Walton saw ideas as common property like air. It was what you did with them that made you different. He competed by improving whatever he admired.
I like the thought that Sam Walton saw ideas as common property. While there are a few things probably all companies must keep quiet about, overall ideas are there for anybody to grab hold of.
While ideas are their for the seeing and discovering, it's those that know how to put them into practice in accordance with their own businesses that makes the difference between average and great companies.
To blindly copy an idea doesn't offer value to a company in most cases, as the idea is still formed within the environment you found it in. It exists because of a unique business situation within a company. We must understand that before we start simply copying it.
Those that copy alone don't get the full value of an idea because they don't understand the who, what, where, how and why of it. It's like taking something and simply sticking it in your company without understanding it's overall benefit. It may functionally work, but it doesn't necessarily fit in with other components of the business.
The other thing I like about Sam Walton is he knew when an idea was valuable, but he also knew that every idea could be improved upon. So from the start he would look at how to improve it before he implemented it within the company. That brought them to a level and compatibility with the idea that made it better than it was by those that were initially using it.
It's a great practice to find ideas and from there immediately look at ways to improve upon them. It may sound obvious, but I've found in practice through the years that people can be lazy, and when they find something, they look to implement it as it is, rather than finding ways to improve upon it or fit it into the specific operations of the company.
Walton didn't make that mistake, and his competitive advantage was to take existing good ideas and make them even better.
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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