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November 20, 2007
James Dale, '70
The Obvious: All You Need to Know in Business. Period., Hyperion, 2007, $17.95
The secrets to success in business aren’t secrets at all. They’re obvious, so obvious that they’ve mostly been taken for granted or ignored. James Dale has compiled words to live by, lucid truths as likely to be found in a fortune cookie as an MBA textbook. And the beauty of it is, regardless of the job the same principles yield the same results, and they’re always effective. While all of Dale’s advice is obvious, its implementation isn’t. He shares ways in which any businessperson can carry out these simple lessons and achieve success.
James Dale is co-founder of the business consulting firm Richlin/Dale and the co-author of numerous books. He is former president and CEO of advertising agency WB Doner & Co., whose clients included Klondike Ice Cream, Arby’s, British Petroleum, Chiquita and Verizon Wireless.
AAUM: If these rules are obvious, why do we need a book about them?
Dale: I think that the simple answer is these principles are so obvious, they’re overlooked. We have them stored somewhere in our brain, but they’re taken for granted. Despite the fact that the principles are obvious and that they work, they have not been assembled in one place. In some very sophisticated business books, very accomplished executives will list maybe three principles and illustrate them with their own experience. I thought it would be valuable to collect them all in one place.
What are some of the obvious principles?
There are many, of course. One of my personal favorites is “honesty is the most powerful weapon in business.” It’s used so little that its use is literally suprising and refreshing. People, for some reason, have a penchant for not telling the truth. But if you do tell a lie, it often requires a second one, a sure sign you shouldn’t have told the first one. My experience is if you have bad news, tell it and get it over with. If you are known as a person who tells the truth, people will want to do business with you. Lately we’ve seen high-powered people who’ve not told the truth and gotten in trouble for it.
Are these principles universal or better suited to specific jobs, such as a salesperson or manager?
I think they’re universal, but they’re most applicable and usable by people entering the workforce or in the early stages of a career. We, as humans, are less accepting of advice as we get older. A younger person who is highly ambitious can put them to work right away. Entrepreneurs are also more inclined to embrace these principles because they’re more open to ideas.
Where did you arrive at these principles? On the job? In the classroom? From mentors?
I was in a meeting one day, bored in a board meeting, and saw some people practicing bad listening. The corporation in this case was going to make a statement to the public and press that was going to be rejected. Yet they weren’t listening. That struck me, and I went back to my office and realized there are a lot of principles like this. I kept a notebook over the next couple of months and collected 60, 80, 100 of these examples.
Some of your principles are not so obvious, for example, “Failure is good.”
If you don’t do something or try something, you’ll fail. For example, if you don’t call on a prospective client because he or she might not like your proposal, you’ll be safe for a little while, but you’ll ultimately fail by not getting any new business. Failure is a fantastic teacher, and the world is full of these great failures who fail and move on. For example, Henry Ford forgot to put a reverse gear on his first automobile. Michael Jordan was cut from the high school basketball team. John Grisham was rejected by agents and publishers. One of the great examples of failure and success combined in one was Babe Ruth, who set the record for the most homeruns and the most strikeouts. If he didn’t step up and try to hit the ball, he wouldn’t have hit so many homeruns.
Posted by tobiaslw at November 20, 2007 12:14 PM