The 'Bullets' of Business - My First

In this series, professionals discuss their experiences accomplishing something for the first time. Read their stories here, then write your own using #IWasTheFirst in the body of the post. 

I had an idea. The idea was to better describe business concepts by simplifying them- really, really simplifying them. The concepts I wanted to simplify were embedded in business books, so why not simplify the entire concept of a business book? Most of the business books I was reading were really three or four ideas that were expanded into three or four hundred pages. Concepts like “pay attention to the customer” were explained in long chapters.

The idea, like the book, seemed too simple. I was too busy to read entire books that said things like “quality matters”. And, I didn’t want to feel guilty or left behind by starting a book and not finishing it. I wanted to create business wisdom that was “too simple not to know”. I wanted to capture concepts in a unique and funny way in a book that people could read on airplanes and use in the first meeting they attended once they landed. The idea worked and I was the first, I think.

I had never intended to be an author of business books. Business book authors were university professors or self-helpers, not real live people working. I was a consultant with a big firm and saw tons of different organizations. I discovered I had several gifts that helped in the writing: I could assess what was going on in an organization quickly by observing and I could describe the problem and solution well, and sometimes humorously. I became an evangelist for common sense at work.

So I developed my idea with an eye toward capturing the hundreds of ideas and concepts that are always rattling around, putting them into a book and letting everyone interpret them and implement them as needed. Forget the whole book based on three ideas, I wanted to capture all the “bullets” so that readers could be better at work. Sure, at the time, there were summaries and abstracts of books but they were just as tedious as the book. So my idea became to create a book of business bullets. The bullets I am talking about are really bare bones. Like one sentence. No chapter on how to be successful, just a few bullets like:

• Show Up, Contribute, Repeat

Regarding performance reviews, the bullet was:

• A performance review answers the simple questions: Did you make the place better? How?

I may not have been the exact “first” to think of business bullet books but my publisher thinks that I was, so I will take credit. In any case, I am sure I will not be the last, but I will take credit for being among the first to translate business thoughts into bullets. 

I spied on people in bookstores in the business book section. I saw that they turned to the introduction or the table of contents and looked for the bullets. My idea had merit and turned into a book titled, Never Confuse A Memo with Reality that sold several hundred thousand copies. (The book is now out of print.) I was on to something. Four more books of bullets followed.

The bullets I created were not based on longitudinal research or quantitative reasoning; they were based on my observations so there was an element of risk. How did I come up them? How did I know the bullets would be helpful? I didn’t. But I knew I had a keen eye for what was going on in organizations and that the tendency was to make things more complex than needed.

Some described my contribution to business literature as akin to Cliff Notes and not really even a book. Others called my writing as a B&B book. That is, best read in the bathroom or bedroom. But oh how the books sold. And the reason they sold is because I never made anyone feel guilty for ignoring Gantt Charts and flow charts and Venn Diagrams and Six Sigma and Agile Processes. None of those concepts were ever even mentioned. I provided more of a sense that business is approachable and anyone can be successful by following a few simple rules. Actually, there are a lot of rules but none of them are written down except in my books.

The books are funny and prescriptive and provide a sense of hope. The books provide advice in one or two sentences, not one or two hundred pages. As the workplace grows more complex and people are too busy, the bullet books continue to be important. The bullets now show up in PowerPoint Presentations and emails and that is fine with me.

We still need to work on boiling ideas down. Maybe if the ideas are boiled down and easily expressed, so too will processes and other things we deal with in the workplace.

Although I may have been the first, the bullets keep coming as the workplace keeps changing and behavior keeps adjusting, or not. Bullets, prescriptions, aphorisms, call them what you will, simple ideas continue to help people be successful.

Richard is the author of the new book The Thing About Work: Showing Up and Other Important Matters [A Worker’s Manual]. You can follow his writing on Twitter, Facebook, or at his website at richardmoran.com.

Richard is President of Menlo College in Atherton, CA. He is a noted San Francisco based business leader, best-selling author, speaker, and venture capitalist.