The (CEO) Rules

[asterroc]

This USA Today article is primarily about how people treat waitstaff, but there's also an interesting list of "rules" for CEOs in a sidebar at the left.

I'm one of those who tries to treat people in service positions well. They're human beings too, and even if I didn't think that, I certainly know they're the ones with all the power. Earlier this semester I found my monitor was flickering, so I emailed the IT HelpDesk. The next day it was replaced. The man who does that job is severely overworked, and I know perfectly well that if I'd ever said an unkind thing to him, I would've been placed at the bottom of his list, not the top as I apparently was. It occurs to me that I try to cultivate such good will more actively with those I know I will interact with frequently - I do not go as out of my way with waitstaff, as I rarely interact with the same one twice, and I never truly depend upon one.

Others that I liked:

7: Constantly review developments to make sure that the actual benefits are what they were supposed to be. Avoid Newton's Law.
14: Strive for brevity and clarity in oral and written reports.
22: Cultivate the habit of making quick, clean-cut decisions.

I liked the implict assumption that everyone knows Newton's/Galileo's Law of Inertia. Brevity is really important when people are going to have to read a billion such papers - if they have to go past one page, they'll lose interest and put it down. Making quick decisions in insufficient information is quite a pain. I'm learning to deal with it, especially when student say they want to meet me ("when works for you?" "um, whenever"). As my dad once told me when trying to teach me to drive (before I gave up on learning from relatives), the worst decision is none at all. It's better to make a wrong choice and then fix it than be paralyzed in inaction forever.

Comments

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

sammka and I went over this already. ;)

Besides, I thought CEOs were above having to make their own PPTs. ?