Raytheon has 76,000 employees and sold over $22 billion in 2005.  CEO Bill Swanson’s leadership is based on management rules he picked up in his over 30 plus years of Raytheon.  His 25 unwritten rules of Management has become a classic, and was the cover of Business 2.0 Magazine.

Bill Swanson’s ‘25 Unwritten Rules of Management’
1. Learn to say, “I don’t know.” If used when appropriate, it will be often.
2. It is easier to get into something than it is to get out of it.
3. If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.
4. Look for what is missing. Many know how to improve what’s there, but few can see what isn’t there.
5. Viewgraph rule: When something appears on a viewgraph (an overhead
transparency), assume the world knows about it, and deal with it
accordingly.
6. Work for a boss with whom you are comfortable telling it like it is.
Remember that you can’t pick your relatives, but you can pick your boss.
7. Constantly review developments to make sure that the actual benefits
are what they are supposed to be. Avoid Newton’s Law.
8. However menial and trivial your early assignments may appear, give them your best efforts.
9. Persistence or tenacity is the disposition to persevere in spite of
difficulties, discouragement, or indifference. Don’t be known as a good
starter but a poor finisher.
10. In completing a project, don’t wait for others; go after them, and make sure it gets done.
11. Confirm your instructions and the commitments of others in writing. Don’t assume it will get done!
12. Don’t be timid; speak up. Express yourself, and promote your ideas.
13. Practice shows that those who speak the most knowingly and confidently often end up with the assignment to get it done.
14. Strive for brevity and clarity in oral and written reports.
15. Be extremely careful of the accuracy of your statements.
16. Don’t overlook the fact that you are working for a boss.
* Keep him or her informed. Avoid surprises!
* Whatever the boss wants takes top priority.
17. Promises, schedules, and estimates are important instruments in a well-ordered business.
* You must make promises. Don’t lean on the often-used phrase, “I can’t
estimate it because it depends upon many uncertain factors.”
18. Never direct a complaint to the top. A serious offense is to “cc” a person’s boss.
19. When dealing with outsiders, remember that you represent the company. Be careful of your commitments.
20. Cultivate the habit of “boiling matters down” to the simplest terms. An elevator speech is the best way.
21. Don’t get excited in engineering emergencies. Keep your feet on the ground.
22. Cultivate the habit of making quick, clean-cut decisions.
23. When making decisions, the pros are much easier to deal with than the cons. Your boss wants to see the cons also.
24. Don’t ever lose your sense of humor.
25. Have fun at what you do. It will reflect in your work. No one likes a grump except another grump.

I noted this entry and agree wholeheartedly. I think of the chinese ( and asian) culture that we pay respect to our elders, and actually acknowledging other people’s strengths and respect is really the hallmark of the true great person.

Respect: The Ultimate Business Etiquette
>From anita campbell’s small business trends:

—–
Your Business Blogger is noticing a most disturbing trend in small and large business clients. The younger employees do not, it appears, render proper subservience and groveling to their elder-better bosses. This disturbs my sense of order and entitlement.
Is good ol’ fashioned bootlicking dead?
As I traverse cubicle farms across the fruited plain, I see entry-level drones who toil away. Plowing as straight a furrow as any dependable farm hand. Yet these hayseeds have yet to learn manners.
In the US of A the worker bees would continue typing and mousing away when the boss and Your Observant Consultant would wander by and stand at the cube entrance. The employee’s eyes would remain on the monitor — ears open to the boss — listening, we were told, to the manager’s every instruction. The young employee would call this “multi-tasking.”
I call it rude.
I compare this ‘dis’ trend to the contrast of the warm glow Your Business Blogger would routinely feel when consulting in India. Whenever the business owner enters a room. All work would cease. All would stand.
Then the boss would magnanimously, graciously invite the employees to be seated and resume their work.
Of course, no one moved. Until the owner left the room.
(There’s a lot to be said for the kiss up, kick down management style of the sub-continent.)
In India the employees would stand up. In North America the employees don’t even look up.
The US Army, as usual, gets it right when dealing with rank:
The senior never thinks of it.
The junior never forgets it.
Whenever soldiers would cross paths, the junior would acknowledge the senior. If one is an officer the junior will salute the senior. And the senior will return the courtesy.
The private businesses who never had employees who were privates in the Army, think and behave as if everyone is equal.
Wrong.
There is far too much of this egalitarian nonsense in our culture. Much of it comes from the academy, where most nonsense originates.
At the University of Virginia where Charmaine earned her doctorate, the instructors are addressed as “Mister.” Not “Doctor.” Mr. Jefferson was a fan of fraternite and Voltaire and all things French.
Egalite run amuck.
But the manager and the astute, ambitious young woman, understanding the spirit of the times, knows that nothing changes in the human spirit. We all want to be appreciated. Even the boss.
So the young future leader desiring to be a stand out, will stand up when the boss enters.
The young man will stand up when a lady enters the room.
The employee with integrity will take a stand.
A stand up guy.
And everyone will accuse him of apple-polishing.
But he will soon fill those boots everyone thought he was a-licking.

I do a lot of emails, both using thumb keyboards and full keyboards, as well as short text messaging from cell phones.  It has always been an interest how to get your thoughts quickly- to people and to the computers.

I can probably type about 60-80 words a minute in a keyboard, and probably a fraction of that in a thumb keyboard, and even slower with predictive texting in cell phones.  The quest of course, has always been how to make this process easier.

That is why I read this with interest - because it confirms that at the end, we can do it better because of two things - we can inherently speak faster than we can type and a good voice recognition system is really the way to go in the future.

This was what Been Cook (reputedly the world’s fastest texter) acknowledge when he handed defeat to a voic recognition computer who bested his record on a complicated 27 word message.

The 18 year old from Provo Utah, competed with a computer, as well as two other people.  He used basic 3 key typing ( which means texting from a cell phone numeric keypad which may involve 1 to 3 strokes in the pad to generate a letter).  His three competitors were a voice controlled computer, one using predictive software, and the other a thumb keyboard of a Blackberry phone.

The first message, “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in 30 minutes,” took over a minute with the predictive software, 29 seconds with a Blackberry and 16 seconds for the record holder. The voice recognition software finished it in under 8 seconds.

The final defining message was the message that brought Ben the accolade a few months back.  This was the message that read “The razor toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygo centrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.”

Cook finished in 48 seconds, six seconds more than his record. But it took the Nuance voice recognition  program just 16 seconds.

The program Nuance is an add on to the phone that envisions it as a tool for drivers and others who want to send text messages, instead of calling or leaving a voice mail, but don’t have time to sit and type.

At any rate, maybe it is time to go back and check out also the voice recognition programs in Windows Vista and new Office 2007. With more accuracy, hopefully we will find more productivity by talking to the computer!

Source: Yahoo