I’m applying for the Co-op GM position again. They ask for a vision statement.
UPDATE 9/1: I realized that my letter of application contained the section on experience that has interested several people. I have added the application letter with that information below the vision statement.
My vision is that, working together, our Co-op will meet its mission during a period of unprecedented change by helping members meet their food security needs and by helping local producers thrive.
To explain my vision, I must digress. It is unusual to have an opportunity to apply for the same job twice and to have a year to think about unfolding changes to the world and how I can better to articulate what is important about them. I’m convinced that climate change poses, by far, the greatest risk to humanity. And the failure of essential US leadership in the international community is already having devastating consequences, including impacts on our local food security.
I believe climate change is real and caused by human activity. I think a lot of people share the belief, but they don’t understand what to do next or why we are stuck on the Business-as-Usual trajectory.
We have all heard about Peak Oil and seen the graphs of world oil production peaking about 2005 and drifting slowly downward for the next century. We have not been talking about Peak Oil per Capita — the amount of oil available per person. That graph is declining much faster because the number of people in the developing world using oil is growing. If several billion Chinese and Indians each wish to use only 5% as much oil as Americans use, our per capita supply must become less. If oil-exporting nations decide to meet their internal needs rather than sell to the US, our supplies could decline more precipitously. I’m going to focus on oil because it’s such a wonderful, potent, easily handled and transported fuel. The rest of the fuels could be woven into a longer version of this story.
Time is important in this story because with lots of time there is opportunity to adapt and innovate. Climate scientists call for a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 — 8 years away. To get there we need both innovation and lots of capital investment to replace existing infrastructure.
But we all seem to be stuck in Business-as-Usual. The challenge is, presently we are in a recession, and there is less money available for investment in energy conversions. And, more challenging, as energy availability declines then money (a measure of everything produced with energy) goes away. Wealth is disappearing by many mechanisms such as lost work or lost value of investments (think underwater home mortgages). Climate catastrophes (hurricane, tornado, wildfire and flood) are destroying wealth as well. Less energy per capita means there are fewer resources available to rebuild wealth so we struggle along trapped in our high carbon lifestyles. (More about these ideas in Kunstler’s books The Long Emergency and Too Much Magic.)
The Moscow Food Co-op cannot significantly impact any of these global processes. The Co-op is important, however, and I believe that its greatest asset is that it exists as an organization who’s raison d’être to serve the owners’ mutual benefit. The Co-op is our resource, as owners, to make intelligent choices that help us (and our community) manage through the impending energy/economic decline.
My vision is that, working together, our Co-op will meet its mission during a period of unprecedented change by helping members meet their food security needs and by helping local producers thrive.
Price is an important consideration. Over the last year as I have sought the role of GM, people have come to me sharing concerns about prices. Some of those members have lost their jobs in the past year which has made food costs a more acutely felt issue. For a variety of reasons, the real costs of food are likely to rise and the Co-op must pass those costs along. Even while saying so, I recognize that high prices, even the perception of them, makes the Co-op vulnerable to loss of business and to our local competitors. The GM is charged with increasing sales and must navigate these retail challenges as part of a long-term strategy. I will collaborate with the department managers to contain costs and margins while offering the best products and prices to customers.
I’ve spent time over the last year looking at our other local grocery stores, trying to pinpoint what makes the Co-op special. It’s not the friendly staff (though they are) or the natural and organic foods. I think what distinguishes the Co-op, in ways you sense when you walk in the door, is that “we” are doing “this” together.
Daniel Pink influences my management style. I’ve used his collaborative and empowering ideas in the past and I know they will make the Co-op both a best workplace and create a welcoming environment for new shoppers and returning members.
Pink focuses on a view of management that is contrary to popular beliefs and typical practice. He says, “For simple straightforward tasks monetary rewards improve performance, but once you get above rudimentary cognitive skill and mechanical tasks, rewards don’t work as incentives.” For a summary of Pink’s book Drive see this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
Pink is clear about pay, he says “pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table,” but beyond that point three other factors lead to better work performance and personal satisfaction: Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose.
Autonomy – employees need autonomy in aspects of their job. Management often runs afoul of this goal. Management is great if you want compliance, but if you want engagement with the job and attention to solving novel emerging challenges, self-direction is better.
Mastery – the urge we all have to get better at stuff. Its why people play musical instruments or undertake other personal challenges during their free time.
Purpose – the chance to make a meaningful contribution. The reward is intrinsic, it stems from making a personally important contribution and having the opportunity to make that the best contribution possible. In his TED talk, Pink gives an extended example of these ideas using Wikipedia vs. Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopedia project.
I see evidence of Pink’s ideas already in place at the Co-op (among employees, volunteers and members) and intend to lead in ways that continues and extends this successful culture. Much as the Tuesday Growers Market (invite your competitors to sell in your parking lot) functions in wonderful and counter-intuitive ways, I believe that with some autonomy and opportunity to strive toward mastery, our Co-op community can invent more ways to leverage our collective resources to meet each of the Co-op’s strategic goals: Strengthen Co-op community; Create and maintain the best working environment in Moscow; Develop and support the local, organic and sustainable goods economy; Incorporate values of environmental sustainability into facility; and Increase community engagement, outreach, and education.
I will find ways to help the Co-op meet its mission by supporting sound retail practices and by creating and supporting the flowering of more community food resources. I’ll continue the various ways the Co-op organizes and cooperates with the web of resources in our community to — local growers, home gardeners, and food professionals. I believe it will contribute to creating the best workplace and the intelligent response that will be needed as the Co-op and its members adapt to the changing energy and climate times ahead.
It is this idea of “we together” that is the other important consideration in my vision. The Co-op is more than a grocery store. What other grocery runs a newspaper, invites competitors to sell from its parking lot, or organizes social awareness events? We (the members) want to do this and we do it with money that other grocery stores call “profit.” The GM is the agent of the Board, the “face” of and for the Co-op. Attending to the “Triple Bottom Line” (people, planet, profit) is essential to weathering coming changes and I will collaborate with the Board, members and staff as together we prioritize our Co-op’s activities and look out for our wider collective economic benefit.
Addition 9/1
841 Travois Way
Moscow, ID 83843
August 31, 2012
GM Search Committee
%Colette DePhelps, Chair, GM Search Committee
Moscow Food Co-op
PO Box 9485
Moscow, ID 83843
I’m excited to be applying for the position of General Manager of the Moscow Food Co-op. It’s an unusual event to apply for the same position twice and to have a year to reflect and further prepare. Last year I spoke about being invited to apply by members of the search committee and how that prompted me to reflect on the role of the Co-op in our community and why I found the job of GM an important thing for me to do. In the application process last year I became aware of a community need that was outside the scope of the Co-op, but contributes to our developing local food systems: Moscow lacks sufficient commercial kitchen space to serve food entrepreneurs and the value-added processing needs of growers. Over the course of the past year I have located financing and designed and am now building a shared use commercial kitchen, an expansion of our very successful Peterson Barn Guesthouse. More on my reflections this past year appear later in this letter and in my vision statement.
As you will see in my resume, I’ve done a diverse range of things in the last 35 years, from running companies that design physiology software and timber frame buildings to managing teams of IT and instructional professionals and building community around shared purposes. The most complex business I’ve started is Palouse Prairie School.
I appreciate that the Co-op must be a business first, that it needs to keep costs low, maintain reasonable margins on the goods its sells, maintain a cash reserve and strive to retain some earnings each year for capital developments. It is these sound business practices that have allowed the organization to flourish. Retained earnings are the resource that can support the Co-op’s strategic outreach and sustainability initiatives. I have four years experience with the Palouse Prairie School budget, creating the first ones to gain the school’s charter and then overseeing three years of operations as Board Chair. The budget at the school is nearly $1 million for the coming school year. My reference BJ Swanson consulted with me several times in the process creating the budget for the launch of Palouse Prairie School and more recently the financing for the commercial kitchen. She can speak to you more about my understandings of successful operation of a complex business. The School’s architect Jerry Brotnov can speak to my can-do abilities during the critical steps of remodeling the building and opening the school.
Further bottom-line accountability experience comes from my other business experiences. My second largest business experience was From the Heart Software from 1989-93. The company developed software funded by a series of Federal grants. This gave me an introduction to balance sheets, accounting practices and labor management. The software sold to a very limited market in medical education. That venture closed shortly after we moved to Moscow. The experience taught me about the revenue needed to sustain a business operation (as opposed to capital to launch it). Peterson Barn Guesthouse that I run with my wife Krista, is my longest running venture. We built the Barn over several years, paying cash to capitalize it. That allowed us to manage with low revenues during the first several years of operation. The Barn rented over 180 days in 2011, and its success is allowing us to expand.
I am interested in your position because I see that the goals, strategic plans and policies of the Moscow Food Co-op are working on issues that I find increasingly urgent. What is important to me is focusing on local sustainability. I care about wider environmental issues, but I can’t do much to solve them. I believe I can contribute to Moscow’s successful transition through these changing economic/energy/climate times.
Central to my concerns for our community’s sustainability are issues of food security. There are two aspects to this concern. As fuel prices rise, people in our community will be faced with hard choices and knowing how to use bulk and local fresh foods could be important to achieving good nutrition. Local food production may also help buffer our community from prices and shocks inherent in global markets and our long supply lines.
One of the things that I admire about the Co-op, more as organization than store, is the way it leverages its resources for the community. Dime-in-Time and Impulse Giving are examples — by identifying worthy activities in the community and creating a donation mechanism, the Co-op has allowed micro fund raising to help new small initiatives, leveraging its members and shoppers without significant costs to itself. The Co-op’s charitable giving, aligned with its policy goals is also an important contribution to the community. This philanthropy is even more important now with the City of Moscow’s elimination of its small community grants program. My reference Tom Lamar can share his understandings of the ways in which I have helped organize in the community for local projects and to foster civil dialog and community engagement.
The General Manager of the Co-op needs to work within a complex ecology, responding to a Board and serving as a representative of the organization to multiple communities, among them, active members and shoppers. My reference Nathan Alford can speak to these ideas. We have discussed his paper’s front-page coverage of the Co-op GM search, and how that is very different from the way they treat managerial changes at other grocery stores. This difference is further evidence that the Co-op is more than a grocery store, and of the important role the GM has within the larger Moscow community.
In the creation of Palouse Prairie School, I have served in the role of Board chair both on the founding board, and in the transition to a governing board. It was a context in which I needed to navigate a various of Moscow’s communities seeking allies, resources and support. The Board’s transition from Founders to governing was also a very important lesson in roles, which leads me to have a deep appreciation of the importance of the Co-op’s policy governance model. Palouse Prairie is striving to implement a similar model.
While your job description does not state retail experience is a minimum requirement, in the GM search last year, some expressed concern that I lack retail experience.
First, I am open to admitting what I don’t know and have a management style that anticipates trusting and learning from the current (clearly successful) staff. Previously the Co-op hired an interim store manager and it may be that the store has reached the size where such a position should be permanent. I will seek the advice of the staff regarding such a move, or additional training that would allow them and me to be more effective.
Second, the job is much wider in scope than managing the daily retail decisions. I have subscribed to the CGIN email list to see what Co-op managers discuss. The issues have ranged from choosing Point-of-Sale software, to unplanned capital expenses, to navigating a change from senior citizen discounts to SNAP benefits, to disposal of property left at the store by a bankrupt supplier. The “How to start a Food Co-op” tutorial on the CGIN site has given me insights into rules of thumb for the balance sheet and the role of member capital in the mix of Co-op assets.
Finally, I expect to get more training both from the current staff and from the Co-op’s network of consultants and resources.
I have a range of other managerial experiences spanning two decades. During the 90’s in the College of Education, I implemented the transition of an organization that did not use much technology for productivity to one that explored the Internet for extended teaching and learning opportunities. That job required me to direct a staff of graduate students in daily tasks and to translate the Dean’s goals into practical implementations.
Those managerial experiences continued when I moved to the Center for Teaching Learning and Technology, but with a university-wide scope and with professional staff under my direction. My role of Assistant Director was to facilitate our unit collaborating with staff in other units. It also involved me more directly in HR activities, hiring, termination and performance evaluation. My reference Doug Baker can speak to my imagination, critical and creative thinking and skills working in these managerial roles. Doug can give you a broad overview of my leadership and management. You are also welcome to speak with my former Director in CTLT, Gary Brown for a closer look.
The work with Expeditionary Learning and its emphasis on collaboration as a strategy for learning and working had introduced me to a language about decision-making. They call it the ABCD model:
- A-type decisions. Only the leader makes the decision.
- B-type decisions. The leader makes the decision after gathering input and perspectives, especially from key stakeholders.
- C-type decisions. The decision is collaboratively made; the leader frames the context and decision-making process.
- D-type decisions. The leader delegates the decision to another group, while remaining accountable for the outcome.
What I find important about this language is that it helps everyone talk (at a meta-level) about how decisions are made and gives clarity about the way the leader will be treating advice and input. In my approach as GM of the Co-op I will seek mostly to use the other forms of decisions whenever possible, but I recognize there will necessarily be some A-type decisions.
References
Obviously, since I have been a member of the community for 20+ years there are many people who can share perspectives on my abilities. The people below represent a cross-section of perspectives and have agreed to speak with the committee
- Doug Baker, UI Provost (208) 885-6448 dougbaker@uidaho.edu
- Nathan Alford, Publisher, Daily News (208) 882-5561 alford@dnews.com
- Tom Lamar, PCEI Executive Director, (208) 882-1444 lamar@pcei.org
- BJ Swanson, Director LEDC (208) 301-1221 bjswanson@gmail.com
- Gary Brown, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Excellence, Portland State Univ. (503) 725-9149 browng@pdx.edu
- Jerry Brotnov, Brotnov Architecture and Planning (509) 758-2512 brotarch@clearwire.net
Salary Requirements
My salary at WSU was $65,763 for the 12 months ending December 2010. If the committee is interested in my application, I would not want that salary to be a barrier to opening a conversation.
Thank you for your consideration,
Nils Peterson
Attachments:
Vision Statement
Curriculum Vita
One small step for man 