Management 10th Edition by Richard Daft

Exercise 1

Walmart Part Five: Leading
"Ordinary People" Do Extraordinary Things at Walmart
Give me a W! Give me an A! Give me an L! Give me a squiggly! Give me an M! Give me an A! Give me an R! Give me a T! What's that spell? Walmart! Whose Walmart is it? It's my Walmart! Who's number one? The customer! Always!
The Walmart cheer is a powerful symbol of Walmart's team spirit and business philosophy rolled, into one. Sam Walton got the idea while watching workers perform a motivational cheer and group calisthenics at a Korean tennis ball factory. Seeing workers bond through a group activity impressed Walton, and the Walmart founder brought the routine back home to Arkansas.
What might have fizzled or become an old piece of company trivia gained momentum, and today the Walmart cheer is a hit all over again at Walmart's internarional stores. In Japan, associates shout, "Whose Seiyu is it? It's My Seiyu." In the U.K., "Whose ASDA is it? It's my ASDA!" The translations differ, but in every place the message is the same; The customer is number one, always. Or as they shout in Argentina, "El Cliente Siempre!"
Walmart's ongoing commitment to work and play is a reflection of Sam Waltons own leadership style. The first Walmart leader once said, "Just because we work hard, we don't have to go around with long faces." And Mr. Sam meant it. The iconic American businessman famously donned a grass skirt and did a hula dance on Wall Street after losing a bet with top executive David Glass. Walton later recalled the event: "I thought I would slip down there and dance, and David Glass would videotape it so he could prove to everyone back at the Saturday morning meeting that I really did it; but when we got there, it turned out David had hired a truckload of real hula dancers and ukulele players-and he had alerted the newspapers and TV networks."
Although clearly not prepared for his big premiere as a hula entertainer, Walton seized the moment: "I slipped on the grass skirt and the Hawaiian shirt and the leis over my suit and did what I think was a pretty fair hula. It was too good a picture to pass up, I guess-this crazy chairman of the board from Arkansas in this silly costume-and it ran everywhere." To Walton, the stunt contained an important business lesson: "At Walmart, when you make a bet like I did... you always pay up."
The good times continue at Walmart, and so do hard work and achievement. For many employees, seeing peers rewarded for a job well done proves highly motivational. In 2009, Shawnalyn Conner was one of hundreds of store managers selected to launch a next-generation Walmart store. Conner had joined Walmart as a temporary sales associate only a decade earlier, and now she was responsible for turning a 176,000-square-foot warehouse in Weaverville, North Carolina, into a decked-out retail operation complete with grocery, vision center, photo kiosk, pharmacy, and 30 merchandise departments. The newly minted manager got to work recruiting 350 new associates, and Conner initiated all hires with the same cheer she herself learned a decade earlier. "What we look for in a Walmart associate is someone who's extroverted and loves to deal with customers," Conner said about the recruiting effort. Not surprisingly, it is Conner's own journey from temporary worker to leader of a $70-million-per-year store that interests trainees most. "I started with the company when I was 19," Conner tells her recruits, "And to say now that I'm 31 and run a multi-million-dollar facility is amazing." The message to the new employees is clear: Stick with Walmart and you're going places. It's the Walmart way.
Executives at Walmart refer to the company as one big family. There are no grunts or gophers-no employee, no matter how new, is thought of as low person on the totem. According to the company's "open door" policy, all associates are encouraged to speak freely, share concerns, and express ideas for improving daily operations. In return, they can expect managers to treat all discussions fairly with an open mind. The policy is right out of Walton's playbook. "Listen to your associates," Walton urged. "They're the best idea generators" The founders wisdom is routinely reaffirmed through the oft- repeated quote that "nothing constructive happens in Bentonville"-a reference to Walmart headquarters. In Walton's grass-roots ethic, local employees are the ones most likely to produce fresh ideas.
At the end of the day, managers at Walmart don't look to superstars to make the big play. The Walmart philosophy argues that whenever ordinary people act together to pursue common goals, they can achieve the extraordinary. "What makes ordinary people do extraordinary things?" Sam Walton once asked his people. "Aren't we a group of ordinary folks? We really are. And I think we, together as a team, have done extraordinary things... we've all accomplished much more than any of us ever thought that we could."
What tools does Walmart use to motivate employees? How might a lack of motivation affect associates and how should managers respond?