Mardy Grothe - Neverisms

Never hold a man back on the basis that he otherwise

will outgrow his job and find a better position elsewhere.

Make it a rule never to say anything about any individual

that you would not say to him personally.

Never treat a new employee as a suspicious character

who requires watching until he has proved his honesty and worth.

In 1930, Schell was approached by Alfred P. Sloan, an 1895 graduate of MIT who had recently become president of General Motors. Sloan felt that many of GM’s highly trained engineers were lacking in management skills, and he wondered if Schell could help. Sensing a major opportunity, Schell began designing the world’s first university-based executive education program for mid-career engineers. The next year, “Sloan Fellows” from GM were sitting alongside regular MIT students, and within a few years, business schools around the country were attempting to replicate the model.

In 1952, a year after Schell retired as dean, a grant from The Sloan Foundation formally established the MIT School of Industrial Management. It was later renamed the Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, but there are many who think it might have been more fitting to name the school after Erwin Schell.

If the topic of managing people is the most popular topic in business literature, then the subject of investing would probably come in at second place. Many of the best investment quotations have been expressed neveristically, with many cited as examples of “Wall Street Wisdom”:

Never invest on impulse.

Never trade to pay your bills.

Never fall in love with a stock.

Never confuse brains with a bull market.

Never invest more than you can afford to lose.

Never invest on the basis of recommendations from friends.

Never invest on the basis of information

from chat rooms or Internet sources.

Some of history’s best-known investors have also weighed in with stern cautionary warnings:

Never invest in a business you cannot understand.WARREN BUFFETT

Never invest in any idea you can’t illustrate with a crayon.PETER LYNCH, offering “Peter’s Principle #3” in

his 1993 investment classic Beating the Street

Never invest on sentiment. Never invest solely on a tip.JOHN TEMPLETON

My all-time favorite investment quotation, though, comes not from a famous investor or money-managing wizard, but from one of the great names in show-business history. The theatrical impresario Billy Rose once famously advised:

Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repainting.

In the remainder of the chapter, you’ll find many more management and investment admonitions, but you’ll also find warnings about a variety of other things you should never do if you want to achieve success and avoid failure in the business arena.

Never rest on your laurels.

Nothing wilts faster than a laurel sat upon.MARY KAY ASH

Resting on one’s laurels is a saying that can be traced to the ancient Olympic games, when a laurel wreath was placed on the head of a victorious athlete. The saying has now become a cliché, but Ash’s clever tweaking of it sidesteps that problem and earns her extra points for being a CEO with a sense of humor. “The Mary Kay Way,” as it is commonly called, also includes these other straight-talking neverisms, which she refers to as “Timeless Principles” in her books and lectures:

Never Give Criticism in Front of Others.

Never Give Criticism Without Praise.

Never Make a Promise You Can’t Keep.

Never Hide Behind Policy or Pomposity.

Never coddle a malcontent.PETER BAIDA, from a “Manager’s Journal” column

in the Wall Street Journal in the early 1980s

Never pay the slightest attention to

what a company president ever says about his stock.BERNARD M. BARUCH, advice to investors

After graduating from CCNY in 1898, Baruch got a job as a Wall Street office boy for $3 a week. A decade later, his investments had made him a millionaire. In WWI, Woodrow Wilson named him to his war council, and over the next four decades he served as an adviser to every American president. He is also credited with these investment rules:

Never follow the crowd.

Never play tips from “insiders.” They can’t see the forest for the trees.

Never punish a learner.KEN BLANCHARD & SPENCER JOHNSON,

in The One Minute Manager (1982)

Never do anything with an employee

that you would not do with your firm’s number-one client or customer.W. STEVEN BROWN

Brown offered this guideline for boss-employee relations in his 1997 book 13 Fatal Errors Managers Make and How You Can Avoid Them . In the book, he also advised:

Never confront in anger.

Never call your group on the carpet

through the use of a “hot” letter or memo.

Rule Number One: Never lose money.

Rule Number Two: Never forget rule Number One.WARREN BUFFETT

For more than twenty-five years, Buffett has been citing these as his two most important investment rules. In his many speeches and “Chairman’s Letters” (as chairman of the board of Berkshire Hathaway), Buffett has shown a gift for expressing himself in straightforward and memorable ways. He has also advised:

Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.

Never be afraid to ask for too much when selling

or offer too little when buying.

Never arrive on time; this stamps you as a beginner.HARRY CHAPMAN

This tongue-in-cheek advice first appeared in a 1963 issue of The Greater Kansas City Medical Bulletin . Since that time, Chapman’s rules for serving on committees have been reprinted in scores of publications. Details about the author’s identity have been lost to history, but his rules have held up remarkably well. Here’s the remainder of his advice:

Don’t say anything until the meeting is half over;

this stamps you as being wise.

Be as vague as possible; this avoids irritating the others.

When in doubt, suggest that a sub-committee be appointed.

Be the first one to move for adjournment;

this will make you popular; it’s what everyone is waiting for.

Never oppose a high-ranking man in public.NINA DISESA, in her 2008 book Seducing the Boys Club:

Uncensored Tactics from a Woman at the Top

DiSesa called this “The Cardinal Rule of Male Confrontation.” In 1999, after becoming chairman and chief creative officer of the ad agency McCann New York , DiSesa made Fortune magazine’s list of the “50 Most Powerful Women in American Business.”

Never give someone two weeks notice that they are fired

and keep them in the company.LINNDA DURRÉ, in Surviving the Toxic Workplace (2010)

In her book, subtitled Protect Yourself Against the Co-Workers, Bosses, and Work Environments That Poison Your Day, Durré added: When you fire someone, do it humanely, have their severance check ready, get their keys and passcards turned in, let them clean out their desk, and escort them to the exit, wishing them well. Otherwise you will have a paid enemy on the staff.