Ever wish you'd been resent at the creation of really boneheaded busi-ess strategy? Travel back 50 years to the mahogany-paneled office of Sewell Avery, then chairman of Montgomery Ward & Co. Avery is to blame for Ward's astonishing failure to open a single new store from 1941 to 1957. Instead the big retailer piled up cash—and sat on it. The imperious Avery knew just how to handle subordinates who said Ward's should join in the nation's postwar expansion by following Americans to the suburbs. He would lead the heretics to a large colored chart, which purported to show that a depression had followed every major war since the time of Napoleon. "Who am I to argue with history?" Avery demanded. "Why build $14-a-foot buildings when we soon can do it for $3 a foot?"
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