Harnessing the strength of a knowledge organization

Michelle Gloeckler, Walmart EVP consumables and health and wellness

The people within a large company can be one of a leader’s biggest assets when it comes to solving problems and growing the business — if only you listen to your associates and stick to a core set of principles that guide all your interactions. This was the thrust of Walmart EVP consumables and health and wellness Michelle Gloeckler’s talk, “Harnessing a Knowledge Organization,” in May at the Future Leaders Summit, co-hosted by Drug Store News and Mack Elevation Forum.

(Click here to view the complete Future Leaders Summit report.)



It’s among the important lessons handed down from Walmart founder Sam Walton — this idea that large companies are only as strong as the people, knowledge and expertise that exists within them. “The key to success is to get out into the store and listen to what the associates have to say. It’s terribly important for everyone to get involved,” Walton once said.



But Gloeckler admitted that today, at organizations as large as Walmart with its 2.3 million global employees — including 1.4 million in the United States — listening to associates at the same level of granularity as Walton once did might seem impossible. But rather than be daunted by the idea of trying to talk to millions of associates, you can begin the process by identifying areas of diversity and understanding what people representing smaller groups can bring to the table, she said. By way of example, Gloeckler introduced attendees to a handful of key Walmart associates — including VP Walmart Care Clinics Sandy Ryan, chief medical officer Daniel Stein and support manager Daronn Gommer, who was homeless before starting a career at Walmart — to highlight how people from different backgrounds, areas of education and experience, and the roles they each play, can help bridge the knowledge and expertise that exists across a company the size of Walmart.



“This is the scope of associates that we have, and when you think about the challenge of harnessing a knowledge organization and listening to your people — the number isn’t the thing, it’s the vast experience and the vast life story that each of these individuals brings to work every day,” Gloeckler said.



Engagement and listening begin, Gloeckler explained, with four key factors that should inform all interactions — humility, self-motivation, confidence and the ability to filter risk. Gloeckler noted that humility was a necessary component of working with her team to find a solution to a problem in Walmart’s pharmacy business — an area in which she admittedly lacks knowledge, as she’s never been a pharmacist.



“The humble thing that the team and I had to do was to come together regardless of titles, put the common goal on the table and then work as a team,” Gloeckler said. “Being humble is about recognizing that you don’t have to have all the answers, and to be so bold as to be able to say to a group of your own associates, or your peers — or your leader — ‘I don’t know.’”



On the subject of self-motivation, Gloeckler shared a rather personal example, recalling her own modest, working-class Michigan roots, which fed her drive to work hard and succeed at an early age, graduating a semester early from college.



Another powerful example of self-motivation for Gloeckler is Gommer, the St. Louis-based Walmart support manager, who was homeless with two daughters before he joined the company. Gommer, in a profile from a local newspaper that Gloeckler read aloud, told the paper he used his situation and the difficulty of working while staying with different friends and trying to raise his kids as a motivator.



“I think about the different ways people are motivated, and that has to come from within; it has to be something that you believe in,” Gloeckler said. “In order to get the most out of any organization, you have to know your own self-motivation.”



Ironically, when she thinks about confidence, Gloeckler reflects on Michael Jordan’s career — not his six-time NBA championship career, but his otherwise lackluster baseball career, spent largely in the minor leagues. Confidence, she explained, goes hand-in-hand with humility; it is “the willingness to say you don’t know, to take a role you may not have experience in, and be humble enough to leverage the organization around you to find success.”



Finally, Gloeckler stressed the critical importance of a strong risk-filter to the leaders of today and tomorrow — the ability to know when people might be going too far and when you need to guide them back — and left attendees with a call to action.



“Think about a risky decision that’s on your plate right now. Who in your organization that you have not already reached out to might have had a similar experience or might have information that you need?” she said. “I [think about the] 1.4 million [U.S.] associates we have at Walmart — what a blessing that we have access to that many associates; what a shame if we aren’t able to connect with them and hear them.”