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Business Rules

Dear New Employee,

Welcome to the company! I would like to take this opportunity to share the ways in which our company is unique from other places you may have worked in the past.

Candidly, I do not subscribe to all of the various definitions for the “Baby Boomers”, “Generation X” or “Generation Y”. I don’t care what the theories are or what the media tells the world. In this company, there are certain policies and procedures you will subscribe to, regardless of your age, generation, etc.

This company’s success has been a result of hiring the right people. We let people know where they stand all the time so that if we were to make a change or let someone go, there is no surprise.

However, I do understand that you will undergo some adjustments in becoming a productive employee. With that in mind, I have taken the liberty to provide you with the company rules.

This list of rules was originated in a speech given by Bill Gates, and they have been identified as the keys to success within this organization. By the way, we review these rules at every department and company meeting.

Rule 1: Focus on the Mission

At this company, we have a simple mission: “We are ladies and gentlemen serving our clients and each other.” Please memorize this short statement. You will be asked to repeat it, in public, regularly. These eleven words guide our daily actions and behaviors.

Rule 2: Life is not Fair

Life is not fair, so get used to the fact that some people will be blessed with and/or given more than you. It is unfortunate that far too many of us—children and adults alike—spend time complaining about what other people have that we don’t have.

People also complain about the lucky “breaks” others receive by being in the right place at the right time. In business, far too many people envy the success of their competition. Employees often rejoice (perhaps secretly) when they see the problems and pitfalls of others.

How one chooses to deal with what life has given them is the measure of a person. Complaining about things will only make you turn into a negative person who will be far less productive than a happy person.

Rule 3: Develop Your Self-Esteem

The world cares little about your self esteem and expects you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. Success breeds success. If you do not and cannot succeed, then you must look to yourself, and not to the company. You will be as successful as you want to be. The choice is yours and your alone.

Rule 4: Success takes Time

While I would encourage you to set your goals high, you must understand that success does not occur overnight. Success is a journey, so be prepared for the long haul. This means years, not hours.

Rule 5: Respect Your Superiors

You will have a boss who will supervise your efforts. Your boss is not a professor, does not have tenure, and he or she will not allow you to be late for meetings, not follow through when assigned a task, turn things in late, leave early or be tardy.

Those behaviors reflect directly upon his or her judgment to hire you. Because your boss does not have tenure, how well you perform is a direct function of how well he or she performs. You must also consider all those above you in the organization as one of your bosses. Show them respect and they will treat you with the same. Disrespect them and you will not be employed here. (See Rule #1 if you need any clarification regarding this).

Rule 6: Work Hard

Nothing we do here is beneath your dignity. I have a different word for burger flipping—I called it opportunity and it paid my bills when I was younger. We do not flip burgers in this company, but we do serve clients. Clients pay your salary, so what they say goes, as it is your job to please them.

Rule 7: Accept Responsibility

Accept responsibility for your mistakes. Do not blame your parents, college professors, former employer, the government, the oil companies, the automobile manufacturers, your insurance company, your landlord, the driver of the car in front of you, your boss, coworkers, or suppliers. Instead of whining about your errors, omissions and mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 8: Learn From Others

The people you work with are not boring, stupid or slackers. If you think they have nothing to offer you, consider what they have accomplished.

They have worked long, hard hours to create, design, build, market and sell new products, contributing to both the top and bottom line of this organization’s financial well being, which has now allowed us to put you on the payroll.

While they were working very hard to generate profits and positive cash flow, they were also listening to people new to the company talk about how cool they are and how much better things ran at their former employer or when they were in college or high school.

So before you give us a lot of unnecessary advice, do us all a favor and work a few months here so you can understand what it is like to work in a culture different from the one you just left.

Rule 9: Time Off is Earned

You will earn a vacation in 365 days. Unless you have earned it, you will not get time off because you simply need a break. Just to be clear, everyone here works 8 hours a day, more if necessary. Breaks are taken as allowed by law, but they do not last longer than allowed by law.

Rule 10: Real Life Involves Work

Television and movies are not reality. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to work. In this company, people work every day that ends in the letter “y.” This means Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Yes, you read Saturday and Sunday correctly, because our clients expect us to serve them when they need to be served.

Rule 11: Nerds are Important

Are you nice to nerds? You should be, as the chances are that you will end up working for one in this company.

As you begin your new job, it is my greatest desire to help you succeed. Please keep these rules in mind, and I wish you the best of luck in this company!

Warm Regards,

The Business President.

We confuse activity with progress. Motion is great; the only problem is that it takes you nowhere. How many of us avoid deadlines, keep shuffling paper stacks around, get involved in long conversations and lengthy unproductive meetings during the workday and wonder why, at the end of the day, week, month, quarter and year nothing of significance has changed?

We freeze and fail to act when we need to. Instead, because we are so focused on not making a bad decision, we make no decision. The only thing that happens is that the situation stays the same or gets worse, but it does not improve and it does not go away. In the end, a decision still has to be made, and sometimes the passing of time has reduced the options available for a positive outcome.

Kinetic Die Casting

We think the process is more important than the result. More often than not, we get hung up on making sure that the process is so solid that we fail to understand that most of the time, the result is substantially more important.

We fail to try something a second, third or fourth time. While there is a point where we do need to give up and try something new, most of us never get there. What we do instead is try something once, with the mindset that if it didn’t work that one time, it will never work again, under any circumstances. What we need to do is understand that things change and we can try something again, changing a variable, which is usually the poor attitude we have at the start.

We fail to measure what is important. Every organization has leading and lagging indicators. Most people don’t know the difference and how one can impact the other. Because they don’t understand the importance of what to measure, and when to measure, they measure nothing at all.

We stay in our comfort zone. We fail to understand what it is that we need to learn to be more successful, and because we don’t know what we need to learn, we opt to learn nothing at all. Status quo is the default position of the learning activity, which really means we are moving backward, because so much knowledge is being generated each day.

We think meetings are for decisions. Meetings are for information exchange, not for decision making. Individuals make most decisions, not groups. Because meetings are all about information, everyone usually wants to talk, hopefully speaking sense, but it makes the meetings run longer than necessary, without purpose. Those who like to speak get a sense of authority and power. The corollary mistake is thinking that talking more than others in meetings matters; it doesn’t.

We hire people thinking they will change. People don’t change that much; they are who they are. To be sure, people may change if forced to by circumstances, but even then it is very, very difficult. Often they end up being the same person they always were. And, angry that you asked them to be someone they aren’t.

We expect others to solve our problems. Like the fairy tales of childhood, people wait for someone else to arrive on a white horse, wearing a white hat, just in the nick of time. The corollary to this is that we blame others (competition, incompetent vendors, employees, the world) for everything that has and is going wrong in the company.

We fail to face the brutal facts of our current reality. Ignoring reality is a dangerous habit that potentially could lead to disaster. Life is not fair, competition is fierce, and the customer doesn’t always pay their bills when they should, and employees you want to count on call in sick. Face reality and deal with it in a cold, factual manner.

Ken Keller, 661.295.6892

Countless books and articles have been written about the tasks of those in management. The majority concern themselves with planning, organizing, controlling, coordinating and leading, which means everything in theory and nothing in practicality to the manager responsible for getting things done.

Who is a manager? Managers come with different titles, including president, vice president, CEO, COO, CFO, CIO, CMO, CLO, general manager, director, supervisor and lead. The one thing all these titles have in common is that they are responsible for the proper supervision and management of the employees reporting to them on the organizational chart.

What should managers actually do everyday? To begin, they should be filling the role of management, which means manage, not to do the work of those they supervise.

If the goal of a manager is to accomplish things through the efforts of others, the manager needs to stop being the “best technician” and start being the “best manager.”

In the world of the auto mechanics that means stop using the wrench and start making sure that people that are supposed to be using the wrench are trained in the best use of it.

Second, managers undertake the responsibility of protecting the assets of the organization. That begins with the people who work there, protecting the employees physically, mentally and emotionally so that they can do the best possible work with the least amount of risk to themselves.

This means providing a workplace that is safe from those elements that have no place at work: harassment; bullying; violation of laws; unsafe conditions; gossip, rumor and innuendo; unfair labor practices and all those things that hinder an individual from doing their job.

If a manager at any level or title is not capable or interested in protecting human assets, they have no place holding a position in management.

Third, following the protection of people comes the protection of other tangible and intangible assets, including reputation, equipment, the physical plant, copyrights, patents, trademarks, client lists and other confidential information that would hurt or damage the organization.

The fourth responsibility of every manager is to serve as an example. That means setting an example to all those in the company, not just to those who report to them. This is because managers are always being watched by those around them — at every level.

While it may sound almost childlike to mention, the kinds of example setting that a manager must be willing to do includes: being on time; being organized; being focused; not gossiping; working hard; following through; providing consistent and accurate feedback; setting clear expectations; not playing favorites; not only following the organization’s policies and procedures, but explaining and defending them as necessary.

The fifth responsibility is communicating. Managers serve as a conduit from those in leadership positions to those that are not. That means information goes up and down the conduit. A responsible manager cannot be blocking or editing messages.

The sixth responsibility of a manager is to become a better manager. That means continuing to learn. Why is this important? If employees see that their manager is investing in his or her own learning, they will accept the idea that this is something they should be doing for themselves. Lifelong learning is something employees need to get comfortable with; no job is guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Why is this important? Why write this article? It has been statistically proven that the relationship between the employee and their immediate manager is linked to both profitability of the organization and to employee retention.

Most managers need help to become better at what they are supposed to be doing. Don’t let another day go by without thinking about how your managers can become better at what they are being paid to do. Then, take action to make it happen.