Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

The 17 Keys to the Corporate Lock

Dos

1. Complete staff work
   • No questions asked not answered
2. Relationships always
   • We accomplish with and through others
   • We cannot be too courteous nor too thoughtful of others
   • Never burn bridges
3. Relentless constancy of purpose
   • which we achieve consequent on principles
   • Test: Principles make people predictable and conversely unpredictable people are unprincipled
4. Clarity and brevity in written and oral expression
   • by the word, not the pound
   • We cannot be too brief
5. High energy
   • Energy is the scarce resource
   • "I'm propulsion, you're guidance"
   • Ambitions need to follow energies (with which you were born) or you will be disappointed
6. Solutions not problems
   • No upward delegation
   • You decide what to do, be sure I'm too busy to do your work
7. Work downward not upward
   • Show me the back of your head not your bright shining face
   • Give me the courtesy to judge your work without your help
8. Stronger/better recruits than you
   • The only route to the golf course
   • yet most executives and managers fail this test
9. Content, content, content
   • Always an agenda

1. Never escalate
   • Life is neither fight nor flight
   • The first lesson of diplomacy: Back up, don't give up and never let the other put a glove on you
2. Never optimize around the short term
   • Always keep your eyes on the horizon
3. Don't forget gravity, do remember intergalactic forces
   • Your achievements (and failures) are often due to forces much larger than you
   • When you have been too good for too long, better check around and behind you
4. Don't confuse your net worth with your real worth
   • The former may be illusory and transitory, the latter will not be
5. Never, ever, compromise your ideals
   • The cynical view is wrong
   • Shortcuts are never a reliable strategy
6. Don't change employers, at least not often
7. Don't work the proximity theory (that good things happen to people near powerful people)
8. Never threaten
   • and the corollary: Never enter a negotiation without a bottom line