What Happens Once You Make a Decision
We've already talked about Walton's strategy to market to small towns and how that kept competitors off his back while he went about perfecting the Wal-Mart (WMT) way of doing business.
What isn't known about this is that in the beginning it wasn't a great insight of Walton's that drove him to do this, rather it was his wife Helen's demand that they don't live in a town larger than 10,000 people. Of course Walton honored that and worked from there.
In other words he made a decision. That decision has made him look brilliant, and of course it didn't take him too long to realize the significance of it. But in the beginning it was tremendously challenging for him to work his way around it.
For example, many distributors wouldn't waste their time company to the small towns he served, so he had to figure out ways to build his own distribution and communications systems; a huge competitive advantage in the future.
The important thing in this is that none of this could possibly happen until a decision is made. Decisions are important because no data are perfect. If we wait for perfect data, we will be in a perpetual state of indecision and indecisiveness.
What's amazing in my experience and in reading about others, is the way answers will begin to come once you make a decision and put things in motion. Whatever the challenges are, they can be met. The one thing that keeps it all from happening is simply making a decision.
Great leaders take in the best data they have, and make a decision based upon it. They don't wait for perfected data; that's a deception because it doesn't exist.
Decisions are the great catalyst for launching successful initiatives in whatever you're attempting to do. Make a decision, take the first step, and from there you're on a continuous adventure.
Walton shows us that we can't wait for perfect conditions or perfect data before we get what we want put into motion. Nothing happens until the decision is made.
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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