I, Tomato: Morning Star's Radical Approach to Management

The Morning Star Company, which handles 40 percent of California's processed tomato crop, is the largest tomato processing company in the world. That's impressive, but the most unique thing about Morning Star is that it has no managers. Instead, Morning Star embraces an approach they call "self-management." As Paul Green, Jr. of Morning Star's Self-Management Institute puts it: "Self-management is, at a very very high level, exactly the way you live when you go home from work. We just ask you to keep that hat on when you come to work at Morning Star."

In our everyday lives, we don't have bosses telling us which careers or hobbies to pursue. If we want to purchase a car or a home, we don't have to get permission. Sure, we consult with friends and family before making important decisions, but as long as we're prepared to take responsibility for our choices, we're free to do what we want.

The same spirit reigns at Morning Star. Employees decide how their skill sets can best help Morning Star succeed and then develop their own lists of roles and responsibilities in collaboration with their colleagues. If Morning Star employees want to purchase new equipment, they don't ask managers for permission. Rather, they discuss potential purchases with colleagues who will be affected by the purchase and, if others with expertise support the decision, they simply buy what they need. There is no R&D department at Morning Star. There are, however, strong incentives for every employee to innovate. Workers who successfully innovate don't receive new titles. They earn the respect of their colleagues in addition to financial compensation.

Running a firm without managers seems like a crazy idea to many, but is it? If the most prosperous societies are organized around institutions that promote freedom and responsibility, why shouldn't a similar approach work within a firm? If market-based societies are best able to take advantage of local and dispersed knowledge, then doesn't it make sense to give staffers with the most local knowledge the freedom to make decisions?

More than 50 years ago, Leonard E. Read wrote "I, Pencil," an essay that asks how we can expect central planning to succeed when nobody in the world possess all the knowledge needed to produce even a simple pencil. For more than 40 years, Morning Star has been demonstrating that you don't need managers to run a successful company.

(Full disclosure: Morning Star founder Chris Rufer is a supporter of Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason TV.)

About 6 minutes. Produced by Paul Feine and Alex Manning.

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[taviyo]

Great strategy. I worked at Morning Star packing company back in 2000 and I was blown away on how efficient and team engaged this company was. Changed my life.

[JohnNorris]

I do not care for the no-manager route, I have worked there and know it has flaws, They could use a couple hard asses with firing capability to police the seasonal drivers and keep them doing their pre-trip inspections properly. But I will say the people at morning star are about the most friendly I have ever worked with, even during a stressful harvest season. The office personnel, Dispatchers, Managers (even though they are not called managers, they are people of higher rank and in charge of things, shot callers), just about every actual employee are super nice and helpful, I am amazed how many of them are able to always be able to greet you with a smile when you seen them totally swamped 12hrs a day 7 days a week. The Truck attendants, Mechanics etc, you tell them you have a problem or want something fixed on a truck, they do not give any attitude or try to get out of anything, they just jump on it and help you out. Shout out to Connie at the Los Banos location, Super nice, always smiling no matter how hectic it gets.

[jessecrossman]

They have figured out a way to avoid paying anyone a manager's salary. Genius.

[nucibus]

Because people are afraid to try new things. they always want to follow tradition. I love working for morningstar is by far the best job i ever had

[vonGleichenT]

Nice approach especially the sentence about the people who work on the floor and know what needs to be done. This really is the key.

[paulgreenjunior]

Absolutely right, schutzenegl1. The truth is, no matter what we say or think, the ONLY reason people come to work is to benefit themselves. The moment "coming to work" ceases to be beneficial, is the moment they quit. Acknowledging that the "organization" is only a human technology designed to enable individuals to have a better life is key to building superior enterprise.

[matt-kocc]

The fact that is almost worker ownership of the means of production is glorious. People think socialism is a scary word because of propaganda, without realising socialism is only worker ownership, nothing more. RISE UP COMRADES.

[willharmer]

This is spontaneous order, this is the perfect example of how people will take on responsibility in a society free of the initiation of force.

[Wilsontheterrible]

It's not ironic at all. A business in a capitalistic, market oriented society is primarily motivated by getting the job done as effectively and efficiently as possible. If that means employee self-management than that's what happens. Libertarians have no problem with self-management and may even encourage it's practice, what we have a problem with is state mandated self-management or really any controls over the business process that don't violate an individuals enumerated rights.

[LibertyEver]

Apparently, this form of self-management is working well at Morning Star, although I do agree with others that it would have been good to have seen how decisions are made without hierarchical management. That's probably a one hour documentary and not a five minute YouTube video.

[CurtHowland]

I find it most interesting that this is a "Libertarian" video, extolling the benefits of the free market in ideas to build whatever kind of company you want, and yet this is EXACTLY the kind of "Socialist" "workers run the factory" thing that I keep being told is impossible so long as there is private property and profits.
What's funny is that the "Socialists" get all offended when I tell them, "if you system is so much better, than just do it.
Now I have a video to point them to.

[Wormtail]

More information about the managerial processes of the company would be good. Even if there is not a hierarchical management structure management decisions still need to be made.

[SelfManagementInstitute]

It looks like there are a lot of interest in the details behind the brief overview presented in this video. If you would like to know more about Self-Management, please check out the videos on our channel, which address some of the questions below (with more on the way):

Who "fires" people?: CLOU Colleagues and Gaining Agreement
Who decides salaries?: Compensation
Who makes budget decisions?: Budget Authority

[LibertyEver]

"Management is essential." Spoken like a true manager!

In the corporate world, I've often felt that the business was succeeding DESPITE management, rather than because of it. Outsourcing to China because it's a US management fad, a high tech product with 2% of the cost being labor, then having to build a new plant just like the mothballed old US plant, American engineers living in China, the ruthless time-to-market slipping by months, quality issues, and Chinese knockoffs six months later.

[paulgreenjunior]

I've thought a lot about that, RelaxedAnarchist, and I think the answer, to some large degree, has something to do with trying to convince the princes to lay down their crowns. When you have unilateral control, and everyone in the enterprise is your "subject", it's hard to build up the courage required to give those subjects true freedom.

[HyraxX]

I believe that what makes their management process so successful is in the one sentence one of the men said in the video " When you hire the right people..."

[ladyattis]

It's really no different than how we did it at Dillons/Kroger, but they may give more autonomy. In this case, departments can move resources via their dollar value from one department to another. For example, say I work in the Deli and I need some chickens for roasting. I order them from the meat department which comes out of my department budget. What we sell is our revenue (despite being tallied together as the store's). So, if I buy too many chickens for roasting it's on me, not the store.

[MakilHeru]

They did kinda go over that if the company employee needs something they go buy it. I could imagine that if there is excessive use and abuse the other employees will most likely realize it and probably reprimand the employee. After all large sums of money missing will show up one way or another. Infact the people who normally steal from their companies hate their company and usually the bureaucratic nightmare that they have.

[MarkColdren]

No managers. This flies in the face of all of my personal work experience so far. At every company I've been at, most workers are not self-managing. They know how to do their jobs well enough, but they have little drive or capacity for personal directive. If there's a time limit on a task, more often than not, a worker will get it done then fool around for the remaining time before asking what to do next instead of finding something else productive to do. Management is essential.

[SuperGregoryRoss]

This is about a different way of managing the company, not anything about workers owning the company. There also is nothing surprising about Reason championing groups of individuals coming together to own/run businesses. Any publicly-traded company is owned by a collective, a collective of stock holders.

Also - socialism is not ownership by the worker, socialism is ownership by the State.

Glad Reason made something that got you thinking! :)