The Devil's Advocate

If success in business was as simple as following the commandments laid down over the last few hundred years then why aren't all businesses created equal?

The simple truth is that the winners are bending the rules that the rest of us so diligently follow. Their willingness to go against the grain, take short cuts and challenge conventional wisdom is what makes them stand out, get noticed and grab the advantage.

And it's that unconventional, sometimes counterintuitive wisdom that this book offers. It doesn't have all the answers (who does?) and it will not make you an instant millionaire. It will sharpen your maverick mind and challenge you to think twice before you follow the received wisdom.

It will hone your instincts so that you can spot the opportunities the rest of the frenzied herd just galloped past, avoid the pitfalls others merrily plunge into and give you the courage to carve your own path to business success.

• Part One: Leadership
1. The only thing you need to be a great leader
2. Ask for favours
3. Sleep in your car
4. Leave stuff half-finished
5. This software can kill you
6. Forgive (but don't forget)
7. Ignore urgent tasks
8. Be ill-informed
9. Use guilt to motivate
10. Say less
11. Wait for the tide to go out
12. Ask the bride to dance
13. Take fewer risks
    
• Part Two: Strategy
14. Don't diversify
15. Stop obsessing about quality
16. Embrace awkward suppliers
17. Fight like Nelson
18. Your next competitor makes toilet paper
19. Burn your business plan
20. Set unrealistic goals
21. Don't dance where elephants play
22. More IT is not the answer
23. There's no price for predicting the Flood
24. Embrace chaos
25. Sell invisibles
26. Use a lawyer like a condom
27. Target the poor
28. Don't make it in China
    
• Part Three: Innovation
29. Reward failure
30. Sacrifice the sacred cow
31. You are in the wrong business
32. Sleep with your customers
33. Judge the book by its covers
34. Use research like a drunk uses a lamppost*
35. Come last
36. Creativity needs a sergeant major
37. Get lost
38. Fire, ready, aim
39. Seek out your worst customers
40. Don't start from where you are
41. Rip up your confidentiality agreements
42. Allow for the law of unintended consequences
43. Remember you are French
44. Anticipate complaints
45. Get stotious
46. Ban the brainstorm
47. Steal with pride
    
• Part Four: Sales and Marketing
48. Stop making sense
49. Don't give your customers choice
50. Learn from the Wizard of Oz
51. Don't 'do' social media
52. Recommend your competitors
53. If you're pitching to win — you've already lost
54. Be brief, be brilliant, be gone
55. Don't hire a hotshot agency
56. Put the small print in BIG LETTERS
57. Dull is the new sexy
58. Make your literature illegible
59. Nurture your nutters
60. Create a crisis
61. Shut up
62. Get your face slapped
63. It's only worth advertising on your forehead
64. Fake sincerity
    
• Part Five: Staff
65. Pay your staff to quit
66. Money doesn't motivate
67. Hire some baboons
68. Don't recruit by experience
69. Forget the big idea
70. Drive a clunker
71. Take your name off the door
72. Be a pacifist in the talent war
73. Send your team home
74. Don't delegate — abdicate
75. Remove the safety net
76. Sack early
77. Seek out the disabled
78. Encourage trade unions
79. Fire the founder
80. Cultivate some enemies
    
• Part Six: Finance
81. Pay yourself $1,000 an hour
82. Max out your credit cards
83. Don't lend $10,000 to your brother
84. Be unaffordable
85. Don't compensate for the size of your manhood
86. Say 'no' to cheap money
87. Double yourt costs, halve your reward
88. Set fire to your price list
89. Treat suppliers like fellow combatants
    
• Part Seven: Personal
90. Cry as a negotiating technique
91. Pile on the stress
92. Avoid the passion rap
93. Don't give money to charity
94. Stop thinking positive
95. Disinherit your kids
96. Nurture self-doubt
97. Jump off a chair
98. Be a psychopath
99. Don't get harpooned
100. Be lazy
     

Don't judge this book on its cover, the back or the list of contents. Read it and try to tell me that it isn't brilliant!

I expected yet-another follow-my-stupid-advice book, and found straight-forward recommendations with some explanations, that was simple to understand and grounded in reality. And was surprised on how my brain took on a life of its own and applied these simple, yet so elusive, truths to my workday reality.

Highly recommended, even if I think it not for students as much as for experienced managers that need something that explains the workday behaviors they see every day.