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. I did not keep that discipline to myself. I trained my sales department to understand it deeply, so that a patient who understands their options and never feels pushed is the standard the whole team is measured against.

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.