Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self, Webber, Alan M.
Alan Webber was the managing editor of the Harvard Business Review and, wearing an entrepreneurial hat, was a cofounder of Fast Company magazine. He’s hung out with and paid attention to lots of smart people and he’s managed to acquire substantial experience in his own right. In Rules of Thumb Webber seeks to distill some of the lessons he’s learned for the benefit of the rest of us.
These kinds of books depend on whether the authors can tell a good story and whether they have any substantively useful insights. As you might expect, Webber has an excellent collection of stories, well told. More importantly, he delivers on the insights side. A few of his rules fall flat or feel clich d but the bulk reinforce and extend themes I find important and frequently open up new perspectives.
Here are the rules Webber presents; it’s worth your effort to see what he does with each.
- When the going gets tough, the tough relax
- Every company is running for office. To win, give the voters what they want
- Ask the last question first
- Don’t implement solutions. Prevent problems
- Change is a math formula
- If you want to see with fresh eyes, reframe the picture
- The system is the solution
- New realities demand new categories
- Nothing happens until money changes hands
- A good question beats a good answer
- We’ve moved from an either/or past to a both/and future
- The difference between a crisis and an opportunity is when you learn about it
- Learn to take no as a question
- You don’t know if you don’t go
- Every start-up needs four things: change, connections, conversation, and community
- Facts are facts; stories are how we learn
- Entrepreneurs choose serendipity over efficiency
- Knowing it ain’t the same as doing it
- Memo to leaders: focus on the signal to noise ratio
- Speed = strategy
- Great leaders answer Tom Peters’ great question: "How can I capture the world’s imagination?"
- Learn to see the world through the eyes of your customer
- Keep two lists. What gets you up in the morning? What keeps you up at night?
- If you want to change the game, change the economics of how the game is played
- If you want to change the game, change customer expectations
- The soft stuff is the hard stuff
- If you want to be like Google, learn Megan Smith’s three rules
- Good design is table stakes. Great design wins
- Words matter
- The likeliest sources of great ideas are in the most unlikely places
- Everything communicates
- Content isn’t king. Context is king
- Everything is a performance
- Simplicity is the new currency
- The Red Auerbach management principle: loyalty is a two-way street
- Message to entrepreneurs: managing your emotional flow is more critical than managing your cash flow
- All money is not created equal
- If you want to think big, start small
- "Serious fun" isn’t an oxymoron; it’s how you win
- Technology is about changing how we work
- If you want to be a real leader, first get real about leadership
- The survival of the fittest is the business case for diversity
- Don’t confuse credentials with talent
- When it comes to business, it helps if you actually know something about something
- Failure isn’t failing. Failure is failing to try
- Tough leaders wear their hearts on their sleeves
- Everyone’s at the center of their map of the world
- If you want to make change, start with an iconic project
- If you want to grow as a leader, you have to disarm your border guards
- On the way up, pay attention to your strengths.; they’ll be your weaknesses on the way down
- Take your work seriously. Yourself, not so much
- Stay alert! There are teachers everywhere