Walton's 10 Rules of Business Success - Rule 7 - Listen to Everyone
It's continually amazing when you study and listen to what the great business leaders and managers say, how often the things they say conincide with one another. The reason is of course because the things they've learned and taught work!
Contrary to popular rhetoric, principles of business success and management never change. Practicals and technology changes, but the underlying reasons for success don't.
In reference to Walton's 7th rule or success: Listen to everyone, this is very true. Now when we talk about listening to everyone, we've got to get past the make-somebody-feel-good stage, and understand that the value of listening goes far beyond that. That doesn't mean that somebody feeling good about contributing is bad, just that there's a lot more value in listening then only that.
Sam Walton said it this way:
"Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front line - the ones who actually talk to the customer - are the ones who really know what's going on out there. You'd better find out what they know.
"To be able to push responsibility down in your organisation, and force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you."
As with all secure and great managers, Walton understood that Wal-Mart (WMT) couldn't succeed without the intelligence gathering of his people. The challenge is tapping into their everyday knowledge that they accumulate in seeing what works best and what needs to be discarded. Our workers are the key. Nobody knows better than they do.
Listening must be defined as much more than lending an ear, as important as that is. It is proactive; seeking out what is known. It is appreciative and creates a business culture where people want to contribute and share their knowledge. It is communicative, and endless sharing of information and experience all across the business.
Listening implies experience, experience implies wisdom, wisdom implies value and value implies need. And we need to tap into all of that which our people know and learn from their interactions in their daily jobs. There is no better place to dig for information than within our people. But we need to create the type of workplace that encourages all of that information gold to come to the surface and create value for our customers and one another.
It needs to be one of our top priorities.
Other Walton Sources:
The Most Underrated CEO Ever The legendary Sam Walton
Sam Walton: The Power of Persistence
Sam Walton Business Quotes for Ya
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