president and vice president of the us. live coverage begins at 7 eastern on january 20th. watch live streaming or on demand, c-span.org or listen with the free c-span radio apps. beginning now, booktv on c-span2. .. find more schedule information about tv.org or consult your program guide. now both tv begins whole foods market ceo john mackey on his approach to leadership.

subject connected never and i'm robert door resident of the american enterprise institute. it is my pleasure to welcome you to this conversation with john mackey's cofounder and ceo of a full proof market and the cofounder of the non- profit conscious capitalism and it's your today to talk of his new book conscious leadership : elevating humanity through business. john i cannot think of a better gas to have on thanksgiving week venue. and it is a pleasure to have you. welcome to our discussions with this afternoon. select thanks robert thanks for having on the show. >> because i read about, i loved your book and i recommend the book, i am now almost 18 months into my term as ceo of ai in i have been a ceo my previous', it is always good to be reminded of what makes effective leadership work in any institution of any

size. you have a lot of great lessons about how to be a good leader. one has to do with having a purpose, one has a good lead with love, another message within evasion and integrity. i want to ask if all of these lessons are also important, what do you think is the most important? which you rely on as your go to attribute that is made you so successful? >> the first chapter in the book is called put purpose first. so i guess i better put it first. scipio and yet right. [laughter] the purpose part is important. you seem to address announcer address for our listeners why you think it is true that even for-profit firms that are out to make money and develop a profits, and pay shareholders, they are most successful when they see a higher purpose.

give us that. sweetie it is the single most understanding about business and capitalism. before we get this corrected capitalism is going to be sustained and criticized and attacked. it will be attacked first motivations. its motivations are seen. and of course business have to make money. if business does make money it will fail. but that doesn't mean that is its purpose, to make money. i mean a metaphor, a good way to explain it is, my body has to produce red blood cells. by producing red blood cells, if i don't do i will die. it doesn't mean because i have to create red blood cells or purpose of my life is not creating blood cells of the necessary good decision but it does not define who i am. similarly business has to make money or fails. but business is really about

creating value for other people. that is why it exists. that is why it exists to create value for other people. because a good job of creating good value, and products, and services that its customers wants, for the business will flurry and it will make money for its investors area but i think because business gets put in this narrow box that it is all about money. it's all about making money. that is so odd if you think about it. because if you ask for the purpose of the doctors, doctors make a lot of money in our society but don't say i'm a doctor to make as much money as possible. even if that is true that is not the ethics of stand behind medicine. the ethics behind medicine are to heal people. teachers educate, architectures design buildings, engineers construct things. every one of these constructions is some type of value creation. they are doing in the world to serve other people.

in business is the biggest value created the world by far part we should be talking about in terms of value creation for its customers. and the jobs it creates for its employees. the residual effects that happen trades with suppliers who also trade for voluntary reasons. they are benefiting and prospering as a result. it has value for investments in the larger communities. it creates values from least constituencies, all the stakeholders. so we do not do ourselves a service by somebody trying to explain business purposes making as much money as possible. i think we lose the argument as soon as we say that for most people. >> host: in your business and you start whole foods market you had a very straightforward purpose which was, i think i understand it to bring better quality, wholesome, natural foods to people so they could purchase them. i mean that is a great purpose. and you accomplish that.

i mean you feel as if you lead to more people eating better, more healthy, more wholesome food. isn't that a person to be proud of that achievement? >> absolutely. our standard purpose for today , but explain a couple of things. first when i started a business of my girlfriend, i was 24 and she was 20. we're just a couple of kids really. and yet we did not have a stated higher purpose. we're just passionate about natural organic food and selling healthier food to people. you asked with a higher purpose back in 1978 or i would've said higher purpose, yeah sure. we just want to sell healthy food to people. and earn a living and have some fun doing it. guess what, those things all still exist at whole foods. the fun part is that it's part of who we are. our purpose has deepened and the last 42 years.

our official stated purpose is now nourished people on the planet. that has a lot of depth to that i how you define nourished and how you define people and how you define the planet. they all have different layers to them. so i do think every business that you really admire the most has a higher purpose. i know hundreds of entrepreneurs in my life, hundreds, very few of them start their business to get rich. sure they want to make money, they like to get rich. mostly they are passionate about something. if you read the boundaries of people like steve jobs, bill gates, elon musk, jeff bezos, these guys were, they were passionate about something. something they what into creates. so excited in fact they just had to get going on it. they made a lot of money because they created value for a lot of people.

>> host: you're telling the story of purpose and the message of getting a message of an institution down throughout every member of it, you tell a story i had never heard. and i think of myself is a little bit of a historian both. special but the kennedy administration. when president kennedy was touring the space and he ran into a custodian who was mopping the floor and cleaning up the place. said what are you doing and the custodians that i'm helping to get a man on the moon. and i wanted to ask you, i struggled with this at ai. how'd you get everyone in the building to be united behind one purpose? how do you get that message out? you refer to your people who work as whole foods as team members how do you do that? >> guest: that's a good question, robert. it is not easy. think the first thing is the leadership has to embody the purpose themselves. if you are not living the purpose. people pay so much more

attention to what you do, and how you show up in the world and what you say. in fact we have a very well attuned intent is for hypocrisy, witness the governor's faux pas in california for nancy pelosi's faux pas. so when we see hypocrisy we are on board people are is looking to call me a hypocrite for their looking to see how i eat. it's important that i personally and other leaders embody the purpose of whole foods forget to walk the talkers just talk. that being said, company occult phase we have about 100,000 people with the company. we get turned over and continued growth. we get adding on ten to 20000 team members every year. and so how do you keep the purpose, how do you institutionalize it. the only way you can do it has to part of the orientation. has to be something you talk about all the time.

it is important that the leaders reference with they are doing fact with the higher purpose of the organization is. you talk about all the time because you have new people coming and all the time, you can never take it for granted. we have a very resilient powerful culture, the culture does a lot of the work for you. other people that are there that have internalized the values and purpose of the organization, they will spread. the act like an immune system for an organization. especially in organizations been around for a long time, especially based on the value and focus. as a good strong culture that you can expect the organization to do its work in getting people to be converted over. a lot of hypocrisy and people don't think you're living up to it. and it won't be very effective. purpose is something, it can never, a given analogy right

now, i have no doubt in my mind face with a higher purpose. it there in the declaration of independence. it's there in our bill of right rights. and yet it is not being taught spirit is being for god's. work on the founding purpose of america is. or drink a job of continuing to communicate the higher purpose of the united states. >> i completely agree with that. but the book called learning patriotism new have to teach those values and at talk about them all the time. people recognize what is the source of our success as a country? has a whole unit at ai that is focused on that pretty want to do more of that on college campuses. even with younger students. so communicate, communicate, communicate is exactly right for my perspective. it has worked for me.

it is a problem as a country. >> one reason i contribute to ai is that very point. mikel and asked about leading with love. i love that to about your book. you have a way in which you encourage a positive collaboration and positive feedback from one worker to another. i think you are practicing means we conclude by saying tell us about that. >> sure. first i will say that love is often times not associated with corporations. which in fact are generally seen as heartless money grabbers. part of the image problem i have in the world, it's due to the metaphor that businesses being hypercompetitive. we as war and for its views darwinian to, we use sports

metaphors to explain business. when you are at war this really not much place for love so check that at the door, do that with your family hey we have thanksgiving we can express love may be run christmastime. but check it at the door you come to work because we are at war. we've got to win. that's very unfortunate because love is it. it's not weak, which is a people note associated with not a feminine virtue. love is the glue that holds an organization together. as if you give to things to people they will love your organization that will stay with it decade after decade after decade. hopefully has very low turnover. that's when the first thing noticed you got a lot of people bit of work to more than 20 years. amazon has two. the reason why is if you give people purpose and give people a sense that they care about that they are loved, that is a people what they want purpose and they want love it.

if you could meet both of those desires and needs, then you are going to have a great organization. so appreciation is one way you can release love in an organization. and so this is something whole foods does. it's simple. if you get nothing else out of my talk today remember this one thing. >> i agree. >> just while meetings with appreciation you will release love in your organization. so what whole foods does come every time we have a meeting we wrap it up by doing voluntary appreciations nobody has to do it. but what happens is you do an authentic appreciation of someone else for you cannot do an authentic appreciation without opening your heart. people know the difference when someone is just saying something when they are actually feeling that and expressing it from their heart. so it you have an authentic appreciation role in your heart others will pick up on it. in addition it's very hard to stay entrenchment of someone

who's just given them authentic appreciation. if i thought tom was sort of a jerk and he's there saying he appreciates the things i do, and is doing it in an authentic way not just sucking up to me, that i am probably going to rethink who tom is for them to look at him with fresh eyes. so i will tell you some stories at whole foods. so appreciation become a big deal with whole foods with my leadership group at their senior leadership group, couple of years ago we were spending so much time doing appreciations at the end of meetings we had to have rules we had that limit the number appreciations was to look you can't appreciate everybody on the team here. were going to limit you to three appreciations. and that's stilted to log parts we said you know what, you've got a one appreciation. make it count if you have

other appreciations, good, but to the outside of this meeting. and so we could get our appreciations with one down to about 30 minutes which is probably a recent amount of time. but try it, it's very powerful. i'd other people, other organizations and on triggers and ceo saying we started doing appreciations, everything changed after that. >> c mention a couple times in our conversation already defects that merged with amazon there's been is quite remarkable coming together to iconic american companies. i wanted you to tell us a little bit about that, how that is going a weather there's been tensions. but he also wanted to point out you have another story in the book about how jeff bezos in common i didn't know this either, when he had meetings he always has an empty chair for the customer. the customers always represented. i have that right? and tell us a little bit about the amazon/whole foods market merger. >> the empty chair is part of

the amazon story. whether they still actively do that or not i am not sure. it's it's probably based on real-time stuff that happens. so we think of a merger between two large companies. whole foods is a fortune 500 company when amazon bought us. it is a little bit like a marriage. i say that because the coming together voluntarily for mutual gain and benefits. and hopefully because you really admire the other person. i use the metaphor like it world wind romance and cult love at first sight. i told that story you'd see it. but at the same time i will not retell that story. when you get married, and most people will know what i'm talking about. if you are going to get married you are going to

change. that is inevitable. because the other person is going to influence you. you will gradually become, went to move over to get the sun. off my face. there we go. you will gradually change. and amazon's had a big impact on whole foods we've changed. but on the other hand have a very resilient culture. i would say in a healthy marriage there is in me, a you, and those in us. and so they all three have to be healthy. so whole foods we have to stay whole foods. we have to follow a higher purpose. we have to fulfill our core values. we have to be whole foods. we have the unique special culture. and amazon is largely respected that. not our culture as a balding but it's not because amazon's cramming a bunch of things down our throats. just because we are adopting certain processes. w1 example, whole foods institute and previous to the

merger we would be i would say we are more intuitive in our decision-making. amazon is very, very data-driven in their decision-making process. so a lot of time to talk and amazon would be giving her opinions, our theories and then say show us the data. were not going to make the decision unless you show the data. the event practiced a write up which is called a six pager signature arguments with data supporting them for it you do a good job of that, then you are going to get the decision that you once. if you don't to a good job you're going to be sent back to the drawing board told no. so whole foods has begun to think the more that way, more data-driven in our decision-making, and that's been a good thing for us. we still have her intuition and her entrepreneurial take on things, but we are more data-driven. so how is the merger going? it's going pretty well. because whole foods are

evolving amazon thanks long-term. we been able to make three now are making on our fourth price reduction something our company needed to do. premerger amazon data is a lot of cool technology, i got to the book i talk about how it has been a win for everyone of her stakeholders and through lower prices. one of our team members, amazon pretty soon after the merger increase pay just $15 an hour. you had increased everybody else's pay got to level everybody up. that was very expensive. we counted the cost to amazon first years going to cost two and $50 million -ish we want to do that? and they did. in course is great for morale, team members loved it. that time had about 90000 people. 85000 of them got a raise in pa pay. they're pretty excited about that. a win for our team members, when for our suppliers for a lot of our supplier started selling to amazon or not doing

before. it's a good thing for them. good distribution. when for investors by the time we began talking amazon to win the deal closed, they got it for billion-dollar increase in valuation. that was a win for them. i think a win for all of the community aspects of it as well. hopefully there's philanthropy and things were doing in our community, amazon has supported that is not try to crimp that at all and has an added additional donations in some cases so win, win, win, win. very good. we went to you worried about your situation but generally about the negative, potential negative impact of size large sizes that make it harder to lead the way you want to lead? >> i would say the biggest challenge as a result of this merger has been amazon has probably been one or two or three, one of the top three companies for sure that gets

scrutinized. everything they do is under a microscope. so whole foods, we were big. but not everything we do is under the microscope. that is pretty bizarre. also got to think about anything we say or do, we do not want that to negatively impact amazon. of course amber does -- amazon doesn't want that. were the interesting things i was ten but the guy i report to amazon what type he said he's using my metaphor of marriage because yet when you married into this family you know got a bunch of in-laws now. some people don't like the in-laws too much and you're going to have to live with that because you're part of the family now. i thought that was a very clever way of putting it. don't people are matted amazon there met whole foods and vice versa. that is different being under the microscope so closely all of the time for it i have to be guarded to a little bit about what i say in an interview like this because

somebody will hear it somewhere and the media could do a headline out of it. i don't want any headlines showing a pair. >> speak freely without us, you not to worry about us. >> [laughter] if you end up writing the book you have an appendix called cultural intelligence. we're not going to shift a little bit about your company. your going to come back to your company and leadership of company in a minute. i did want to ask about this in an effort to get a what your view is on where we are as a country. you talk about three kinds of cultural intelligence for the traditional, the modern, and then the progressive. and it's can of these old rule based focused on faith and church. model is the liberal america that's open to society. believes in science and change. and then progressive is a

little step further. and then you talk about something posted progressive culture. could you just tell us a little bit about what that is? because it looked to me a little bit like the divide, something that gets us pass the decisions that are plaguing america. maybe i am wrong. >> guest: know you are right for this is a good framework. in those of you interested in following up we have an appendix at the very end of the book that goes into some detail about thi this. chances are the authors might write about this. see what looks like your legacy for something bigger later. >> guest: yes of got a book or talk about conscious america. diving into this deeper. to understand the united states to think about it in terms of world views. there's dominant worldviews in america. the first one is the more traditional worldview which is

based on family in the country for its got a traditional values about religion, about family, about -- it harkens back to the constitution the declaration of independence. stuart very ai, very ar we are very comfortable in that. >> guest: the kind of heroes you might get in traditional world would be like ronald reagan and winston churchill, william buckley, people like that. and so the modernist worldview, and so a traditional worldview would have a lot more belief in sort of truth being revealed through revelation, through faith. modernist is much more scientific. it's more of the enlightenment of progress through science, through reason, through

capitalism and if you think about 30% of the population in the united states is traditional that is where they are anchored. and about 50% is anchored in modernism. so some examples of modernists would be thomas jefferson, ben franklin, madison, john f. kennedy, einstein, edison, milton freedman in some way and guys like bill gates is a strong modernists. now they make up about 20% of the population right now, each of these comes out as a worldview evolves, they partly reject the worldview that came before them. so modernism rejected faith. it rejected religion largely.

to so many modernists or atheists believe in reason, they believe in science. they don't believe in scripture or the revelation things like that. so a part of them there is a rejection of what comes before. but until progressivism arose you have this alignment between traditionalists ethics and modernist science that sort of drove america for many, many decades. until it came along. in the view becomes about flaws are failures in the previous worldviews. so, modernism did not completely realize, some of the things progressivism comes out is realizing the limitations of moderna and sort of the environmental movement has come out of that because modernism is producing economic progress. their externalities coming out of that they could negatively impact the environment.

for people who are progressive tend to be have very strong environmental views. we know we have potentially this year, but in the last few years if at antiracism movement now which is very progressive, the whole woke ideology is a progressive mindset. and basically arguing that america is inconsistent with its founding values, equality, of all we have not done a good enough job in overcoming racism, having inclusivity and diversity. that is been the media a lot. of course i see we've made a lot of progress in america we solve some problems, right? that helps motivate it. i would say the progressive view is also pretty globalist in a sense that it is very

concerned about inequality, suffering by any place in the world really. and so there is a strong & modernist streak to progressivism as well. distrust of science. except it serves the ideology and mistrust of progress. >> they don't like capitalism much. >> guest: they don't like capitalism there's a rejection of capitalism. there is an element of socialism. anti- modernist streak to it. those are the three partly got 30% traditionalists 50% modernist, 50% progressives. progressives because they dominate macadamia, hollywood, and the media punch way above their weight class in terms of actual numbers. but that is the cultural or pretty got these three worldviews that are struggling

with each other. so how are we going to move past it? the authors argue that we have to go post progressive. the essence of post- progressivism is to recognize all three of these worldviews have dignities and disasters. there are good things about them and their bad things about it. but we have to do is honor the good things in each of these worldviews. so for example, we have to recognize a lot of some of the progressive's insights are important. they should not go away. we can't throw our capitalism replace with socialism about be a disaster. socialist is been tried 42 times in the last 100 years and 42 failures. it does not work it's the wrong way we have to keep capitalism. i would argue any conscious capitalism. we need conscious leadership. which is capitalism at done in a much more conscious way. taking into account higher purpose, stakeholders, human flourishing and done in a very conscious way.

so we need to take the best of all of these worldviews and make sure the very bad things that we can recognize a bad things. the bad things might be the disasters in a traditional worldview are racism, bigotry, sexism, homophobia. those who beat accusation hurt sometimes traditional values. modelers we can recognize sometimes can be captured by special interest. it can be indifferent. it can be elitist. it can be uncaring so to speak. >> host: overly materialistic. >> guest: overly materialistic memory look at anti- modernism, reverse patriotism so we are no longer patriotic americans the world's country that's ever existed. subject authoritarian. >> it can be self righteous in

skokie, telling everybody criticizing and canceling people out to different views. we clearly see a lot of the disasters for progressivism right now. they are on display. >> there also the beauties of progressivism we need to integrate to go forward in a healthy way. so if america is going to get to the next place, we need to

i wonder from your perspective after being right in the middle of that, is that divide as pronounced, difficult and painful as it looks? or do we exaggerated because of media attention gets? >> now i think there's a pretty big divide. 2020 is been a terrible year because of covid. and everybody being locked up in people getting lonely, getting angry, getting frustrated. people listen their jobs, the businesses failing. it's people on edge freeze all the rights that happen. whole foods had a number of stores that were damage free were damaged a couple nights ago in portland, a couple of her stores were damaged. that has happened to be 15 or 20 of her stores have suffered damage during the peaceful protests. [laughter]

until we have our team members pretty had a big controversy of the summer about dress code. because whole foods is always had sort of a don't want shoot -- we want you to wear -- we don't want you to promote whatever your political causes are. whether it be black lives matter make america great again or whatever it is, check it out the door. we want you to be serving our customers. that is been controversy appeared we had a blowup last week we did not when our canadian team members to be wearing that congress or legislature can dan at whole foods for telling people they just wanted them to wear official company address. and whole foods, when you get big government threatening to shut you down, he will change

her dress code. and we did for canada. i wonder if that would have happened if amazon is not donor focus on not sure it would've. everything magnified because of the amazon connection. connect that is so unfortunate. it seems to me, are you eager to be more active in portland they get portland, i am from new yor york. we know protests and disturbances. under the period of time that i worked there, we did believe in a certain kind of order and respect of property. is that loss? in that community? >> i don't know loss but it's been challenged to put it that way. here's the thing. we are groceries. we just went to sell food to people.

our team members have to be safe. we have had stores broken into, we give quick instruction, chicago and new york and seattl seattle, and portland, and oakland and several other cities as well. we have had disturbances. we have protocols in place to protect her team members there far more important properties people read out the backdoor people break in the stores they commit baseball bats and just start bagging our cash registers. and just going into the wind apartment and slaughtering, hitting wine bottles and just being destructive. so business has to be -- we need peace. commerce is based on peace. >> host: rule of law. >> guest: we need rule of law. in that rule of law has been challenged a little bit and is being challenged. we are kind of an iraqi place in america right now.

we are defunding the police and a lot of communities. and so it is harder to do business. we have to hire a lot more security guards now. >> host: 's became harder to do business i did what to speak to about innovation and start a culture in america. this is a? getting from our audience. do you think that you could do what you did all of those years ago as easily? or is the restrictions on our ability to start a business, grow a business, be freed of established really successful enterprise. to feel that is loss? >> guest: that's a really good question. robert. i don't know i've been doing this for 42 years is pretty easy to start a business in 48 i just open a business knows for one day. government bureaucrats and where is your health department certificate us and we need one of those?

where's your building permit? they came around but they did not shut us down. they just said to get that. we had to pay a fee's when always focused on your purpose. you have a lot of stories about business people who just kept focusing on what they wanted to achieve. and they ran into roadblocks and kept their eye on that bigger goal, that really got through them. speak to business people at the consulate innovate around bureaucracy, stupid rules and figure out ways so they can stay in business. i mean that is the reality. the whole history of business and a one way is dealing with -- you need rules pretty need regulation, any loss or stoles are not broken into and looted all the time for you need police. on the other hand, you can overly regulate business so it's hard to do business. and then the whole society

becomes a less well-being and less prosperous. see what i want to go back to the book again. i want to go back to the book. it's a great lesson for leaders. but one of the things i love about is you don't always tell it through your story. you tilted the story of 100 other business people who started businesses and lead with these values. and i guess i wanted to ask, what is your sense -- isn't your sense these kind of leadership values are on the rise? or they are more prevalent than you realize? or you're fighting a pail against a culture that really needs to be changed dramatically in this world. >> guest: it is evolving, it needs to evolve or other icy socialists are going to takeovers how i see it. that is the path of poverty. but they talk about

trickle-down wealth impoverished is everything. that's my fear, the academic communities generally hospital in business. always has been. if you look at mccloskey's work, you will see that all of the minority groups persecuted the jews in the west and the chinese in the east. clergy, they've always despised businesses. it's what tradesmen do they are trading, they are making a profit. you study european history even if you weren't jewish that was an attack on business

culture and away. now universities are, they are so progressive. they're so anticapitalist. i go to speak at universities sometimes they disinvited me. i watched students come particular in a business school they love the message you can do well and you could be prosperous and you can have a higher purpose. i want to argue with me about i it. the interesting things about me who teaches and medical schools for the teachers? doctors. who teaches in law schools?

>> host: lawyers former lawyers. >> guest: teaches in business schools? , not business people intellectuals teach great intellectuals who have never actually been in business at all. it's very interesting. don't understand business they don't particular anderson entrepreneurship and often times can be hostile towards a very thing they are teaching. that's a particular challenge. >> how many people to employ? >> guest: 100,000 people now. >> host: 100,000 people jobs. that's livelihood those are well-being those are pathways u up. that is a greater contribution to human flourishing then universities in some ways. it is tremendous. i am a former welfare administrator as i mentioned earlier. i have lived up people providing jobs. it's what i counted on.

when the economy was strong and groceries and all kinds of ministries that hired low skilled workers were hiring. that is the best thing we can have. switches only be clear about it. capitalism are i like mccloskey's word for it, innovation is him, innovation is a missa greatest thing humanity ever created. if you look back 200 years ago when 94% of everyone live on the planet earth 94% leased six made more than $2 a day. that's in today's dollars. today that's under 10% for the average lifespan to it years ago was 30, now it is 72.6. some countries it's closer to 80. across the planet 80% now there 12%. if you lead steven pinker's

book enlightenment now you'll see documentation after documentation after documentation about how much the world would progress. it has been science and technology combined with innovationism as the entrepreneurs took the scientific discoveries and operationalize them to make our lives better. it is the greatest thing humanity has ever done. business people are not the villains of the story, they are the heroes of the story. create great progress. universally vilified that the fee look at the studies, the polls, people don't trust business bird they think business because their motivations are wrong, business is a greedy, selfish, all they care about is making money. and so it can't be trusted. it corrupts the political culture. it is a fundamentally bad thing. that's a waste to this move socialism. basic capitalism is corrupt.

that's wrong. capitalism is a great thing jimenez ever done. the enemies of capitalism put out a narrative about us that is wrong. it is in accurate. and it is doing tremendous damage to the minds of young people. we have to counter that. >> and cure right i also think the victim of our success. when things go bad in socialist policies take over the market but not the market but unemployment goes down long-term unemployed part all of a sudden people will realize the benefits of a growing and prosperous economy i think respect they may not realize it robert. hold down the last 200 years has never happened before, okay? humanity for the most part has very slow progress. that is because business

people are basically so regulated the genie never got out of the bottle until the enlightenment. so for a brief period of time the intellectuals at least wit neutral on business. and so maybe there is some good in this. now that trying stop the genie back in the bottle. we begin to stagnate we will regress from outside the whole technological civilization will collapse, but will not progress. and it will begin to stagnate. if we put in some of these green new deal policies that you start to see us go backwards. back you look at the longer-term trends for your not caught up in this election or this crisis. but you have mentioned covid a couple of times. i just want to get your sense of where we are in the communities that your source survey in your sense of a

large employer in businessperson and america. and your observation of the pharmaceutical industry and others that have moved so quickly to develop a vaccine. are you feeling we're getting a stabilizing of the title here? i things going to get better? the other thing i hate to ask you a mundane business question, but i thought some people in the grocery business there were some upticks during covid because people were eating at home are. that does not happen in your business? >> no our stores are way appeared way up. media reports things wrong for two reasons about whole foods. the first one is that our transaction count in the stores is down. the traffic counts are down. they're down for two reasons for the first one is whole foods does a lot of business and prepared foods. office workers coming in for lunch. and with offices closed down

for covid we did not get that traffic in. the average counselor down. second the online business has tripled since covid. it's gone up three 100%. so actual sales, they are way u up. just an accurately reported. hopefully this is done well during covid but i think all supermarket chains have done well. because a restaurants, they have made a transition temporarily i believe to not eating out as much, eating a lot more at home. that has been good for supermarkets. whole foods, walmart, kroger, publix, they all have. >> host: you been able to adjust whatever covid restrictions have been in place and interventions? what is your view on that? >> well, first of all whole foods has a duty and responsibility to keep our customers and team members safe. i'm actually very proud of the fact that our company was out

in front of a lot of this part i was a partly because amazon pushed us real hard to be out in front on this. we've been recognized in a couple publications as the safest supermarket in america drink of it. so most people have copied a lot of what whole foods went out doing from masks to disinfecting, to cleaning, to temperature testing, things like that. so i mean, we have been very successful in terms of infections, the number people who have died, they are relatively small at whole foods. obviously if i told to be a headlands i'm not going to tell you how much, but pretty low, pretty low. let's make no mistake about it. it's been very difficult year even with our sales up. everyone is wearing a mask. everyone is social distancing. whole foods is a very huggy culture, no one is hugging. you do elbows or you kick feet with each other. that's not quite the same is

it? and people are not socializing as much. i say whole foods made a lot of cultural deposits for number of years. in 2020 are making withdrawals on those deposits. >> host: two more questions. one, in your book you say you like to hire from within. bj like to overdo that. as a percentage alike like like 80% or 75%. because bring people from outside brings a bigger culture. tells a little bit about hiring and choosing of team members. >> guest: it is a balance really between -- and the only hire from within -- if you only promote from within, that really enhances the culture in the sense that people know that if they work hard, they can rise up and get ahead. because whole foods has been

growing as a great opportunity for people since the founding of the company. so i watch people start out and work their way all the way up. and does not require a college education to make a lot of money at whole foods. you can rise through the ranks so to speak. on the other hand if you only promote from within your going to stagnate because you are not getting enough new ideas. enough innovation from outside this sort of helps ferments you might say the innovation and creativity. on the other hand, if you permit too many people from the outside people begin to think g you can't get ahead in this company. the way to get ahead is to work somewhere else we will be more greatly appreciated. so approximately in our leadership about 25% get promoted from outside the company and about 75% are promoted within. that's what's worked out for whole foods to be kind of the right number. but that can vary with other companies i think.

so when i before wanted to ask you a thanksgiving question with the underlying business and your passion for healthy and wholesome foods. we've had a tough year, no doubt about it. but we are going have thanksgiving pretty mayhap gathering smaller than usual but we are still going have gatherings with family. so what is a product or a food -- a means that your table and that you would recommend to those of us putting together our menus for thursday? >> guest: i may be a bad person to ask, i'm plant based on a vegan. sue went i know that i didn't think you're saying turkey. we all eat vegetables. what is your go to this? smitty what is my go to dish? my go to dish generally is a being's to with the tom the vegetables in it.

that is my favorite dish. >> host: that will be on table with your family thanksgiving? >> guest: absolutely a lot of beans but a ton of vegetables from sweet potatoes to broccoli to cauliflower, to okra, whatever veggies are in season. spew it okay alright. i hope you had a great thanksgiving, and thank you for all that you have done. thanks for your book and your guidance and for participating in this conversation this afternoon. >> guest: thank you. >> host: deveney final words or anything we missed that you want to say? i always like to give people that chance if they feel there's a message they want to convey. >> guest: i guess i will convey a message of hope that we are -- america's country difficult tim time. we are not nearly through it. were not going through it anytime soon. but i am a student of american

history. we have faced bigger challenges than this one. we stumbled our way through it, but we have gotten through. i think we will get through this would too. maybe it's going to take a few years. maybe longer. but i do think america has a great capacity to renew itself. and sometimes we are best when our backs are against the wall. and we are forced to make changes, we are forced to make reformations. there's a great underlying love of the country by americans pretty think we've seen in this election cycle. and yes i'm very hopeful about the future. even if i am not particularly helpful about the short-term future. even though i think we will get past covid pretty think a year from now we will be past it. a lot of our normal behaviors will be returning which is going to be a good thing. we will stopping so scared that will be a good thing. so do you that's important got a live comic got a go forward and we are going to get there

covid. thank you very much for doing this. we really appreciate it. strict thanks and throw ai dozens gratis of titian. >> host: thank you. >> you're watching book tv out cspan2 part every week and with the latest nonfiction books and authors. book tv on cspan2, created by america's cable television company. today we are brought to by these television companies to provide book tv to viewers as a public service. ♪ ♪ back good afternoon and welcome to this afternoon of the ashington history seminar. national affairs. this afternoon will focus on a new book by gw professor sara wagoner, what remains, bringing americans missing home from the war. here's