Business Book Summaries

In today’s pop business culture of motivational phrases and self-improvement books on successful management, there is no shortage of slogans about the value of teamwork: “There’s no ‘I’ in teamwork.” “TEAM: Together Everyone Achieves More.” “None of us is as smart as all of us.”

The fact is, they all convey what we know instinctively: Teams are powerful. Through our own experience and supporting research, we are convinced that complex problems benefit greatly from the creativity that comes from diverse thought, backgrounds, and styles. But I have yet to see a slogan that reveals the underlying secret of the very highest performing teams.

A major consulting firm figured it out. The researchers studied “successful” teams and the truly “breakthrough” teams to try to determine the differentiators between the two. They looked at the size of the team, the combination of management levels, the gender and culture mix, among many other variables.

In the end, they concluded that the greatest determinant of a breakthrough team is that they members of the team care as much about each other’ success as they do about their own success.

It’s well worth the investment to institutionalize a method for hiring people that’s based not only on the capacity to do the job but also on the capacity to care. That is, if you care about more than just getting the job done.

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The Big Idea
We give leis to say “Thank you” and we give leis to say “Goodbye.”

Our attitude is like a lei. If you string together a collection of dried fish, everything starts smelling fishy! If you string together old socks, the whole world has this funny odor to it.

Your attitude is like a fragrance you carry around with you. The difference is that skunks carry a bad odor while a beautiful Hawaiian plumeria blossom carries a fragrance.

Why You Need This Book
This book gives practical steps to building internal values and perspectives that will change your life!

Make Your Choice
So far too often we see the consequences of making a bad choice or walking through life with a bad attitude, and yet we choose that attitude anyway. Then when relationships fail, when we lose friends or forfeit a great opportunity, it really should be no surprise.

Deposit into your heart the necessary ingredients to develop a life-changing attitude. Make that choice right now. The new attitude may feel awkward at first, but practice until it becomes natural.

You are only one attitude away from a great life, a successful marriage and a promising future!

Your attitude is the set of your sail. You must choose the direction you want your life to travel and set your heart accordingly.

There will be storms, but it will be your attitude toward those storms that drives you in one direction or another, not the storm itself.

A poor attitude in the midst of the storm can cause the storm to rage inside for a lifetime.

You will see problems everywhere, but don’t allow your eyes to remain focused on them. Develop a new perspective – a fresh view of your problems. Don’t hang around the swamps of despair.

They will only skew your attitude and impede your resilience. Learn to bounce back quickly.

Don’t miss the ride! Don’t forget to laugh. There is plenty to laugh about in life, and we need to laugh.

Whatever it is, take time to enjoy life in its simplest form.

Make a new friend today. A great place to start is with your family.

Life is too short for that. By establishing deep friendships with your family, you’ll begin to reap one of life’s greatest promises and rewards.

Pause long enough to enjoy the ride. You will be pleasantly surprised how a new perspective will help you to develop an attitude that attracts friends, laughter, joy and success!

Raise the Bar of Excellence
We need to practice having an excellent attitude in each and every endeavor, for it will always be true that we can improve the way we see problems, people and life.

Even if it’s only 1 percent each day, improve something about yourself. If you can improve just 1 percent a day, that means over one year you will have improved more than 300 percent for your life.

Raise the bar!

Play the Right Background Music
As you dwell on these memories, experiences and thoughts, they are recorded on the soundtrack of your mind and play continuously all day long.

Whatever you play on this internal sound system affects everything about you – your attitude, your self-image, your confidence level, your relationships, the way you communicate with others and even your faith. Memories hang on for a long time if you let them.

What is your play list? You get to make the selections, so choose wisely!

Practice, Practice, Practice!
Love
Am I consistently committed to helping others develop and discover the very best in their lives?

Peace
Do I bring a calming effect to every situation, or do I stir up people’s feathers? Do I tend to fix the blame or fix the problem?

Patience
Do I give people room to fail, and then help them look for the lessons of life that can be extracted from that failure?

Kindness
When working with people under my supervision or care, do I appeal to them kindly?

Gentleness
How do I deal with others’ failures, especially if it affects me? Self-control
The more you practice these things, the more fruitful you’ll be in your attitude, business, and family. So practice, practice, practice!

Finish Well
Each of us can live an extraordinary life with an attitude of excellence, but it must be diligently cultivated. Let’s take a look at four keys to living an extraordinary life.

Aim for the Right Target.
An attitude that attracts success begins with knowing which opportunities to accept and which to reject. This way you will begin to develop not just an existence but a LIFE.

Run the Right Race.
You cannot run someone else’s race; you can only run your own. If you run the wrong race, you’ll end up at the wrong finish line.

Understand What Satisfies Your Soul.
Contentment cannot be acquired directly. Truly content people are those whose aim in life is something much bigger than attaining mere contentment alone.

Learn to understand what truly satisfies you – what satisfies your soul. Otherwise, you will never develop an attitude of true contentment.

Make Contentment an Inside Job.
Contentment is vital in developing an extraordinary attitude and, as discussed in the previous point, must be aimed for instead of instant and all too temporary gratification.

The prisoner on the top bunk was staring out the window of his cell into the night sky. The stars were spread out in a splendid array, with an occasional shooting star making the evening sky a spectacular display of fireworks.

Calling to his cell mate in the bunk below, the man said, “Hey, wake up! Look at the stars! “Aw, leave me alone,” his cell mate grunted.

The stars tonight are the brightest I’ve ever seen!”

One prisoner saw the stars; the other saw the bars. It all depends on your attitude, doesn’t it? Contentment is an inside job.

Choose a good attitude that you might experience life the way it was meant to be lived!

But it takes training, discipline and desire to develop your perspective to see what’s good. Choose, because both will be present – the stars and the bars.

Look for the stars. You’re only one attitude away from a fantastic life!

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Working Less and Making More
By Sam Carpenter

The Big Idea
There is nothing mystical in Work the System – no airy-fairy platitudes, no feel-good, unsupportable theories of reality that offer little more than immediate comfort. This book is not about right or wrong, religion or politics, or about turning our world upside down.

Instead, it aims to give its readers simple and dispassionate direction for finding freedom and wealth in the world they inhabit.

For small business owners, corporate ladder climbers, and nine-to-fivers, it’s a boots-on the-ground blueprint for breaking free.

Why You Need This Book
This book will help you make a few simple but meaningful adjustments to the way you approach your job or your business – and experience the freedom and wealth that come from working less and making more.

Changes in Your Life
Because this isn’t a mystery novel, and because preparation is at the heart of the Work the System method, here’s a summary of how it will affect you and what it asks:

First, here are general points about how the Work the System process will impact you personally:

You will undergo an elementary yet fundamental shift in perspective. This will come to you as an awakening in a moment of time rather than as a long, drawn-out learning experience.

The next point is a warning of sorts. Because of the obvious truth of it, this “systems-perspective” is something you won’t be able to shake.

You will not be swallowing unsupportable theories of reality. It’s just a matter of tweaking your perception of life’s mechanical workings.

It’s a superb investment, though, because the result will be freedom, a relaxed persona, and plenty of money.

Here’s the next part of this nutshell-summary, the steps of the Work the System method:

Documentation: Creating written goals, principles, and processes that are guidelines for action and decision-making. This is one-time heavy lifting. It won’t take long.

Separation, dissection, and repair of systems: The satisfying process of exposing, analyzing, and then perfecting personal, work, and relationship systems. This effort includes creating new systems from scratch as well as eliminating those that are unnecessary or are holding you back.

Ongoing maintenance of systems: Greasing the wheels. This is easy because the positive tangible results of the Work the System method are motivating.

The Steps to Working Less and Making More

STOP “DOING THE WORK.”
The reason a successful business owner can work a few hours a week, or an efficient department manager can take an extended vacation without stress, is because he or she has created systems, implemented written procedures, and has learned to delegate.

Successful people don’t work harder; they work smarter, so focus on what needs to be done to make your business or department successful, and delegate the “work.”

Lose the “I’m superman” attitude and focus on finding people who can take the weight off your shoulders. Plenty of hard working, disciplined, honest people are out there, quietly looking for a fair shake so they can put themselves on the line and show what they can do. And when they perform well, they want to be rewarded.

You just need to find these people and then give them black and white instruction, good pay, and the promise of a bright future.

So transform these great people into great employees. Give them opportunity, and turn them loose.

You may be like the majority of managers who dislike delegating because they believe the delegated task will “fall through the cracks” and never happen, or it will be finished, but not properly. So delegate. Consider making Microsoft Outlook’s task feature your best friend.

USE YOUR TIME WISELY.
Prime time is about maximizing productivity during the period brainpower is at peak capacity. It has two components. It’s called Biological Prime Time or BPT. The other component has to do with what you do with your time. This is Mechanic Prime Time or MPT.

It is important to determine precisely when your personal time prime time occurs, and then use that time period wisely.

Six hours each day is not much, so, presuming you wish to reach your goals sooner rather than later, it is best you perform the tasks that contribute most to your success (“mechanical prime time”) during your biological prime time hours. Here is the crux of Prime Time: Enormous advancement comes from spending the most alert periods of the day doing the most important system-building tasks.

When you are not in BPT, if you feel like it, it’s OK to focus on MPT tasks – the tasks that have to do with improving and growing your business and your life. High energy or low energy, keep your work activities pointed toward primary business-building or career-advancing activities per your critical documents.

CREATE WRITTEN DOCUMENTATION.
Over 50 percent of small businesses fail in the first year, and 80 percent fail within the first 5 years, according to the U.S. Small Business Association. The single, major difference between a small, floundering company and a large, successful company is this: The large, successful business employs documentation.

It’s a simple equation: Documented procedures equal freedom and profit. If you already own a small business, and you don’t have documentation, carve out time today and begin developing a Strategic Objective for your business. It should define overall goals, methodology, and prescribe action. It should give direction for major and minor decisions.

Once you have the Strategic Objective, move on to your General Operating Principles. You should have a written procedure for every recurring action that takes place in your work environment, including how to answer the phone, handle a complaint, make a deposit, or call for repair of the copier.

The potency of documentation is that it is tangible. If you can garner the self-discipline to create your Strategic Objective, you will find new strength as you hold the single-sheet document in your hand. You have direction!

APPROACH YOUR BUSINESS AND LIFE FROM A “NON-HOLISTIC” VANTAGE POINT.
See the elements of your world as separate, linear systems. Separate subsystems can be perfected, one-by-one, by examining and then repairing their simple and uncomplicated structure. Understand that by perfecting a primary system’s sub-systems, the primary system will be perfected. Although you are taking a non-holistic approach, the end product – your business or department – will be a highly efficient, entirely holistic, “Primary System.”

For instance, if someone is unhappy, they visit a psychologist, are diagnosed in the first session as “depressed,” and are prescribed an antidepressant that will affect their entire mental and physical being. If a nine-year-old boy is rambunctious in school, the child psychologist wants him to take a “prescription stimulant.”

Too often we go after a holistic, bumper-sticker solution when it would be more sensible to simply examine the primary system’s context and fix a faulty component. In any case, it is difficult to dictate an overall solution to a problematic primary system and expect great results all around. We can’t take a fix-it pill, legislate social mores, or repair the car by washing and waxing it.

If there is a problem with a primary system, we must go inside to root out and fix one or more faulty sub-systems. Do that, and because of the increased efficiency of the contributing component parts, the end result is a cleaner working and entirely “holistic” primary system.

ELIMINATE TIME-WASTERS.
Your mission is to work hard but not long, to reduce the workweek by 95 percent, and to make more money than you require. If you have a job, the goal is to quickly ascend the management ranks until you can call your own shots. But no matter your situation, if you are going to work, then work!

Turn the radio off, get your feet off the desk, stop the pointless babbling with a coworker, and put your head down. Get in, do the work, and get out! Devise polite techniques to keep pointless conversations short. Yes, if you don’t have an agenda.

Here are two cognitive strategies for when the internal battle of procrastination rages:

First, rise above it and visualize laziness as an object, something tangible that is outside of you.

Second, when you “lean toward loiter”, it’s a bit of twisted psychology that rattles the cage and causes a passionate reaction. Procrastination – the lack of quiet courage – will ruin your life if you let it.

WORK FOR 98 PERCENT PERFECTION.
Time and money wasted is time and money gone forever. And a waste of time and money means some other positive thing that could have happened, didn’t. Apply a “good enough” rule to your work.

For instance, a 100 percent flawless document that took forever to create carries an imbedded imperfection: The extra time spent creating the masterpiece – the extra 2 percent – is lost forever, therefore the finished product carries an imbedded taint, and catch 22 – you can never call it “perfect.” Your work and your written procedures should be “good enough.”

So, make your procedures detailed but don’t make them too detailed. See it this way: In putting your procedures together quickly, you are reaching a kind of perfection – the perfection of a useful product created without waste.

A Vision to Cultivate
It’s a positive addiction.

Leaving aside the chicken-or-the-egg question, and while continuing to hone your particular passion, now extend that fire to the mechanical workings of the other facets of your existence.

Be outside the events of your day and treat those events as elements of an overall game, a game that your proper management will make perfect.

That game, of course, is your life.

Few people understand the magnificence of the systems around them – but now you do.

BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service. Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States. For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com

Developing Your Influence
From Anywhere in the Organization

By
John Maxwell

The Big Idea
What’s the number one question leadership expert John C. Maxwell is asked while conducting his leadership conferences? It’s “How can I implement what you teach when I’m not the top leader?”

People who desire to lead from the middle of organizations face unique challenges. How about if the person you work for is a bad leader? Welcome to The 360° Leader.

Why You Need This Book
Dr. Maxwell, one of the globe’s most trusted leadership mentors, debunks the myths, shows you how to overcome the challenges, and teaches you the skills you need to become a 360° leader.

If you have found yourself trying to lead from the middle of the organization, as the vast majority of professionals do, then you need Maxwell’s insights. You have a unique opportunity to exercise influence in all directions – up (to the boss), across (among your peers), and down (to those you lead).

The good news is that even if you are not a top leader, your influence is greater than you know. Practice the disciplines of 360° leadership and the opportunities will be endless… for your organization, for your career, and for your life.

The Principles 360° Leaders Practice to Lead Up
Leading up is the 360° Leader’s greatest challenge. Influencing your leader isn’t something you can make happen in a day. Your underlying strategy should be to support your leader, add value to the organization, and distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack by doing your work with excellence.

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 1: LEAD YOURSELF EXCEPTIONALLY WELL.
If I can’t lead myself, others won’t follow me.
If I can’t lead myself, others won’t respect me.
If I can’t lead myself, others won’t partner with me.

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 2: LIGHTEN YOUR LEADER’S LOAD.
When you lift a leader’s load, your load certainly gets heavier. Know, however, that the lift you give for the leader often leads to the leader lifting you.

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 3: BE WILLING TO DO WHAT OTHERS WON’T.
J.C. Penny said, “Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at the top.” People who want to be effective are willing to do what others won’t. And because of that, their leaders are willing to resource them, promote them, and be influenced by them.

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 4: DO MORE THAN MANAGE – LEAD!
Leadership is more than management.

Leadership is:
• People more than projects
• Movement more than maintenance
• Art more than science
• Intuition more than formula
• Vision more than procedure
• Risk more than caution
• Action more than reaction
• Relationships more than rules

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 5: INVEST IN RELATIONAL CHEMISTRY.
People can usually trace their successes and failures to the relationships in their lives. The quality of the relationship you have with your leader will impact your success or failure. It is certainly worth investing in.

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 6: BE PREPARED EVERY TIME YOU TAKE YOUR LEADER’S TIME.
Leaders may not always be aware of a missed opportunity because you failed to push, but they will definitely notice if you ought to back off but don’t. If you push your boss inappropriately too often, your boss might push you right out the door.

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 7: BECOME A GO-TO PLAYER.
Everyone admires go-to players and looks to them when the heat is on – not only their leaders, but also their followers and peers. Go-to players are people who always produce.

An investment in your growth is an investment in your ability, your adaptability, and your “promotability”. No matter how much it costs you to keep growing and learning, the cost of doing nothing is greater.

The Principles 360° Leaders Practice to Lead Across

To succeed as a 360° Leader who leads peer-to-peer, you have to work at giving your colleagues reasons to respect and follow you. By helping your peers win. If you can help them win, you will not only help the organization but will also help yourself.

LEAD-ACROSS PRINCIPLE # 1: PUT COMPLETING FELLOW LEADERS AHEAD OF COMPETING WITH THEM.
The success of the whole team is more important than individual wins. Organizations need both competition and teamwork to win. When those two elements exist in the right balance, great team chemistry is the result.

LEAD-ACROSS PRINCIPLE # 2: AVOID OFFICE POLITICS.
Becoming a statesman for your organization is an excellent idea. If you continually keep the big picture in mind, remain unselfish in your efforts, and try to be a diplomat with your peers, you will distinguish yourself, gain credibility, and improve your effectiveness and that of the team. And you will also increase your influence.

LEAD-ACROSS PRINCIPLE # 3: EXPAND YOUR CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCES.
If you are not inclined to stretch yourself relationally, then think about this. People are like rubber bands. Your value as a leader in the middle will increase as you stretch and get out of your comfort zone relationships.

LEAD-ACROSS PRINCIPLE # 4: LET THE BEST IDEA WIN.
When you think in terms of our idea my idea or her idea, you’re probably on track to helping the team win. That should be your motivation, not just trying to win friends and influence people. You’ll find that if you let the best idea win, you will win friends and influence people.

LEAD-ACROSS PRINCIPLE # 5: DON’T PRETEND YOU’RE PERFECT.
If you want to influence others, don’t try to impress them. Instead of impressing others, let them impress you.

The Principles 360° Leaders Practice to Lead Down
As a 360° Leader, when you lead down, you’re doing more than just getting people to do what you want. You’re helping them to discover and reach their potential.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 1: WALK SLOWLY THROUGH THE HALLS.
Take time to walk slowly through the halls in order to connect with people and give them an opportunity to make contact with you. As you see people in the parking lot, chat with them. Go to meetings a few minutes early to see people, but don’t start in on the agenda until you’ve had time to catch up.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 2: SEE EVERYONE AS A “10”.
If you desire to see everyone as a 10, help them by catching them doing something right. We are trained our whole lives to catch people doing something wrong.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 3: DEVELOP EACH TEAM MEMBER AS A PERSON.Don’t hold on to your people too tightly. When you continually develop people, there is never a shortage of leaders to build the organization and help you carry the load.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 4: PLACE PEOPLE IN THEIR STRENGTH ZONES.
When you place individuals in their strength zones, a couple of things happen. You change people’s lives for the better. Their jobs become rewarding and fulfilling. The other benefit is that you help the organization and you.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 5: MODEL THE BEHAVIOR YOU DESIRE.
Your leadership, if it is not continually growing, can be a lid to the potential of your people. Why? You can’t give people what you do not have. If you want to increase the potential of your team, you need to keep growing yourself.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 6: TRANSFER THE VISION.
People say that the bigger a ship is, the harder it is to turn. An organization is one big entity that has many small ones in it. If every leader in the middle of the organization is a 360° Leader who excels at transferring the vision to the crew in their area, then even a huge organization would be able to turn very quickly. It is not the size of the organization that matters; it is the size of the leaders within it.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 7: REWARD FOR RESULTS.
As a leader, you have a choice. You can try to push your employees to give more, hoping to swing the balance in your favor, or you can load up the rewards side – which is the only side you really have significant influence over – and wait for the balance to swing back to level as your employees respond by producing more. That’s what 360° Leaders do.

The Leader’s Daily Dozen
If you’re ready to revolutionize your organization, then every morning when you get up and get ready to lead your organization, make a commitment to these twelve power-unleashing activities.

Place a high value on people. The first shift for turning your organization into a leader-friendly environment must occur inside of you. You only commit yourself to things you value.

Commit resources to develop people. Whatever amount it costs to develop leaders, it won’t be as high as the cost of not developing your people.

Place a high value on leadership. If you value leadership, leaders will emerge to add value to the organization.

Look for potential leaders. If leadership is on your radar and you value it, you will continually be on the lookout for potential leaders.

Know and respect your people. As you select people to develop, work to strike a balance between these universal desires and the individual needs of your people. Try to tailor the development process for each individual as much as you can.

Provide your people with leadership experiences. If we don’t delegate leadership – with authority as well as accountability – our people will never gain the experience they need to lead well.

Reward leadership initiative. The best leaders are proactive. Most top leaders are initiators, but that doesn’t mean that every top leader feels comfortable when others use their initiative.

Grow with your people. When people in an organization see the top leader growing, it changes the culture of the organization.

Draw people with high potential into your inner circle. The best way to develop high-caliber leaders is to have them mentored by a high-caliber leader.

Commit yourself to developing a leadership team. If you want your organization to reach its potential, if you want it go from good to great, you need to develop a team of leaders, people who can fill in each others’ gaps, people who challenge and sharpen each other. If we try to do it all ourselves, we will never get beyond the glass ceiling of our own leadership limitations.

Unleash your leaders to lead. If you become dedicated to developing and releasing 360° Leaders, your organization will change – and so will your life.

Isn’t that what we all want as leaders – for our people and our organizations to succeed? Legendary Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu said, “A leader is best when the people barely know he exists.” That’s what the best leaders do – help others succeed. If you create an environment that develops 360° Leaders, that is what you will someday be able to do.
BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service. Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States. For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com

10 Rules of Engagement for Winning Your War for Success

A summary based on the book by
David F. D’Alessandro with Michele Owens

The Big Idea
It’s not enough anymore to be smart, hard-working, and able to show results – because nowadays everybody is smart, hard-working, and able to show results.

What really sets you apart are the relationships you build with people of influence. These people can include your peers, your employees, your organization’s directors, reporters, vendors, and regulators – as well as the people directly above you in the organizational hierarchy.

In senior management, you no longer answer to just one boss. There is now a hazy matrix of hundreds of bosses both inside and outside the office, any one of whom can stop you cold or give you a tremendous push forward. “Executive Warfare” offers concrete advice for handling all of them, including:

YOUR PEERS: They can be either the most valuable allies or the most dangerous enemies.

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS: They won’t judge you fairly if all they see of you are your PowerPoint presentations.

YOUR DIRECT REPORTS: These people are your vital organs, so treat them accordingly. And if you find a “blood clot” among them, excise that person before he kills you.

YOUR RIVALS: It’s not always wise to shoot at them, but if you do, do not shoot to wound.

Why You Need This Book
In his bestsellers “Brand Warfare” and “Career Warfare”, author David D’Alessandro offered sharp advice for building a brand and building a career. Now “Executive Warfare” is the advanced class for the truly ambitious.

Attitude, Risk, and Luck: They Are the Most Influential Bosses
To rise, you may have to broaden your horizons, and you may have to look for an employer who will allow you to broaden them. You’ll also need three things to make the most of the chances you are given: the right attitude, a willingness to take calculated risks, and dumb luck.

ATTITUDE: The Boss Within
It’s incredibly important to get your own head in the game if you intend to rise. If you are bossed around by your own greed, arrogance, or childish lack of discipline, you will give people reason to doubt you, and you will undermine yourself.

RISK: Slice It, Dice It, and If It Looks Good, Eat It for Breakfast
One of the most significant attitude adjustments you will have to make as you move into higher management is your attitude toward risks. Higher management is all about handling risks intelligently and in a calculated fashion.

LUCK: Smarter Than Reaching for the Brass Ring Is Letting It Slap You in the Nose
Nobody gets to the top without being lucky. Luck happens to the most deserving of people and some of the most undeserving.

Not even the most powerful or ambitious person can force lighting to strike.

Bosses: You Need a License to Cut Hair, but Not to Manage and Control Thousands of People
The first rule of your relationship with your boss is to understand that it’s a business transaction. If you are willing to give the boss the truth, you’re probably going to engage in some spirited debate with your boss as part of the decision-making process. It also is helpful to understand something beyond the immediate goal. The fourth thing you have to do is to assure the boss that you are both loyal and discreet. No matter how incompetent or unpleasant he may be, never tell stories about your boss. Never make the boss feel betrayed – unless, of course, you are ready to grab the boss’ job.

Peers: Understand That They Are Your Most Valuable Allies… or Your Most Dangerous Enemies
CULTIVATING THE “CONSIGLIERI” (ALSO KNOWN AS SUCKING UP)
You can identify the consiglieri by their unfettered access to the boss. These are the people able to walk into the office of the executive director or president or CEO on a moment’s notice and just glide past the assistant, with or without an appointment.