RMCGC Keynote Speaker John Mackey

11th Annual Rocky Mountain Corporte Growth Conference - March 21, 2013

John Mackey Culture, Strategy and Conscious Capitalism 1368_ 3/25/13 -

Larry and Patricia Nelson are here at the ACG Denver's 11th Annual, Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference 2013 speaking with John Mackey, CEO and Cofounder of WholeFoods and co-author of Conscious Capitalism. At this year's conference we heard a lot of speakers talking about strategy - we asked John Mackey to give us his take on strategy. He responded, "My theory is that you have to first find your purpose for the business, why you exist. After that you have to ask, How do I create value for our customers? Ultimately it is value creation for the customers that leads the business to flourish. Then we ask the strategy questions. What strategy do we implement that allows us to follow purpose and allow us to create value for our customers and other stakeholders? So I always think strategy follows purpose. So, until you know your purpose and what you're trying to accomplish and what you're trying to do in the world, strategy is not that useful. But once you know that, you're in a position to develop your strategy. There are generic strategies that in general, you have to know; what kind of business you are, you have to understand your competition - and then your strategy is something that will enable you to create value and successfully compete in the marketplace."      On the subject of culture, John said, "Humans create cultures - Cultures are the way humans interact with one another. It's the values, the practices; it's the way we do things around here. Most of the time cultures just kind of develop in an unconscious way." John said, "One of the things we talk about in the book is that you don't want your culture to be unconscious. It's one of the most important things in your business so you need to take responsibility for it as a leader. And, ask what parts of your culture are serving this business well and which parts are dysfunctional? Which parts are toxic, because you have bad culture as well? If you can see the culture and understand it, you can begin to try to change it and evolve it." Some of the most important things that Mackey does is to always think about their purpose and how to better serve it. "But, I also think about our culture and ask, what is it about our culture that really needs to change? Which part of our culture is limiting our potential? Which part of our culture might have served a good purpose two years ago and now is simply out of date? The way we did things ten years ago are not useful and are not the best way we should be doing things today. So, cultures need to evolve and too often in too many companies, cultures do not evolve. Or, they may evolve but not in a constructive way - they may be evolving in a dysfunctional or destructive way."
      Larry asked, "In the 38 states that you're in, is the culture in all stores the same?” John replied, "Actually no they are not. WholeFoods, because we decentralize and empower, there are certain cultural elements that you could say are everywhere in WholeFoods Market - We have the same mission statement, we have the same philosophy about our business, we have a lot of the same compensation systems. So we have a lot of the structural elements, but the cultures are different because the cultures around the United States are different. Truthfully the Midwest is different than New York City which is different than Los Angeles and different from New Orleans or Florida - so these regional differences, when I travel around I'm so sensitized to how that store feels... I can feel the energy at the store, I can feel whether the team members, for example, are happy, and they're definitely unique cultures and yet they will all be recognizable as WholeFoods Market. So it's the paradox that we're unique individuals and yet we're also members of communities. So that in a healthy situation we have autonomy as individuals and yet we are members of communities and we serve those communities on a voluntary basis."
     John said, "Many of the most creative ideas come from young people because they don't know yet what they can't do. We begin to limit our creativity as we age, and we begin to think we know things that we may not know at all. It takes young fresh eyes, in a way, to relook at things. It's just like if you write something, you may not see the typos that are there. You read it over and over and you just don't see it - you give it to someone else and they can pick it out. Well, our larger American culture is like that. We've all been living in it so long it just all seems perfectly normal and it's just the way it works, that's the way the real world is. So as you go through the aging process we begin to settle - we just get comfortable. But young people they don't know that stuff yet. That's got good things and bad things about it. The bad thing is they might destroy all the good things too. But essentially, evolution and progress generally comes up from young people who have those fresh eyes and who create and they're idealists. They see the things that are wrong in the world and they say, 'this shouldn't be, I want to change it. So they put their creative energies in that area and progress results. I think the United States has some very unique problems and challenges right now that I'm not sure my generation [baby boomers] is going to be able to solve. I think we will solve them collectively, I just think that it'll be younger people who don't yet know what they can't do - that are going to come up with the creative solutions to a lot of our problems. We have always put our hope in our young - that's what happens. People age and they die and youthful people come along and the culture is extended. You extend the culture and yet the culture is not stagnant because youthful people come in with different experiences, different views.
      Technology is evolving rapidly - the children today have only known computers. When I was a little boy, television was catching on - three channels in black and white. The computer was something IBM had in a huge room somewhere, with things to cool it down. Now computers are everywhere, the Internet is everywhere and young people are so networked together. So I have great hope in the creative powers of youthful people to help our culture continue to evolve."
      WholeFoods has about 350 stores, in 38 states and 3 countries today. Since publishing their book, Conscious Capitalism, in January of this year, John and his co-author Rajendra Sisodia have been on a book tour and only been home a few days since. John lives in Austin but he and his wife have owned a home in Boulder since 1999.
RELATED LINKS: Conscious Capitalism || ACG Denver || RM Corporate Growth Conference || M&A Channel || Amazon || RMCGC Photos 3/21/2013 || KEYWORDS: ACG Denver, Rocky Mtn Corporate Growth Conference, John Mackey, WholeFoods Market, Association for Corporate Growth, Keynote speaker, John Mackey, Conscious Capitalism, M&A, Entrepreneurs, RMCGC, BYTES=10372809
LISTEN TO: John Mackey CoFounder/CEO, WholeFoods Markets, Author, Conscious Capitalism

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