A zealot needs to know how to train others and how to recognize and provide the resources they need, but perhaps the zealot's most important skill is the ability to make the case for change. That is the only way to invite people to align most of the subsystems of the organization, including the rewards and recognition systems, to the zealot's strategy. Zealots may be visionaries, but the world sees them primarily as operators. The zealot's core skill is not just to imagine changes in business processes or develop new products, but to consistently hit quarterly earnings targets amid all the innovative work of corporate change. In our view, a startling number of CEOs and other strategically oriented executives have lost sight of how their organizations actually produce results.
Zealots do know, because they are continually working the system to improve bottom-line results.
This operational experience gives zealots their fearlessness. They are knowledgeable enough about their business processes and bottom-line realities that they can take risks with confidence. This, in turn, allows them to be strategically adaptive. For the past 30 years, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has been the American company most successful at consistently delivering superior value to its shareholders. The foundation of Wal-Mart's success is continual operational innovation, not only pioneering logistical systems and vendor relationships but also continual learning and adaptation, using techniques such as its famous Saturday morning meetings, in which senior managers analyze the stores' computer information together and recast strategies on the fly.