Wal-Mart Alters Regular Saturday Meeting
The legendary Saturday morning meetings that have long been at the heart of the Wal-Mart culture will dwindle to just one meeting per month.
And executives won't be funneling into the home office for the soon-to-be monthly meetings, but will gather down the road at Bentonville High School where a larger auditorium can house the growing crowd of department managers required to attend.
Wal-Mart confirmed the news, announced Saturday at the meeting, but declined to make further comments as "details have not been worked out," a company spokeswoman said.
To many, the move signifies the end of the Sam Walton era. Sam Walton strongly believed in the value of the Saturday morning meetings as a time to communicate, plan strategy and gain a competitive advantage.
Wal-Mart on its Web site describes the meetings as "the pulse of our culture."
The meetings are part entertainment and part hard-core business, according to a description found on the Wal-Mart Web site. The meetings are as famous for their celebrity cameos and Wal-Mart cheer as they are for hatching and implementing new ideas while competitors lined up the first tee on the golf course... "I believe if you want to understand Wal-Mart, the Saturday morning meeting is the culture personified," said Michael Bergdahl, international speaker and author on Wal-Mart culture, said Monday in a phone interview. "It's really larger than life. The Saturday morning meeting equals competitive advantage."
While most corporations meet quarterly, Wal-Mart devoted 52 Saturdays per year to critique the business, debate management philosophy and strategy, correct weaknesses and share ideas.
"Sam Walton used to say, 'What makes us different is what makes us great,' and I think that's what the Saturday morning meeting was all about," said Bergdahl, who worked under Sam Walton as director of people. "It fundamentally changes the culture and makes them more like everybody else."
As the retail playing field levels, some speculated the meetings may no longer serve their purpose.
Patricia Edwards, portfolio manager with Seattle-based Wentworth, Hauser and Violich, said the time managers spend at the meeting could be used more effectively and profitably outside the meetings, working with suppliers or in the stores.
But it also may indicate a new kinder, gentler Wal-Mart that cares about the quality of life for its employees. Saturday morning meetings are viewed as less than family friendly and maybe a bit too demanding to managers that already work long weeks.
"I think the regular meetings may not be viewed as essential to accomplishing what Wal-Mart wants to accomplish," said Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard Consulting Group in Nutley, N.J. "You have to remember one thing -- Wal-Mart today is a very different company from what it was when Sam Walton started and ran it, and so perhaps Wal-Mart needs a different approach. Clearly the needs of a company such as Wal-Mart today are vastly different when compared with the kind of company that Wal-Mart was 40 years ago."
In recent years, the cultural changes of the world's largest retailer have become increasingly obvious, and haven't come without scrutiny.
Wal-Mart has eliminated layaway and customer service call centers for Web purchases, reduced fabric departments, and made a poorly-received attempt to offer upscale apparel, which alienated its core lower-income shopper.
The end of Saturday morning meetings was viewed by many as the end of Wal-Mart culture the Sam Walton way. But not to Don Soderquist, a former Wal-Mart executive.
"We shouldn't make that big of a deal of it," Soderquist said Monday. "If Wal-Mart thinks it's the appropriate thing to do then that's what they're going to do."
Sources speculated what the company's motivations might have been for the sudden end to Saturday morning meetings, but were openly troubled that whatever the reason, it signifies a new era for Wal-Mart.
"I think the Sam Walton recipe for that culture is something nobody should mess with, and (Lee Scott, chief executive officer) messed with it, and it's done and changed forever," Bergdahl said.
source: Arkansas Morning News
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