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hello everybody this is Mike you seem I'm on the faculty here at the Wharton
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School and welcome to a new series entitled if you've seen it but I'm gonna
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read it to you leadership in the wake of Koba 19 what enterprise leaders will need to survive and prosper in the years
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ahead that's our topic that's your topic we're all thinking about that today and this
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is a product of a collaboration between the working leadership annual conference
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the Center for Human Resources and the center for leadership here at the Wharton School and knowledge of Wharton
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so welcome last time I looked I think we've got more than 700 people tied in
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we're going to interview our distinguished guest for about 10 maybe 12 minutes and then throw it open to you
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to fire questions at us our guest is sherry Pollan begi sherry is the chief executive of price Mart and just a
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couple numbers about what sherry is responsible for price part it's a Costco
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like chain that's got some 45 warehouse clubs more than 9,000 employees 3 million members across the Caribbean
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Latin and South America so very great to have you here with us today I know you've been a little bit busy in the
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last few weeks thank you it's a pleasure to be here Michael Jerry let's go back a
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couple months I think near February you were seeing the signs coming in maybe a head of some folks out there that the
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coronavirus was coming to your region and as we've talked before you refer to
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it as a kind of incipient existential moment for you and your company so if you wouldn't mind picking up in late
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February walk us through those moments as you could see it coming what you did and I was particularly impressed with
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the fact that your top team you asked to meet with you every day every day except
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for Easter Sunday so sherry there it is thank you well Michael in February we started hearing about right at the
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corona virus and the pandemic and in the role as a CEO you're always responsible
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for looking around the corner and anticipating those things that people may not be focused on when they're
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meeting their day-to-day responsibilities but in in a leadership position you're always trying to look
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out for what might be out there with the threatening how do you best protect your
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people and your company so when the pandemic or I don't even think it was declared as a pandemic at that point but
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when this virus started getting a lot of traction in the media I made an effort to do a lot of reading on everything
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from I'm following what was happening in Europe starting with and then China
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seeing how the trend was moving and trying to decide whether or not this was something that was going to sooner or
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later become a challenge for us in the United States and in the regions where price smart operates we were in 13
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different regions that you mentioned and there was clearly a geographical March and at that moment I had decided that we
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as a company given what I could known in the little more than a year that I had become the CEO had to start thinking
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about what would we do assuming that we were faced with the same threat the first thing that I recognized was that
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given the contagious nature of this illness and how highly contagious it was the ability to protect our employees and
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off-site them was very important and allow for a remote work one of the challenges was though that I was also
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just beginning the efforts of getting our company to get a little bit more modern about its culture and its
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philosophy and its capabilities to remote work we this was not part of our culture though in mid to late February I
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assembled my leadership team and started what I called an action taskforce and asked for sort of a review
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that said basically if tomorrow you were told you can't come back into your office tell me exactly what the impact
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would be on you and what would you need to be able to continue and this was everything from you know our CFO the
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ability to transact move money pay bills and do buying etc so they went off and came back and realized that this was no
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small undertaking and at some risk of being viewed as being a little bit of an alarmist at the time I went ahead and
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made sure that every employee in our two states where we have our US employees a
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thousand of them are in San Diego and Miami had the ability to work from home and so the the leadership of the company
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just kicked into action and make sure that we had the capabilities one was ability to work remotely another was
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that each leadership member had to find an alter ego so that if something were to happen to them who would be the
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person and identify that person to step in for them and then the third was to basically well this came a little bit
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later at the beginning people were skeptical that we would need to make much of a change at all that this was
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another influenza that was coming down the pike we the order to all the equipment that was necessary got
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everybody set up and then by March I think about early second week of March I had everybody off-site it this is for a
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company that did not allow for remote working you know in any meaningful way so a lot of teaching happened before
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that and a lot of education not only about the technology but about how to stay safe and the importance of stuff
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quarantining and minimizing their exposure so educating our employees about the health risks as well was
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really important and convincing them that even though it hadn't hit our shores in any meaningful way at it was
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something that was likely a challenge we were going to have to contend with so when we are sighted everything changed
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about the way we work with other um we had a whole series of meetings that I had adopted when I become the CEO and
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started making changes along the edges because again you know you don't want to
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come in and be too disruptive at once we have a lot of great people in our company with decades of experience and I
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was coming in as a new person and it was an opportunity for me to basically step
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back from the way we were doing everything in the way we communicated with each other and say if I were to
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look at what is the best way in the most effective way for us to communicate effectively and to get from dressing a
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problem to solving a problem in the shortest period of time how would I have to do it and it was I came to the
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conclusion that there's 16 people that covered the entire universe of the company and if I could speak to them
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every morning that we would be able to figure it out from there so we abandon all of our business review
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meetings and our weekly staff meetings and it also made us realize how many hours of meetings we were actually
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conducting every week and we started this call and it was really interesting because we did all by life size and the
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effectiveness of the communication and the cross collaboration that just organically evolved as a result of this
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regular communication with all parts of the company so we had a 360-degree view as a team of what each other was doing I
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was one of the most transformative moments for the company since I've been there and it has it will forever change
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the way we do business and and lead and make decisions for the company it's been
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uniformly recognized how much angly time has been wasted communication has gotten
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lost in translation when there's been pockets or silos or multiple meetings and dedicating an hour or two every
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morning with each other during this crisis allowed us to very quick very nimble it galvanized the
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group it created a real strong bond amongst amongst the group and and as a result everybody was in problem-solving
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mode and it didn't take long which was something that I'm very happy to see it
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didn't take long before we went from Ryoji mode to what do we need to do for
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the future have looking beyond this crisis what is it that we're seeing happening that we were the opportunities
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that is going to take us to the next level as a company and that became a very positive motivator that we were
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seeing that we have traction actually push forward things that we've been talking about for frankly
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you know months if not years becomes the company had and we were able to deliver
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on and put into action some initiatives in a matter of weeks that we otherwise thought we're going to take months at
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least Jerry had two quick questions that we're going to open it up you were kind
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of an early mover you got on this you had to invent your way forward my guess is though you were also looking
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over your shoulder a bit maybe at Costco maybe at Walmart others in the retail industry and were there any practices
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that you had seen already used elsewhere that you decided either to avoid because
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they weren't working or to bring into your enterprise because they were I frankly I think we were a little ahead
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there were some things that I noticed I was paying attention to Costco Costco and price might have a common DNA by
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heritage of the founders were common and so we do look at Costco but there were some things that frankly we we were even
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ahead of and when I say ahead it's relatively speaking because this this virus was spreading to the US before it
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was starting to have the impact in South America in the region where we are Central America the Caribbean and
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South America but but I do I definitely recall you know the notion of not doing demos with food wiping down cards things
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like that but it was it was more more about our team collaborating and saying what are all the ways we can keep our
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members safe and our employees safe and the and the guiding principle for us was
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there's so much going on right now and we're in you know so many different
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markets each with different governments that have different restrictions and different limitations how do I simplify
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all this and for me it just came down to first priority it was our people and our
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people met our employees there's safety and well-being and our members safety
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and well-being making sure that we had the appropriate supply flow of goods to get to our members and supply chain
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disruption you know to avoid mitigate any supply chain disruption as a result of the global pandemic ensuring that we
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were doing everything we could to meet the demands that alone that that mandate allowed us to implement click and go and
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get online something that had been in the works for years and in a matter of weeks we went live on that and finally
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making sure that you know capital and cash flow and cash management was being closely monitored in light of the
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uncertainties though yes we we I know you read everything you can and pick and choose the best ideas you stay informed
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and then you tailor it for the needs of your specific business that's great sherry a final question for me as I
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mentioned at the outset you had a history in the law you were a litigator an investment manager you were a stock
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broker and looking to that past and then in more recent years what in that experience in those several different
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areas or what in the contact you may have had with mentors along the way or I know you have a relation
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with Costco going way back what in those earlier years before this year help you
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prepare to react early to get on it and address the problem before it could begin to blow up in your face as koban
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19 arrived there it is ok you say it very nicely but it's no secret that I was an unconventional pick I did not
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come from retail and I had been in numerous leadership positions in different arenas and I did have the
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legal background I think there are two things that really positioned me to be able to take this on and handle it with
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some degree of confidence and ability to bring my groups together to support the
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effort the first was frankly values strong values that the your point about mentors saw price was a tremendous
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mentor for me when I was a litigator he was a client and this this concept of your employees coming first and making
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sure that you take care of your employees when you take care of them they will take care of your members or
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your customers and other business as referred to another businesses and when you take care of those to your
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shareholders will be taken care of um and and so that has always been at the front of my mind and and continues to be
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and no matter what role I play and that's that's a hallmark value for me as
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a leader the second was I know that trial lawyers have you know different people have
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different views about trailers but the training you get as a trial lawyer is to be very analytical and ask a lot of
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question and that curiosity and and asking and asking and asking until you really you know narrow it down do
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specific answers and not letting things kind of float ambiguously and it it's
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very effective in getting to the bottom of things quickly it's very bad they've been holding people accountable
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and I found that that skill set has been helpful to me not coming from a retail background to know how to ask the right
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questions to get a comfort level and make sure that all bases are covered um and the other is as a trial lawyer
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you learn to work sort of in a crisis mode what you're in trial for months at
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a time and stakes are high you know the ability to focus really well when you're
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under pressure when you've got adversaries now the adversary may be opposing counsel they're in this
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situation the adversary was was the virus you know it was a it was an existential threat to us so bringing the
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team together to be able to overcome this um it I think it gives you the stamina for me at least experience as a
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trial lawyer don't give me the stamina and the focus to get through an unexpected challenge like this Gary
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that's great why don't we all had enough at this point and the editor of knowledge award
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and our co-sponsor Teague blew me is right here and Steve I think you're going to invite a few questions for a
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few minutes right now yeah yeah we have a number of good questions from the audience so let's dive in the first one
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is has this experience made you rethink in-person work as a cultural norm can I ask a clarifying question is that my
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work or is it work in general like how the work environment for my employees I think the work environment for employees
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and company-wide it would there be a different requirement you think after the pandemic for people to actually be
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working in person at a location versus virtually absolutely absolutely I have been um well let me let me tell you the
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environment that our company was offering in was very conventional and it's the companies enjoy many years of
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success and there was sort of a an established mentality about have to show up at work um and that's that's where
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you are held accountable and that's how people know you're working there's a generational issue there to be
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perfectly frank I am one of the first I'm the first female leader of the company and I could tell when I first
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came in there were a lot of female employees who were asking about why we didn't have more flexibility and so I
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was totally trying to get us to evolve both because of the fact that I think it's an important thing for women and
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it's an important thing for men who want to be involved with their family life
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and have balance but also because I think the next generation expects this and if you want to attract the right
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talent and keep them you've got a shift to a mode of accountability and and that
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means the onus is on the supervisor to be able to know how what they're expecting of their employee so that they
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get the value that they want from that employee delivered as opposed to someone holding someone accountable just for
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showing up and those are two different mindsets so I I thought that process was going to take a while to get us there
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and it was going to be an incremental process and I already have that in the works well you know as Winston Churchill
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says you know never let a good crisis go wasted this necessity has allowed all of
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us to work remotely and see how effective we become and maybe in some might argue more effective now I'm not
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saying it's ideal to stay like this don't get me wrong but the fact that
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we're capable of doing it we've proven we're capable of doing it goes a really
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long way and it will be used to be able to incorporate our when I'm now calling
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our opening up of our of our business which in and of itself is a whole nother phase just like the states are opening
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up and countries are opening up we have to do what's right for our company too
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and we're looking at everything from and we're first taking care of people who
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are most vulnerable or older have underlying health conditions are pregnant I've already announced that
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anyone who has school children and frankly I've decided through the end of summer people will continue to
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work remotely and then as we open this up people who are have underlying vulnerabilities will be able to stay
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home only if there's business necessity is that if they'll be required to come
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in but then in time we're going to come up with rotating schedules that will
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incorporate social distancing allow for outdoor meetings new protocols so we're
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going to transform our work environment absolutely and I think it's going to be
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for the better yeah that's and there's next questions a sort of a bit more sort
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of nuts and bolts how do you kept track of your staff and their well-being during this time so in these morning
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meetings I have our HR head of HR there everybody knows that first of all we made sure that people knew that if they
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were showing symptoms or if they were living with someone who was showing symptoms that they should not come to
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work this was even before we remote work and for people on the frontline I'm a
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frontline employees in country two that had to be managed completely differently
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that was unavoidable the PP&E that they required and the quarantine and the contract contact tracing and the mapping
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that we do there frankly with 9,000 employees we've only had up to 38 cases of confirmed diagnosed Susan they're
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actually coming down in in the 13 different markets where we operate so we have we have I'm sorry I lost track of
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what you were asking let me go back to what she said well basically how how did you keep track of your or how have you
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been keeping track of your employees I guess productivity is one question but also their well-being company it's sort
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of a waterfall approach each I keep track of my executive team they keep track of people and that report to them
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and so on and we've tried to remove all obstacles for people to be disincentivized from being open about
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the fact that they may have be on this or that they're having trouble or they
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may be having illnesses that are unrelated I've been very transparent with my own
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team I've been and been watching carefully there's secondary effects of this virus
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if you don't track the virus you're you know you're at home you might be a young
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parent with young kids that you're having to home-school you've got a spouse who may have lost their job you
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may be both working with kids and I've been very open with the leadership teams
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to invite them to talk about it frankly the other day I shared my own personal experience I think for years especially
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as a female there's been this sense of having to constantly know that you're
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100% in control of everything and you can be but we're all still humans and things happen and life happens and for
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example my own father had a major health issue and I debated whether or not something I should share with the team
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and I decided I wanted to because I wanted to make sure they knew that I'm aware that things happen at home and
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whereas as a team we need to be there to support each other there are solutions for all of these things but to not have
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to feel like you have to hide it because we'll only be stronger if we're working
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together right but you demonstrated a lot of foresight in all of this and I'm
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wondering one of the questions from the audience is has there been a significant
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change in your culture or company culture as you've moved from being reactive to predictive have you seen
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that impact other areas of the company yes I'm an avid reader I I read about
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anything that relates even I can make relationships out of so many different things that would apply to the company
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to my people that I think would benefit them I'm constantly sending out articles
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information and encouraging them to when they find it relevant to their area of work to share those outside materials I
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think this has helped us become more external facing as a company just by promoting a culture of being a student
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the continual student no matter how many years we've been doing what we've been
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doing there's always good ideas and I think people have found that to be stimulating and given them you know one
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thing I've noticed is that I people had been unshackled from the own way old way
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of doing things and that's been invigorating that's been one of the silver linings to all of this is now II
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there's a lot more discussion about new ideas and new ways of doing things and
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it's much more of a group and collaborative dynamic but it's because we've become more outward-facing and
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taken information and best practices we've seen from elsewhere as opposed to
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just looking back to well this is how we do things this is how we've always done
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it and we've done okay we've done really well as a company so why change anything
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the attitude has become more like and we can be better and we can do more so we have time for about one more question
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before we have to wrap up and that would be what what does this crisis taught you
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the most about leadership or another way of saying that would be sort of what I have one audience member asks what has
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what have you learned most about yourself and all of this as a leader I think communication being honest with
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your people with all of your constituents or your employees your members your shareholders you know in
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the case of a public company being trans letting them know when you don't have
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the answer feeding and inviting environment or your team do the just answers do brainstorm
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together I think if you are not completely authentic and what you're facing whether it's excitement about
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opportunity or concerned about an existential threat you will not get the best thinking at the table in something
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like this you can't do alone you have to bring the best out in your people and
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when they feel that they're being valued and you're being honest with they they
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jump on board Huff's all and and that's that's what our team is been doing and I'm very very
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impressed with what we've been able to accomplish in response to something completely unprecedented and unexpected
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for the company so I would say authenticity and communication right thanks very much sherry no I'd like it
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to even cherry thank you I'm gonna close this down now you're sherry my I think
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four point summary of many points that you offered up when it comes to existential risk get on it and you got
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on it early number two we talked about it briefly and that is under the circumstance having alter egos
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other people are ready to do your job if heaven forbid you're taken out it's not
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a huge element that we often think about but in the world we're in I thought that
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was such a good step to be ready for the worst and hope for the best number three work is never going to be
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quite the same we've learned a lot we're going to readapt some things but there's
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no go let's not go completely back to where we are we've got some great ideas
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out of this and then finally your last a minute or two here life is a learning journey just to use that phrase and
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learning about yourself you've been at this for a while but learning about yourself even this year you've already
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you said you've learned a lot about how you operate and how you should operate
00:28:16
so with that I'm going to just remind people of our next guest and then we're
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going to thank sherry with a spontaneous round of applause next week I think it's
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May 28th we have a former member of parliament he served many years in the British Parliament and the Conservative
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Party he became Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change so he knows a lot about those terrains and he's now in
00:28:44
the House of Lords so Lord Barker will be with us as our next person sherry we've got several others following love
00:28:53
to have everybody with us today and with that Gerry I just want to thank you thank you Steve thank you for all who've
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joined us but in particular sherry you're going to see my round of applause and sucking here are the silent applause
00:29:06
that is coming from our 700 people of the listing thank you very much thank you very much for having me and I look
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forward to watching the whole Paris so thank you for all the work you're doing
00:29:15
under these unusual circumstances it is unusual we'll get through it Thank You
00:29:20
sherry very much goodbye everybody bye-bye you