What Louis Vuitton taught me about running a clinic

I spent three years on the Louis Vuitton floor in Dubai. My colleagues called me Wikipedia because I could not stop learning the house, the leathers, the history, the reason a stitch sits where it sits. Curiosity was the only competitive advantage I had, and it turned out to be enough.

The transferable part

In luxury, you are not selling a product, you are selling a dream. In healthcare you are not selling a procedure, you are offering someone a version of themselves they want to reach. In both cases the person in front of you is quietly asking the same question. Do you actually see me, or am I today's transaction?

• Preparation before the person arrives. Know the file, the history, the last conversation.
• Listening for the unstated reason. Nobody tells you the real motive in the first five minutes.
• Consistency of standard. The tenth client of the day gets the first client's attention.
• Environment as reassurance. Space, quiet and order tell people they are somewhere serious.

At Hortman you will always feel at home, understood and inspired. I brought that promise with me from the shop floor.

The part that must not transfer

In retail, persuasion is the job. In medicine, persuasion is a hazard. A patient who has been convinced rather than informed is a failure of care regardless of how well the outcome goes. So the single discipline I had to unlearn was the instinct to close. The clinical team decides what is appropriate. My job is to make sure the patient understood their options and never felt pushed.

On leadership

I started as a micromanager. I moved to being empathic, sometimes too much. Where I have landed is leading by example, which is harder than both because it removes the option of asking anyone for something I am not doing myself. Losing my job at Louis Vuitton during COVID was the best setback I have had. It ended the version of me that needed a house's name to feel legitimate.

We rise by lifting others. It is on our wall because it is the only management theory I have found that survives contact with a difficult week.