Booknotes: Made in America, Sam Walton

Reading Sam Walton‘s story about setting up Wal-mart was no less than watching a thriller. An extraordinary story of an average kid making it big by focusing on customers and sticking to the basics. Wal-mart success has lots to do with belief, persistence and customer satisfaction. I have no clue if the firm still sticks by those values.

Sam’s has shared his 10 rules in building Wal-mart.

Commit: Give your 100% when you are into anything. Just don’t do it half-heartedly.

Share: Share profits with your stakeholders, not just the board or investors.

Motivate: Building takes time and there is no shortcut. Keeping everyone motivated keeps journey easy.

Communicate: Be honest and keep the communication channel open. This will help in knowing screwups in advance.

Appreciate: Every member of your team is to your member organization. They need appreciation, he keeps them charged up and motivated.

Celebrate: Celebration should be part of the organization. It should not be limited to success, even failures are part of the learning and growing process.

Listen: Keep your eyes and ears open. The advice to make your enterprise bigger and better can come from anyone: customer, employees. Listen to it.

Exceed: Make your users, customers happy with your work or service. This will delight them and they will stick with you for long.

Control: Take care of your cash burns and stay frugal.

Swim: Go against the status quo, do things differently. There is no right or wrong way or a single template for success. One has to keep trying all avenues and methods.

This success recipe is not limited to one person or sector. To get better with life, each and everyone can make use of it.