Walmart Just Named a New CEO Who Started as an Hourly Associate 32 Years Ago. It’s a Masterclass in Succession Planning

John Furner has been around Walmart since he was 3 years old, when his father started working for the company in Arkansas in 1977. (2019 interview)

Young John grew up watching his dad head off to work each day at Sam Walton’s retail empire.

“Like every person in the world, I was never going to do what my parents did,” Furner said in a 2019 interview when he became head of Walmart U.S. “I played the guitar. I thought for sure I was going to be a famous rock musician. Clearly, that did not work out.”

Instead, in 1993, Furner started as an hourly associate at a Walmart store—number 100 in Bentonville—stocking shelves, working registers. From there he became an intern at Walmart in Mexico, and then embarked on a career that would see him rise through the ranks.

He became CEO of Sam’s Club, and then CEO of Walmart U.S.

And then this week, Walmart announced that Furner will succeed Doug McMillon, becoming CEO of the entire company.

The pinnacle of organizational development

Most companies talk about developing leaders from within. How many can point to their CEO and say: “That person started here as a teenager?”

Walmart can. And not just with Furner.

• McMillon started by unloading trucks as an hourly associate.
• Cedric Clark, executive vice president of store operations, began as a sporting goods associate in 2002.
• According to Walmart, roughly 75 percent of the company’s store, club, and supply chain leaders started as hourly associates.

That’s the pinnacle of organizational development: building a culture where your future leaders CEOs are already working for you.

What most companies get wrong

The brutal truth, however, is that most companies either don’t have a succession plan, or they have one that falls apart the moment it’s needed.

McDonald’s scrambled in 2019 when Steve Easterbrook was out over an employee relationship.

(Not that Chris Kempczinski wasn’t an obvious choice, but I don’t think he expected to rise to the top job over a weekend.)

nd, I’ve written at length about how Fred DeLuca of Subway reportedly declined to discuss succession while battling cancer, leaving the company in leadership limbo for years after his death.

Compare that to Steve Jobs at Apple, whose resignation letter included this line: “I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.”

Those 17 words represented years of planning and—hardest of all—letting go.

But, if you want what you’ve built to outlive you, you have to start preparing others to take over long before you’re ready to leave.

The three decade runway

Building leaders from within requires three things many companies struggle with:

• Time. Can you grow an internal CEO in five years? Furner’s been on the job for 32.
• Culture. Walmart’s “promote from within” DNA goes back to Sam Walton, and it’s something they talk about often.
• Commitment. Think about all the times over 31 years when Walmart could have hired some hotshot executive from outside. They stuck with their own.

I can’t predict how Furner will do as CEO, of course.

But wouldn’t it be reassuring to have someone waiting in the wings at your company who can take over with as much familiarity and track record as Furner?

When Furner talks about Walmart’s purpose, “to help people save money and live better,” it sounds less like he’s reading from a corporate script, simply because he’s been immersed in that culture since

“I’m a farm kid that grew up in Southern Arkansas, and that’s actually the way I still think of myself,” Furner said when he got his last promotion before this one. “It’s just somebody who is here trying to help.”

How about yours?

You’re probably not running a $650 billion company. But the principles scale down.

If you had to step away tomorrow, who would run your business? Is that person already working for you? Have you been developing them?

If your answers are all variations of “I don’t know,” you’ve got some work to do.

Start by identifying employees who could grow into leadership roles. Invest in them, challenge them, and let them make decisions—even fail, occasionally.

Fight the temptation to believe no one can do your job as well as you can. That might be true today, but if you spend time developing someone, it won’t be true forever.

Oh, and be nice to your interns. Your future CEO might already be on your payroll.

Or, else they might also become a famous rock musician. That would be pretty cool, too.