Book description
Welcome to the future of business thinking. It dares to confront everything you thought was true. It’ll challenge the so-called rules, dispute the perceived wisdom and turn that traditional, tired business advice completely on its head.
Meet The Devil’s Advocate.
And whether you’re new to business, an experienced senior executive or a budding entrepreneur, this fast and focused, clever little book, packed with empowering business advice and sharp insights, will help you carve a smart-thinking strategy for business success.
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title page
- Contents
- Dedication
- Author biography
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
-
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 prize 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 cover
- 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 your costs, halve your reward
- 88 Set fire to your price list
- 89 Treat suppliers like fellow combatants
- Part seven Personal
- Imprint
Product information
- Title: The Devil's Advocate
- Author(s):
- Release date: February 2013
- Publisher(s): Pearson International
- ISBN: 9780273781646
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