Have you visited the Walmart museum? It s a tribute to one of the greatest miracles of modern business—a scrappy 5 and 10 store in Northwest Arkansas that somehow managed to become number one on the Fortune 500 and the Fortune Global 500. Regular readers of this blog know I focus frequently on how leadership has changed in the last few decades. But I was struck by founder Sam Walton’s 10 rules of business, posted on the museum wall, which still seem to strike all the right chords. They are, in short form:

• Commit to your business.
• Share your profits with your associates.
• Motivate your partners.
• Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners.
• Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.
• Celebrate your successes.
• Listen to everyone in your company.
• Exceed your customers’ expectations.
• Control your expenses better than your competition.
• Swim upstream.

I particularly like the last one, which was Mr. Sam’s way of saying: “disrupt yourself.” It is in my books, the hardest to achieve. It is why large companies slowly deflate and end.