Whole Foods

Whole Foods Market

John Mackey is the unconventional CEO of the extreme successful Whole Foods Market. Mackey cofounded and has headed the fasted growing organic health food store ever. His style of management can almost be described as lack of management. The stores are heavily decentralized. The store relies heavily on the team concept. Mackey has discovered an organizational structure that attracts, selects, motivates, and retains the right people.

Authors Dreher and Dougherty list organizational fit as the 11th of 19 domain statements (2001, p. 53). Hopeful new hires are brought in to work for four weeks on a trial basis. At the end of the four weeks the team members must elect to keep the candidate by a two-thirds vote in favor (Fast Company.Com, 2008). The team knows the importance of selecting the best teammates. At Whole Foods team productivity is calculated and rewards are shared with the most productive teams. The deserving teams receive $1.50 to $2.00 more per hour worked every other paycheck based on this reward system (Fast Company.Com, 2008). Teams want to vote in only the best workers that we assist in the team’s goals.

The team members are empowered. The local teams are permitted to select produce that the team believes will contribute to the department’s desire to meet the customers’ needs. For example team members may select seafood, meat, or vegetables they believe will please the customers. Teams can match locally available organic products with the local demand.

At Whole Foods the customer is number one and the employees are a very close second. In each store there is a book that contains every employee’s pay for the previous year (Fast Company.Com, 2008). Salaries are not a secret. Mackey has a philosophy of no secret management. The executives earn a maximum of 14 times the frontline employee’s pay. Whole Foods has a “Declaration