Sam Walton left a $25 billion dollar fortune to his family at the time of his death.
But money wasn’t, and isn’t, his lasting legacy. Instead, we can learn from his life the importance of having, pursuing, and never giving up on a vision.
Sam Walton believed early on in the value of discount retailing. He wanted to be the best store and the first store to do everything. He had a unique skill of identifying future needs for his company. When he was twenty stores strong, he attended an IBM school in New York for the sole purpose of hiring the brightest star there to computerize his business operations. He understood, long before his competitors, that he would not be able to grow at the pace he desired without this type of system in place. It was just one more intelligent step in his business pursuits that allowed him to outdistance and outperform his competition. Walton’s business savvy was demonstrated again when, in 1991, he did the improbable and surpassed Sears and Kmart to become the number one retailer in the country.
Leaders with vision can be highly successful. But vision is not just an innate talent. It is a skill that can be refined using the following steps.
- Research all you can. When you read and study the history and trends in your business, you arm yourself for the future.
- Network. Talk and learn from people who have done and are doing what you are doing. Let them be a go-to resource in your life as you are creating and refining your vision.
- Learn from your mistakes. Don’t let your past define you. If you have made a mistake in implementing your vision, be humble enough to admit it and smart enough not to defend it. Learn from your past then move beyond it.
- Be all in. Once you have refined your vision for your business, pursue it with all the resources you have available to you. That is to say, go for it! Your team will be more likely to follow a person sold out to his principles than one who is apathetic about them.
Remember, we are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision (Author unknown).
What do you think?
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