The larger truth ... 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.
-- Sam Walton
"Mr. Walton would like to see you in his office. Can you come now?" the voice on the other end of the telephone politely inquired. It was a sunny June day in 1984, and immediately my heart started racing. I had just been hired the week before to work in the real estate department at the Walmart general offices.
Previously, I'd been working for a small regional discount chain and had the opportunity to speak a time or two with Tom Seay, who was the vice president in charge of Walmart's real estate division. After my small company's chief executive officer told me that spring he was going to sell the company, Tom agreed to interview me for a job there in Bentonville. It went well, he offered me a job which I instantly accepted, but there was one caveat: Mr. Sam had to personally sign off on every new hire. "When Sam gets back, he will definitely want to see you. Don't worry," Seay grinned. "He will probably want to know about your old company. Just be honest when he asks you a question, and you'll be fine."
Unfortunately, worrying was what I immediately started to do. I felt a strong loyalty to my old company. What if he asked me secrets or sensitive data? Still though, Sam Walton wanted to see me! Excitement quickly overtook my nervousness as I made the walk over to his office.
Any fears I might have still harbored where instantly put to rest the second I walked into that modest paneled office, which featured a large painting of Sam with two of his bird dogs on the wall behind him. His tan face and silver hair immediately recalled my grandfather. His eyes were penetrating, but his demeanor was relaxed. Looking me straight in the eye he smiled and said, "Tell me about yourself."
It soon became apparent that he knew more about my old company than I did. He was a friend of my old chief executive officer and spoke warmly of a trip they took together several years before. "I have a lot of respect for him," he told me.
I told Mr. Sam of our attempts to emulate the bonus plan Walmart had for its store managers by giving them a large percentage of the profits that exceeded the yearly plan. We had abandoned it only after two years as management thought it was costing too much money.
He shook his head. "How you treat your employees will directly affect how they treat the customer." That was a lesson I would come to hear many times from him: We are a family -- "associates," he called us -- and we are all in this together. I left his office eager to be a part of this dynamic organization.
After Sam's death in 1992, the company continued to expand, but it didn't feel the same. Perhaps there was no way it could. It became a global corporation but began losing that family feeling. I told myself change like that was inevitable. You can't run a large international corporation the way Sam did -- it's just too big and totally different from that era. After I left the company in 2000, it became common for many people to tell me how much Walmart had continued to alter from when Mr. Sam was there and that its employees had become just a number. "I bet Sam is spinning in his grave!" would be a common utterance over some new policy announcement.
Then last week, it was announced by Walmart chief executive Doug McMillon that Walmart was raising starting pay chain wide to $11 an hour, giving out $400 million in one-time bonuses to its hourly staff, instituting fully paid parental leave and giving up to $5,000 to employees who want to adopt a child. Some skeptics say it is just coming from savings from the new tax bill. But for me, reading the news made me remember that long-ago June day.
Whatever Walmart faces in the future, it's never a bad idea to remember where you came from. "Take the best ideas from someone else," Sam once wrote. Looks like Doug McMillon did just that.
NAN Our Town on 01/18/2018