It’s a fact that organic food doesn’t last like non-organic, and tends to be quite expensive at times. Whole Foods started off when the organic food market was much smaller and has ridden the wave of increasing demand ever since. They took advantage of a naturally-occurring monopoly and have dramatically increased their market presence for maximum profitablity. Today, we cover how the grocery store chain took the country by storm by offering unique, healthy products. And all with a dash of Six Sigma.

Minimal Interference and Flexible Management

Whole Foods is a customer-driven organization. Using Design for Six Sigma, they rely on feedback to help shape their business processes. As such, the customer’s voice is a primary metric for improvement, but just as important is the process data itself. The axis of their corporate structure is a single golden rule: minimal interference. Store managers, like Six Sigma practitioners, are change agents. The company ensures minimal corporate meddling, allowing managers to make changes for the good of their store. The needs of a busy urban branch do not reflect the needs of a small-town store. As such, both should be managed appropriately, according to their needs. Management flexibility of this kind grants them the freedom to source local produce as well as to operate under different hours.

The Customer Matters

As a customer-facing, retail-oriented corporation, Whole Foods relies on strong customer relationships. By collecting customer feedback at the store level, they can shed light on problems affecting quality, efficiency, and productivity.  Whole Foods stores provide a Customer Comments Wall for those wanting to offer feedback, encouraging customers to have their say. This level of customer engagement is highly beneficial, not just for the valuable feedback it provides, but also for the strong store-customer relationship it fosters. In short, it shows Whole Foods care about those frequenting their stores and purchasing their goods.

Each comments wall allows customers to leave both positive and negative comments. While it may seem simplistic, this approach helps to foster transparency, openness, and honesty between store and customer. Customers value and respond to this, as Whole Foods have shown. Providing a place to leave feedback lays the groundwork for a continuous improvement culture. One that drives improvement for the sake the customer, without end. Never forget. Any feedback, critical or otherwise, is extremely valuable. Even the smallest comment can help you make dramatic changes on the path toward Six Sigma.

Happy Employees = Happy Customers

Moreover, this openness also benefits Whole Food’s staff. All employees want to feel like they matter. They’re people, after all, not mindless automatons. They want to feel that their voices are heard and that they play an active role in the success of the company. Remember, the happier your employees, the happier your customers. If you can’t keep the first happy, the second will feel it.

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Participation and Responsiveness

The greatest governing bodies all play a role in the decision-making processes for the institutions they govern. This can be either a direct influence or an indirect one, but this level of governance is essential. A Six Sigma governing body should not only keep its organizations’ activities in check but ensure their presence is a tangible one.

It is also highly important for any potential Six Sigma governing body to serve all its stakeholders as well as the Six Sigma community at large. If careless actions or bad practices sully Six Sigma’s reputation, the governing body must act on this to resolve the situation. Again, ensuring Six Sigma practitioners and organizations work within established parameters is imperative. If this they enforce this, it will ensure the standardization of Six Sigma practices and frameworks.

Transparency and Efficiency

Six Sigma is all about information and how we can use it to solve problems and improve processes. The concept of corporate transparency is a relatively new one, representing the free flow of information. You should be able to query a Six Sigma governing body, to contact them directly, and have complete access to its central knowledge base.

A governing body would, rather than looking like the Vatican, resemble something closer to Norwegian gas and oil company, Statoil. As a matter of fact, Statoil’s largest shareholder happens to be the Norwegian government. Statoil actively makes its operations observable to the public, freely providing information about their practices.

A Six Sigma governing body should ideally commit to free disclosure, clarity, and accuracy of information. Furthermore, like Six Sigma itself, its governing body should promote high levels of efficiency in everything it does. In other words, it should practice what it preaches.

Strategic Vision and Accountability

All organizations, particularly those with an agenda, require a strategic vision to drive them forward. Six Sigma leaders all have their own ideas about what is best for Six Sigma. What a governing body should provide is a comprehensive strategic vision to satisfy all these disparate requirements.

The governing body should also implement strong accountability measures to ensure they keep Six Sigma’s best interests at heart. Think about how decisions get made in the government, the private sector, or even publicly-owned organizations like charities. The executive decision-makers are accountable to the public, whose welfare they should factor into all decisions made.

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