MS 6401: Organization Management.
Read the case below and answer the questions asked.
Case 1: 7.5%
Costco Wholesale Corporation

1. Which of the three management-skill categories do you think Costco CEO James Sinegal draws upon most during his year-round visits to local Costco warehouses? Explain.
Team building;
Managing warehouses like Costco require an organization that is flat, fast, and flexible. Sinegal focuses in on customer and employee needs and wants which gives an understanding of behaviors and attitudes. This abandons the hierarchy of command-and-control mindset while replacing it with coaching, motivation, and empowerment. When Jim travels to Costco warehouses around the world (he tries to visit each location at least once a year), he knows the names of an unusual number of employees, from store managers to forklift drivers. “He is amazingly in tune with the employees who work for him.” It speaks to Jim’s management style: He has always been an in-the-trenches CEO, acknowledging that employees are a key part of meeting the company’s goals. One principle that he continuously stresses to his managers is “If you’re not spending 90 percent of your time teaching, you’re not doing your job.” The foundation that Jim has brought to the company as far as his compassion and to really do what is best and to give back, not just to the employees but to the community, is something that is instilled in everybody here,” she says. “Working for Costco, you see how important that is and what a difference that makes.”
- The company philosophy is more than just a business plan, comments Mike Sinegal, Jim’s son, who helped establish Costco in Japan and initiated e¬ orts to launch operations in Europe. Costco hopes to open a warehouse in France in the near future.
Jim has been called one of the world’s top retailers, but when asked by Mad Money’s Cramer