59. Visualize your blue plaque

"The first official London plaques were erected in 1867 by the Royal Society of Arts at the instiga­tion of William Ewart MP . . . In total there are about 700 official plaques and most of them are blue with white lettering." www.blueplaque.com

When you write your bestseller and then die you will get a blue plaque on the building where you were born, or lived, or wrote the damn thing - just so long as it was in London.* When I say 'you' 1 don't mean you, I mean whoever it is that lives there after you've snuffed it. This blue plaque is there to commemorate the fact that you did a good thing while you were alive. If you didn't do your good thing - i.e. write your bestseller, add to the sum of human literacy manage to afford to live in London - you don't get a blue plaque.

Now imagine that there is a blue plaque for management style and it's not limited to London. What would you get yours for? Would you in fact get one? Basically, how would you like to be remem­bered? I worked for a boss once whose style of management was quaint to say the least. As he came in each day he would blast the first person he saw, give them a complete rollocking over whatever they happened to be doing. Then he would go to his office and have a coffee for half an hour. Then he would walk through the plant and compliment the first person he saw, tell them what a great job they were doing no matter what it was they were doing. I asked him about this and he said, 'Keeps them on their toes. They never know where they are with me. I get more out of them if they are frightened.' No blue plaque for you, Billy boy.

I've told this before because it still, after over 20 years, fascinates me as the worst incompetent, bullying stupidity I have ever come across. And he is still in a job, still employed by the same firm. Yes, he has hardly risen up the ranks, because he is still doing pretty much what he was then, back when I knew him, but he is still employed. I don't buy shares in that particular company -never have, never will.

I want a blue plaque. I want it for being the best damn manager there ever was. 1 want it for being good for my team, getting results, setting standards; for being a huge success and somebody they liked working for.

* I'm fairly certain you have to be dead, but you don't have to have written any­thing. Being a musician is good enough - even Jimmy Hendrix got one.

60. Have principles and stick to them

"Dear ... I have given your proposition a lot of thought. My main concern is that you want the items to be pre-purchased for the XX Show. I feel this is not acceptable and is misleading the 8 mil­lion viewers who will be watching the show, as you have informed me. I have been in the antiques business for 30 years, and I feel my rep­utation would be undermined if an item that was pre-purchased was placed in my antiques centre and supposedly purchased there, and then went to an auction house to be sold at a loss. Because of this 1 must decline your offer to use my prem­ises as a backdrop for your show In the short brief time I met you, you came over as a very nice person and 1 hope you are successful with the show Yours faithfully . . . Genuine letter from an antiques expert turning down a very kind - and obviously lucrative - offer from a television company

When you think about it, you've got to have principles. If you don't, you end up despising yourself or in debt or in prison. You might end up like this anyway, but at least you could say, 'But 1 have my principles'. There has to be a line beyond which you will not go. You have to know where that line is drawn. No one else has to know until they ask you to cross it and then you can tell them. That line has to be a ten-mile-high solid steel wall. You can't go beyond it, no matter what.

So where would you draw your line? I've been asked to do things I didn't like. I've been asked to do things I found unpleasant. I've been asked to do things I found extremely irksome, but whenever I've been asked to cross my own personal line - which thankfully in a long business career has been only once or twice - 1 was able to say, 'No', and stick to it. And each time I got a pat on the back rather than a trip to the Job Centre.