Most weeks in a given year, Walmart flies a group of 50 store managers from across the country — about 2000 in all — to what it calls its Manager Academy at its corporate headquarters in Bentonville, AR. Throughout the sessions, trainers reinforce that Walmart’s success is possible only if the store managers care for their workers, the customers, and the community where they operate. The program's goals are to get store managers thinking about what comes next, brainstorm ways to keep the people reporting to them engaged and find other opportunities in the company for them.
During the managers' time in Bentonville, former and current executives speak, and participants even meet with the company’s founder, Sam Walton — kind of. A hologram of Mr. Walton explains to them how he used watermelons and donkey rides to initially draw people into stores.
