"Today's business practitioner and student focuses on the 'how' of business, not the 'why.' That's why people from the best business schools create monsters like Enron. In this brilliant book, Raymond Yeh talks about what really matters-the soul and spirit of business. It's about time!" -Gary E. Hoover, Founder, Hoover's, Inc., and author, Hoover's Vision

Southwest Airlines (SWA): Democratizing the Skies
Although originally organized in 1967 to fill a need for intrastate airline routes between Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston, the first SWA plane did not actually take off until four years later. Competing airlines Braniff, Texas International, and Continental fought in court to keep the new carrier out of the Texas intrastate market. During those first four years, cofounder and former CEO Herb Kelleher fought as the lone-ranger lawyer against as many as 15 opposing lawyers.

In fact, the higher the odds, the greater his motivation to fight the good fight. He recalls his reaction to the early legal battles for SWA:

"It fired me up tremendously. As a matter of fact, in retrospect I think that was probably one of the greatest motivations, the most powerful motivation involved. The way I expressed it was, 'Look, we're offering to do something better for the people of Texas. I'm not going to let these guys frustrate the system and prevent that from happening.' It became sort of an idealistic issue. A societal issue with our legal system functioning the way it should."

Kelleher resolved never to lose sight of SWA's vision of democratizing the skies, which translates into affordable air travel for the masses, profitability for the airline, and job security for every employee.

Royal/Dutch Shell: Using Scenarios to Develop Long-Term Vision
Pierre Wack, Ted Newland, and other members of the Shell planning team began using scenarios in 1972 to explore the events that might affect the price of oil, which had been relatively steady since WWII. Wack engaged Shell's decision makers in the scenario, letting them feel the potential shocks of such an event and telling them, "you are about to become a low-growth industry."

As predicted in the scenario, the energy crisis and the predicted oil price shock exploded after the "Yom Kippur" war in the Middle East in October 1973. Of all the major oil companies, only Shell was prepared and responded quickly. While scenarios are not meant to predict the future, the insights often shock managers into opening their eyes, considering all the options, and creating positive responses.

Shell's most recent scenarios explore the energy needs, choices, and possibilities of the future to the year 2050. The Dynamics as Usual scenario presents an evolutionary progression in terms of a "carbon shift" from coal to gas, to renewable sources, or possibly to nuclear energy. The more radical Spirit of the Coming Age scenario digs into the more revolutionary environment of a hydrogen economy.

Wal-Mart: Small-Town Strategy
Wal-Mart developed its so called "small town strategy" almost by accident. Walton's wife, Helen, refused to live in a city with more than 10,000 people after they were forced out of the lease on their Ben Franklin 5-and-10 franchise. They ended up in Bentonville, Arkansas, a town of only 3,000 people. Although at the time, people believed that discount stores needed a town of at least 50,000 people to support them, Bentonville's tiny population turned out to be a blessing for Wal-Mart in its early years. Walton recalled the use of the guerrilla strategy:

"We could really do something with our key strategy, which was simply to put good-sized discount stores into little one-horse towns."

This early edge provided the company an opportunity to refine its methods before moving into more competitive markets. It turns out that small town America had a huge thirst for discount stores. In the 1960s, as people began to move their families into the suburbs, they often had to drive up to 50 miles to larger towns to pay reasonable prices for items they purchased regularly. When Wal-Mart moved into town, these people were delighted.

Earl Bakken: Developing Medtronic’s Vision at a Young Age
The dream began in a tiny, un-insulated garage in the heart of the freezing Minnesota winter. It was 1949, and Earl Bakken, an earnest and unknown engineer, and his brother-in-law Palmer Hermundslie were cooking up red-hot ideas that would eventually change the face of medical technology. Bakken dreamt of a time when doctors would actually implant tiny electronic devices on or in the human body to reduce the debilitating effects of major diseases. With a directness known only to the young and the great, the two decided to form a company to produce electrical devices for healing the human body, promptly naming their venture Medtronic, a cross between the words "medicine" and "electronic."

But in a company of approximately 30,000 employees, how do you connect every employee, from janitors and bookkeepers to corporate officers, to the original vision that kept Bakken and Hermundslie on fire in the midst of meager circumstances? In the early 1960s, Bakken and a group of company officers created the "Mission and Medallion Ceremony," a rite of passage every new employee must experience six months or so after joining the company.

Not only did Bakken review Medtronic's mission and discuss its meaning in detail, he took the new employees on a virtual tour of the important events in the company's history. He showed slides of the company's first AC-powered pacemaker and the tiny garage that was the company's first lab.