Media Spotlight: The Unwritten Laws Of Business
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By WJ King
This book started life in 1944 as a pamphlet for engineers called - unsurprisingly considering its audience - The Unwritten Laws Of Engineering.
According to the blurb at the front of the new edition, so good was the advice put together by author WJ King that titans of the business world such as Warren Buffett and Jack Welch were soon singing its praises as a practical guide for anyone looking to get a leg up in their career.
In 2001 the decision was made to revise the pamphlet and republish it as a general business guide.
But as James Skakoon, the man put in charge of updating it, says in his introduction, relatively few alterations were needed other than to change the word ’engineers’ into ’business people’.
So what does this guide from the World War II era have to tell us today? To start with, little that anyone with half a brain couldn’t have thought of.
Don’t get mad at doing menial jobs, demonstrate an ability to get things done, confirm things in writing and don’t be timid are all featured pieces of advice.
All these ditties are fine but the chances are you’ve already figured out that turning up on time and observing office niceties are sound steps towards moving on in your career.
But the book also contains more workable advice for managers on topics such as delegation - a well-run company should be able to function without its boss for a week - and warns of the perils of playing it safe and the importance of perpetual innovation to stay ahead of the competition.
It also poses some tough questions on the subject of staff appraisals, in particular mentioning that if a manager shirks their responsibility in this capacity and years down the line has to fire an employee for incompetence, it means that not only has the employee failed but the manager has too.
The book argues that if you ultimately have to fire a subordinate you may have some pointed questions to answer from the person being sacked, such as: why did it take you five years to discover my incompetence and why haven’t you given me a fair chance to correct these shortcomings?
The section on the laws of character and personality are also good and seem to essentially map out the so-called Level 5 leadership types expanded on 55 years later in James Collins’ classic book on management Good To Great.
Meanwhile, advice such as “form the habit of considering the feelings and interests of others” may sound more like tips for a psychopath learning to function properly in society. But no doubt all of us have worked with or for individuals who have fallen short in this regard.
Overall, The Unwritten Laws Of Business includes advice that anyone in business would do well to follow. In an era in which a high proportion of books on management are written in an unnecessarily complicated form of psychobabble, this one gets straight to the heart of the matter to provide a practical guide to working life.
It also has brevity on its side. The original The Unwritten Laws Of Engineering was a pamphlet, and despite the new version having been published with a swanky embossed gold cover, the publisher has fortunately not been tempted to expand the content and stray from the no-nonsense purpose of the original.
Book review by Robert Thickett
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