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On lightning trips around his empire, he thinks nothing of flying 7,000 miles in four days, starting his sessions with Sears store managers at 5:45 a.m. sharp, and whirling through stores, speeches, conferences, until everyone else is ready to drop. His clothes are often rumpled, his shoes unshined, his collar open and his tie askew. He wears a battered hat atop his silvery head and a topcoat that looks as if it came off the pile at Sears—which it did. He munches, instead of smokes, cigarettes. Despite his breakneck pace, Wood is still pink-cheeked and healthy; his 180 lb., 5 ft. 9½-in. frame is tough as rawhide. His simple formula: "A good night's sleep, a good appetite and sound elimination are a man's chief concern."
His GHQ is a small office in Sears' block-long home in Chicago, which, in 1905, when it was opened, was the "world's largest office building." Wood still uses the same walnut desk that Rosenwald used, sits in the same leather chair, keeps extra papers in another traditional rolltop desk in the corner. But there is nothing old-fashioned about Wood's business philosophy; he runs Sears "in terms of the democratic spirit." Says Wood: "We put our faith in men, not systems. I like to let a man learn by making a few mistakes, as long as they don't cost too much."
Wood's conferences with his department heads seldom last more than five minutes and Wood often ends them abruptly by standing up. From his memory he can summon facts & figures on Sears' operation 20 years ago, and he expects his subordinates to do the same. His opinions are strong, but they can be changed if enough facts are marshaled against him. "To get along with the general," says one lieutenant, "you don't have to be supine. He doesn't like that. But it helps to be flexible." He is brisk but not brusque. Once, at an evening meeting, a lawyer handed Wood a complicated report on a project. Wood leafed through it in a matter of seconds, then mumbled that they'd better get started on a game of bridge. Next day, when Wood was asked why he hadn't even read the report, he said in honest surprise, "Why, I've already taken care of the matter."
On another occasion, Senator William Benton, then a vice president of the University of Chicago, had lunch with Wood to try to persuade him to turn over Sears' Encyclopaedia Britannica (which Sears bought in 1920) to the university as a philanthropic gesture. When Wood didn't say anything, Benton thought his persistence had annoyed the general. After lunch, as he was getting into his car, Wood drew back and said: "All right." (The gift has since earned some $2,000,000 in royalties for the university.)