Running A Succesful Company: Ten Rules That Worked for Sam Walton (Part 1)

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Oct 15, 2014

Among Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio)'s Recommended Reading list I came across Sam Walton: Made in America. In his autobiography, Walton takes us through the whole adventure that was thinking, working and living at Walmart.

In the closing chapter, he details 10 rules for a successful business that I believe sum up the book very well. I would recommend this book to think about how our daily life was once shaped by groundbreaking strategies and ideas such as Walton's, among others. It is also fascinating to evaluate how durable but also different is Walmart's strategy now.

Rule 1: Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you – like a fever.

Rule 2: Share your profits with all your associates and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in a partnership. Encourage your associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It's the single best thing we ever did.

Rule 3: Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Constantly, day by day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.

Rule 4: Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they'll understand. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them. If you don't trust your associates to know what's going on, you don't really consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule 5: Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free – and worth a fortune.