Quotes About Management

Being in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art, and good business is the best art

The best part of my new job was finally running my own show and no longer having to answer to people like [Chris Kimsington].

Save one-third, live on one-third, and give away one-third

The country will have the economy of Uganda, but Democrats will be in total control.

Mary Anne schedules our baby-sitting jobs.

Diabetes is a disease which affects your blood sugar level. I have to give myself injections of something called insulin twice a day and stick to a strict diet, which means NO SUGAR, NO SWEETS. If I don't, I could get really sick.

Claudia is vice-president of the Baby-sitters Club. As I mentioned, we use her room as our headquarters and it's her phone number that our clients call. She is also in charge of making sure none of us starves to death.

People who can manage their time can also manage their money. After all, managing minutes and managing money is the same exact principle.

I don't subscribe much to any of these fancy investing theories, and most people seem surprised to learn that I've never done much investing in anything except Wal-Mart. I believe the folks who've done the best with Wal-Mart stock are those who have studied the company, who have understood our strengths and our management approach, and who, like me, have just decided to invest with us for the long run. We

My favorite buyer program is one called Eat What You Cook. Once a quarter, every buyer has to go out to a different store and act as manager for a couple of days in the department he or she buys merchandise for. I guarantee you that after they've eaten what they cooked enough times, these buyers don't load up too many Moon Pies to send to Wisconsin, or beach towels for Hiawatha, Kansas.

In those days, I tried to operate on a 2 percent general office expense structure. In other words, 2 percent of sales should have been enough to carry our buying office, our general office expense, my salary, Bud's salary—and after we started adding district managers or any other officers—their salaries too. Believe it or not, we haven't changed that basic formula from five stores to two thousand stores.

He became, really, the best utilizer of information to control absentee ownerships that there's ever been. Which gave him the ability to open as many stores as he opens, and run them as well as he runs them, and to be as profitable as he makes them.

The only other reason the thing held together back then is that from the very start we would get all our managers together once a week and critique ourselves—that was really our buying organization, a bunch of store managers getting together early Saturday morning, maybe in Bentonville, or maybe in some motel room somewhere.

And here it is: the more you share profits with your associates—whether it's in salaries or incentives or bonuses or stock discounts—the more profit will accrue to the company. Why? Because the way management treats the associates is exactly how the associates will then treat the customers. And if the associates treat the customers well, the customers will return again and again, and that is where the real profit in this business lies

As I look back on that period now, I realize I had split the company in half, setting up two factions which began to compete fiercely with one another. There was the old guard, including many of the store managers, remaining loyal to Ferold, and the new guard, many of whom owed their jobs to Ron. Pretty soon, everybody began to take sides, lining up behind either Ron or Ferold, who didn't get along at all.

Then I said to myself, "Well, I'm getting pretty old, and we could probably work together. I'll let him be chairman and CEO, and I'll just enjoy myself, step back a little, and, of course, continue to visit stores." So I became chairman of the Executive Committee. Ron became chairman and CEO of the company. Ferold became president.

So finally I called him in one Saturday in June of 1976, thirty months after I had given up the chairman's job, and just said simply, "Well, Ron, I thought I was ready to step out, but I see that really I wasn't. I've been so involved that in a way it has put you under a real handicap." I told him I wanted to come back in as chairman and CEO, and have him assume another job—vice chairman and chief financial officer, I believe.

What followed became known as "the exodus." First, a whole group of senior managers who had been part of Ron's team—our financial officer, our data processing manager, the guy who was running our distribution centers—all walked out behind him. You can imagine how Wall Street felt about that.

But if American management is going to say to their workers that we're all in this together, they're going to have to stop this foolishness of paying themselves $3 million and $4 million bonuses every year and riding around everywhere in limos and corporate jets like they're so much better than everybody else.

If you want the people in the stores to take care of the customers, you have to make sure you're taking care of the people in the stores. That's the most important single ingredient of Wal-Mart's success.

These days, the real challenge for managers in a business like ours is to become what we call servant leaders. And when they do, the team—the manager and the associates—can accomplish anything.

I learned this early on in the variety store business: you've got to give folks responsibility, you've got to trust them, and then you've got to check on them.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life . . . the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

And added, that as nervous disorders were more frequent in England, than in any country in the world, he was willing to hope, that the English physicians were more skilful than those of any other country in the management of persons afflicted with such maladies: