NEVER WRESTLE WITH A PIG --- AND NINETY OTHER IDEAS TO BUILD YOUR BUSINESS AND CAREER by Mark H. McCormack. Penguin Books, 2000
INTRODUCTION
PART 1 --- Giving yourself a reality check (p1-40)
PART 2 --- Speed --- the defining factor (p41-64)
PART 3 --- Giving the workplace a reality check (p65-96)
[1] People who say they can keep a secret usually can't --- or the ten most toxic lies in business (p67-69)
[2] Mistakes are not like Doritos (p70-72)
[3] You don't need ten good reasons to make a decision (p73-75)
[4] How to recover from a bad decision (p76-78)
[5] The goal is more work, not less! (p79-80)
(1) More work leads to more exposure leads to more work leads to greater skill leads to more work leads to more resources to accomplish the extra work!
(2) To get this dynamic working for you in your career, first stop thinking of work as a finite, close-ended concept, the thing you do when you leave home and stop doing when you return home. That is the hang-up most people have about their jobs. They resist extra work when it invades what they regard as their personal time, their "down time."
There is nothing wrong with "balance" in your work life, but there is also nothing wrong with a little "imbalance" in favor of work! This is especially important at the start of your career when you are jostling with your peers and rivals to make the best impression. Once you commit yourself to being overburdened, the next step is extremely simple --- volunteer more. Put yourself in a position where supervisors dump assignments on you. Over time, they will begin to think of you as someone who is not afraid of work! Someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to help out and get things done.
(3) The final essential step to get the dynamic working for you is to stay within as narrow a niche as you can manage!
Don't say "YES" indiscriminately to any and every request. Take the ones you can do well and ignore the ones you cannot. As you do more and accumulate work experience, you do things with a greater economy of effort and you are moving ahead. But if you cannot do your work more swiftly and effectively after years of experience, there is no point or benefit from the paradox of "more work, not less!"
[6] Make friends with fear, ignorance, and sloth (p81-83)
[7] It pays to overstate your competition (p84-86)
[8] Don't be seduced by big ideas (p87-89)
(1) Little ideas get little respect.
(2) Big ideas get all the attention and applause and resources.
(3) The best ideas usually start out as little ideas and grow into big ideas!
[9] The best ideas cannot be stolen --- A creative idea has to be more than a suggestion that someone else can pick up and run with. At a minimum in the workplace, a solid idea must be a clever recombination of two seemingly disparate concepts into a larger concept that no one else has considered before. Take an existing concept and put it next to a seemingly disparate concept. Then tweak it slightly and find a practical way to bridge the two. (p90-93)
[10] Don't let brainstorming kill your creativity! --- Creativity happens in spontaneous and unexpected bursts of insight. The key is to be creative in some small way every day. (p94-96)
PART 4 --- Office politics (p97-134)
PART 5 --- Acquiring a power base (p135-160)
PART 6 --- Promotions, demotions, and other career hiccups --- The only thing promotions have in common are the accumulated myths and fallacies surrounding the process itself. Failing to appreciate these is a big reason so many employees are disappointed by the promotion process (p161-178)
[1] Myths and fallacies about the promotion process:
(1) Fallacy #1 --- The person must fit the job
(2) Fallacy #2 ---All promotions are fair and open competitions
(3) Fallacy #3 --- Bosses promote in their own image
(4) Fallacy #4 --- Past performance is always rewarded
(5) Fallacy #5 --- All promotions are good
[2] Don't be "demotionally" challenged
Getting fired (or demoted) can be the best thing that ever happened to you, since it tests your mettle and ingenuity. It can teach you who your real friends are. It can give you a lift out of a career rut!
[3] Stay in the game when you have been passed over
[4] Even the most tarnished reputation can be saved --- Three critical stages in establishing (or re-establishing) your reputation:
(1) Establishing your reputation
(2) Maintaining your reputation
(3) Saving your lost reputation takes time --- Determine how it was lost. Change what went wrong. Acknowledge what really happened to sully your reputation. Never deny or try to hide it, since customers are incredibly forgiving if they see that you are trying to run the same good, honest operation that established your reputation in the first place.
(4) A crisis does not end until you learn from it! --- You learn a lot about people by how they deal with a catastrophe
PART 7 --- Rules for deal makers (p179-210)
PART 8 --- When you are in charge (p211-256)
PART 9 --- Etiquette for the new millennium (p257-286)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (first unnumbered page)
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