The Time a CEO Left His Posse Behind

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Years ago David Glass, then CEO of Wal-Mart, flew in for a visit to my store. As you would expect of someone running a large company a bunch of people were along for the ride.

When we got to my store from the airport he shooed his entourage and my boss away and walked one on one with me. No pressure! None at all! Just to make it more interesting, right inside the front door, he turned right. We ended up walking the perimeter, the outside walls, of the store. He never set foot on a main aisle. 

Since we had a few hours notice you can bet those main aisles looked amazing. If you are in retail you know you hide your sins on the back end caps and back walls. Bad stuff’s gotta go somewhere. 

As you would expect he asked a lot of sharp questions. They were all questions to understand, for him to gain knowledge. One of several things I learned that day was that power is always seeking to understand. I owed him honest answers.

Two other things I learned that day:

One department had eleven months' worth of inventory, way over where it should be. He quizzed me about why. Fortunately, I had facts and numbers to document the root of the problem. Essentially too many home office promotions had been pushed to the store. 

The store was a million dollars plus over where it should be in inventory. 

I am sure he saw many things that could be improved. He only gave me one thing to do. Reduce our carried inventory by a million dollars by the end of the year, about 7 months. Oh yea, stay within my normal markdown budget. That was a very tall order. 

Yes, we did it. at the year-end meeting, I presented him with the inventory printout from December 31st documenting our success. He already knew, apparently, he had a habit of tracking a few specific stores, and mine was one of them. The printout had been signed by the entire staff. He signed it as well. I still have that memento years later. 

That store had a seriously undersized parking lot for its sales volume. Walking out the front door with him I said something flippant about relocating the state highway in front of the store. He took the scene in, paused, and said it would be cheaper to relocate.

He thought big, moving a highway was just something to consider.

Three of my takeaways from that eventful day:

Look where others aren’t.

Focus on a big goal.

Think big. 

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Tim Gebauer - Thrift Retailer