Alan M. Webber - Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self

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.

Dont 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.

Weve 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 Dont Know If You Dont 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 Aint the Same as Doing It.

Memo To Leaders: Focus on The Signal-To-Noise Ratio.

Speed = Strategy.

Great Leaders Answer Tom Peters Qreat Question: How Can I Capture the Worlds 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 Smiths 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 Isnt 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 Isnt an Oxymoron; Its 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.

Dont Confuse Credentials With Talent.

When It Comes to Business, It Helps If You Actually Know Something About Something.

Failure Isnt Failing. Failure is Failing to Try.

Tough Leaders Wear Their Hearts On Their Sleeves.

Everyones 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; Theyll be Your Weaknesses on the Way Down.

Take Your Work Seriously. Yourself, Not So Much.

Stay Alert! There are Teachers Everywhere.

Your Rule Goes Here

WHO KNOWS THE RULES?

T hese are extraordinary times.

In our work, our lives, and everything in between we are witnessing change that is so fast and unpredictable that our first challenge is simply to make sense of it.

Globalization, technology, and the knowledge economy have propelled countries, industries, companies, and individual careers into new and uncharted territory. Unprecedented and destabilizing economic, political, and social events are unfolding. Massive financial shifts have undermined the leading economies of the world. Old, prestigious companies with long, storied heritages have disappeared overnight. Entire industries have awakened to discover that they need to adapt, transform, or become extinct. Its no exaggeration to say that leading thinkers around the world are seriously discussing new forms and new rules for the future of capitalism.

At the same time, because economic creation always accompanies economic destruction, a new generation of entrepreneurs is seizing the moment. As giant companies appeal to Washington, D.C., for financial aid, brand-new start-ups suddenly emerge to capture the publics imaginationand the markets wallet. Financial and business fissures have opened to innovation, invention, and inspiration.

The time has come to rethink, reimagine, and recalibrate what is possible, what is desirable, what is sustainable.

Its time to rewrite the rules.

Were badly in need of rules of thumb that work, that make sense, that can guide us through and past these turbulent times. Rules of thumb that teach us how to workand also inspire us to understand why we work. Rules of thumb that show us higher roads to take in our business and personal livesand demonstrate that those two roads are best traveled as one. Rules of thumb that suggest a code of conduct for each of us as individuals and for all of us as a community. We want rules of thumb that help us succeedand help us win at work without losing the people and things we care most about in life.

Thats what Rules of Thumb is about. Its a collection of fifty-two rules Ive gathered over the last forty years or so. During that time Ive met and worked with a series of remarkable men and women who have given me their wisdom and helped me make sense of my own experiences. Ive talked with famous leaders who are world-renowned and learned from obscure entrepreneurs who are unknown; Ive sat with brilliant Nobel Prize winners whose scientific discoveries cure millions and visited modest community organizers who change the world one person at a timeand learned valuable lessons from all of them. Ive interviewed CEOs and spiritual leaders, basketball coaches and novelists, business thinkers and elected officialsand come away with fresh insights and hard-won truths.

Ive recorded those lessons on three-by-five cards that I carry with me every day at home and on the road. (This wonderful system is something I learned more than twenty years ago from Harvard Business School professor Ted Levitt, one of the mentors youll meet in this book.)

Not long ago, I reviewed all the three-by-five cards Id written on and saved. This time my goal was to capture the rules Id learned. I began to fill up three-by-five cards until I reached fifty-two, at which point I stopped. Not because Id run out of rules, but because they represented the best of what Id learned and what I had to pass on.

Because I want you to understand where these rules came from, each has a story about how I learned it. In almost every case they come from four deep experiences Ive had in my life:

In the early 1970s, after graduating from Amherst College, I went to Portland, Oregon, where I worked for Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, and with the committed, forward-thinking team he put together in city hall, as well as the community of activists across the city who transformed Portland into the urban showcase it is today. It was an education in urban planning, electoral politics, and the art of making change.