First Learn the Rules - Then Break Them
While there is no doubt that creativity, innovation and continually discovering and searching for new things in connection with business, management and success are extremely important, there is a side of it that isn't talked about too much that can hurt a business if it's not understood.
This is an observation that people have made of Sam Walton concerning rules:
What Walton did first was learn all the rules. Once he learned them, then he broke all of them that didn't make sense to him - which usually meant the majority of them.
While there's nothing wrong with breaking rules, if you don't understand the context of them, it can be an exercise in futility.
This is one of the reasons Walton went everywhere examining his competitors and learning what worked and didn't work; and then from there improving upon what already existed. This was because he knew what the rules of the game were that everyone was playing. If he didn't know thost rules, it would be difficult to break those rules in ways that had meaning to the business and helped serve the customer better.
It's one of the reasons many people that hear stuff about breaking rules fail when they try to break them. They break them for the sake of being contrary, rather than breaking them because they were detrimental to the overall experience of the customer.
We need to understand the rules that are being used in the climate of the business purpose we and our competitors serve, in order the break those rules in order to create something better. To simply break rules for their own sake doesn't result in much good for anybody. That's one of the reasons when we hear the phrase "creative destruction," we need to take heed to it.
Blowing up rules can be fun, but in the end it has to be creative and meaningful. Sam Walton understood this and did on a continuous basis in his building up of Wal-Mart (WMT) into the powerhouse it is.
Other Sam Walton Sources:
Sam Walton: 10 Rules for Building a Successful Business
Sam Walton - Retail Success Story
Sam Walton: King Of The Discounters
Sam Walton: Great From the Start
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