The legendary retail baron James Cash Penney once evaluated a clerk at one of his stores. The young clerk, he said, “wouldn’t have much of a future in the retail business.” What do you think is the name of that employee? Sam Walton! He would later found the Wal-Mart retail chain. Today, with its three thousand outlets, Wal-Mart is the largest retail company in the world with revenues over four times that of JC Penney’s!
Walton opened his first Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Arkansas, in the summer of 1962. The theme of his store was discount prices: Squeeze profit margins to the bone and pass the savings on to the consumer. Walton carved out an ingenuous niche. To compensate for smaller margins, the company had to sell merchandise in high volumes. Walton would fly his private airplane over farmland, looking for locations between three or four towns. Then he’d build a Wal-Mart store there that could serve not just one but several communities at the same time.
Walton was not only a retail wizard; he was probably the first corporate leader to practice a twenty-first century management style. His method appeared as absolute foolishness compared to traditional models. And the result of his foolishness? Phenomenal success! By 1985, the value of Wal-Mart stock had made him the wealthiest man in America; by 1991, his company had eclipsed Sears as the biggest retailer in America.
What was Walton’s secret? Well, unlike the business leaders he first learned from, Walton did not lead from the top of the organization. He led from the middle. The old leadership model was a pyramid, with the leader at the top. Walton understood that in order to communicate best, information should not flow in just one direction, from the top to the troops, but in every direction—up, down, and sideways.
Information is power, and Walton believed in decentralizing that power and distributing information throughout the organization. And he lived that belief. He was a charismatic man of the people who drove an old pickup, spent time on the retail floor, and earned his employees’ trust and loyalty. He viewed his employees not as subordinates or underlings, but as associates and partners. Shortly before his death in 1992, he said, “Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they will understand. The more they understand, the more they will care. Once they care, there is no stopping them.” How do you see your followers? Do you see them as ‘foot-mats’ or partners? How much of the information about the organization do they have in their possession? Now you do know that caring for your company is not automatic. The more they know about the company, the more they care about it. And the more they care about it, the more result they deliver as partners!
Over the years, many leaders have come to me, complaining about those within their spheres of influence. One of them said to me and I quote: “my employees do not care a hoot about my company…” These are the questions I asked him: “How do you see those working in your company? Do you see them as foot-mats or as partners? How much of the day to day running of the company do they know?” In Nigeria, most employees are treated as slaves, not as valuable partners. And how do you want ‘slaves’ to handle your company? You do not expect much from ‘slaves.’ Change the way you treat them and watch them change the way they treat your own company!
Where did Sam Walton learn that approach to communicate? He once said, “I learned early on that one of the secrets of campus leadership was the simplest thing of all: Speak to people coming down the sidewalk before they speak to you. I would always look ahead and speak to the person coming toward me. If I knew them I would call them by name, but even if I did not, I would still speak to them.” This leadership secret is revolutionary! Buddy, if you are either a leader or would be leader, I advise that you adopt this leadership secret. It has been working for me since I got to know about it. It is capable of impacting positively on your leadership!
For the umpteenth time, kindly do know that it is when people feel informed that they’d feel important and included. This sense of being valued and trusted builds team loyalty. It motivates people to give their best effort to the entire organization. Ivory-tower leaders tend to hoard information. As a result, morale breaks down and people feel they are not trusted—or worse, that the boss is not to be trusted, but leaders who lead from the middle share information freely, and that builds trust. Fred Smith wrote: “vision, policies, and plans are more or less useless unless they are known to all who may be concerned with them. Also, Lord Montgomery, commander of the Eighth Army, made it a rule that the plan of campaign should be known to every soldier.”
Once a decision is made, announce it early. Take your people into your confidence, and they will have confidence in you. Sure, there are some matters that should be kept secret, but make sure that any “top secret” information in your organization really deserves that designation. Everything else; be quick to declassify and disclose. Retired U.S. Air Force General Williams A. Cohen puts it this way: “when you are a leader, it is those who follow you that make you look smart—or not, as the case may be. If those who follow you make errors and look bad because they are missing information that you could have given them, you will ultimately suffer far more than they. This is because it is you who are responsible for everything your organization does or fails to do, and no one else.”
Lastly, your success in leadership depends completely on the quality of those who are following you. Change the way you see and treat those within your sphere of influence from this moment. And stop leading from the top and start leading from the middle, because there reside your accomplishment in leadership.