Walton Managing Growth
Sam Walton was always flying underneath the radar, and when you finally noticed him, it was too late. This was the same in how he managed the growth of the company.
Last post we talked about Walton's ability to move merchandise - the basic premise of growth. Now we'll look at how he did it.
First, Walton knew that he couldn't do it alone, it was beyond his expertise as far as what it would take on the practical side. He knew that if he could figure out a way to get stuff to his stores, that he and his people could move it. That Walton knew how to motivate and teach.
On the practical moving of merchandise though, Walton was out of his expertise. So what did he do? He started to attend an IBM school in of all places, upstate New York. This is when he had only 20 stores. If nothing else, Walton was a visionary in that he understood what the store would need far ahead of its time.
So he went to school. Why? It wasn't to learn, it was to find the smartest guy in the clase so that he could hire him to come down to Bentonville, Arkansas and computerize the entire store operations. He started doing this as early as 1966.
Walton managed growth through understanding what the purpose of the store would initiate, and how to handle the practicals connected to that. In other words he knew his retail operations would explode in growth if he could develop a system that could get the merchandise there expediently.
Managing growth requires that we truly understand our businesses. Walton started to understand what it was he had and what it would become. To serve his customers efficiently, he knew that the next level would be technologically related. So he went to school to hunt down the top person to make it happen.
Another insight into his leadership genius as he seemed to always be able to see out far ahead of where the company was at and lead it to where it was going to end up.
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
Remember to Sign up for my feed, bizzbite and digg this!
Sponsored link: The outsourcing every manager requires - Tampa Locksmith
» The Common Sense Management of Sam Walton - 61 from ManagersRealm
Walton may have been the first true information-age CEOFor years Sam Walton operated under the radar of the vast majority of competitors, analysts and writers. Nobody took him too seriously (if they heard of him at all) until Forbes started... [Read More]
Tracked on: March 15, 2007 2:34 PM | Permalink to Trackback