Two short business titles this morning, neither appear to be excerpts (but are not much larger than a few chapters, from the size.).
Sam Walton's Way, by New Word City
Book Description
It would be difficult to overstate the impact Sam Walton had on American business, specifically retailing. The standalone box stores he pioneered have quite literally changed the nation's landscape. His innovations in supply-chain management and distribution totally reshaped the relationship between suppliers and retailers, and, for the most part, took wholesalers out of the equation. His insistence on low prices altered customers' expectations of what they will have to pay for everything from socks to soda. Like few business leaders before or since, Sam Walton changed the world.
Saturday, August 14, 1964 was a broiling hot day in Harrison, Arkansas-but the heat was the last thing on Sam Walton's mind. For the 46-year-old Walton, this was a big day: the grand opening of his second Wal-Mart. He was going to make damn sure it was a big success. He'd planned everything. In the parking lot, he'd had two truckloads of watermelons delivered and hired a donkey to provide rides for the kids. He headed outside to greet his first customers. What he saw would make most entrepreneurs lose their cool: The watermelons had burst, and donkey dung littered the lot. Walton's reaction was emblematic of his ability to rise above any challenge. He ignored the mess, smiled, walked up to the crowd, stuck out his hand, and said, "Welcome to Wal-Mart." That focus on customers is Walton's prime leadership lesson. But there are many others, beginning with his obsession with low prices-just the first step in a mission to deliver unbeatable value....
New Word City, publishers of digital originals, contributes 10 percent of its profits to literary causes.
What I Learned from Peter Drucker, by Jim Champy
Book Description
Peter Drucker is universally acknowledged as one of the most influential business thinkers of all time. His theories on how organizations affect society and how to manage them effectively have profoundly shaped the way we live today. Here, his friend Jim Champy offers unique insights into his legacy.
If there were a pantheon for the geniuses of business management, my friend Peter Drucker's bust would loom front and center. Whenever I face a management conundrum, I try to imagine his solution. His quizzical smile-kindly but knowing-has kept me straight on many a crooked path.
In person he was every bit as dynamic and fascinating as his writings and reputation were. He awed people, including me. After all, he was arguably the most influential business thinker of the twentieth century. His eccentricities strengthened his legend. Disinterested in material wealth, he lived and worked in a modest Southern California ranch house that in no way reflected his renown as a one-man think tank. He was such an expert on Japanese art that you expected to find his house full of priceless objects. I don't think I ever saw a single one.