This is a great book. You can open any page and random and find tidbits that immediately resonate with you. It has so many “I should be doing this, I should have done this, This is super advice” kind of messages. I had given it as a gift to my manager and he said he’s read it over 50 times!! Of course, he is someone who has a ‘yes’ tickmark to most of the items in the list. I have a long way to go though.
There are 75 guidelines in the book presented as pearls of wisdom by someone who has ‘been there, done that’. In a way, it is not about becoming the CEO, but feeling like a CEO, like someone who has things in control, even if you’re a first level manager.
The Rules
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Always take the job that offers the best money
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Avoid staff jobs, seek line jobs
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Don’t expect the personnel department to plan your career
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Get and keep customers
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Keep physically fit
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Do something hard and lonely
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Never write a nasty memo
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Think for one hour everyday
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Keep and Use a Special Idea Notebook
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Don’t have a drink with the gang
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Don’t Smoke
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Skip all office parties
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Friday is “How Ya’ Doing?” Day
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Makes Allies of your Peer’s subordinates
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Know everybody by their first name
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Organize “One-line Good job” Tours
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Make one More Call
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Arrive forty-five minutes early and leave fifteen minutes late
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Don’t take work home from the office
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Earn Your “Invitation Credentials”
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Avoid Superiors When You Travel
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Eat in Your Hotel Room
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Work, Don’t Read Paperbacks, on the Airplane
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Keep a “People File”
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Send handwritten notes
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Don’t get Buddy-Buddy with Your Superiors
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Don’t Hide an Elephant
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Be visible: Practice “WACADAD”
- “Words are cheap and deeds are dear”
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Always take vacations
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Always Say “Yes” to a Senior Executive Request
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Never Surprise Your Boss
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Make Your Boss Look Good and Your Boss’s Boss Look Better
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Never Let a Good Boss Make a Mistake
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Go to the Library one day a month
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Add One Big New Thing to Your Life Each Year
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Study These Books
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Obvious Adams, Acres of Diamonds, The Bible, The Art of War, The Book of Five Rings, On War, The Prince, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, Webster’s Third Unabridged Dictionary, The Forbes Book of Business Quotations, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, On Advertising, The Sun Also Rises, The Elements of Style, Huckleberry Finn, Anything by Thomas Jefferson
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Of the list above, I’ve read the Bible (parts of it consciously, most of it as routine), some works of Shakespeare. E.B. White’s Elements of Style is a book that I need to read at some point, also letters by Jefferson.
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“Dress for a Dance”
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Overinvest in People
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Overpay Your People
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“Stop, Look, and Listen”
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Be a Flag-Waving Company Patriot
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Find and Fill the “Data Gaps”
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Homework, Homework, Homework
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Never Panic … or Lose Your Temper
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Learn to Speak and Write in Plain English
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Treat All People as Special
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Be a Credit Maker, Not a Credit Taker
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Give Informal Surprise Bonuses
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Please, Be Polite with Everyone
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Ten Things to Say that Make People Feel Good
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The Glory and the Glamour Came after the Grunt work
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Tinker, Tailor, Try
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Haste Makes Waste
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Pour the Coals to a Good Thing
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Put the Importance on the Bright Idea, Not the Source of the Idea
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Stay Out of Office Politics
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Look Sharp and Be Sharp
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Emulate, Study, and Cherish the Great Boss
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Don’t Go Over Budget
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Never Underestimate an Opponent
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Assassinate the Character Assassin with a Single Phrase
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Become a Member of the “Shouldn’t Have Club”
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The Concept Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect, but the Execution of It Does
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Record and Collect Your Mistakes with Care and Pride
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Live for today; Plan for tomorrow; Forget about yesterday
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Have fun, laugh
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Treat your family as your number one client
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No Goals, no Glory
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Always remember your Subordinate’s Spouses
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See the job through the Salespeople’s eyes
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Be a very tough “Heller Seller”
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Don’t be an Empire Builder
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Push Products, Not Paper
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To Teach is to Learn and to Lead
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Do not get discouraged by idea killers
The book on Amazon: How to Become CEO: The Rules for Rising to the Top of Any Organization