Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel

I recently interviewed Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is the leader of one of America's largest, most popular, and most successful supermarket chains. Jason Buechel is the CEO of Whole Foods. Jason, thank you for joining us.

Jason Buechel: Absolutely happy to be here.

Adam: We're recording from Los Angeles at the Milken conference, ways away from where you grew up. You're from rural Wisconsin. You come from a long line of dairy farmers. Both of your grandparents were dairy farmers. Your dad grew up on the dairy farm. You yourself have a little bit of a different kind of background than the typical CEO of a household name company. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What early experiences and lessons shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?

Jason Buechel: Yeah, as you mentioned, both my grandparents were at dairy farms. So both my father and I grew up on dairy farms, and so at a very young age, that's one of the things I remember us doing a lot, was going over to grandma and grandpa's house, especially on my mother's side, and while growing up, had the opportunity to experience a lot of the different things that you do on a farm, from picking stones bale and hay to understanding the process that takes place during butchering. And it's something that for me, it's really stuck with me on understanding all of the different facets of work that go into producing our food and the tremendous amount of work that farmers play, and the important role that they play in our food systems more broadly. I also had an opportunity. While I didn't grow up on a farm, our family garden was a big part of how we ate and what we ate. So from the age of seven, I can remember spending a lot of time in the garden, and just about every one of our meals growing up touched the garden in some form or fashion. In the summer months and fall, it was always the fresh produce. The rest of the year, it's whatever was canned or frozen. And so that connection to food has been very deep since growing up. My father was also a cheese maker, so I got a better understanding of what happens in that type of work as well as how hard that work is. So for me, it's been interesting to be able to see so many different ways in which our food systems are brought to bear at the point of production and from the steps at a farm to a factory to a small garden, and now being in a role where I get to see things at a much grander level, at the scale of our food system. So I have an appreciation, I think, going all the way back to what I was able to see growing up, to experiences I now get to have in visiting suppliers of all different sizes, some of those who are producing for just a few stores, to those that are producing for our entire chain of stores. And so that, for me, has been a really interesting connection to have.

Adam: What were the key experiences that helped you get to where you are today? And what advice do you have for anyone listening to this conversation on how to rise within their career?

Jason Buechel: Yeah, I think one of the other things that was really important growing up is I had a real pride in the work that I did and a sense of ownership for it. I would say my parents helped instill a really good work ethic from that standpoint. And one of the things that I can really appreciate is the ability of if you sort of set your mind to it, and there's something that you want to be part of or be able to achieve, it's being able to take those steps and realizing that it's usually not an easy path, necessarily, and it's not a straight line. It's something that you have to sort of learn and figure out along the way. For me, when I was first in college, it was figuring out, like, what I want to do? And I had this balance of I wanted to do something with technology. I have an interest in heavily working with others developing and I have a big interest in leadership. From a young age, I was involved in a lot of different organizations and had leadership roles in those, I liked that, and I wanted to figure out how to do that. One of my favorite jobs was managing a swimming pool. And so I got to do things where I was like, I liked leading a team. I liked being involved in things. I liked connections with community organizations. And so for me, it was sort of figuring out what are some of the things that could be interesting, and it led me to a career in consulting, which came about from experiences, from a friend in high school's older sister who had done some work in this space, to an internship I had in college at Harley Davidson motor company where I got exposure to some of the work that consultants do, and all the different ways that you can use that as a foundation into your career. And for me, it was really exciting to be able to experience some of those things from afar, before stepping into it and realizing, yeah, that's what I want to do. And so it was shortly into my college career that I was like, this is the company I want to go work for. This is what I want to go do, and being able to sort of help make that plan to get there.

Adam: You share something really interesting to me, which is very, very few people out there know at a very young age exactly what they want to do, and if they do, they're usually wrong. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do, which is very different than what I'm doing right now. I didn't know that I'd be sitting here with you today. But how do we figure out what it is that we're great at? How do we figure out what it is that we love doing? How do we figure out what it is that's right for us? By going out and trying different things. You went out, got a job managing a swimming pool, and realized I love doing this. I might not be the CEO of a swimming pool company, but I love leading people. I love being around people and managing people. I love this and having experiences like that helps you figure out what direction to go down.

Jason Buechel: Yeah, and a big part of this too is you kind of learn what are things you don't like to do. So I had a different internship before the one that I had at Harley Davidson, where I was doing pretty much coding and testing, and you were confined to being an individual contributor once in a while with some interactions, and that's where I also realized I wanted to be something that was going to be involved with people every single day and one that I could have sort of a bigger impact in a broader role. And so I think for me, part of it is, if you take the opportunity to experience things, you'll quickly learn I like these things, I don't like these things. I also just had the privilege of being able in some of the work I was able to do in college experience, some of the work that I saw other people doing, which allowed me to say, You know what, I like that. I like that. I like that. And I'd encourage other folks to figure out ways to sort of get exposure to some of that so you can have a better understanding of what's going to click with you or not.

Adam: Another interesting point that you bring up is you thought that you were going down this path of being an individual contributor. You realize I don't really like this. I like being around people. I want to be a leader. And something that I tell my students all the time I do a little bit of teaching at UCLA, is you can be really successful as an individual contributor. You can be really successful as a leader, figure out which path is right for you. There's no right answer for everyone. For you, it was the leadership path. For anyone listening to this conversation who wants to go down that path, who wants to become the CEO of a huge company, or a leader in whatever endeavor they're pursuing, what advice do you have?

Jason Buechel: I think the first step I would try to have folks think about is, why do you want to be a leader, and how do you want to lead? And one of the things that I learned early in my career, so when I was working in consulting, and it's one of those great careers where you get to do everything, sort of an accelerated pace, I always joke at sort of like consulting years are like dog years, like every three to four year, you're someone else, you do basically in one year in consulting, and so two years out of college, all of a sudden you're leading someone or a couple of people, and quickly it's an entire team. Early on, I think I was a manager, not a leader, and there are things that I definitely noticed, I was looking at it from more of the day-to-day management and administrative standpoint because I didn't actually have the training. I knew I liked working with people. I liked helping support people's growth and development, but I wasn't necessarily always thinking about it like, how does this show up more holistically, not just to what I'm doing and what they're doing right now, but how are we thinking about what does this mean in one year, two years, three years down the road? And so I had some really good mentoring that I had earlier in my career around how I needed to readjust, sort of, my thought process on being a leader. One of the things that I've learned really well over the years, and it's something that inherently, I think, has sat with me as one of the greatest things that I've learned from my mentors at Whole Foods Market is the important role of servant leadership, and it's something where I would have probably said I was a servant leader before joining the company, but I felt I probably didn't even know what that means. And I would say, if you're just wanting to be a leader, for being a leader's sake, the likelihood that you're going to be able to truly connect and lead your organization to its highest potential is probably not going to come to fruition. It's about being a leader because you want to be seen as the leader or the person who's driving the organization forward or making the command decisions that take place, I don't think you're necessarily going to have the highest potential. And that's one of the greatest things that I've learned, is if you can come from a perspective of connecting with your team members on how they see things, day in and day out, and lead from a supporting role of saying, what do we need to do as leaders to make the organizational successful, you're going to be able to one connect with more team members in the entire organization, you're going to be able to ultimately take a vision, and if you've done it in what I would say is the right way, co-creating it with your organization, the likelihood that you're going to be able to see that to greater success, I think, is exponential. And so for me, I think it's getting to the question of, why do you want to be a leader? And ultimately, what's the best way that you can serve your team and your organization?

Adam: You mentioned the importance of mentorship. You've been mentored by some of the best leaders. You yourself are one of the most successful leaders in America today. What makes a great leader?

Jason Buechel: I think the first thing is having a sense of humility is important, especially if you want to be a servant leader. Again, this is something where it's some folks that might come naturally to other folks, you probably have to have a conversation with yourself to figure out what that means and look like for you. But from my standpoint, when I think of the greatest leaders that I've worked with, or leaders that I interact with today, and I meet with a lot of our suppliers and partner organizations, you can really tell those that are connected to their organization and have an understanding of how all of The different facets of the company work and how they're leading those different groups towards the vision and strategy, or whatever it is that's the priority for them to execute. And so for me, it's being humble. It's the ability to stay grounded in what's taking place in your business. It's having a pulse on what's occurring, and it's making sure that you spend as much time listening as you do talking. And again, that's one of the things I've had to work on. I like to talk. I like to share my opinion when I look at the development feedback I continue to give myself. I love solving problems, and sometimes when I hear about them, I just want to jump in and solve them with my team. And what I have to remember is to take a step back and listen, find out from folks a broad stakeholder group, whether in some cases, it's only going to be inside your company. In some cases, you need to go outside. You need to talk to customers suppliers or community partners. In our case, and so making sure that you can take the time to get an informed point of view because your vantage point as a leader is only going to be what you see from the place you put yourself every day. And so one of my goals is making sure I'm not just sitting in an office in Austin, Texas, week in, week out. I spend a significant amount of time visiting our stores and our facilities our suppliers and our various partners. A big part of that is making sure that I can be hearing what's going on and helping bring that and having it inform how we lead our business day to day. And then, as a leader, you need to help encourage these steps to take place throughout the organization. And so part of as I stepped in the role that I felt it's been really important is making sure that we can continue to be more store-centric as an organization, and that means having a great understanding of what's happening for our customer and our team member experience every single day. And so by visiting our stores and leading by example there, I want all of our store support team members across the organization to spend time in our stores. One of my goals, and it's a change that we made to sort of our performance review process in the company, is there's a question we put in there that really emulates asking each one of our store support team members. And just for some context, that's what a lot of companies would call their corporate office. We purposely renamed that last year to basically show like this organization's in support of our stores. The question really reads, what have you done in the last year to connect with our stores? And what did you learn from that experience that you're able to bring back to your job, and by bringing in programs like this, it's allowing us as an organization to have a better. Understanding the pulse of what's happening, and it's making us a better company. It's making us as we build programs, as we roll things out, it's helping make sure that something that we do in Austin, that we have great intentions on is actually going to have success when it gets to our stores and our customers get to experience it.

Adam: You shared a lot there that I would love to unpack. Humility, accessibility, being there, being present, listening. Great leaders are great listeners. You spoke about the importance of feedback. All leaders, even the most successful leaders, have blind spots. How do we know what our blind spots are through feedback? How do you collect feedback as a leader? How do you give feedback as a leader? What advice do you have for anyone listening on how to most effectively give and receive feedback?

Jason Buechel: Yeah, I think the most important step on this one is making sure that you realize that feedback is a gift, and it's there to help you and that sometimes can be hard. And I think back earlier in my career, or even when I first stepped into Whole Foods, I co-reported to at the time our CO CEO, Walter Robb, and our CFO Glenda Flanagan, and so moving to have a new leader at this point, two leaders, both who were great at giving feedback. I had to, sort of like, figure out, how do I adjust my ability. I've been at a point where I was getting feedback, but maybe not as much. And for me, I was in a new organization. I hadn't figured out all the right ways of what's the right way to communicate things. I sort of had a way of working which is probably different than the way of working in the organization at the time, at least working in some of the different facets I was involved in. And so I had to make sure that I could sort of get a little bit of tough skin at first because I was getting a lot of it. And what I realized early on in those conversations was it was helping me really rapidly, like if I would take that feedback and incorporate it in the next day or two, I actually had some people notice, or I started to see some different results on things. And I think oftentimes even though it may be tough getting at the time, if you let it sort of demoralize you, and you're not taking it as the gift and the opportunity, you're going to end up in this cycle, which is difficult, and you're not going to seek out feedback as much, or your body language while you're giving. It is going to be tougher for people to want to give you more feedback in the future, and so part of it is making sure that you're creating an open space to get it in the first place. And I think as far as giving it, and this is another thing that I had a lot of learning myself on, is it's great to be direct. I think that's really important, but I think you have to do it with compassion at the same time. And so a big part of giving feedback for me is always helping provide the context and saying, if I'm giving a point of feedback, saying, here's the situation we were in, and this is how I saw this, and this is how I saw other people react to it. How did you think this went? And it gives the opportunity for the individual to help provide their vantage point, and then you can come back in and say, well, do you see where there are some differences here? And here's where I've collected some follow-up feedback. I've talked to so and so and so and so. And here's where we have a gap on this side. And the other thing that I always like to try to offer up is, let's figure out a way in more real-time while this has happened again, that I can help you out. So if it's someone who might have some difficulties in meetings and how they bring up and discuss a particular item, like what's a way that I can help that person at the moment, and what are some of the mechanisms we can have to make sure that we can see progress on some of the things that we're looking after? And so if you can create a place of trust as giving that feedback and that point of compassion, and at the same time recognize what's going well, or where you've seen improvement in other things. I think you end up creating this relationship where the feedback, again, is something somebody wants, because then they can see the results in their own work and the positive impact that's happening there.

Adam: You're sharing a lot of great advice, and I want to key in on a word you just shared, which is trust. How can leaders build trust?

Jason Buechel: I think the first piece is being vulnerable. That's going to show up differently between every single individual that you're forming a relationship with. But ultimately, if the relationship is transactional, I think whether it's giving feedback or just even connecting and working in general, working together, yeah, I think not going to live up to its highest potential. And so being able to be vulnerable. And one of the things I like to do is, if I'm giving feedback to somebody on something I've personally been through myself, I like to actually take them back to the place of here's when I had a challenge on this as well. This is when this was a problem for me, and these are some of the things that I did. And so I think it helps build the trust because you're able to share some of the things that were also challenging for you in a similar situation. In some cases, you may not have a similar one, but you can say, here's another time when I've had a learning experience, and I also like to share what are some of the things that I struggle with, even today. And there are things all of us as leaders, always have additional things that we can do to help raise the bar on our leadership or things that we can do to be a better leader. And so I think that that vulnerability is a really important part. I think being an active listener is also something that is really important. Oftentimes, you can have a relationship. And if, at the end of the day, you're not actually spending the time and taking time to actually listen and process and hear, it can be very difficult to have somebody just sort of feel like every time they're saying something, you're bouncing something right back at them. And again, a lot of times, I think when team members need to be at a point of having a conversation around development or a difficult situation they're having, they need sort of a set of ears to be there as well. And that's where I think the important part of figuring out when you're listening and when you're talking is something that leaders need to be really attuned to.

Adam: Can you share with listeners your approach to recruiting, retaining, and motivating talent? What advice do you have?

Jason Buechel: Our team members are the secret sauce of Whole Foods Market. It's the magic. And without them, we wouldn't be able to create the amazing customer experiences that we do. And so for us, this is the most important element of our business, is making sure that we have the ability to recruit, hire, and retain the best talent that we can. And so one of the things that I would give any leader advice on is being really clear of what are the attributes that you are trying to recruit for and identifying the things that inherently can be trained and can't be trained, and being open in those areas that it's okay to bring folks on where you can ultimately train them to help make them successful in the job. Part of what we look at as we do our screening processes and such as helping look at what are some of those attributes that can help create successful team members in the store. And as we not only bring folks on, a big part is the onboarding process and the journey that they'll have into their second, third, fourth, fifth, 10th role into the company, and I think helping make sure that you can explain to a team member where those opportunities are from day one and beyond is really important. It's something that we really try to emphasize for folks that are coming into the organization, is they can have a career, an enriched lifelong career at Whole Foods, and there's unlimited potential, and it's one of the things I'm really proud of. Is the amount of internal promotion that we do. Two of my direct reports actually started out as part-time team members in our stores. The number of leaders that we have within our store support ranks and within our senior leadership team that started working in our stores is huge, and I think being able to help make sure that team members have an understanding of where they can grow and how they can flourish is so important because it's going to start helping create engagement in the very beginning. The other thing we like to do is share a lot about our higher purpose our core values and what makes us different, and I think that creates a deeper connection for a lot of our newest team members and understanding our culture. And so if they can understand how they can grow within the company how we're going to interact as a company, and what our ways of working are going to look like, I think we end up creating a great foundation and a safe place for folks to be able to bring their whole selves to work and ultimately be able to deliver to their highest potential. And for us, it's about adding those development opportunities for our team members to flourish. And there are three that I'm really proud of that we have. The first one is a mentorship program that we built just a few years ago, and this is one that I felt was personally, really important. I've been blessed to just have so much great mentorship throughout my career, and here at Whole Foods, I already mentioned Walter and Glenda, who I first reported to, obviously, John Mackey, our co-founder and former CEO, is another great mentor and countless others that I've had and building this program, I felt it was important that all of our team members have access to this and so what we've done is created a program where team members can look at and say, what are my aspirations, and how do I get paired up with the team member? Not even someone who's in my store or in the same city. It could be someone from across the company who can help support and I can have a better understanding of what I need to do to move up to the next level. And then some of the tools that we have as well. And so we have things like our apprentice programs, where team members can build skills and trades that can be lifelong skills for them. And so we've got team members who've gone into our butcher apprentice program as an example, or a certified cheese professional program. And then for folks who want to be leaders, we have something called our career development or CD programs, and this is something we have for each one of our levels of leadership at the store level, and it allows an opportunity for a team member in a program to have a peer group and a direct mentor that they're working on, who's in the role that they're preparing to step into, and this has been an opportunity for us to create a great bench strength of leaders in advance and allows us to scale and make sure that as we build new stores and open new stores and expand our teams, we've got our leadership prepared to help ensure that the culture is maintained and that we're continuing to lead the company in the way that we want to. And so as a very new team member joining the organization, you can understand our values and our culture and these programs that we have in play. It really helps build the art of the possible, of what a career could look like for team members. And so my advice would be to figure out in your organization, what are the things that you can do as you look to recruit and hire, what are the things that are the most important skills that you can develop that you don't need to have on day one, but at the end of the day, you've got the right attributes for a team member that's going to fit your culture well and be a successful part of your organization. And then, what are the components that you can build out so that they can start to see the path for them to be able to take steps up, whether that be one year to 10 years, I think it helps create a great, deep connection between the team member and the organization.

Adam: What are the attributes that you believe are essential that everyone needs to have, that can't be taught, can't be trained, we all need to bring to the table?

Jason Buechel: Yeah, I think at our business, we are customer-obsessed, and so having a team member who understands the importance of customer service is a really important attribute. And so you can start day one, and you may not know how to operate a point of sale system, have used it even a lot of technology before, or been able to chop vegetables and work in our prepared foods team, but if you understand the importance of customer service, that's really important. The other piece of it is teamwork. And can you be a team player, if you only want to be an individual contributor who no one's talking to all during the day, and you're not part of a bigger team, that's probably not going to be a good fit? No matter what role you have in our stores, you're interconnected to an immediate team and a broader team. And a lot of times we'll have challenges with one team, with callouts, or we might be short-staffed, and we have collaboration that's happening all day long. And so if we look at from the lens of what's most important, folks who can be team players and understand the importance of customer service, all the other skills, from there, we can teach. And there's just been amazing stories we have. I just met a team member recently who never would have thought they would have been working in our meat department as a butcher. They started out as an E-commerce shopper in our stores during the pandemic and had worked their way into different parts of the stores, and now they're in a space where they're thriving. They've built a whole new skill set, and so I think part of it for us is letting folks sort of follow their passion after they start. And if they can start on the right foot by being a team player and being able to help provide great service to our customers, that's the first right step.

Adam: Jason, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful, personally and professionally,

Jason Buechel: The first step is understanding where you want to go and why, and also having the realization of making sure that you understand what's the work that I need to do to get there. And so finding a mentor, leaders. Here are folks who are going to be able to give you that feedback and be able to support the steps that you need to take to grow as an individual or grow as a leader, or to be able to develop and grow a skill set that you need. I think those are some of the things that you have to do. It's not about sort of just saying I want to do something and jumping into it. I think it's figuring out what you need to do to get there so you can also be successful, and that, for me, is what allows you to be a leader who can actually sustain and continue to not only support your organization today in running your business, but provides the ability for you to lead into whatever the next future may be for your team, your organization, or what have you. If you don't have a mentor today, get one. Always find some more. Make sure that you are not just focused on learning the things that you're passionate about, exploring the things that you don't know a lot about or you're uncomfortable with. And that's one of the great gifts that I have in the role I'm in is I have so many amazing team members that I'm able to learn from in the organization. If I want to learn more about something like going deeper into our quality standards, I can talk to Anne Marie on our quality standards team, and she's going to help give me a better understanding of why we do X, Y, or why are we looking to elevate this standard, and I can go deep and learn. We have such an amazing group of Store team leaders who teach me so much every day just to call one out, Gina Kim, who leads our Brooklyn store at Third has the most contagious energy possible. And the job she has in what she leads is, I don't know that I could do that every single day, but it really works. And the way that she's able to use her energy and is a servant leader through and through, jumps in and supports at the cashier behind the prepared foods counter, whatever it means, and seeing that in action in our stores, for me, actually makes me a better leader, and it helps inspire me to things I need to do to be able to support our team more broadly. And so, I'd also just add, that part of being successful is making sure you have an appreciation of what your team is doing and making sure you can have the ability to learn from everyone around you.

Adam: Jason, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

Jason Buechel: Happy to be here. Thanks.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one-on-one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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