Rituals and Values: Fostering Equality and Community in a Company

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The founder implemented rituals to foster equality and community, including regular visits to stores and working at the warehouse. Meetings were held to discuss ideas, promote company values, and encourage open conversation. They actively sought criticism to address issues. While some cultures may struggle with criticism, the company implemented systems to promote feedback. In Latin American culture, freely criticizing each other is not common, so the company created a chain of complaints to ensure support. They discouraged individuals from fixing problems themselves and instead encouraged them to speak up about lacking support.

OXXO was the dominant convenience store chain in Mexico—until its chief rival doubled in size almost overnight.

In this episode, Harvard Business School professor Tatiana Sandino explains how OXXO CEO Eduardo Padilla responded to this strategic challenge. Instead of opening more stores as quickly as possible, he focused on improving the company’s culture and operations. The company implemented management systems across its locations and then used those systems to gain new economies of scale.

Key episode topics include: strategy, competitive strategy, operations strategy, organizational culture, Mexico, growth, agile, multi-unit organizations.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

· Listen to the original HBR Cold Call episode: Under Pressure, OXXO Rethinks the Convenience Store (Dec 2019)

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