Andrew Jabara

I’ve been thinking a lot about management lately. As a student in MS&E280: Organizational Behavior (taught by the legendary Bob Sutton), class discussions use empirical evidence and case studies to think about what we consider to be “good” management or “bad” management, incredible organizations versus organizations in flux. It seems to me that a lot of positive attributes of healthy organizations and management actually manifest themselves in Trader Joe’s stores, providing a modern case study ripe for discussion.

For those of you who haven’t been to one of their stores, Trader Joe’s is an American chain of grocery stores (now owned by Aldi) targeted towards middle-class consumers. In addition to providing fresh and quality foodstuffs, each Trader Joe’s store gets autonomy to interact with the local community in its own way (the Palo Alto Trader Joe’s features murals of Stanford athletes, for example). At Stanford, it’s also rumored that they delivered a weekly food stipend to a dorm on campus (Otero) whose chosen dorm theme that year was “Trader Jotero’s”.

I’d like to focus on some positive management lessons I’ve seen firsthand at Trader Joe’s, and how they can apply to other organizations:

• Employees co-create a positive culture
  In my experience, Trader Joe’s employees are always in a friendly mood. Walking around the aisles, you’ll have people come up to help you find something, or see them joking around with their colleagues as they restock produce. At least from their actions, the employees appear to enjoy the Trader Joe’s work environment, and share this enjoyment with the shoppers.
• Shelves are constantly being re-stocked
  Inventory is the bane of any retail manager. What’s very interesting about Trader Joe’s is the frequency of which I see items being re-stocked. It’s common to have a couple workers take a few boxes of food and start putting them on the shelves: the first box is packaged spinach, the second filled with avocados, and the third loaded with banana chips. High-volume sales per square foot makes Trader Joe’s remarkable from a business perspective, and as a consumer, high turnover and restocking means that I know I’m getting fresher foods.
• Positions can shift seamlessly
  If the checkout line at Trader Joe’s starts to grow, employees can quickly be called to start new registers and open up more lines for customers, sometimes in the space of a few seconds. Even in a bustling store during peak hours, I don’t recall waiting in line for very long. This quick reshuffling of tasks reflects a management style where “we’re all in this together” really benefits the overall flow of the store, and perhaps increases camaraderie among workers as well. Beyond flexible staffing positions in the moment, I’ve observed managers asking employees about staffing for the week and trying to prioritize giving employees positions that enjoy working the most. This forward-thinking transparency and care for employees’ needs and wants again reinforces positive management qualities.

I hope some of these lessons resonate with you in your future managerial endeavors. I’m not (currently) paid by Trader Joe’s to use it as a positive example of organizational management, but Trader Joe’s execs — if you’re reading this, and want to give me a food stipend as well, I’d be happy to talk!