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Whole Foods Case Study Of John Mackley And Robb

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Whole Foods Case Study Of John Mackley And Robb
John Mackey, the Founder of Whole Foods Market, ended a dual-CEO role that he shared with Walter Robb for the past six years. Mackey, who started Whole Foods market in 1980, once again became the sole CEO and Robb will step down on December 31, 2016 to become a board member and adviser. A “perceived conflict” occurred within Whole Foods Market when the company started experiencing lagging profits. While the Board of Directors wanted to “streamline” the administrative chart, it was becoming clear that the two men had too many differences to continue to get Whole Foods out of their slump. Mackey and Robb, therefore, needed to change the status quo. Robb’s demotion is indicative of a conflict between two people, even if the fight is not openly displayed. Since Whole Foods Market began facing more and more challenges, include increasing costs, more competitors, and pricing issues, it became harder and harder to agree on strategies and plans for the company when there were two CEOs. Even though the dual-CEO was workable at the beginning, it was not helpful for the current crisis anymore.
Mackey and Robb had very different backgrounds. Mackey had …show more content…
The two men had conflicting ideas at a time when Whole Foods was losing money. They realized the dual-CEO problem was not productive. As founder, Mackey stood his ground in remaining CEO; however, Robb has worked for Whole Food for over 25 years, six of them as co-CEO, so he was not about to be fired. The Board of Directors realized the problem, and after professional consideration, they decided to end the dual-CEO position, and assign Mackey and Robb to more suitable positions. The new resolution avoided unnecessary risks as much as they could, as they tried to offer everyone happy distributions. The resolution achieved a good outcome; as their stock rose 5% after they published this news. Obviously, the public liked the new structure and have high hopes for
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