Front - AZ Teambuilding sro

PUSHING TO THE FRONT
adults must master our own three “R’s” to see ourselves through to our
goals and our ultimate accomplishments.
So, keeping all that in mind, let’s look at those three “R’s” in more
detail – and analyze why they’re so important when you’re pushing to
the front.
“r” nUMBer one – reSponSiBility
Speaking of children and adults, one of the main differences between
them is that the adult has the ability to accept responsibility for his or
her actions – as well as making it a vital part of the decision-making
process. Now, I know many of you can point to a well-known politician
or celebrity that might do the exact opposite when it comes to
responsibility, but the fact is, if you don’t accept responsibility for your
decisions as you move forward, you will find that you haven’t built a
firm foundation for your success.
For example, Sam Walton, the man who built the Wal-Mart business
empire, began his career by opening a store in 1945 and building up
its annual sales from $72,000 per year to an astounding (for the time)
$245,000 a year. It became so successful that the landlord refused to
renew his lease, and instead gave the store to his son to run.
That didn’t discourage Walton, who said later that the landlord gave
him a fair price for the inventory and the fixtures he himself had installed.
Instead, Walton began running a chain of Ben Franklin stores
in small towns. At the height of his success with the franchise, he had
16 stores in 16 different towns – which was, at the time, the largest
independently-owned store chain in the country.
The success he achieved with Ben Franklin was due to the unique discounting
strategy that he had hit upon. He asked the franchise owners
to cut their margins by half so he could ramp up the policy, sure that the
added sales would more than make up for the reduced margins. But the
Ben Franklin people refused to do so.
Fine, said Walton. And he went down the road and opened the very first
Wal-Mart in 1962. He continued to run both the Ben Franklin stores he
owned as well as the new Wal-Mart chain he built for quite a few years.
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