I’m preparing my synopsis of The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, which I will present this coming Friday at the First Friday Book Synopsis. (By the way, it may land near the top of my list of the “best books I’ve read.” It is a really good book!)

He writes about problems solving complex problems in an ever-more complex world. He spends an entire chapter on the crisis following Hurricane Katrina. There is quite a section on the brilliant response of Wal-Mart. Buy the book just to read this chapter! (It is chapter 4: The Idea).

Lee Scott, the CEO, issued this edict:

“This company will respond to the level of this disaster… A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level. Make the best decision that you can with the information that’s available to you at the time, and above all, do the right thing.”

And store managers did so. They got stores open, fast, created “crude paper-slip credit systems for first responders, providing them with food, sleeping bags, toiletries, and also rescue equipment like hatchets, ropes, and boots.” Store managers distributed diapers, water, baby formula, ice… One assistant manager literally drove a bulldozer through her flooded store, loaded it with items she could salvage, and gave them all away in the parking lot. Wal-Mart officials concentrated on setting goals, measuring progress, and maintaining communication lines with employees at the front lines and with official agencies where they could. In other words, to handle this complex situation, they did not issue instructions. Conditions were too unpredictable and constantly changing. They worked on making sure people talked… Wal-Mart’s employees were able to fashion some extraordinary solutions.

Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government chronicled and praised Wal-Mart’s response in a case study.

I had read a little about Wal-Mart’s response after Katrina. But the details in this chapter were new to me. I suspect that is due to my own negligence. I have not always been a fan of Wal-Mart’s ways. But this chapter is pretty convincing that in one really bad and tragic moment for a whole lot of our citizens, Wal-Mart deserves all the praise anyone can give.