Rules of Thumb
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Rules of Thumb

Alan M. Webber

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eBook - ePub

Rules of Thumb

Alan M. Webber

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About This Book

"Alan Webber's wise words give guidance and hope in a world gone upside down. Incisive and practical, timely and timeless, he is a mentor of the highest order."

—Jim Collins, New York Times bestselling author of Good to Great

In Rules of Thumb, Alan Webber—co-founder of Fast Company and one of the most important thought leaders of the last two decades—provides 52 rules of thumb, one for each week of the year, to help leaders stay productive and inspired even in the most turbulent times.

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Information

Year
2009
ISBN
9780061866289

Rule #1

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH RELAX.

The year was 1986. I was sitting at the end of a formal boardroom table in a private office in the German Bundestag in Bonn. I had on my best three-piece suit and a Brooks Brothers tie I’d bought for the occasion.
I was waiting to conduct an interview with former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt for the Harvard Business Review. I’d written my questions out in longhand on a yellow legal pad. My tape recorder was plugged in and strategically placed on the table near the chair where I assumed Chancellor Schmidt would sit. I’d calculated the angle of the recorder so I could make eye contact with Schmidt and check the machine. The last thing I needed was to sit through the interview only to discover afterward that the recorder had malfunctioned. I was jet-lagging like crazy, having flown from Boston to Bonn the night before. And I couldn’t stop going over in my mind all the ways this interview could go wrong—and everything that was riding on it.
At that moment right before Helmut Schmidt walked into the room I realized I was going about this in a way that was guaranteed to blow it.
My approach was wrong.
My mind-set was wrong.
And if I didn’t do something to change it in the next few seconds, I’d not only doom my project but also feel bad about it for the rest of my life.
The problem was how I’d gotten to that room in the first place.
A short time before this trip to Germany, the brilliant, curmudgeonly marketing guru Ted Levitt had taken over as faculty editor of the Harvard Business Review. I was working there as an associate editor, at the bottom of the pecking order. And I was bored out of my mind by the publication’s stuffy complacency.
It turned out that Ted shared my evaluation of HBR. He characterized it as “the only magazine written by people who can’t write for people who don’t read.” As soon as he took over as faculty editor, overseeing the staff of professionals, Ted set out to shake the place up. At the top of his to-do list was to hold an internal competition for a new managing editor, the title that went to the highest-ranking staff member. When Ted interviewed me about my intentions for the future, much to my own surprise the words that came out of my mouth were, “I either want to run this place or leave it.”
To make my bid for the top job I’d proposed a series of interviews: “The Statesman as CEO.” I would travel around the world and interview former heads of state to explore leadership—but of a country, not a company. I’d start with Helmut Schmidt, then interview Japan’s Yasuhiro Nakasone, the United Kingdom’s James Callaghan, and finally former U.S. presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.
There was a method to my madness. Years before, the German Marshall Fund had selected me for a fellowship, a three-month stint in Munich to study that city’s urban plan. I figured that by working through the German Marshall Fund, I could line up an interview with Helmut Schmidt. Once I had one statesman committed I could use him as leverage with the others. Sure enough, when I called my contact at the German Marshall Fund, she told me that an interview would indeed be doable. But she also warned me that I might not enjoy the experience.
“He’s not a very pleasant man,” she advised me. “He’s very hard to interview because he looks down on the people asking the questions. And,” she confided, “you know he takes snuff.”
Nevertheless, she had me send a formal proposal on official HBR stationery that she could forward to the appropriate German authorities. After my request went through the proper channels my friend came back with a date, a time, and a place for my interview with the notoriously difficult, snuff-taking chancellor.
All that was going through my mind as I sat there staring at my tape recorder and my yellow lined legal tablet.
What would Ted Levitt think if I screwed up this interview?
What would happen to my chances for the top job at HBR?
More immediately, what would happen if Helmut Schmidt dismissed my questions as stupid?
What if the tape recorder malfunctioned?
I looked at it sitting there, waiting for the opportunity to betray me. I could feel the pressure rising in my chest.
That’s when I took my pen out of my shirt pocket and carefully wrote new instructions to myself. I put them at the top of the yellow legal tablet above all my questions, where my eyes would come to rest before I started the interview and between every question: “Relax! Smile! This is a blessing, a treat, and an honor. It’s not a punishment to be endured.”
How many people get to sit across from a world leader and ask him questions? How many people get to see their proposal for a project—any project—approved, and then get to go do it?
What I needed to see was how fortunate I was to be there. To enjoy it. To relax and hope that Helmut Schmidt would enjoy it. To see it as it really was: an exceptional experience.
I had just written the instructions to myself at the top of the tablet when the door opened. Chancellor Schmidt walked in.
We shook hands. I introduced myself and briefly explained the project. I got ready to ask my first question. But first I smiled. He smiled back.
So What?
W. Edwards Deming is famous for his fourteen-point program that created the modern total quality movement. The one I always come back to is his eighth point: “Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.”
What he didn’t say is that the place to start is with you.
Anytime you approach a task with fear you are at least a double loser. First, you color the work with fear and increase the chances of failure. Confidence and composure trump fear every time. Second, you guarantee that you won’t enjoy the experience. Whether you succeed or fail, wouldn’t you like to remember the experience as one you enjoyed, not one you suffered through?
So when you feel that familiar unpleasant sensation rising up in your chest or settling into the pit of your stomach, remember Rule #1. Don’t let fear undermine your chance to do that one thing you’ve wanted to do. Rule #1 touches every other rule. Take a second and smile. Enjoy the trip.

Rule #2

EVERY COMPANY IS RUNNING FOR OFFICE. TO WIN, GIVE THE VOTERS WHAT THEY WANT.

Back in 1999 I was invited to a special appearance by then-senator Bill Bradley, who was running for the Democratic nomination for president. The event was held in the penthouse at the Kennedy School of Government, and I went because I admired Bradley as an elected official and a basketball player—and a fellow Missourian.
After the usual pleasantries Bradley began his informal talk by describing the terms the Kennedy School had set as preconditions for his appearance.
Bradley said, “When they called me they said, ‘We’re a patriotic institution, so we have to ask you some questions. Do you support the Constitution of the United States?’ I told them I did. They said, ‘Do you support freedom of religion?’ Yes, I said. They said, ‘Freedom of assembly?’ Yes, I said, I support freedom of assembly. They said, ‘Free speech?’ Yes, I said. ‘Good,’ they said, ‘because you’re going to give one.’”
Bradley’s opening joke may accurately reflect the political values at the heart of America; more importantly, it serves as a reminder that business and politics have to meet the same test—the American character test. Whether you know it or not, your company is running for office. You’re a campaign manager, trying every day to win the votes of the American consumer. And as in any campaign, knowing the answer to the question, “What do those voters want?” dramatically increases your chances of winning.
So what do American voters want?
I’d start with the most fundamental of all qualities: Americans are uniquely practical. We want things that work. For the most part we leave it to others to argue over philosophy, metaphysics, abstractions. We Americans pride ourselves on our ability to get things done. We do what it takes to make things happen, and we want products and services that do the same.
The second fundamental American attribute is adaptability. Among all the nations in the world we are unique in our steadfast belief that everything, including ourselves, can be made better. We’re the folks who invented the notion that “every day in every way I’m getting better and better.” We invented an entire industry around the theme of self-improvement. In the United States the idea that we can all get better, get smarter, and get ahead is hardwired into our national consciousness. Any idea that can be launched in version 1.0 is quickly in line for a new, improved, upgraded version 2.0. Everything can be made to work even better.
Third, we Americans have always been obsessed with innovation. What’s new, what’s next, what’s never been done before—these are intrinsically American concerns. Today innovation has practically become an American cliché, the path to the future for companies in every industry. But companies and their leaders aren’t wrong to make this claim. It’s as American as you can be, going back to one of our nation’s founding innovators, Benjamin Franklin.
What do voters want from our companies?
We want things that work. We want to be able to make them work better. And we want to find things that both work better and are innovative. Three qualities that aren’t mutually exclusive. They’re mutually reinforcing.
Have you got what the voters want?
So What?
You’re in business. Every day you’re running for office. Every vote counts. Every day you have to prove to your customers that you’re worthy of their votes. You have to show them that you get them. That you care about them. That you care about the same things they care about.
What do they care about?
  • Does it work?
  • Can we make it work better?
  • Is it new and better?
Measure your business ideas and performance against this deeply American scorecard. If what you have to offer stacks up well, you’ve got a head start at winning the hearts and minds—and wallets—of the American market.

Rule #3

ASK THE LAST QUESTION FIRST.

For the first issue of Fast Company, Mark Fuller, the cofounder and CEO of Monitor Company, wrote a provocative essay called “Business as War.”
The third section of the piece, called “Why Companies Fail, Part 2,” taught me a lesson I’ve carried with me since the first time I read it. Here’s what it says: “Right through the Vietnam War, big companies and the military shared the same approach to strategy. Both labored under institutional dynamics that virtually guaranteed competitive defeat. The terrible irony of Vietnam was that the United States won every battle but lost the war. Most military histories of the Vietnam War agree on the reason for the defeat: the military had no unified strategic doctrine, no clear definition of victory.”
No clear definition of victory. That’s the lesson.
If you have no clear definition of victory, how do you know when—or if—you’ve won? For that matter, how do you know why you’re fighting in the first place?
If you have no clear definition of victory, how do you allocate your resources? How do you deploy your people? How long do you stick with it, and how do you know when you’ve reached your goal?
I began to take this message to heart with our own fledgling magazine: What was our definition of victory? How would we know with each issue and with the magazine as a whole whether we were winning or losing?
Bill Taylor, my partner in launching Fast Company, and I decided that we didn’t want to be the biggest magazine with the largest circulation. We did want to be profitable, but our goal wasn’t to make the most money of any magazine.
No, our definition of victory would be impact. We wanted our readers to find articles that were so useful, so valuable—so impactful—they’d clip them and save them or send them to a friend. We wanted to ...

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