set on the sofa. I couldn't agree more. I know that I'm going to do that. If I go to a store and I need to buy razors, I won't shop at that store anymore for razors. It's just not going to happen. And the reason for that isn't necessarily because it's locked up, but oftentimes because it's impossible to find someone to come unlock it for you. And that just goes back to customer services.

If you can boost that and make it more efficient, even if you're locking it up and it takes a while, that's the problem. Is it taking a while? How can we make it simpler? I want to go back to that idea of the smart locks. I think that's one of the most important ideas. that's come up in the last couple of years, is this idea, and I don't know if the solution that you're working with is this way, but it's the idea of a value exchange, where I'm

exchanging my personally identifiable information for access to lurk-lawed merchandise. So I think that's what's really beautiful about that is an offender's greatest asset is their anonymity. The green guest or the customer, you know, that anonymity doesn't matter quite as much to them, right? It goes back to the old saying, you know, you don't have anything to worry about if you aren't doing anything wrong, right? I know there's privacy concerns and all on that, but, you know, that red guest, that person who's there to commit crime, that anonymity, if we can take them from that for access to merchandise, I think that's a much greater cost to them than it is to the green guest. And that can be applied to a lot of different places.

It can be applied to self-checkout. It can be applied. A similar concept can be applied to returns and everything else. So I think that you're really on to something with that. You're spot off. You know, I had this saying, you know, we don't want any dolphin in the tuna net, right? I remember when I was at the Home Depot, I actually went to Frank Blake, was asked to go to Frank Blake by Marvin Ellison, who was my boss at the time, because I, I wanted to pitch, Marvarez was running stores, I wanted to pitch retooling and engineering

a return system for Home Depot that would cut out fraud. And, you know, I used to tell the organization that helped us stand this up, it was at the time of the retail equation. I think they're long since gone. I mean, I don't know. Perhaps you would know. But I used to tell them, guys, absolutely no dolphin in the tuna net. because when I met with the CEO, he was very firm about, look, I know we have a problem here,

you've made that clear, but I will not allow you in any way, shape, or form to create any problems for our good customers. And so that's the approach you have to take. You know, treat the 97% pick your percentage of those that are honest, and don't penalize them for the 3% that are creating 80% of your problems. And, you know, there's a myriad of technologies. And I commend you, Corey, and the LPRC team for, you know, your lab and all the examples of the latest technology that exists today in the retail sector so that we can unlock sales. And there's a lot of them out there.

And I think one of the things that I'm most impressed with about LPRC among many is the fact that you guys don't necessarily advocate any one technology, but you help vet provide efficacy. for studies around technology or programs or initiatives. And I think that has been a wealth of goodness, if you will, and benefit for the retail industry. And those solutions are out there. And you'd only go to an NRF or ELA or Pickett, right? There's all kinds of shows to see a lot of these technologies that are available. And I support a number of these companies because I believe in what they're doing. and I believe over time, many have great traction today,

but I think a few of the ones I'm working with are going to have better traction in the future based on this whole notion of, and you can't lock everything up in a store and you really expect to have a happy customer and a happy experience. You know, Tide, for example, and tied ponds in the grocery environment, a target for all of those, right, have been forever.

And so you'd want, stores and they'd say, look, Mike, I don't want to lock it up because then the good customers can't get it. But when I put it out, I'm just replenishing it at rate of theft. So, you know, that's one of my ambitions is to work on, well, how do we answer for that, right? How do we allow the good customers to buy their product like they want freely, but at the same time mitigate against the bad guys? I've called it trust would verify, right? You know, you can gain access to it, and I'm going to trust you, but I'm going to put in a technology that helps me verify that you that you are legitimate customer yeah thank you for that i i think that

you're right on the money that's we have a lot of different solutions at the lprc and a lot of times people will see a solution and they'll think okay well this we've got a study here that says this is this works and then they'll start applying that that solution to other um other problems and that's not typically the best way i go about doing things because you don't know whether that solution is actually going to work well. So the way that I've been thinking about lately is, you know, your merchants and you and your marketing folks, they have, you know, customer segments. I think that the same type of thinking has to apply for loss prevention professionals who need to be thinking about, okay, not only the customer segments that are being targeted with these products or who you're trying to sell

to, but also who are the offender segments. You know, what are they going to respond to? Is this a one'sy-to-sie problem where we have opportunities who are hitting us again and again or is this an ORC element that we need to put something in that's going to drive them elsewhere or, you know, prevent it altogether. And I think those are different

strategies and they take a very targeted they require targeting rather than just saying, okay, this work for, you know, retailer A, so I'll bring it over here to put it on product Z retailer B. It doesn't make any sense to do that. It's not very strategic. So how did you go

about, you know, solution selection in a very targeted way that actually targets the actual problem. Like, how do you do the problem analysis and then, you know, solution selection? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's really, you sum it up in one ward. It's, you know, really prioritization. Like if you're trying to protect a specific commodity that you know has been problematic for years and you put a solution in, you know, you have to follow it, right? I mean, I will tell you as an industry, Corey, and I'm guilty of it. So this is a self-unditement, too, is, you know, we have a tendency that we'll find a technology, for example, that we want to put in, we put it in, we put it in a number of stores, and we kind of launch and leave. You know, we don't really follow

through to say, okay, you know, leading indicators like my in-stock has improved, my balance on hand, my perpetual inventory, accuracy has improved. And then ultimately, what are we seeing with loss, whether it's, you know, you've got known reports of loss or whether you take a physical inventory and you see that, hey, I'm making improvement. You're absolutely right that we have a tendency that if we see something that works on item A, well, gosh, let's put it on item B, C, D, E, F, and G. And before you know it, you kind of lose track of what you're doing. And so you do have to take a targeted approach, in my opinion. Now, that's not to suggest that you can't have a solution or a technology that you begin in maybe one department, maybe it's laundry detergent,

and then you ultimately expand perhaps to wet shave. And it's just hypothetical. I'm making it up. But all too often, you know, you'd put it in an area, and I've witnessed this and I've been guilty of it. I'd walk the store and they'd go, no, you know what, Mike, we decided we weren't going to put it on item X. We've now got it over here on item B. And it's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. So I think as an industry, and I think solution providers have to weigh in on this, Corey. I feel very firmly about this, is when you set up a proof of technology or a proof of concept, what are you mapping specifically to measure benefit? Because I know in this world of capital management, and when you go in for dollars through finance,

you just don't go in with, trust me, it works. You know, you've got to be able to show a pattern of consistency in return of, investment. And then once you've done that, then you bring it to scale. Scale may be 200 stores in a 500 store chain, or it may be all 500. You know, our philosophy at Kroger, because you asked specifically about Kroger was, you know, vet the solution, vet the technology. And we go in with biases. I'll give a great example. No commercial for ever seen, but I used ever seen at Walmart, right? And I knew that it was helping us mitigate a lot of loss at self-checkout. I got to Kroger and they had a significant high percentage of throughput or utilization at

SCO with zero technology. So I went to finance. I went to IT. I went to operations and I said, we have got to demonstrate and prove that there's an issue here. And there's a technology that I want to put in as a proof of technology in a Cincinnati store, measure it for a month, and bring you the results. And we did, and the results were quite astonishing on what we were seeing in terms of losses. So then we moved from proof of technology, and we went into like five stores, and we measured that for 90 days. I went back with the results, and they said, oh, my goodness, this looks like a problem. Then we could begin to quantify what we think we were mitigated in terms of avoidance of loss with the technology, and then we went to a division, and then we

went full company. But it was a journey. You know, you don't, you don't get there overnight. You have to be patient because you've got to bring partners with you, right? You got to bring those partners with you. So hopefully I'm not rambling here. Hopefully some of that makes sense to you. No, it makes a lot of sense. When you were saying that you have the software, if you go to Kroger today, you know, you have the software pretty much all of them, right? I think that's where you're going with that. Yeah, yeah. We started out with one store and we ultimately ended up with 2,600 stores that have the technology because we could show and demonstrate the return on the investment.

And, you know, and there were a variety of technology. There's a company that offers the ability to lock a cart if you have product that's not paid for being pushed out the door. I wasn't sure how big our problem was at Kroger and Corey. So we took a store out in Portland and we installed the system and we put it in a passive mode, meaning it was going to video record, but it wasn't going to lock the cart. In six weeks, it's a true story. In six weeks, we had 92 repeat offenders pushing out cards of product stolen.

Now, when you take that to your leadership team, they're going to go, wait, what? You know, it's like Houston, we have a problem here. So then we began to build on that technology and expand that technology. I will say this, though, and I think you know this as well as anybody, given the work you do, is I don't think solution providers can go in a long. anymore. They have to buddy up. They have to partner up with other solutions. Because when you do that, it creates this force multiplier because it really, it really accelerates and optimizes the value of all those solutions. And, you know, we've been hearing about it now for

three, four years. It's ecosystem play. And I know you guys are talking about it down there and doing research on it. To me, it just makes a ton of sense. And here's the other thing, while I'm on a rant here is, you know, I used to have those. those in certain companies that would say, ah, hi, well, we were able to get around your technology at SCO. We did this and we did that and we beat. What I would say to them is, look, let us not let great or perfect get in the way of really good. Yes. And that's when I'd use the line, because I don't have to win every battle to win the war. If I can demonstrate this has a return on the investment, the internal rate of return is such that we need to continue to assess its

implementation, I'm going to do it. And that's why we were very successful at Kroger. Let me say this too. And I'll say it publicly. Mary Ellen Adcock, who I now think she heads up their merchandising and marketing, was a staunch supporter. And she paid attention to what I felt were the priorities that needed to be pushed. Now, does that mean she gave me everything I asked for? No. But she allowed me to lead that department. And she gave me the freedom to make my own choices. Now, she was going to hold me accountable for those choices, and she should. But I had great senior leadership support. Going back to our question 30 minutes ago on, how did you achieve the 13, 14 consecutive quarters of improvement? Great senior leadership support.

But you got to go in with passion. You got to go in with data. And you got to go in with a confidence. And if you don't, then somebody else is going to beat you. The merchant's going to beat you. marketing is going to beat you. You know, you got to, you know, you just, you got to do that. And I think sometimes today now working on the other side of the house, sometimes think maybe we're missing some of that. I suspect that we probably are. I want to go back to those two solution partners that you mentioned. And I hate making, you know, naming specific solution providers.

But in this case, it was ever seen a gatekeeper. What's interesting about both those examples is they both have that observation component where, you know, when you're rolling it out, you can start by understanding how extensive the problem is. And so when you roll it out, you have a pretty good way of understanding the problem itself and then solving for it. So, I mean, essentially, you're able to build out the business case using the technology itself, which is a pretty incredible thing. It goes back to your point about making sure that you can measure these things. things over time. We did a webinar with Chris Harris and Chris McCarrick not too long ago with the gatekeeper solution. You can see just annually the decline in pushouts, for example, after that baseline was established by that observation period. The same thing is true with the cell

checkout solutions. So I think that was pretty interesting that you use those two examples which have the metrics baked in to the solution, or at least the way to detect it and understand the problem. Well, what's great about those two solutions is a company won't support a solution unless they feel like they have a problem, right? Yeah. And when you can demonstrate you've got a problem, you know, 92 repeat offenders in one store in six weeks, then the business will listen generally. And the same's true with the other technology on the front end. It's like folks had we not had this in place. This is what we would have lost. So then you're, You're allowing your organization to hear how big is the problem because there's a lot of problems

in organizations, a lot of challenges, right? You've got to demonstrate your challenge is significant enough that the company is willing to make a financial investment in solving for it. And Croger did that. They did that extraordinarily well during my time there. And the proof was in the pudding. Like I say, we're very proud of the performance. But let me say this.

This was not an individual of Mike Lamb performance. man, I had such a great team of leaders at Kroger that were committed, worked hard every day. It was a pleasure to work with them. We'd have our national meetings, and, boy, we just have a blast, right? So I enjoyed all three organizations that I worked for. Great memories, certainly at Kroger. My Walmart, I learned so much at Walmart. I learned that whatever can't happen generally is going to happen and does have it at Walmart somewhere every day across America.

But I have been, you know, so blessed, Corey, to have worked for some great organizations and great leaders. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. We started off talking about people. We went on to technology and spent some time there. And every chance you got, you went back to that role of people. So let's end on that. You know, there's a lot of really awesome junior leaders out there.

You know, what is some final advice that you would give them for this podcast? You know, those aspiring leaders out there, you know, the people who want to be, you know, future VPs, what is the most important piece of advice that you give them to have a successful career in loss prevention asset protection? That's a great question. And look, be tenacious, be tenacious, absorb all the information and knowledge you can across the industry. that's two three work on communication and selling skills communication and selling skills and you may say wait a p what are you selling

you're selling your program to your organization 365 days out of the year you got to be able to do that efficiently both verbally and in writing so be tenacious study the industry

and work on communication skills and be the very best at it because, you know, I've had great people over the years, Corey, that I've seen them and worked with them and they perhaps moved to other companies or they've applied for the jobs. They've got all the technical skill sets in the world, but they have an inability to articulate how they put that into motion. Because when you're interviewing for a job, it's like you've got to be the billboard that when you go down the interstate, I'm going to look at that billboard, right? Because, you know, you're probably going to be one among many people that are interviewed. You've got to show a passion. you've got to show an energy, and you have to be courageous in the approach you take and leading, right?

And I know that sounds cliche, but I think it's so true. You know, and I admire so many of the great leaders that are out there today in asset protection. And quite honestly, when I observe them, that's what I see. That's why when you ask me the question, that's the manner in which I answer it. They're tenacious. They study the industry. They do well with their peers, right? They network well.

and they have great communication skills. And I tell you, you get those three things going for you, you're going to have a hard time losing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Mike, I hope that everyone is listening. Anyone that's, you know, out there, I hope they've been taking notes because it's been fantastic talking to you.

You know, the LPRC is focused on science, but it's always fantastic to talk to leaders and get that leadership perspective because we can all, every single one of us, no matter where we are in the business, business can always lead, no matter where you are. So thank you for spending some time with this day on crime science podcast. It's always an absolute pleasure talking to you. And I look forward to the next time we get to talk. So thank you, Mike. Sounds great, Corey. Thank you for having me, buddy. Take care now. You too. Bye. Thanks for listening to the crime science podcast,

presented by the Lost Prevention Research Council. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more crime science episodes and valuable information. at L.P.research.org. The content provided in the crime science podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science podcast are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Loss Prevention Research Council.