100 fundamental service rules for Restaurants

1. Do not let anyone enter the restaurant without a warm greeting.


2. Do not make a singleton feel bad. Do not say, “Are you waiting for someone?” Ask for a reservation. Ask if he or she would like to sit at the bar.


3. Never refuse to seat three guests because a fourth has not yet arrived.


4. If a table is not ready within a reasonable length of time, offer a free drink and/or amuse-bouche. The guests may be tired and hungry and thirsty, and they did everything right.


5. Tables should be level without anyone asking. Fix it before guests are seated.


6. Do not lead the witness with, “Bottled water or just tap?” Both are fine. Remain neutral.


7. Do not announce your name. No jokes, no flirting, no cuteness.


8. Do not interrupt a conversation. For any reason. Especially not to recite specials. Wait for the right moment.


9. Do not recite the specials too fast or robotically or dramatically. It is not a soliloquy. This is not an audition.


10. Do not inject your personal favorites when explaining the specials.


11. Do not hustle the lobsters. That is, do not say, “We only have two lobsters left.” Even if there are only two lobsters left.


12. Do not touch the rim of a water glass. Or any other glass.


13. Handle wine glasses by their stems and silverware by the handles.


14. When you ask, “How’s everything?” or “How was the meal?” listen to the answer and fix whatever is not right.


15. Never say “I don’t know” to any question without following with, “I’ll find out.”


16. If someone requests more sauce or gravy or cheese, bring a side dish of same. No pouring. Let them help themselves.


17. Do not take an empty plate from one guest while others are still eating the same course. Wait, wait, wait.


18. Know before approaching a table who has ordered what. Do not ask, “Who’s having the shrimp?”


19. Offer guests butter and/or olive oil with their bread.


20. Never refuse to substitute one vegetable for another.


21. Never serve anything that looks creepy or runny or wrong.


22. If someone is unsure about a wine choice, help him. That might mean sending someone else to the table or offering a taste or two.


23. If someone likes a wine, steam the label off the bottle and give it to the guest with the bill. It has the year, the vintner, the importer, etc.


24. Never use the same glass for a second drink.


25. Make sure the glasses are clean. Inspect them before placing them on the table.


26. Never assume people want their white wine in an ice bucket. Inquire.


27. For red wine, ask if the guests want to pour their own or prefer the waiter to pour.


28. Do not put your hands all over the spout of a wine bottle while removing the cork.


29. Do not pop a champagne cork. Remove it quietly, gracefully. The less noise the better.


30. Never let the wine bottle touch the glass into which you are pouring. No one wants to drink the dust or dirt from the bottle.


31. Never remove a plate full of food without asking what went wrong. Obviously, something went wrong.


32. Never touch a customer. No excuses. Do not do it. Do not brush them, move them, wipe them or dust them.


33. Do not bang into chairs or tables when passing by.


34. Do not have a personal conversation with another server within earshot of customers.


35. Do not eat or drink in plain view of guests.


36. Never reek from perfume or cigarettes. People want to smell the food and beverage.


37. Do not drink alcohol on the job, even if invited by the guests. “Not when I’m on duty” will suffice.


38.Do not call a guy a “dude.”


39. Do not call a woman “lady.”


40. Never say, “Good choice,” implying that other choices are bad.


41. Saying, “No problem” is a problem. It has a tone of insincerity or sarcasm. “My pleasure” or “You’re welcome” will do.


42. Do not compliment a guest’s attire or hairdo or makeup. You are insulting someone else.


43. Never mention what your favorite dessert is. It’s irrelevant.


44. Do not discuss your own eating habits, be you vegan or lactose intolerant or diabetic.


45. Do not curse, no matter how young or hip the guests.


46. Never acknowledge any one guest over and above any other. All guests are equal.


47. Do not gossip about co-workers or guests within earshot of guests.


48. Do not ask what someone is eating or drinking when they ask for more; remember or consult the order.


49. Never mention the tip, unless asked.


50. Do not turn on the charm when it’s tip time. Be consistent throughout.


51. If there is a service charge, alert your guests when you present the bill. It’s not a secret or a trick.


52. Know your menu inside and out. If you serve Balsam Farm candy-striped beets, know something about Balsam Farm and candy-striped beets.


53. Do not let guests double-order unintentionally; remind the guest who orders ratatouille that zucchini comes with the entree.


54. If there is a prix fixe, let guests know about it. Do not force anyone to ask for the “special” menu.


55. Do not serve an amuse-bouche without detailing the ingredients. Allergies are a serious matter; peanut oil can kill. (This would also be a good time to ask if anyone has any allergies.)


56. Do not ignore a table because it is not your table. Stop, look, listen, lend a hand. (Whether tips are pooled or not.)


57. Bring the pepper mill with the appetizer. Do not make people wait or beg for a condiment.


58. Do not bring judgment with the ketchup. Or mustard. Or hot sauce. Or whatever condiment is requested.


59. Do not leave place settings that are not being used.


60. Bring all the appetizers at the same time, or do not bring the appetizers. Same with entrees and desserts.


61. Do not stand behind someone who is ordering. Make eye contact. Thank him or her.


62. Do not fill the water glass every two minutes, or after each sip. You’ll make people nervous.


62(a). Do not let a glass sit empty for too long.


63. Never blame the chef or the busboy or the hostess or the weather for anything that goes wrong. Just make it right.


64. Specials, spoken and printed, should always have prices.


65. Always remove used silverware and replace it with new.


66. Do not return to the guest anything that falls on the floor — be it napkin, spoon, menu or soy sauce.


67. Never stack the plates on the table. They make a racket. Shhhhhh.


68. Do not reach across one guest to serve another.


69. If a guest is having trouble making a decision, help out. If someone wants to know your life story, keep it short. If someone wants to meet the chef, make an effort.


70. Never deliver a hot plate without warning the guest. And never ask a guest to pass along that hot plate.


71. Do not race around the dining room as if there is a fire in the kitchen or a medical emergency. (Unless there is a fire in the kitchen or a medical emergency.)


72. Do not serve salad on a freezing cold plate; it usually advertises the fact that it has not been freshly prepared.


73. Do not bring soup without a spoon. Few things are more frustrating than a bowl of hot soup with no spoon.


74. Let the guests know the restaurant is out of something before the guests read the menu and order the missing dish.


75. Do not ask if someone is finished when others are still eating that course.


76. Do not ask if a guest is finished the very second the guest is finished. Let guests digest, savor, reflect.


77. Do not disappear.


78. Do not ask, “Are you still working on that?” Dining is not work — until questions like this are asked.


79. When someone orders a drink “straight up,” determine if he wants it “neat” — right out of the bottle — or chilled. Up is up, but “straight up” is debatable.


80. Never insist that a guest settle up at the bar before sitting down; transfer the tab.


81. Know what the bar has in stock before each meal.


82. If you drip or spill something, clean it up, replace it, offer to pay for whatever damage you may have caused. Refrain from touching the wet spots on the guest.


83. Ask if your guest wants his coffee with dessert or after. Same with an after-dinner drink.


84. Do not refill a coffee cup compulsively. Ask if the guest desires a refill.


84(a). Do not let an empty coffee cup sit too long before asking if a refill is desired.


85. Never bring a check until someone asks for it. Then give it to the person who asked for it.


86. If a few people signal for the check, find a neutral place on the table to leave it.


87. Do not stop your excellent service after the check is presented or paid.


88. Do not ask if a guest needs change. Just bring the change.


89. Never patronize a guest who has a complaint or suggestion; listen, take it seriously, address it.


90. If someone is getting agitated or effusive on a cellphone, politely suggest he keep it down or move away from other guests.


91. If someone complains about the music, do something about it, without upsetting the ambiance. (The music is not for the staff — it’s for the customers.)


92. Never play a radio station with commercials or news or talking of any kind.


93. Do not play brass — no brassy Broadway songs, brass bands, marching bands, or big bands that feature brass, except a muted flugelhorn.


94. Do not play an entire CD of any artist. If someone doesn’t like Frightened Rabbit or Michael Buble, you have just ruined a meal.


95. Never hover long enough to make people feel they are being watched or hurried, especially when they are figuring out the tip or signing for the check.


96. Do not say anything after a tip — be it good, bad, indifferent — except, “Thank you very much.”


97. If a guest goes gaga over a particular dish, get the recipe for him or her.


98. Do not wear too much makeup or jewelry. You know you have too much jewelry when it jingles and/or draws comments.


99. Do not show frustration. Your only mission is to serve. Be patient. It is not easy.


100. Guests, like servers, come in all packages. Show a “good table” your appreciation with a free glass of port, a plate of biscotti or something else management approves.

Magnus Mills, "This much I know

From the excellent column in Guardian the "This much I know" input by Magnus Mills, bus driver and novelist. Delicious!

Despite what you'd think, it's an easier job since we got one-man buses. Some of the conductors were nightmares. At least now we have some control over our destiny.

Tube stations have luxurious staff toilets which bus drivers, who have none of our own, must ask permission to use. It's a disgrace. So we use the toilets in William Hill's, who are friendlier.

No experience compares to driving along Oxford Street and the concentration required. People keep walking in front of the bus and look quite angry if you keep going. You don't want to constantly hit the brake when there's standing passengers. Mums shoving their buggies out into the road are the worst - usually on mobiles, talking to someone other than their child.

When The Restraint of Beasts was published [1998, Booker Prize shortlisted] I packed in driving buses. I thought I was going to live the life of a writer, sitting in pubs drinking Guinness. But I like having a day job, too. I can only write, it turns out, when I have no apparent spare time.

If you don't want to eat junk food while you're driving, it's important to have a good breakfast. I've had the same caff breakfast for three years. Toast, marmalade, poached egg, hash browns, black pudding, two mugs of tea. But if I could survive on a tablet, I would. Then I could spend an hour in perfect peace, not thinking about getting fuelled up.

Every bus shelter has a poster for a film on it. Most have an actor posing with a gun, and often it's pointing at people waiting for a bus.

I don't like repeating a word on a page, let alone in a paragraph. But there's one word I didn't realise I used twice in a paragraph in The Restraint of Beasts. I'm getting it changed before another reprint. But it's my secret which word.

Most schoolkids don't show their passes. Ken Livingstone made a great mistake letting them travel free. There's a whole generation growing up who think it's a right rather than a concession, and it's us who have to deal with it.

It was very breezy up on Mount Fuji, and very remote. Striding through the soft ash feels like bouncing on the moon.

The travelling public won't understand, but we're never told over the radio to travel faster. We only get messages to slow down, to stop for one or two minutes. It's about maintenance of headway. No drivers would personally choose to be late, because then you get more passengers to deal with. But we're only admonished by inspectors for earliness.

There was a bloke who said he was going to get his knife out and stab me because I wouldn't let him travel with an open can of alcohol. The next day he was at the same bus stop and he was very apologetic and said he didn't carry a knife and that the alcohol had mixed with his medication. He's now one of my best mates whenever he gets on the bus.

If you live in the immediate vicinity of a fire station, like I have, you don't suffer crime of any sort. Firemen have a lot of time on their hands and run outside if there's any trouble.

I try to be more tolerant nowadays. I think Ian Paisley set a good example. If he can be tolerant to Martin McGuinness, I can be tolerant in the morning to someone who swims in the wrong direction in a swimming-pool lane.

I'm only really interested in the position of the bus in front of me and the one behind.

The career manifesto

by Micahel Wade

The Career Manifesto

1. Unless you’re working in a coal mine, an emergency ward, or their equivalent, spare us the sad stories about your tough job. The biggest risk most of us face in the course of a day is a paper cut.

2. Yes, your boss is an idiot at times. So what? (Do you think your associates sit around and marvel at your deep thoughts?) If you cannot give your boss basic loyalty, either report the weasel to the proper authorities or be gone.

3. You are paid to take meaningful actions, not superficial ones. Don’t brag about that memo you sent out or how hard you work. Tell us what you achieved.

4. Although your title may be the same, the job that you were hired to do three years ago is probably not the job you have now. When you are just coasting and not thinking several steps ahead of your responsibilities, you are in dinosaur territory and a meteor is coming.

5. If you suspect that you’re working in a madhouse, you probably are. Even sociopaths have jobs. Don’t delude yourself by thinking you’ll change what the organization regards as a “turkey farm.” Flee.

6. Your technical skills may impress the other geeks, but if you can’t get along with your co-workers, you’re a litigation breeder. Don’t be surprised if management regards you as an expensive risk.

7. If you have a problem with co-workers, have the guts to tell them, preferably in words of one syllable.

8. Don’t believe what the organization says it does. Its practices are its real policies. Study what is rewarded and what is punished and you’ll have a better clue as to what’s going on.

9. Don’t expect to be perfect. Focus on doing right instead of being right. It will simplify the world enormously.

10.If you plan on showing them what you’re capable of only after you get promoted, you need to reverse your thinking.

Jorge Luis Borges | the just

The Just
by Jorge Luis Borges

A man who cultivates his garden, as Voltaire wished.
He who is grateful for the existence of music.
He who takes pleasure in tracing an etymology.
Two workmen playing, in a café in the South,
aaaa silent game of chess.
The potter, contemplating a color and a form.
The typographer who sets this page well,
aaathough it may not please him.
A woman and a man, who read the last tercets
aaaof a certain canto.
He who strokes a sleeping animal.
He who justifies, or wishes to, a wrong done him.
He who is grateful for the existence of a Stevenson.
He who prefers others to be right.
These people, unaware, are saving the world.

25 Best Business Books

From Business Pundit

While many corporate leaders will cite Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince as invaluable business tomes, we stuck with books written for a business-minded readership.

25. The Wealth of Nations
by Adam Smith
1991

First published in 1776, this broad-ranging exploration of commercial and economic first principles laid the philosophical foundations for modern capitalism and the free-market economy. Smith’s central thesis is that capital can best be used to create both individual and national wealth in conditions of minimal government interference. He believed that free-market competition advances both the vitality of commercial activity and the ultimate good of all a nation’s citizens.

24. The Functions of the Executive
by Chester I. Barnard
1968

This collection of Barnard’s lectures on management, though dated in its language, remains relevant, notably in his promotion of clear, short communication channels and managerial morality. A successful executive himself as well as a theorist, Barnard broadened the managerial role from one that assesses, controls, and supervises, to one that nurtures the organization’s values and goals, and translates them into action, thereby defining a purpose and moral code that pervades the organization.

23. The Principles of Scientific Management
by Frederick Winslow Taylor
1911

In its day, this book advanced management as a discrete field requiring formal training, and systematized human work into rigorously measured, optimizable processes.

Arguing that the “inefficiency in almost all of our daily acts” can be remedied by “systematic management, rather than in searching for some unusual or extraordinary man,” Taylor aimed to determine the best practices for every job. His principles influenced working methods and managerial attitudes for most of the 20th century, particularly in mass-production industries—companies that emphasize quantity over quality.

22. The Human Side of Enterprise
Douglas McGregor
1960

Psychologist McGregor revolutionized human relations management by distinguishing the two ways managers view employees and consequently manage them, ultimately producing the accordant behavior in them. Theory X assumes that workers are inherently lazy and need to be motivated and supervised; Theory Y assumes that people are self-motivated and self-directed. “McGregor’s fundamental principles,” says author Gary Hamel, “underlie the work of modern management thinkers from Drucker to Deming to Peters, and the employment practices of the world’s most progressive and successful companies.”

21. Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise
by Alfred D. Chandler
1962

A business historian, Chandler was one of the first scholars to systematically examine the corporate structure of large companies. Considered a theoretical masterpiece, this book—namely, its now-debated conclusion that strategy should drive structure—played a leading role in the profitable decentralization of leading corporations in the 1960s and 1970s.

20. Organizational Culture and Leadership
by Edgar H. Stein
1992

Organizational development pioneer Schein introduced, into the management debate, culture as a constantly changing force in an organization’s life—and one that must be understood for there to be successful change. In successive editions of this book, the author draws on contemporary research to redefine culture, including the notion of subcultures, and shows how to transform this abstract concept into a practical tool for understanding and influencing organizational dynamics.

19. The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations
by James Surowieki
2004

First developed in his “Financial Page” column of The New Yorker, Surowieki’s ideas contradict the long-held distrust of masses and groupthink: “Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.” The author animates his rigorous argument with pertinent anecdotes and case studies from business, social psychology, sports, and everyday life. Author Po Bronson insists, “This book should be in every thinking businessperson’s library. Without exception.”

18. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
by Thomas L Friedman
2005

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman presents this timely, indispensable update on globalization, its successes and shortcomings, with the same urgent curiosity, panache, and illumination that has earned him three Pulitzer Prizes. With his incomparable ability to elucidate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the beginning of the 21st century, and what globalization—both an opportunity and a threat—means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals. In his 2006 hardcover update, with 100 pages of revised and expanded material, Friedman makes specific recommendations about the technical and creative training he believes will be needed to compete in the New Middle class.

17. Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar
1990

This narrative has been called one of the most influential business books ever, as the definitive account of the largest takeover in Wall Street history at that time: the landmark leveraged buyout of the RJR Nabisco Corporation for $25 billion in 1988. Cinematic and gripping, yet remarkably judicious, this book by two skilled journalists has sold more than 500,000 copies and inspired an HBO movie. Its graphic portrayal of how financial operations at the highest levels are conducted is considered must-reading for those who want to know how the world really works.

16. My Years with General Motors
by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr.
1963

Sloan’s “as told to” opus still stands as the most cogent expression of the managerial philosophy that dominated American business for most of the 20th century. With insightful authority, this fabled CEO chronicles General Motors’ resurrection, under his leadership, from a nearly bankrupt enterprise in the early 1900s to the world’s greatest industrial corporation when he retired in 1956.

Particularly striking is this book’s unintentional expression of a value system: a relentless commitment to the engineering worldview of efficiency as paramount. Sloan’s simultaneous decentralization of manufacturing and centralization of corporate policy and financial controls became the basis for an organizational model that dominated American industry for more than half a century.

15. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization
by Peter M. Senge
1990

Based on 15 years of experience putting the ideas into practice, this bestselling classic popularized the concept of the learning organization, a holistic approach that prioritizes learning—new and expansive patterns of thinking—as both an individual and a group experience. Senge argues that “changing individuals so that they produce results they care about [and] accomplish things that are important to them” faster than the competiton does is, in the long run, the only sustainable competitive advantage.

Because the learning organization requires managers to surrender their traditional spheres of power and control, and because it demands trust, involvement, and the allowance for experimentation and failure, it has rarely been converted into a reality. Nevertheless, Senge’s ideas have affected the rewards and remuneration strategies of many companies.

14. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Business Don’t Work and What to Do about It
by Michael E. Gerber
1985

This underground bestseller dispels the commonplace assumptions surrounding starting and running a successful small business. Two of Gerber’s most incisive observations are that (1) many entrepreneurs know considerably more about producing what they sell than about operating their business, and (2) the entrepreneur must “work on your business, not in your business.” This book intelligently and comprehensively charts an approach to systematizing a new business so that it grows beyond the capacities of its creator.

13. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
by Malcolm Gladwell
2000

Drawing on a fascinating array of research findings and real-world examples, Gladwell presents a concise, elegant, erudite analysis of mass behavioral change that is strikingly counterintuitive. Regarded among marketing and sales professionals as one of the best books on the economics of popular culture, this entertaining read is, says author Jeffrey Toobin, “one of those rare books that changes the way you think about, well, everything.”

12. Competing for the Future
by Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad
1994

This definitive book on contemporary business strategy criticizes the narrow mechanistic view of strategy and calls for an approach that is multifaceted, emotional as well as analytical, and concerned with meaning, purpose, and passion. The authors say their work “provides would-be revolutionaries with the tools and concepts they need to challenge the protectors of the past.” They argue that too many leaders, stuck in the day-to-day details of running their businesses, fail to prepare their companies for the future, and that crafting a strategic architecture around a company’s core competencies is the solution.

11. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t
by Jim Collins
2001

Measuring sustained results over a period of 15 years, Collins identifies, from an original list of 1435, 11 well-established companies that made the leap from being “good” to being “great.”

Applicable to entrepreneurs as well as corporations, this carefully researched book singles out what Collins calls Level 5 Leadership—“a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will”—as the critical factor in those transformations. Such natural leaders “channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company,” which begins with getting the right people—those with discipline and resolve—in the right positions. Challenging the conventional notion of the outgoing, high-profile CEO, an effective leader moves with selfless determination, inspiring average performers to become great producers.

10. Out of the Crisis
by W. Edwards Deming
1982

This classic on quality management reflects Deming’s experience introducing statistical methods for quality measurement and improvement to Japan in the 1960s. Aiming to transform the U.S. style of management and governmental relations with industry, the author blends statistics and common sense to challenge American business practices at almost every point, launching the quality revolution here. Citing poor management, not lazy workers, as responsible for most quality problems, this book, in simple, direct language, offers a theory of management based on Deming’s notable 14 Points of Management, and explains how to apply them to boost quality.

9. Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution
by Michael Hammer and James Champy
1993

Though based on the relatively dry field of operations research, this book became a prominent bestseller in its heyday, replacing much of the received wisdom of the last 200 years of industrial management with a radical prescription for rebuilding businesses wholesale to achieve dramatic performance gains.

8. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
by James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras
1994

Drawing on six years of innovative research, Collins and Porras identify 18 exceptional, long-lasting companies and directly compare each with one of its top competitors, over time. With entertaining case histories, they discredit the longstanding beliefs that a successful business is founded by a charismatic, visionary leader and begins with a great product. Rather, they argue, enduring organizations demonstrate core values and a core purpose that remain fixed, while their business strategies and practices adapt endlessly to a changing world. Organized into a coherent framework of practical concepts that can be applied by managers and entrepreneurs at all levels, this book provides a master blueprint for building a great and enduring company.

7. The Practice of Management
by Peter F. Drucker
1954

Considered the foremost management and business thinker of the 20th century, Drucker was the first to depict management as a distinct function, a separate responsibility in the workplace: the work of getting work done through and with other people. This still-relevant book holds that management was one of the major social innovations of the last century, and it poses three now-classic business questions: What is our business? Who is our customer? What does our customer consider valuable?

6. Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors
by Michael E. Porter
1980

Now in its 63rd printing in English, with translations in 19 languages, this modern classic filled a void in management thinking, transforming the theory, practice, and teaching of business strategy. Strikingly accessible, Porter’s analysis of industries captures the complexity of industry competition in three generic strategies and five competitive forces that have been internalized and applied by managers, investment analysts, consultants, students, and scholars throughout the world.

This seminal book changed conventional thinking around strategy, offering a method whereby a company can examine not just its particular industry but its place in it, that is, its essential differentiation from its competitors that can be sold to the customer.

5. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
by Stephen R. Covey
1989

Having developed the concept of this groundbreaking, long-term bestseller by studying literature going back more than 200 years, Covey bases his approach on relatively immutable personal human values. Unlike many a self-improvement author, however, he doesn’t promise a quick fix; rather, he calls for a paradigm shift—a revolutionary change in one’s perceptions and interpretations of how the world works. And with different thinking comes different actions that will profoundly affect one’s productivity and effectiveness.

Be proactive. Begin with an end in mind. Put first things first. Think win/win. Seek first to understand. Synergize. Renewal. With penetrating insights and cogent anecdotes, Covey presents a highly structured, holistically integrated methodology for creating balance, and hence success, in one’s personal and professional lives.

4. The One-Minute Manager
by Kenneth H. Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
1981

Millions of managers in Fortune 500 companies and small businesses around the globe have followed the timeless principles of this first mega-bestselling business book, presented as a parable. Concisely elegant, this narrative reveals three practical management secrets: One-Minute Goals, One-Minute Praisings, and One-Minute Reprimands—a concept that has spawned numerous “One-Minute” titles, for endeavors from parenting to golfing.

3. How to Win Friends & Influence People
by Dale Carnegie
1937

Having sold more than 15 million copies, this seminal self-improvement book continues to guide managers in the universal challenge of face-to-face communication.

A master of human nature, Carnegie advises that “[w]hen dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice, and motivated by pride and vanity.” He argues that success is only 15% professional knowledge; the remaining 85% is “the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people.”

2. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
by Clayton M. Christensen
1997

Examining a variety of leading well-managed companies that have failed to capitalize on innovative technologies, Christensen explains, with striking clarity and style, how to manage breakthrough products successfully when customers may not be ready for them.

His argument that overdependence on customer needs, or on the most profitable products, can damage a company’s success challenges the marketing and customer service books that put customer focus at the top of the corporate agenda. Considered a paradigmatic marketing visionary, Christensen highlights the problems inherent in what appears to be sound decision making, and rigorously demonstrates that companies will fall behind if they fail to adapt or adopt new technologies that will meet customers’ unstated or future needs.

1. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies
by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.
1982

Highly influential when global competition, largely from Japan, had brought Western business to a low, this quintessential business book describes eight enduring management principles that made the forty-three companies surveyed “excellent.” The authors focus exclusively on big companies, namely big manufacturers, but ironically condemn the excesses of modern management practice and advocate a return to simpler virtues. They have since come to feel that their ideas are better embodied in smaller companies.

Through lively case studies, this very readable classic forces a look at the fundamentals, at “first principles” that give a company its soul: Attention to customers, an abiding concern for people (productivity through people), the celebration of trial and error. A driving force in the subsequent deluge of business books, this trailblazer established customer service as a key form of differentiation and advantage, and launched the author-as-consultant/speaker/celebrity phenomenon.

Babylonia vs. Greece

An excellent piece (for a Greek, anyway) comparing ancient Greek and Messopotamian cultures

By Roger Sandall Saturday, March 21, 2009

Filed under: Culture, Big Ideas

The elite attack on ancient Greek achievement is made manifest in London, Paris, and Berlin.

The August heat made Berlin feel like Baghdad. Inside the Pergamon Museum, and constructed specially for the travelling Babylon show, were narrow winding ways impenetrable to air conditioning. In packed discomfort hundreds of us were slowly inching past glass cases of cuneiform tablets—little panels of baked brick that seem to have been Mesopotamia’s main industrial product. One of them told of Babylon’s creation epic. Another contained a magical spell. The biggest invariably declaimed the power of kings. Craning our heads we tried hard to read the labels and tried just as hard to be impressed.

Being impressed by Mesopotamia was the point. For too long had Hellenism been uncritically exalted in the West. Now it was time for the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome to stand aside so that we could gaze upon the je ne sais quoi that was Mesopotamia. But what exactly was Babylon? Imperial majesty? Architectural folly? A voluptuary paradise? Oriental despotism incarnate? To try to answer these questions the combined museological might of the British Museum, the Musée du Louvre, and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin had assembled a display of things Babylonian under the title Babylon: Myth and Reality. Early in 2008, the exhibition had begun its travels in Paris; it was in Berlin at the time of my visit; and it was in London until last Sunday.

But if the existing Ishtar Gate made the choice of the Pergamon Museum inevitable, it was also a risky and perhaps even self-defeating decision. For as its name suggests, the main display at this establishment on Berlin’s “Museum Island” is one of Hellenism’s most astonishing artefacts, the Pergamon Altar, with over 100 yards of sculptured friezes as eye-catching as anything from the Parthenon. This is a decidedly hard act to follow: once seen never forgotten. And the altar and its frieze is the first thing visitors did see. Only after this marvel did they move along to find what Mesopotamia had to offer.

Is it conceivable that whole decades of research reveal no Persian literary endeavors to compare with the achievements of the Greeks?

Of course there were other items of interest from Babylon besides the gate. There were rigid busts thought to show this king or that. The seven-foot-high black basalt stone on which Hammurabi’s Code was written around 1750 BC is a useful reminder of the historic place of law in civilized society. A third stone, about 24 inches by 20 inches dating from Nebuchadnezzar’s reign (605–562 BC) and containing four columns of early cuneiform script, is described in the catalogue as “a masterpiece of archaizing Babylonian epigraphy”—and no doubt it is.

But what is inscribed? What royal ruminations are here set down that might claim our attention, diverting it from things Greek? We were told it "memorializes Nebuchadnezzar’s building operations in stone. After quoting his royal titles and describing his personal piety, it describes the decorating of the chapels of Marduk, Zarpanitu, and Nabu, the reconstruction of the processional boat of Marduk, the rebuilding of the Akitu house, the restoration of the Babylon temples," and so on. Peggy Lee’s disenchanted question has no doubt been overworked, yet it was difficult to emerge from those claustrophobic museum corridors without gasping “Is that all there is?” What literary evidence is there from antiquity of a polity and a culture meriting as much attention as ancient Greece?

One wonders about the motives behind the exhibition itself. Topically, they plainly had to do with current events in Iraq and at the Baghdad Museum—a concluding chapter in the British Museum’s English-language catalogue says as much. But they also go deeper than that. For much of the past 30 years admirers of classical Greece have been on the defensive, while easternizing admirers of Mesopotamia—which includes the Assyrians, the 6th century BC Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Persians who took over under Cyrus in 539 BC—have been on the attack. Darius and Co. have been talked up; Pericles and Herodotus and Co. have been talked down.

That distinguished and venerable classicist Peter Green apologised for having been too keen for freedom in his 1970 book Xerxes at Salamis. Revising it in 1996 under the new title The Greco-Persian Wars, he regretted embracing so enthusiastically “the fundamental Herodotean concept of freedom-under-law (eleutheria, isonomia) making its great and impassioned stand against Oriental Despotism.” What he called “the insistent lessons of multiculturalism” had forced all classical scholars “to take a long hard look at Greek ‘anti-barbarian’ propaganda, beginning with Aeschylus’s Persians and the whole thrust of Herodotus’s Histories.”

The Oxford University Press author of the 2003 The Greek Wars, George Cawkwell, told us in a short preface that he was proud to be part of a scholarly movement that aims “to rid ourselves of a Hellenocentric view of the Persian world.” Much of the first three pages of his introduction then proceeded to ridicule and discredit Herodotus, who showed “an astounding misapprehension” concerning the Persians, whose stories were sometimes delightful but were certainly absurd, and who, he wrote, “had no real understanding of the Persian Empire.”

But if Herodotus didn’t get it right, who exactly did? Obviously, some nameless Persian equivalent to Herodotus might have had “a real understanding of the Persian Empire,” but who was he and where is his narrative? What book by which contemporary Persian historian provides an alternative account of Achaemenid manners and customs, institutions and political thought, imperial policy and administration and ideals?

For much of the past 30 years admirers of classical Greece have been on the defensive, while easternizing admirers of Mesopotamia have been on the attack.

The courts of Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great, not to mention Xerxes, King of Kings, employed armies of chroniclers recording royal achievements and military victories. Is it conceivable that whole decades of the recent research invoked by Peter Green and Tom Holland (author of the 2005 book Persian Fire) reveal no Persian literary endeavors to compare with the achievements of the Greeks?

Alas, that seems to be the case. Even the Oxford don so jeeringly hostile to Herodotus admits that though the evidence of past Persian glories “is ample and various, one thing is lacking. Apart from the Behistun Inscription which gives an account of the opening of the reign of Darius I, there are no literary accounts of Achaemenid history other than those written by Greeks.” Moreover, he admits, such literacy as existed in the Persian Empire was largely Greek; and such writing as took place was mainly done by Greeks.

Escaping out through the monumental Ishtar Gate into the rest of the Pergamon Museum, one was glad to be again surrounded by Hellenistic sculptures. It was like taking off from a barren desert airstrip and landing in Paris. Human faces. Faces of human scale alive with familiar emotions. In the remarkable Telephos Frieze there were youthful and elegant figures clothed in drapery, arranged with all the delicacy of civilized feeling and all the art that gifted sculptors can bestow. Gods like men and men like gods. Exploring in the nearby Graeco-Roman collection one found, instead of the heartless faces of despots, the marble statue of a young girl playing knucklebones.

Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world

By Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Financial Times, 7 Apr 2009

1. What is fragile should break early while it is still small. Nothing should ever become too big to fail. Evolution in economic life helps those with the maximum amount of hidden risks – and hence the most fragile – become the biggest.

2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains. Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bail-out should be free, small and risk-bearing. We have managed to combine the worst of capitalism and socialism. In France in the 1980s, the socialists took over the banks. In the US in the 2000s, the banks took over the government. This is surreal.

3. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus. The economics establishment (universities, regulators, central bankers, government officials, various organisations staffed with economists) lost its legitimacy with the failure of the system. It is irresponsible and foolish to put our trust in the ability of such experts to get us out of this mess. Instead, find the smart people whose hands are clean.

4. Do not let someone making an "incentive" bonus manage a nuclear plant – or your financial risks. Odds are he would cut every corner on safety to show "profits" while claiming to be "conservative". Bonuses do not accommodate the hidden risks of blow-ups. It is the asymmetry of the bonus system that got us here. No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.

5. Counter-balance complexity with simplicity. Complexity from globalisation and highly networked economic life needs to be countered by simplicity in financial products. The complex economy is already a form of leverage: the leverage of efficiency. Such systems survive thanks to slack and redundancy; adding debt produces wild and dangerous gyrations and leaves no room for error. Capitalism cannot avoid fads and bubbles: equity bubbles (as in 2000) have proved to be mild; debt bubbles are vicious.

6. Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning . Complex derivatives need to be banned because nobody understands them and few are rational enough to know it. Citizens must be protected from themselves, from bankers selling them "hedging" products, and from gullible regulators who listen to economic theorists.

7. Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to "restore confidence". Cascading rumours are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumours. Simply, we need to be in a position to shrug off rumours, be robust in the face of them.

8. Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains. Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is not homeopathy, it is denial. The debt crisis is not a temporary problem, it is a structural one. We need rehab.

9. Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible "expert" advice for their retirement. Economic life should be definancialised. We should learn not to use markets as storehouses of value: they do not harbour the certainties that normal citizens require. Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control).

10. Make an omelette with the broken eggs. Finally, this crisis cannot be fixed with makeshift repairs, no more than a boat with a rotten hull can be fixed with ad-hoc patches. We need to rebuild the hull with new (stronger) materials; we will have to remake the system before it does so itself. Let us move voluntarily into Capitalism 2.0 by helping what needs to be broken break on its own, converting debt into equity, marginalising the economics and business school establishments, shutting down the "Nobel" in economics, banning leveraged buyouts, putting bankers where they belong, clawing back the bonuses of those who got us here, and teaching people to navigate a world with fewer certainties.

Then we will see an economic life closer to our biological environment: smaller companies, richer ecology, no leverage. A world in which entrepreneurs, not bankers, take the risks and companies are born and die every day without making the news.

In other words, a place more resistant to black swans.

The writer is a veteran trader, a distinguished professor at New York University's Polytechnic Institute and the author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Hubris paved way to crisis

By DANIEL CLOUD

PRINCETON, New Jersey — To understand how we got ourselves into our current economic mess, complicated explanations about derivatives, regulatory failure, and so on are beside the point. The best answer is both ancient and simple: hubris.

In modern mathematical economics, many people in the rich world decided that we had finally devised a set of scientific tools that could really predict human behavior. These tools were supposed to be as reliable as those used in engineering. Having ushered scientific socialism into its grave at the Cold War's end, we quickly found ourselves embracing another science of man.

Our new beliefs did not stem from some new experiment or unexpected observation, the way a real scientific paradigm shift does. Economists do not typically conduct experiments with real money. When they do, as when the Nobel laureate Myron Scholes ran the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management (LTCM), the dangers often outweigh the benefits (a lesson we still don't seem to have learned.) And, since almost every observation that economists make turns out in a way that wasn't predicted, no unexpected observation could ever actually change an economic paradigm.

What really produced the change in economics that led to disaster was the simple fact that you could now get away with saying certain kinds of things in public. Some of us honestly thought that history was over. And after all, you can't have a final, utopian society without having a final, scientific theory of human behavior, together with some mad scientists or philosophes to preside over the whole thing.

The problem is that, no matter how "scientifically" these new beliefs were formulated, they are still false. Capitalism is, among other things, a struggle between individual people over the control of scarce resources. Like boxing and poker, it is a soft, restrained, private form of warfare.

Military strategists have known for centuries that there is, and can be, no final science of war. In a real struggle over things that actually matter, we must assume that we are up against thinking opponents, who may understand some things about us that we don't know about ourselves. For example, if profit can be made by understanding the model behind a policy, as is surely the case with the models used by the U.S. Federal Reserve, sooner or later so much capital will seek that profit that the tail will begin to wag the dog, as has been happening lately.

The truth is that such models are most useful when they are little known or not universally believed. They progressively lose their predictive value as we all accept and begin to bet on them. But there can be no real predictive science for a system that may change its behavior if we publish a model of it.

Markets might once have been fairly efficient, before we had the theory of efficient markets. If investing is simply a matter of allocating money to an index, however, liquidity becomes the sole determinant of prices, and valuations go haywire. When a substantial fraction of market participants are simply buying the index, the market's role in ensuring good corporate governance also disappears.

The formation of large bubbles in recent decades was partly a consequence of the commonness and incorrigibility of the belief that no such thing could ever happen. Our collective belief that markets are efficient helped make them wildly inefficient.

Despite this, over the course of the last 20 years, economists began to act as if we thought we could genuinely predict the economic future. If the universe didn't oblige, it wasn't because our models were wrong; "market failure" was to blame. It is not clear how we could know that markets were failing whenever they fell significantly, but believed that we had no business second-guessing them when they climbed. Nor is it clear how we all knew that LTCM's failure or the post-Sept. 11 malaise posed grave risks to the system, but could seriously doubt that the dot-com craze was a bubble.

We repeatedly rescued bubbles, and never deliberately burst them. As a result, our financial markets became a pyramid scheme. Moral hazard, we thought, could safely be ignored, because it is "moral," which, as every true scientist knows, just means "imaginary."

But a market is not a rocket, economists are not rocket scientists, and moral hazard is, in human affairs, the risk that matters most. The false belief that we can collectively see the future using science has led us all to make various binding promises about things in that future that no human being can possibly guarantee. A promise of something that we should know cannot be guaranteed is also known as a lie. That vast tissue of lies is now tearing itself apart.

Governments think we can stop this process by throwing money at it, but there are many reasons to believe that this won't work. The banking system is probably already past saving — many institutions simply aren't banks anymore, but vast experiments that didn't work out as predicted.

We could easily be "stimulating" and "rescuing" the economy for a rather long time, in ways that only delay the needed adjustment, before we are finally forced to allow the required creative destruction to occur. But that is not the real problem. The real problem is the pseudoscientific ideology behind today's crisis. A final science of man has no room for the unplanned and unpredictable recovery that is the only kind a capitalist economy can have after a crisis of this size.

If we cleave to the false security of a supposed science that isn't working, and forget about the philosophy behind it, ideas like personal responsibility and the right to fail, our leaders will very scientifically give us no recovery at all.

The 14 Principles of Management

Henri Fayol (1841-1925) was the first Management guru, ever. His principles of Management were published in the beginning of the 20th century. They are still valid. Forget the modern theories and all the mambo jumbo about management. These 14 principles remain the real thing.

The 14 Management Principles of Henri Fayol are:

1. Division of Work. Specialization allows the individual to build up experience, and to continuously improve his skills. Thereby he can be more productive.
2. Authority. The right to issue commands, along with which must go the balanced responsibility for its function.
3. Discipline. Employees must obey, but this is two-sided: employees will only obey orders if management play their part by providing good leadership.
4. Unity of Command. Each worker should have only one boss with no other conflicting lines of command.
5. Unity of Direction. People engaged in the same kind of activities must have the same objectives in a single plan. This is essential to ensure unity and coordination in the enterprise. Unity of command does not exist without unity of direction but does not necessarily flows from it.
6. Subordination of individual interest (to the general interest). Management must see that the goals of the firms are always paramount.
7. Remuneration. Payment is an important motivator although by analyzing a number of possibilities, Fayol points out that there is no such thing as a perfect system.
8. Centralization (or Decentralization). This is a matter of degree depending on the condition of the business and the quality of its personnel.
9. Scalar chain (Line of Authority). A hierarchy is necessary for unity of direction. But lateral communication is also fundamental, as long as superiors know that such communication is taking place. Scalar chain refers to the number of levels in the hierarchy from the ultimate authority to the lowest level in the organization. It should not be over-stretched and consist of too-many levels.
10. Order. Both material order and social order are necessary. The former minimizes lost time and useless handling of materials. The latter is achieved through organization and selection.
11. Equity. In running a business a ‘combination of kindliness and justice’ is needed. Treating employees well is important to achieve equity.
12. Stability of Tenure of Personnel. Employees work better if job security and career progress are assured to them. An insecure tenure and a high rate of employee turnover will affect the organization adversely.
13. Initiative. Allowing all personnel to show their initiative in some way is a source of strength for the organization. Even though it may well involve a sacrifice of ‘personal vanity’ on the part of many managers.
14. Esprit de Corps. Management must foster the morale of its employees. He further suggests that: “real talent is needed to coordinate effort, encourage keenness, use each person’s abilities, and reward each one’s merit without arousing possible jealousies and disturbing harmonious relations.”

Systemantics: A systems' view of everything

Systemantics (retitled The Systems Bible in its third edition) is a text by John Gall in which he proposes several "laws" of systems' failures. Systemantics is a play on words on semantics and systems display antics.

It is written in the style of a serious academic work, and is often mistakenly cited as such. The content is similar in style to Murphy's Law and the Peter Principle, which are both referenced in the work.

Some laws of Systemantics

• The Primal Scenario or Basic Datum of Experience: Systems in general work poorly or not at all. (Complicated systems seldom exceed five percent efficiency.)
• The Fundamental Theorem: New systems generate new problems.
• Laws of Growth: Systems tend to grow, and as they grow, they encroach.
• The Generalized Uncertainty Principle: Complicated systems produce unexpected outcomes. The total behavior of large systems cannot be predicted.
• Le Chatelier's Principle: Complex systems tend to oppose their own proper function. As systems grow in complexity, they tend to oppose their stated function.
• Functionary's Falsity: People in systems do not actually do what the system says they are doing.
• The Fundamental Law of Administrative Workings (F.L.A.W.): Things are what they are reported to be. The real world is what it is reported to be. (That is, the system takes as given that things are as reported, regardless of the true state of affairs.)
• Systems attract systems-people. (For every human system, there is a type of person adapted to thrive on it or in it.)
• The bigger the system, the narrower and more specialized the interface with individuals.
• A complex system cannot be "made" to work. It either works or it doesn't.
• A simple system, designed from scratch, sometimes works.
• A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
• A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.
• The Functional Indeterminacy Theorem (F.I.T.): In complex systems, malfunction and even total non-function may not be detectable for long periods, if ever.
• The Newtonian Law of Systems Inertia: A system that performs a certain way will continue to operate in that way regardless of the need or of changed conditions.
• Systems develop goals of their own the instant they come into being.
• Intrasystem [sic] goals come first.
• The Fundamental Failure-Mode Theorem (F.F.T.): Complex systems usually operate in failure mode.
• The mode of failure of a complex system cannot ordinarily be predicted from its structure.
• The crucial variables are discovered by accident.
• The larger the system, the greater the probability of unexpected failure.
• "Success" or "Function" in any system may be failure in the larger or smaller systems to which the system is connected.
• The Fail-Safe Theorem: When a Fail-Safe system fails, it fails by failing to fail safe.
• Complex systems tend to produce complex responses (not solutions) to problems.
• Great advances are not produced by systems designed to produce great advances.
• The Vector Theory of Systems: Systems run better when designed to run downhill.
• Loose systems last longer and work better. (Efficient systems are dangerous to themselves and to others.)
• As systems grow in size, they tend to lose basic functions.
• The larger the system, the less the variety in the product.
• Control of a system is exercised by the element with the greatest variety of behavioral responses.
• Colossal systems foster colossal errors.
• Choose your systems with care.

Advanced systems theory


1. Everything is a system.

2. Everything is part of a larger system.

3. The universe is infinitely systematized, both upward (larger systems) and downward (smaller systems).

4. All systems are infinitely complex.

What is Good Design

What Is Good Design:

• Good Is Sustainable
• Good Is Accessible
• Good Is Functional
• Good Is Well Made
• Good Is Emotionally Resonant
• Good Is Enduring
• Good Is Socially Beneficial
• Good Is Beautiful
• Good Is Ergonomic
• Good Is Affordable

"Like's" & "don't like's" in a Resume

Here is a list of "likes" and don't like's" in a Resume (found it in Guy Kawasaki's blog)

Here’s What I Like:

1. A direct style: use blunt, short words. Most resumes are scanned, not read.
2. Looks: like a middle-aged man’s apartment. Nice and tidy.
3. Objective: be direct; your objective is the job you’re applying for.
4. Verbs ending in “d”: shipped, launched, built, sold.
5. Results: not responsibilities or experience — but what responsibilities and experience helped you accomplish.
6. Bullets: 3 ñ 4 results per job.
7. Numbers: increased traffic from Google 230%, decreased ad spending 40%.
8. Grades: your GPA, even if it was ten years ago, if it’s over 3.5.
9. Reviews: ratings from your last review, especially useful if you worked for a tough grader like Microsoft
10. Honors: we’ll interview an employee-of-the-quarter, every time.
11. Promotions: if your role changes, highlight that as two jobs.
12. LinkedIn endorsements: persuasive, even from your friends; excerpted & linked.
13. A link to your blog: a blog gives you online street cred. For some, it is your resume .
14. Themes: whether you care about customer service or agile software, tell a consistent story from job to job.
15. Hobbies: I always want to meet people with fun hobbies. And that’s all a resume is: a request for a meeting. At Plumtree, we received a resume from a Playboy model. A colleague forwarded it to me with a note reading, “I’ve never asked you for anything beforeÖ” I feel the same way about cyclists.
16. Two pages, max: if you’re under 30, one page.
17. Anything you did that showed initiative or passion. Eagle Scout. Math Olympics.
18. Email to the CEO: it takes chutzpah & resourcefulness to go straight to the top. The email address is easy to guess.
19. Customization: tailor your resume & especially the cover letter to the job.
20. Completed degrees: I’ve hired plenty of folks a few credits shy of a degree. Some were great; many couldn’t finish what they started. If you have time now, finish your degree.
21. Gmail address: or your own domain. Nothing says “totally out of it” like an AOL address.

Here’s What I Don’t Like:

1. Churn: stints at two or more employers of less than two years.
2. List of generic skills: just show what you actually accomplished at each job.
3. Typos or misspellings: About half the resumes I get are addressed to “RedFin.” For the other words, spell-check!
4. Photos: my favorite was of a candidate in tennis whites with a racket.
5. “Proven”: as in “proven leadership.” We all still have something to prove.
6. Printed resumes: email a Word document, web page or PDF.
7. Buzzwords: search bots love it, actual people don’t.
8. Wordiness: yes, this is the pot calling the kettle black…

But this is just one person’s (very opinionated) opinion

Read more: "How to Change the World" - http://blog.guykawasaki.com/#ixzz09eNzK1Mf

The Cretan Runner

George Psychoundakis died on the 29 January, 2006, at Canea. His obituary appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 18 February 2006. I have included the whole obituary below. A brave man. George Psychoundakis was best known for his extraordinary account of clandestine life in the Resistance after the German occupation of his island in 1941; the book was translated into English by Patrick (now Sir Patrick) Leigh Fermor, and enjoyed success in Britain as The Cretan Runner. George Psychoundakis was born on November 3 1920 at the village of Asi Gonia, perched high in a mountain pass in central Crete. He was the eldest of four children, born to a family whose only possessions were a single-room house and a few sheep and goats.

Education at the village school was basic; but unlike most of his fellows George learnt to write as well as read, and gleaned what learning he could from books lent by the schoolteacher and the village priest. When the German invasion of Crete began, he was 21, a light , wiry, elfin figure who could move among the mountains with speed and agility. While the Germans imposed their rule with the utmost brutality, Psychoundakis was among the many who guided straggling Allied soldiers over the mountains to the south coast, from where they could be evacuated.

As the Resistance grew more organised, Psychoundakis became a runner, carrying messages, wireless sets, batteries and weapons between villages and secret wireless stations, always on foot, always in danger, often exhausted and hungry, over some of the most precipitous terrain in Europe. It was gruelling work, but in an interview many years later Psychoundakis made light of the hundreds of miles he covered at a run: "I felt as if I were flying, so light and easy - just like drinking a cup of coffee."

Patrick Leigh Fermor, one of a handful of SOE officers whose job it was to co-ordinate the Cretan resistance, first met Psychoundakis at the end of July 1942 in a rocky hide-out above the village of Vaphe. The messages Psychoundakis was carrying were twisted into tiny billets and hidden away in his clothes: "They were produced," wrote Leigh Fermor, "with a comic kind of conjuror's flourish, after grotesquely furtive glances over the shoulder and fingers laid on lips in a caricature of clandestine security precautions that made us all laugh." His clothes were in rags, one of his patched boots was held together with a length of wire - but his humour and cheerfulness were infectious. Humour and danger went hand in hand. Psychoundakis told how a couple of German soldiers decided to help him with an overladen donkey, whish was carrying a heavy wireless set under bags of wheat. The Germans beat the poor creature so hard that Psychoundakis was afraid they would knock off the saddle-bags but mercifully their attention was drawn to some village girls, and the soldiers started flirting with them instead. He also describes British officers with wry amusement - one had "pyjamas, a washbasin, and a thousand and two mysterious objects. He wore a row of medals on his breast, and had a rucksack full of geological books which he studied all day long."

At the same time, the harshness of everyday life was ever-present. Near starvation at one point with another SOE officer, Jack Smith-Hughes, Psychoundakis described how they picked broken snail shells off blades of grass and ate them, pretending that each was more delicious than the last. A bed of springy branches in a dry cave was a luxury: George spent many a night freezing on a rain-soaked mountainside, listening out for German search-parties, knowing what they would do if he were caught. Tales of torture, burning villages and summary executions were all too familiar. On the one occasion he visited England, in 1955, Psychoundakis was awarded the King's Medal for Courage in the Cause of Freedom. yet at the end of the war, the Greek authorities had taken a very different view of the man who had done so much for the Cretan resistance. Psychoundakis's paperwork was not in order, so he was arrested and imprisoned as a deserter.

Months of bitterness, misery and humiliation followed in the jails of Piraeus and Macedonia. In the end he was released, though there was little comfort for him at home. His family's flock had been stolen during the Occupation, they were poorer than ever, and Psychoundakis was now the chief bread-winner. When Leigh Fermor caught up with him for a few days in Crete in 1951, he was working as a charcoal burner. He told Leigh Fermor, who recorded their meeting in the introduction to The Cretan Runner, that while in prison he had begun to write down everything he could remember about the Occupation. On his release he got a job building roads, and lived in a little cave in the hills. Here he continued his writing by the light of an oil-lamp. Leigh Fermor asked if he could see the results. "Without a word he dived into his knap-sack, fished out five thick exercise books tied in a bundle, and handed them over." As he read them, Leigh Fermor recognised Psychoundakis's manuscript as a unique document and made up his mind to translate it. At a time when dozens of books by ex-officers were filling the bookshops, this was one of the first to reveal the occupation from the point of view of the local inhabitant - and the fact that it was written with such truthfulness and honesty made it all the more impressive. The book appeared first in English, translated by Leigh Fermor, in 1955. It was published in Hungarian in 1981, and in Greek in 1986.

Psychoundakis's resilient sense of humour never failed, though bouts of bad luck continued to dog his life. With the money he earned from The Cretan Runner he bought some grazing land, and became immediately embroiled in a dispute with neighbours - "but if I'd bought land by the sea, I'd be a rich man now!" In later years he looked after the German cemetery in Canea. A German War Graves Commissioner came to see it one day, and was impressed by how well Psychoundakis looked after it- though he was surprised that he spoke no German. "Well, there's not much opportunity to learn it here," said Psychoundakis. "All the Germans I look after are dead."

He never stopped reading and writing. After The Cretan Runner he wrote a book on the island's legends and customs, Eagle's Nest in Crete, and translated Hesiod's Georgic Works and Days. His most ambitious project was the translation of The Odyssey from other prose translations into Cretan verse, based on the pattern of The Erotokritos. This celebrated 17th-century Cretan epic, composed in rhyming couplets of 15 syllables, rivals Homer in length - though Psychoundakis's father, despite being illiterate, could recite it word-perfect. When he had finished, Patrick Leigh Fermor asked what he was going to do next: "He looked surprised at the question, and answered, "Oh, The Iliad." For his translations of Homer, Psychoundakis was honoured by the Academy of Athens.

George Psychoundakis is survived by his wife Sofia, their son and two daughters.

Patrick Leigh Fermor writes:

George was a one-off, as they say. Nobody was remotely like him. Touchstone and Ariel spring to mind, and there is a dash of Kim. It was the oddity, independence, charm, curiosity and imagination that gave him the cover-name of "Changeling" in our dispatches from Crete. It seemed strange that someone so inventive could, when he took pen in hand, be so truthful, and it was puzzling that the war-like but unlettered mountain-world could give birth to anyone so gifted. His pluck, flair and defiance of fatigue and danger were of the greatest help in many contingencies, particularly in rushing signals from cave after cave arranging the departure of General Kreipe. He was happiest when writing. His last work was a poetic dialogue with Charon who, in modern Greek folklore, is not only the ferryman of the Styx, but also Death himself. We never lost touch.

Three things you need if you want more customers

From Seth's blog:

If you want to grow, you need new customers. And if you want new customers, you need three things:

1. A group of possible customers you can identify and reach.
2. A group with a problem they want to solve using your solution.
3. A group with the desire and ability to spend money to solve that problem.

You'd be amazed at how often new businesses or new ventures have none of these. The first one is critical, because if you don't have permission, or knowledge, or word of mouth, you're invisible.

The Zune didn't have #2.

A service aimed at creating videos for bestselling authors doesn't have #1.

And a counseling service helping people cut back on Big Mac consumption doesn't have #3.

Warren Buffet's Acquisition criteria

This is from the BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC.2008 annual report:

We are eager to hear from principals or their representatives about businesses that meet all of the following criteria:

1. Large purchases (at least $75 million of pre-tax earnings, unless the business will fit into one of our existing units),
2. Demonstrated consistent earning power (future projections are of no interest to us, nor are “turnaround” situations),
3. Businesses earning good returns on equity while employing little or no debt,
4. Management in place (we can’t supply it),
5. Simple businesses (if there’s lots of technology, we won’t understand it),
6. An offering price (we don’t want to waste by talking, even preliminarily, about a transaction when price is unknown).

The larger the company, the greater will be our interest: We would like to make an acquisition in the $5-20 billion range.
We are not interested, however, in receiving suggestions about purchases we might make in the general stock market.
We will not engage in unfriendly takeovers.
We can promise complete confidentiality and a very fast answer—customarily within five minutes as to whether we’re interested. We prefer to buy for cash, but will consider issuing stock when we receive as much in intrinsic business value as we give.
We don’t participate in auctions.

comment: a good guide if you had a lot of cash!

The 19 Es of EXCELLENCE

• Enthusiasm. (Be an irresistible force of nature!)
• Energy. (Be fire! Light fires!)
• Exuberance. (Vibrate—cause earthquakes!)
• Execution. (Do it! Now! Get it done! Barriers are baloney! Excuses are for wimps! Accountability is gospel! Adhere to the Bill Parcells doctrine: "Blame nobody! Expect nothing! Do something!")
• Empowerment. (Respect and appreciation rule! Always ask, "What do you think?" Then listen! Then let go and liberate! Then celebrate!)
• Edginess. (Perpetually dancing at the frontier, and a little or a lot beyond.)
• Enraged. (Determined to challenge & change the status quo!)
• Engaged. (Addicted to MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around. In touch. Always.)
• Electronic. (Partners with the world 60/60/24/7 via electronic community building and entanglement of every sort. Crowdsourcing rules!)
• Encompassing. (Relentlessly pursue diverse opinions—the more diversity the merrier! Diversity per se "works"!)
• Emotion. (The alpha. The omega. The essence of leadership. The essence of sales. The essence of marketing. The essence. Period. Acknowledge it.)
• Empathy. (Connect, connect, connect with others' reality and aspirations! "Walk in the other person’s shoes"—until the soles have holes!)
• Experience. (Life is theater! Make every activity-contact memorable! Standard: "Insanely Great"/Steve Jobs; "Radically Thrilling"/BMW.)
• Eliminate. (Keep it simple!)
• Errorprone. (Ready! Fire! Aim! Try a lot of stuff and make a lot of booboos and then try some more stuff and make some more booboos—all of it at the speed of light!)
• Evenhanded. (Straight as an arrow! Fair to a fault! Honest as Abe!)
• Expectations. (Michelangelo: "The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." Amen!)
• Eudaimonia. (Pursue the highest of human moral purpose—the core of Aristotle's philosophy. Be of service. Always.)
• Excellence. (The only standard! Never an exception! Start now! No excuses! If not Excellence, what? If not Excellence now, when?)

Are you a professional?

"So learn this as a first lesson about life. The only successful beings in any field, including living itself, are those who have a professional viewpoint and make themselves and ARE professionals" — L. Ron Hubbard

• A professional learns every aspect of the job. An amateur skips the learning process whenever possible.
• A professional carefully discovers what is needed and wanted. An amateur assumes what others need and want.
• A professional looks, speaks and dresses like a professional. An amateur is sloppy in appearance and speech.
• A professional keeps his or her work area clean and orderly. An amateur has a messy, confused or dirty work area.
• A professional is focused and clear-headed. An amateur is confused and distracted.
• A professional does not let mistakes slide by. An amateur ignores or hides mistakes.
• A professional jumps into difficult assignments. An amateur tries to get out of difficult work.
• A professional completes projects as soon as possible. An amateur is surrounded by unfinished work piled on top of unfinished work.
• A professional remains level-headed and optimistic. An amateur gets upset and assumes the worst.
• A professional handles money and accounts very carefully. An amateur is sloppy with money or accounts.
• A professional faces up to other people’s upsets and problems. An amateur avoids others’ problems.
• A professional uses higher emotional tones: Enthusiasm, cheerfulness, interest, contentment. An amateur uses lower emotional tones: anger, hostility, resentment, fear, victim.
• A professional persists until the objective is achieved. An amateur gives up at the first opportunity.
• A professional produces more than expected. An amateur produces just enough to get by.
• A professional produces a high-quality product or service. An amateur produces a medium-to-low quality product or service.
• A professional earns high pay. An amateur earns low pay and feels it’s unfair.
• A professional has a promising future. An amateur has an uncertain future.

The first step to making yourself a professional is to decide you ARE a professional.

Are you a professional?

Good boss - bad boss

Tool Kit

Good Boss, Bad Boss. Which Are You?

By PAUL B. BROWN

Maybe it is not them.

If employee turnover and absenteeism within the company are too high, and productivity and morale too low, the person in charge may be the one at fault.

To find out how good — or bad — a boss you are, the National Federation of Independent Business, a small business advocacy group, suggests asking yourself these questions:

1. Have you ever publicly criticized an employee?

2. Do you take credit for your employees’ work?

3. Do your employees fear you?

4. Do you expect employees to do what you tell them without question?

5. Do you believe employees should know what to do without you telling them or providing guidelines?

6. Are you a yeller?

7. Do you demean employees as a form of punishment?

8. Do you play favorites?

9. Do you hate delegating?

10. Do you check everyone’s work?

According to the answer key, the more “yes” answers, the greater the likelihood you are a bad boss.

A SHORT CHECKLIST Given that Trevor Gay wrote a book called “Simplicity Is the Key” it is not surprising that he has come up with a basic list of the differences between good and bad bosses.

¶ “Inspired confidence

¶ Were humble

¶ Had integrity

¶ Knew what they were talking about

¶ Let me get on with things

¶ Were always there when I needed help

¶ Usually said, ‘Yes, try it.’”

His worst bosses, he said, had these deficiencies:

¶ “Never seemed to be around when I needed them

¶ Always asked me to justify what I wanted to do

¶ Always wanted to know what I was doing

¶ Often said ‘no, we can’t do that’

¶ Gave the impression of being distrustful

¶ Didn’t smile much

¶ Talked about themselves a lot.”

HOW TO BE A BAD BOSS Paul Lemberg, an executive coach, has compiled a list of ways weak bosses can hinder an employee’s performance.

His advice to those bosses is to "stop immediately," if they are doing any of the following:

¶ You don't give employees a clear and compelling company direction. When people align themselves with the company’s goals, they are free to invent, to improvise, to innovate, to inspire each other.

¶ You say important things only once. If the message is important, it is worth repeating.

¶ You don’t hold employees accountable.

¶ You concentrate on trying to improve employees’ shortcomings. “Bad bosses waste too much energy on employee makeovers. Don’t worry about weaknesses — instead, figure out what employees are really good at and train them to be brilliant.”

TAKE THE QUIZ Working America, which is affiliated with the A.F.L.-C.I.O., writes on its Web site that it works “against wrong-headed priorities favoring the rich and corporate special interests over America’s well-being.”

That apparently does not keep them from having a sense of humor.

The organization has created a 10-question quiz to help employees figure how bad their boss is.

The quiz presents a situation and then asks if it sounds “like something your boss would do.”

For example, “someone in your family has died unexpectedly,” it says. “You are devastated, but feel touched when your normally cheap boss sends flowers to the funeral. The next month you find out your boss has taken the money for flowers out of your paycheck.”

The Web site says questions like this one are based on real events.

LAST CALL Writing in Inc., Leigh Buchanan offers several signs to bosses that their employees probably hate them. These are our two favorites:

“You never see people walk by. Employees would rather circumnavigate the entire office to get to the coffee machine or bathroom than take the shortcut past your door and risk being invited in.”

Employees do not volunteer for the boss’s pet projects. It could be because the idea is bad, and they are afraid to say that. Or the idea may be good, but they are petrified of what will happen if they let the boss down. Or since it is the boss’s pet project, he will probably work on it as well. “Which means more time spent ...gulp ...with you.”