Win/Win Partnerships
One of the problems in writing about some of the great business leaders is that what is sometimes very commonly practiced today, even 20 to 30 years ago may have not even been part of the business management experience.
That's the case with what we call win/win partnership or deals that help each company achieve success. Not that long ago it wasn't even part of the language of business.
Walton had that when Proctor & Gamble (PG) and Wal-Mart (WMT) were more adversarial to one another in their vendor/retailer relationship, contrary to what it is today.
In Walton's biography he said that Wal-Mart began to "turn a basically adversarial vendor/retailer relationship into one that we think is the wave of the future: a win-win partnership between two big companies trying to serve the same customer."
At the time when Walton wrote his biography, Proctor and Gamble were Wal-Mart's largest individual customer; a testament to the power of win/win.
We should have as one of our major priorities in business to create win/win situations, even if the other party could easily be taken advantage of through lack of knowledge or position in negotiations. This doesn't mean that favorable terms shouldn't be sought after, but not to the point of exploiting or potentially destroying or harming a partner. That just doesn't make sense when you really look at it.
To this day we need to work hard at finding ways to show our partners that we're dealing in good faith, and have just as much interest in their success as we have with our own.
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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