Book Intro | Book Contents | Sample Excerpts

The secrets to success in business aren't secrets at all. They're beliefs, ideas, values, and strategies most of us already know, but ignore. Tell the truth. Share the credit. Listen more than you talk. Open your mind. They're in plain sight, staring us in the face, fundamental and familiar – in a word, obvious. Maybe too obvious. They've been recited to us by our parents and grandparents. Words to live by. As likely to appear in a fortune cookie as an MBA textbook. In fact, they are so fundamental, they may have been taken for granted or ignored, and certainly not practiced to their highest effect.

Perhaps they'd be more attractive if they were derived from the ancient tactics of warlords. Or if they were the confessions of a cold-blooded business mogul. Or drawn from a fairy tale about the hierarchy of farm animals.

But instead, they're obvious. Not tricky, sly, clever, or even complicated. Just proven effective, over and over, irrefutably. Not in a hypothetical case or historic analogy or cute parable, but in real life, in real deals, in real business. They work. Regardless of the field of business – from airlines to biotech to apparel to building to marketing to shipping to demolition to design to wholesale to retail to service to security to insurance to entertainment. Regardless of the job – from sales rep to department head to regional manager to HR to CFO to CEO. Same principles, same results, always effective.

If they're obvious and they work and we're already familiar with them, why do we ignore them? Maybe because human beings have a weakness for tricks, gimmicks, and schemes – shortcuts to the pot of gold – anything but the obvious. Maybe because we haven't treated The Obvious™ with same respect as we treat shortcuts. Maybe because we've never looked at The Obvious™ closely enough to see not only how effective they are, but why, and how best to use them. Maybe they haven't been assembled and explained in one place where we could see how compelling they are, individually and especially, together.

Here they are. The Obvious™, a collection of the principles – beliefs, ideas, values, and strategies – that work. Where did they come from? The best sources on earth. From historians, story-tellers, moralists, famous minds like Ben Franklin and Woody Allen, humble minds like our grandparents and parents, from real life, from fairy tales, and from experience, the wisest teacher of all. Their efficacy has been proven; their potency has rarely been realized; they are effective immediately. Every new self-help book would have us believe they've discovered the new secret formula for success. It's not new; it's not secret; and it's not a formula. It's old; it's well-known; and it's all here. The Obvious™ – all assembled in one book, divided into logical categories, explaining why each principle is obvious, how and why it works, and how you can use it. They're all you need to know. Period.

Book Intro | Book Contents | Sample Excerpts

Part I - Work is a verb
The bottom is a good place to start.
There are no shortcuts
Work is a challenge. Or it should be.

Part II - It's not about you
It is about everyone but you.
Go on an ego diet.
The credit will find you.

Part III - Don't be a jerk. Be reasonable, kind, decent, fair - in a word - nice.
There's something to this Golden Rule thing.
The bad guys make the good guys look better.
Play fair - what a concept.
You're judged by the company you keep.

Part IV - Listen more than you talk
Shut up.
Listen. Then hear.
You can learn a lot from great listeners. And bad ones.
It's okay to be ignorant. It's not okay to stay that way.
Ask. It's a great way to find out what you don't know.

Part V - Every job is sales.
Don't sell. Solve.
Give people what they want. (Not what you want them to want.)
Buying is selling.
The customer is always right.even when she's wrong.

Part VI - Simple is Better Than Complicated
You can see more clearly from a distance
Ahem. Pay Attention.
Throw out your mental trash.

Part VII - Less is More
Extra long is for suits, not meetings.
Don't write in ink. (50% of all meetings get changed.)
Cut the budget
Cut your losses.

Part VIII - Say what you mean
It's more important to do business than to speak business.
A weasel is a rodent.
Mean what you say.

Part IX - Honesty - The Most Powerful Weapon in Business
There's no such thing as a good liar
An excuse is not a reason
Apologize
Take responsibility

Part X - Open Your Mind - Let Ideas In
Whatever you think, think the opposite
Failure is good.
Change happens.
Global is the new local.
Just because someone is rich doesn't make him smart.
You have to get old. You don't have to think old.

Part XI - Reality - Deal With It.
Life isn't fair. Get over it.
Consistency beats a hot streak every time.
Don't look backward. There's nothing there.
Most things aren't as serious as they seem. (But some are.)

Part XII - Don't Keep Score
Envy is ugly.
Grudges are stupid.
Forgive and forget - or at least one of out two.
Ignore titles, especially your own.
Money is a tool, not a god.
It's 0-0 tomorrow.

Part XIII - Energy - The Unfair Edge
Show up.Today is a good time to do something.
Obsessive-compulsive isn't all bad.
Patience is a virtue. So is impatience.
Don't take "no." Press "O."
Work is not a hobby.

Part XIV - Imagine You Worked for You
Be the boss. Don't be bossy.
Take Boss 101. Learn from best and worst.
Hire someone smarter than you.
Promote someone who isn't ready.
Trust someone - besides yourself.
Firing hurts - or it should.
Everyone has a boss - even the boss.

Part XV - Take Inventory
If you wait for things to be different, you're in for a long wait.
If you have to ask for a raise, quit.
Start over tomorrow - but don't do it the same way.

Book Intro | Book Contents | Sample Excerpts

Honesty – The Most Powerful Weapon in Business

Honesty has become an endangered species. Yet it's incredibly potent, whether the news is good or bad. We cannot meet the deadline. That is my best offer. You're hired. You're fired. Honesty isn't just the right thing. It's effective. But rare.

Look at the way the big business of professional sports has responded to accusations of steroid use. Either head-in-the-sand by team owners and league officials, or denials, no comments, and hollow claims of ignorance by ballplayers. And look at the public opinion that has engendered. Distrust and cynicism. Wouldn't the truth have worked a lot better? I did it but I shouldn't have.

Ironically, the advertising business, known as purveyors of carefully worded hedges and verbal fudges – "nothing is more effective," (translation: it works like everything else) or "now with reduced fat," (translation: less fat than our high fat version) – that same business on occasion has put the truth to work very effectively. One of the most famous ad campaigns of modern time was done for the Volkswagen Beetle after World War II, not the best time for an unattractive German import to compete with American-made cars. Ad agency Doyle Dane Bernbach coined disarming headlines such as "It's ugly but it gets you there," "Think Small," and "Lemon," in a self-deprecating, candid appeal to people who had tired of over-promises from Detroit automakers. The same agency positioned also-ran rental car company Avis, as "only number two" so "we try harder." How honest to admit you're not the biggest and therefore have to work more to get and keep your customers. The truth can work even better than puffed up ad claims.

Conversely, witness the spate of tarred executives from once-respected companies, who massaged, inflated, and drastically altered financial statements to make things seem better than they were, or hide their own personal excesses. Enron, Tyco, Adelphia Cable, HealthSouth, WorldCom, and others still in court.

The truth is used so infrequently, it's like a secret weapon. But here's the amazing thing. It's easy to use. We always know what the truth is. We almost never have to do any research to find out. It's just right there. The truth – the secret weapon that's not a secret.

Failure is good.

You're going to fail. It's inevitable. You may fail to get the job you apply for. You may get the job and fail to get promoted. You may get fired. So what? Learn from it. What to do, or not do next time. It's okay to fail.

If you spend all of your energy trying not to fail, you'll accomplish nothing…and fail. Don't try out that new software for filling customer orders because a new method could have technical glitches or initial incompatibility with your systems before it gets up and running. Okay, but know that your competitor could be pioneering new methods for fulfillment which will make yours look antiquated. Fear of failure leads to failure.

But taking a chance leads to one of two outcomes, both good: 1) success – you land a customer, perfect a process, or invent a product. 2) knowledge – you learn something you didn't know. The customer thinks your prices are high. Speeding up the packaging line causes a log-jam at the loading dock. Now you can fix what was broken.

Failure can lead to success. Consider some of the world's great failures:

• Henry Ford forgot to put a reverse gear on his first automobile.
• Thomas Edison invented the perpetual cigar and cement furniture before coming up with the light bulb.
• Albert Einstein's parents were told he might be mentally retarded.
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
  
• Elvis Presley didn't make the glee club.
  
• Napoleon finished near the bottom of his military school class.
  
• Abe Lincoln failed at so many things – jobs, runs for office, businesses, love – before he found his niche as President of the United States.
  
• The Beatles were turned down for a recording contract by Decca Records.
  
• Steven Speilberg dropped out of high school and hung around the house shooting 8 mm movies.
  
• John Grisham's first novel was rejected by sixteen agents and a dozen publishers.
  
• Babe Ruth struck out 1330 times, a major league record at the time.
  
• Companies as large as Pepsi, Quaker Oats, Bird's Eye, and Wrigley's went bankrupt (some multiple times) before becoming giants in their industries.
  
• Post-it Notes, Jello, and Timex watches were all failures until perfected or reformulated.
  
• The average entrepreneur fails 3.8 times before achieving success. Clearly, he or she learns something in those first 3+ busts that lead to the ultimate success.

Remember the words of one of the world's great inventive minds, Thomas Watson, Sr. Founder of IBM, "If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate."

Learn from your failures. What went wrong? How can you fix it? Does the world want what you have to offer? What if you marketed it differently? Or changed the specs? Or pricing? Every failure is an MBA on how to do it better next time. Failure doesn't lead to success. It leads to knowledge, which leads to success. Fail intelligently.