They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but the cover of this book sets the right expectations. It mostly contains business advice for people in suites and ties. Nevertheless, Â here are some bits that I’ve found useful:
Attitude
- The world generally favors people who are energetic and extroverted. People with positive energy are generally extroverted and optimistic.
- It is very, very hard to get ahead without being a positive person because, very simply, no one likes to work under or near a dark cloud. Even if the “cloud” is very smart.
- People with passion tend to be passionate about everything.
Career Advice
- To get ahead, you have to want to get ahead
- You take one job, discover what you like and don’t like about it and what you’re good and bad at, an then, in time, change jobs to get something closer to the right fit.
- Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.
- Come up with a new concept or process that doesn’t improve just your results, but your unit’s results and the company’s overall performance. Change your job in a way that makes the people around you work better and your boss look smarter.
Corporate Advice
- An effective mission statement basically answers one question:Â How do we intend to win in this business?Â
- In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell. If you want to win, when it comes to strategy, ponder less and do more.
- If I had just one area to probe in an interview, it would be about why the candidate left his previous job, and the one before that.
Overall, this book is more relavant to people with managerial duties working for a big corporations.
