With 10 Short Words, the CEO of Walmart U.S. Just Taught a Brilliant Leadership Lesson

The election is nigh. People are nervous. I’m right there with you.

Don’t worry; this column isn’t really about the election. Instead, it’s about some sage words of wisdom I found at Walmart—how to help people handle stress about upcoming events that they have a lot riding on.

Short backstory: One way I try to keep a lid on my election-related angst is to throw myself into work this time of year.

Since I often write about what business leaders can learn from the wins and losses at big companies, that means my work sometimes involves paying a lot of attention to those big companies.

So, when the New York Times ran a roughly 1,000-word story on how Walmart—biggest revenue of any company, largest U.S. employer—has spent the last several months planning for the uncertainties of the holiday shopping season, I parsed every line.

Big retailers have so much riding on holiday shopping, but at the same time, they have to plan everything far ahead of time, long before they know how customers will feel and act during the season.

The article lays out the process—something we’ll cover in a bit more detail below—but a short quote from John Furner, chief executive of Walmart’s U.S. business, jumped out at me because it’s really about a smart way to handle all-encompassing uncertainty about… well, anything:

“Sentiment affects what we do. Even if sentiment changes, there are still people that are feeling very good, and there are people that are not. So we try to really focus on what we can control,” Furner said.

The article goes on to explain that the things Walmart can control really come down to a list of three: customer service, hiring, and execution.

Maybe it goes without saying, but the real takeaway here has to do with the 10 words in the middle of Furner’s quote:

“[W]e try to really focus on what we can control.”

Zoom out. Not that we’re all going to feel sorry for Walmart, but think about all the variables going into the high-stakes holiday shopping season and you might find a little bit of empathy.

Here’s my best shot at summarizing the issues in play, according to the Times:

• Sales are expected to increase this year…
• But at a lower rate than last year…
• But that only counts for November and December…
• And yet most retailers now say the “holiday season” definition should include more time than that…
• But that means that with a much broader time frame, it’s harder to predict how confident customers will be about the economy…
• Not least because customers are apprehensive about the presidential election.
• Plus, we have a calendar problem this year: Thanksgiving is late (November 28), which gives us five fewer shopping days before Christmas.

See what I mean? I can imagine the anxiety and uncertainty could be distracting!

That’s why we come back to Furner’s quote, which is sort of a 21st-century business edition of the “Serenity Prayer” that apparently traces its roots to the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, a Protestant theologian, back in the 1930s:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Gosh, I’ve already brushed by politics in this article and now I’ve managed to bring religion into it, too.

Wait, aren’t those the two subjects people say you’re not supposed to bring up if you want to keep the peace? I do in fact want to keep the peace, so let’s cut to the chase.

If you’re running a business, you’re a leader. You’ve got people looking to you for direction.

Even if you never mention the election at work (a popular choice, as it turns out), people around you are stressed about it. As a result, times like these call for leading by example.

The example I’d lead with is to model the idea of focusing on the things you can control.

The election isn’t something you can control. Neither is whatever consumer sentiment will be like in six weeks.

But you can dream, work, and build. And as a result, you can wind up in a better position to deal with all those things you can’t control.

See you after the election. But before the end of the holiday shopping season, I hope.

Oh, and on Thanksgiving, do as I say, not as I’ve done: Avoid politics and religion. Stress levels will drop all around the table.