The Daily Blank: June 2009

Monday, June 29, 2009

How to survive in business

The following are my rules for surviving in business. (Note that I did not say “succeeding,” which is an entirely different matter.) These rules may work more broadly, but by “business” I mean primarily large business, which is a particular species of employment, to which I’ve been subjected for 27 of the last 33 years.

I stole at least two of these from someplace long forgotten, and there isn’t much originality in the others either. This is certainly not a comprehensive list – just some things I’m fairly certain are true. I realize it’s kind of a pathetically short list after so many years in the workplace. Maybe you all have some suggestions for additions.

If you wait to act until you are sure there is a problem, it is probably too late to do anything about it.

High margin businesses are great, but they will hide a plethora of problems, give cover to a lot of specious expenses, and make mediocre managers look good.

Most people’s biggest liability is their greatest strength taken too far.

All things worth doing are not worth doing well. It’s better to act than to study. It is better to try five things quickly, even if it means making four mistakes, than to do one thing carefully. Three singles are better than one home run.

Communication is everything. It is the mortar that holds the organization together.

The hardest skill position to fill in any business is a good salesman.

Enthusiasm is the most valuable quality to bring to the workplace.

People work for many reasons. Money is only one of them, and it is rarely the number one reason.

You manage things. You lead people.

No one can do it alone. Success requires that everyone be a contributor. The most important thing you can do is hire the right people.

Good ideas are a dime a dozen. Executing well is the key to success. (Inspiration without execution is hallucination.)

Find something you do well, and then do more of it; e.g., if you are a good writer, find work where good writing is valued.

It’s easier to apologize than to ask permission.

Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, and then beat you with experience.

Don't be irreplaceable - if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rental car.

Never trust the bosses; this does not mean they are all evil – but that’s the way to bet.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Three things I like

I recommend “Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival,” by Norman Ollestad. It was a father’s day gift from my son, which coincidentally turned out to be a fascinating look at four generations of fathers and sons from one family, although the book is primarily about the author and his father, also named Norman.

Norman the elder was an extreme sports guy before the term existed. For Norman the younger’s first birthday in 1969, big Norm strapped the kid onto his back and took him out surfing off the Malibu beach where they lived.

The focal point of the story was a February 1979 airplane ride over the San Gabriel Mountains that went badly. The pilot, Big Norm, and his girlfriend were killed. Little Norm, then aged 11, had to hike down from over 8000 feet, in the dead of winter, to survive. It is an amazing tale, very well told, although I agree with the Times review, which found the cross-cutting format a bit annoying. Never-the-less, the cross-cutting to some of father and son’s adventures before the crash, especially their trip to Mexico, were almost as thrilling as the crash. This is a terrific, and very fast, read.

As popular as the blues are, it is difficult to hear new blues music. You won’t see the latest blues stars hosting SNL, or playing on the Plaza for the Today Show. So I was really happy to discover Murphy’s Saloon, a podcast available both online and via i-Tunes.

The host is Murphy. I don’t know much about him except that he is Chicago-based, and kind of a goofily, earnest, blues-nerd, who gets all the releases from labels like Alligator and Blind Pig early, and pulls together great cuts for the show. He intersperses them with artist info, a lame-joke-of-the-week, and shout-outs to fans around the globe. Any more talking would be too much, but Murphy grows on you and there is nothing at all wrong with his taste in music.

Finally, I really like David Brooks. He is smart, funny, well-informed, and opinionated without being partisan. These are all the things I wanted to be when I was writing about politics, but reading Brooks twice a week guaranteed me two days of feeling inadequate out of every seven.
Read what he had to say today about leaving health care reform to the Senate. I guarantee you that you will feel smarter after reading it, which is how I almost always feel after reading anything by him.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The earth is bipolar

I stole the headline from a Steven Wright performance we saw last weekend. He must have done 250 one-liners in 90 minutes. Another good one: “I blame the ending of the cold war for global warming.”

It is a polar world: black/white, ying/yang, Beatles/Stones, Warren/Niles, Pepsi/Coke. Choices have to be made, and I’m finding that this is also true with writing. For the past 18 months the Daily Blank has focused primarily on politics. That was easy during the elections because we had the horse race and the personalities, on top of policy and performance, to discuss.

But now that we’re deep into fixing the world, I find that my heart really isn’t in it so much anymore. I still read the papers every day, but writing about it is depressing. Pretty much everyone is either a crook, an influence peddler, a political pimp, or a thief. And they are all liars. Every story is, at its heart, the story of how people with money and power use it to accumulate more money and power, at the expense of the weak and stupid. Writing about it just brings out my inner grumpy old man – and frankly, I don’t need any encouragement in that department.

I want to keep writing, but I want to write about other things. The question is, “what?” They always say, “write about what you know about” but who’d want to read about putting together a sales presentation and pricing model. I think I’d bore myself to death before I proof-read it. I was considering writing a post called “Eight great places to get a martini in Manhattan,” and I still may write that one. I think the drinks would be tax-deductible.

My stated reason for starting this blog in the first place was that, “I have more opinions than opportunities to express them,” and the nice thing about politics is you can state your opinions and, especially in an election year, receive plenty of feedback. But a steady flow of personal opinions on movies, books, or anything else, begins to sound like a lot of self-indulgent horse hockey pretty quickly to me, and my own wouldn’t be any exception to that rule.

I need to think about this for a while, so this will be my last post until I come up with a new plan. Feel free to respond with suggestions, as I value your opinions. This is the 220th post on the Daily Blank. Thanks to all of you for showing up and contributing to the conversation.

Hasta luego amigos.