The HBR Interview: “What Is It That Only I Can Do?”

The HBR Interview: “What Is It That Only I Can Do?”
An Interview with John Mackey by Justin Fox

He’s been a grocer and a CEO for 32 years now. Lately, Whole Foods Market cofounder and co-CEO John Mackey, with his controversial utterances on health care reform and climate change, has been in the news as much for what he says as for what he sells. But in this edited interview with HBR’s Justin Fox, conducted in collaboration with the online video forum Big Think, Mackey talks about what makes a corporation run.

To watch a video of the full interview, go to bigthink.com/johnmackey.

HBR: You recently announced that you were committed to staying at Whole Foods Market for another 10 years. What brought that on?

Mackey: The announcement came when we made the decision to promote Walter Robb to co-CEO. That, combined with the fact that I stopped being the chairman of the board in December 2009, led to speculation that I might be leaving the company. So I thought it was important to announce that I’m not phasing out.

You had thought about having three co-CEOs.

Yes, because we function as equals on our team. People make the same compensation, except for me—I donate it all. We tend to make decisions by consensus. We don’t have a three-to-two vote. It’s not the Supreme Court trying to work things out. We really want to reach consensus, and we respect each other. In a sense we could have had five co-CEOs. But A.C. Gallo and Walter Robb were the copresidents and co-COOs, so we decided that Walter would take the title of co-CEO and A.C. would be the sole president and chief operating officer. That seemed to make everybody happy.

Has this emphasis on consensus been there from the very beginning, or has it evolved over the years?

It has evolved over the years. I found that when you make decisions by consensus, and you let all the disagreements get expressed, you make better decisions. If you don’t do that, there is a natural human tendency on the part of whoever didn’t get their way to want to be proved right. It’s like “See, I told you that wasn’t going to work.”


Justin Fox