Chapter 67. Visualize Your Plaque

When you write your bestseller and then die you will get a 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” I don’t mean you, I mean whoever it is that lives there after you’ve croaked. This 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—that is, write your bestseller, add to the sum of human literacy, manage to afford to live in London—you don’t get a plaque.

^* 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 Jimi Hendrix got one.

Now imagine that there is a 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 thrashing for whatever they happened to be doing. Then he would go to his office and have 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 plaque for you, Billy boy.

I’ve told this before because it still, after more than 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 plaque. I want it for being the best damn manager there ever was. I want it for being good for my team, getting results, setting standards; for being a huge success and somebody they liked working for.