I'm reading a non-fiction book called 'The Rules of Management' right now, which is about being successful as a self-employed person.
Mr. Swanson said in a statement that the similarities between his book, "Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management," and a 1944 text, "The Unwritten Laws of Engineering," were "beyond dispute".
"Believe me, so many have called us for that, we could have opened a store a month and become a Tea Starbucks," he said, "but our rules of management have remained unaltered since 1983: complete integration and central decision taking in order to keep full control on the Mariage Frères image and identity".
And, like Jack Welch, the boss of General Electric, Sir Martin is famous for dressing down subordinates, with phone calls at 2 am and e-mails fired off at all hours.But the normal rules of management do not readily apply in advertising.
Titles include "Reengineering the Rules of Management," by James Champy, the co-author, with Michael Hammer, of "Reengineering the Corporation," one of the biggest business best sellers of the 1990s, and "Keeping It Honest, From Kitchen to Coca-Cola," by Seth Goldman, co-founder and chief of Honest Tea, the maker of organic drinks.
William H. Swanson has become something of a management guru thanks to "Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management". It is a compilation of folksy business advice from Mr. Swanson, the chief executive of Raytheon, that the company distributes as a free booklet.
And action, in my opinion, is the cardinal rule of management.
It all goes against the first rule of management, which is to help your staff realise their potential.
I remember reading somewhere once that the first rule of management is always to look for the disquieting evidence.
A fundamental rule of management is that you can't change people's character; you can't even control their actions most of the time.
"The golden rule of management," she says, "is no surprises.
