Attention Kmart Shoppers: The Rise and Fall of America's First Big Discounter

by Ben Schultz

Under a new program introduced early in 2008, “Sears Holdings Organization, Actions, and Responsibilities,” or “SOAR” for short, the company’s dozens of different divisions and departments were split up, and would now be treated like separate companies with their own profit goals and directives. The result was that each department’s employees were instructed to only do things that would benefit the department they worked for, with no regard for the success of the store as a whole. Department leaders rushed to claim the largest share of the profits, while passing off all the very necessary expenses of running the store on the others. Workers who ostensibly had the same goals were made to fight against each other, and even the executives at the head of each department were stuck trying to race for the biggest bonuses.