RULE 4

Don’t judge a book by its cover

Many years ago now, when I was in my early twenties, the boss I was working for left. He was replaced by a new boss, Mike, who I just couldn’t get on with. He wasn’t good at the job either, as far as I could see. After a few weeks I went to his line manager and complained that I couldn’t work with him. At which point I discovered that he’d already been to say exactly the same thing about me. The line manager hauled us both in and banged our heads together,^* quite rightly. And Mike and I ended up agreeing to start again from scratch.

I have to say, to Mike’s credit, that he really did start over, and so did I. And you know what? It turned out that he was a lovely guy, with a great sense of humour. I was right that he wasn’t good at some parts of the job, but he was brilliant at others. And he had no ego about the stuff he wasn’t good at – he used to say to me, ‘You’d better deal with that. You’re much better at it than I am’. Eventually we both left the company, but we kept very much in touch and remained close friends.

I learnt a huge amount from that episode. I’d nearly lost myself a dear friend simply by thinking that Mike was the unco-operative waste of space I’d first assumed. And several times since then I’ve given people I didn’t warm to a second chance. Often I find I’ve been wrong and, you know what, even if that’s not the case there’s never anything to lose by sticking with them for a while to see if they have hidden depths.

I have a distant relative who is an extremely bright man, and built a little business empire before selling it and retiring. As they say in Derbyshire (where he’s from), ‘He’s worth a bob or two’. You wouldn’t know it to look at him though. His clothes are tatty, his hair is wild and unkempt. I’ve witnessed people in upmarket shops or restaurants treat him as if he must be mentally ill, or an alcoholic or have something unspecified ‘wrong with him’. In fact, he just doesn’t place any importance on attire, appearance or possessions. Which is, frankly, pretty refreshing.

Yes, some books are very much what the cover promised, but you should never assume it. That’s why this is a Rule always to follow, even if the plot does occasionally turn out to be as thin as you suspected, and the characters as weak. The Rule is always to leaf through the pages to see if maybe the cover isn’t a true reflection of the contents.

It’s not simply that you could be wrong. That you might be misjudging someone. That they might have more to offer than you thought. It’s also about what you’re missing out on if you don’t look beyond the cover, just as I’d never have had Mike’s friendship if I hadn’t been made to reconsider my initial judgement.

And it’s about your attitude to people in general. I’ve found through life that when I’ve treated people I didn’t take to as if they were worth my time, I’ve had a far better response from them than I otherwise would. If I raise my expectations of other people, they respond far better to me than if I don’t. That means I get more co-operation, make more friends and so on. If I give people second chances, I’m giving myself a second chance too.