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Consider This!

Getty Images “The character that takes command in moments of critical

choices has already been determined. It has been deter-
mined by a thousand other choices made earlier in seemingly
unimportant moments. It has been determined by all those
‘little’ choices of years past—by all those times when the voice of conscience was at war
with the voice of temptation—whispering a lie that ‘it doesn’t really matter.’ It has been
determined by all the day-to-day decisions made when life seemed easy and crises seemed
far away, the decisions that piece by piece, bit by bit, developed habits of discipline or of
laziness; habits of self-sacrifice or self-indulgence; habits of duty and honor and integrity—or
dishonor and shame.”
Source: President Ronald Reagan, quoted in Norman R. Augustine, “Seven Fundamentals of Effective
Leadership,” an original essay written for the Center for the Study of American Business, Washington
University in St. Louis, CEO Series Issue no. 27, (October 1998).

IN THE LEAD Wendy Steinberg, Whole Foods Market
Whole Foods Market started as one small health foods store in Austin, Texas in
1978. By 2006, it had grown to 187 locations with sales approaching $5 billion.
Wendy Steinberg, now an associate team leader at the Columbus Circle Store,
recalls her first meeting with the company’s founder and CEO, John Mackey: “I was

on break in the break room. I hadn’t been a team member more than six months,
and there was this guy in the break room. He was sitting there, with his hands
crossed . . . just checking things out. . . . He asked me a lot of questions. I had no
idea who he was.” Mackey’s style is a reflection of the values that guide Whole

Foods, even through its tremendous growth in recent years. As Mackey once put it,
“We’re creating an organization based on love instead of fear.”
At Whole Foods, leaders from the top down have to be comfortable with
extreme decentralization, a “no-secrets” management approach, and an egalitar-
ian culture. The company’s core values include a commitment to both “customer
delight” and “team member happiness.” Whole Foods’ dress code is very liberal,
allowing people to express their individuality, and each employee can take 20 hours
of paid time each year to do volunteer work. Each store is divided into functional
teams that make decisions about everything from what gets stocked on the shelves
to who gets hired as a team member. People are hired onto a team provisionally;
after four weeks, the team votes whether to keep the new employee permanently.
It’s a critical issue, since high performing teams earn additional money through
profit-sharing. At headquarters, as well, the National Leadership Team makes de-

cisions by majority vote. At the end of every business meeting, including those
conducted by the CEO, participants do a round of “appreciations” in which they say
something nice about the other people involved in the meeting.
In every Whole Foods store, there’s a book that lists the pay of every employee,
from the CEO on down. Executive pay is limited to no more than 14 times the aver-

age pay of frontline workers. Everyone qualifies for stock options (about 94 percent
are currently held by non-management employees), and employees get to vote on
such matters as what health insurance plan to adopt (Whole Foods pays 100 percent
of the cost for full-time workers).

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