Simple rules for complex firms

It was with some degree of expectation that I picked up this book. Reasons: one, Sam Walton is a global leader that one has read about and admired. Two, the author worked with the legendary leader as Wal-Mart's director of the Home Office People Division, and therefore one hoped to find interesting reading. Three, Wal-Mart and retailing are so much in the news in India now, and so the book promised top-of-mind relevance.

The book, however, leaves you with mixed feelings. While it brings out small nuggets and interesting details of Sam Walton's leadership style, sometimes the author loses the objectivity of his analysis.

The big learning for a manager from Walton's "10 Rules" comes when you juxtapose Walton's precepts with the complexity of Wal-Mart's operations""with 7,000 stores, 120 distribution centres, 15-country operations, a staggering employee population of about two million, and 130 million customers walking into Wal-Mart stores every week around the globe. The message is that simple leadership rules can stand you in good stead even when managing large and complex operations.

What are Mr Sam's (as Walton was known within the company) 10 Rules?

1. Commit to achieving success and always be passionate

2. Share success with those who have helped you

3. Motivate yourself and others to achieve your dreams

4. Communicate with people and show you care

5. Appreciate and recognise people for their efforts and results

6. Celebrate your own and other's accomplishments

7. Listen to others and learn from their ideas

8. Exceed expectations of customers and others

9. Control expenses and save your way to prosperity

10. Swim upstream, be different and challenge the status quo

If you take the 10 Rules and distil them, six of them deal specifically with people management, one is about personal commitment, one about the customer relationship, another about controlling costs and the last about taking risks.

Clearly, with all the management literature from the "success gurus" that you have today, all this is not rocket science. But the import of these comes from the anecdotes and personal details, and the realisation that while many of these were far ahead of their times, they are being practised by some of the best leaders of our times. In fact, on many occasions, the book reminds one of the leadership styles of Indian leaders like Dhirubhai Ambani and N R Narayana Murthy.

The personal aspects are interesting. For example, when Walton interviewed people for jobs at Wal-Mart, he often delved deep with the interviewee into the latter's current company, which was often a competitor, as a learning exercise. Second, Walton would not be averse to imitating others' best practices. Learning from competitors and improving on them was important to him. Third, his wife Helen Walton influenced his work and thinking. Fourth, he tried to make Wal-Mart a fun place to work at. For example, he instituted the practice of Saturday meetings where he would sometimes invite musicians to break the monotony, or he would come to office with his hunting dogs. Finally, he was a workaholic, often starting work in his office at 4 am. That became infectious within the company, as long and flexible working hours became the norm at Wal-Mart.

Many of these thoughts and ideas are well-known today: like servant leadership (managing with humility), management by walking around, leading by example, celebrating success and focusing on down-the-line managers and associates. But here, these are dealt with through detailed anecdotes, giving the reader a sense of how they could be put into practice.

The book also gives an account of how Walton turned conventional management on its head. For example, he would often promote inexperienced managers purposefully. Many of them survived and thrived, but some others fell by the wayside and were "demoted". But the interesting aspect of Wal-Mart's culture is that demotion is not something that's looked down upon.

Finally, however, the book gives the author away: the former Wal-Mart employee is now an executive coach and full-time speaker. There is some of his personal marketing stuff that one could clearly do without.

But on the whole, this second book by the same author on Walton (the first was, What I Learned from Sam Walton: How to Compete and Thrive in a Wal-Mart World) offers fresh insights into simple managing in a complex business world.

---

THE 10 RULES OF SAM WALTON

Michael Bergdahl
John Wiley & Sons
Price: $24.95;
Pages: 257