Whole Foods

Many organizations like to tout their use of teams and teamwork because it is fashionable to do so, not because they actually take teams seriously. However, at Whole Foods, which specializes in high-end natural and organic foods, teams and teamwork are truly an integral foundation of the company's structure and culture. Started in Austin, Texas, in 1980 as a health food store, the Whole Foods chain has become a highly profitable exception in a supermarket industry most generally known for small profit margins and lack of innovation. The Whole Foods culture stresses autonomy, empowerment, and entrepreneurship, and its team-based structure is at the heart of that culture. Most stores feature about 10 teams, organized around functions such as checkout and products such as prepared foods, meat, produce, and seafood. Within stores, team leaders also comprise a team, and within geographical regions store leaders comprise teams, as do regional presidents. These teamsnot a hierarchyare at the core of the company, and peer pressure replaces bureaucracy as a means of ensuring good performance.

The teams at Whole Foods have exceptional autonomy to make decisions concerning ordering, spending, pricing, and promotions. Ambitious sales targets are encouraged, and teams compete within and between stores, as well as with themselves over time. To a large degree, stores operate like stand-alone businesses, free to cater to local tastes and search out local food products. The decentralized teamwork philosophy assumes that associates will take responsibility if they are given autonomy as well as fulsome information about company operations. Thus, detailed information on team and store sales, profits, salaries, and bonuses across the entire company is openly available to help guide team decisions. In conventional supermarkets, such information (e.g., profit per hour of labour) is a closely guarded secret. And in such markets, "I'll have to ask a manager" is a common response to customer problems. At Whole Foods, autonomy, coupled with information, means that team members are both encouraged to, and capable of, resolving such problems, making adjustments as deemed necessary without managerial approval.

Like everything else at Whole Foods, hiring is team based. All new hires, whether they are store cashiers or home-office financial professionals, are subject to a rigorous 60-day screening that includes multiple interviews, provisional placement on a team, and a vote by the team on the acceptability of the candidate after a lengthy trial period. A two-thirds majority positive vote is required for the hire to become permanent. Teams are rigorous about accepting members, in part because of a gainsharing bonus system that ties their pay to the overall performance of the team, and nobody wants their team to be disadvantaged by a slacker. Teams sometimes reject the provisional placements made by leaders, and this reinforces a sense of ownership and dedication to the team, fostering cohesion among the members.In 2017, Amazon paid $14 billion to acquire Whole Foods, perhaps hoping to capitalize in part on its team structure to support its foray into brick-and-mortar retailing. In this chapter, we will define the termgroupand discuss the nature of formal and informal groups. After this, we will present the details of group development. Then, we will consider how groups differ from one another structurally and explore the consequences of these differences. We will also cover the problem of social loafing. Finally, we will examine how to design effective work teams.

1. What are the actual or potential Problems?

2. For each identified Problem. list the Causes in a sequential format

(e.g., Cause 1 -> Cause 2 -> Cause 3 (and so on) -> Problem.

3. What would be a major drawback of Whole Foods' approach to teams? How and when would this approach be problematic?

4. What does it mean to have "exceptional autonomy"?

5. What would you expect of job satisfaction, employee wellbeing, and employee performance in a group context like Whole Foods?