While in their conference room perusing some papers, he came upon a middle manager who was being yelled at by a senior vice president of finance. The poor man’s shoulders were bent with anguish, his e...
There is no such thing as a merger. There are only buyers and sellers. Those who are bought are in danger when they have to bend over to pick up the soap. That’s good to know.
The truth is your servant, not your master. What is the truth, anyway? Does any of us really know what’s true? And is truth an absolute? Can’t things be sort of true? A little bit true? True in a deep...
TRUTH #2: Desire is the root of suffering. It is the desire to achieve, to live, to make things tolerable and pleasant, and even better, that creates untold pain in the lives of men and women. Want no...
Soldiering, my dear madam, is the coward’s art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong, and keeping out of harm’s way when you are weak. That is the whole secret of successful fighting. Get your...
It’s damned hard to fire another human being face-to-face, which is why you sort of have to congratulate Ted Turner, who took it upon himself to fire his own son from the family business—over dinner.
He therefore determined to hire a hatchet man to do the nasty work for him, bringing in a former McKinsey operative and giving him the title of Chief Operating Officer. This COO was himself quite expe...
Cows do not sell each other hay when they are hungry. Monkeys do not sell each other bananas. Only human beings can create the perception in other human beings that, even though they have showered, th...
Anyhow, his basic philosophy was encapsulated in his famous statement, I have an agreement with my people. They can say what they want. I can do what I want.
Throughout our time here on earth, we all have a choice. To do things the mediocre way . . . or Machiavelli’s way.
That is the way of management from time immemorial, in medieval feudal states, communist dictatorships, and capitalist conference rooms alike. It is the way the powerful treat those less so, and it is...
Solve problems, don’t create them. A huge number of very dislikable people have this aggravating habit of either creating problems they can then solve to the acclaim of the multitudes, or blowing up t...
Six months later, when the cutbacks were all done, the Chief Executive Officer fired this very same hatchet man with exactly the same words. What a bastard, said the CEO to himself as he started the s...
It is believed that Revson is the author of the oft-quoted statement, uttered during one long working weekend to his subordinates, If you don’t come in on Saturday, don’t bother to come in on Sunday.
Your enemy is presenting you with new options and challenges every day. If you respond in a wholly expected way each time, you will become predictable, and a predictable enemy is much easier to defeat...
WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. The Three Slogans of the Party George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Lying for a good business reason has become so prevalent that they had to invent a new, less censorious word for it. They call it positioning, and people get paid good money to do it, lucky for me.
The ways to find one’s way to Enlightenment are many. There is prayer and fasting, and some try that to great effect, but that road is severe, particularly to people with electronic scheduling softwar...