When faced with total collapse, Harvey Firestone didn't just cut prices. He used the crisis as a filter to identify employees who thrived under pressure and ruthlessly simplified the company, cutting the sales force by 75% and the ad department from 105 to 7.
Action, even incorrect action, produces valuable information that clarifies the correct path forward. This bias toward doing over planning is a key trait of outliers. Waiting for perfect information is a silent killer of ambition, while immediate action creates momentum and reveals opportunities.
Les Schwab wasn't in the tire business; he was in the ownership business. He gave store managers 50% of the profits, requiring them to reinvest their share until they earned their stake. This turned employees into obsessed owners who consistently out-serviced and out-competed rivals.
Lauder realized women rarely bought perfume, seeing it as a scandalous gift received from men. She sidestepped this cultural barrier by creating "Youth Dew," a bath oil that doubled as a perfume. This genius reframing gave women permission to buy a luxury for themselves, creating an entirely new market.
Instead of stocking every product variation, Sol Price's "intelligent loss of sales" system offered only the best-value item (e.g., one size of oil). This deliberately lost some customers but radically simplified inventory, labor, and checkout, creating an unbeatable cost advantage.
During a market crash, Henry Singleton stopped acquiring companies and did the opposite: he used cash to buy back 90% of Teledyne's stock. While Wall Street saw this as failure, it was a rational trade—repurchasing his own company's earnings at a low multiple—which caused earnings per share to explode.
Founder Rose Blumpkin's bias for action meant responding to challenges with immediate, unconventional solutions. When shotguns weren't selling during the Depression, she rented them. When her store burned down, she held a massive "fire sale" the very next day amid the wreckage.