“The feedback I’ve gotten from team members and employees is that ultimately, we’re wasting time,” (Whole Foods CEO Jason) Buechel said. “It’s taking too long for decisions and approvals to take place, and it’s actually holding back some of our initiatives.”

As quoted in “Amazon’s Whole Foods boss slams ‘ridiculous’ bureaucracy in meeting,” by Eugene Kim in Business Insider, June 25, 2025

Yay for Mr. Buechel. Eliminating unnecessary procedures is always a good idea. It’s the definition of “unneeded.” But I’ll give him an even better idea: Rather than fiddling with the existing approval and decision process, create systems and culture so that virtually no approvals — and many fewer decisions — are needed in the first place.

It can be done. Here’s the basic idea, courtesy of the late USAF Colonel John R. Boyd:

The German concept of mission can be thought of as a contract, hence an agreement, between superior and subordinate. The subordinate agrees to make his actions serve his superior’s intent in terms of what is to be accomplished, while the superior agrees to give his subordinate wide freedom to exercise his imagination and initiative in terms of how intent is to be realized.

As part of this concept, the subordinate is given the right to challenge or question the feasibility of mission if he feels his superior’s ideas on what can be achieved are not in accord with the existing situation or if he feels his superior has not given him adequate resources to carry it out. Likewise, the superior has every right to expect his subordinate to carry out the mission contract when agreement is reached on what can be achieved consistent with the existing situation and resources provided. Patterns of Conflict, 76

So once agreement has been reached, no further decisions or approvals are needed or expected. You have your mission and your resources, so just get on with it.

I’m sure by now that many of you have recognized the concept of auftragstaktik, an English word newly borrowed from the German word for “contract.”

How to do it? To get started I’d recommend any of the books by Don Vandergriff, particularly Adopting Mission Command, and Stephen Bungay’s The Art of Action. Both available from Amazon. Incidentally, “mission command” is a common English substitute for auftragstaktik.

While you’re at it, here’s a practice that will start paying benefits immediately:

One area Buechel is keeping a close eye on: the competition. He said he visits rival stores weekly to stay inspired and monitor industry shifts. “I am a grocery geek,” Buechel said. “I love going into our stores, but I love going into competition.”

This is an incredibly good idea. Boyd again:

Living systems are open systems; closed systems are non‑living systems. Point: If we don’t communicate with the outside world—to gain information for knowledge and understanding as well as matter and energy for sustenance—we die out to become a non‑discerning and uninteresting part of that world. Strategic Game, 21

There may be forces inside your organization that work against this seemingly obvious idea. Many organizations, for example, have picked up the insidious habit of using only their own products and services as some type of loyalty test. So employees of a particular car manufacturer only drive cars from that manufacturer. “Loyalty,” in other words, has closed their system. And think about it. Your least productive, least innovative, most disruptive and most toxic people often score extremely well on such loyalty tests.

I rant about this pathology in Certain to Win. Unlike other forms of sycophancy, it’s not hard to spot: Just go count cars in your parking lot.