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Jordan Willms on business, entrepreneurship, technology and the internet

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Apr02

Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management

Apparently, some people have been struggling to find original (and complete) copies of Swanson's controversial Unwritten Rules of Management. (One of the Personal MBA books.) As such, I have included it below.

Sixty years before Raytheon CEO William Swanson published his Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management, a UCLA engineering professor, published a book called The Unwritten Laws of Engineering. More than half of the rules in Swanson's book were completely plagiarized.

Putting those facts aside, the information provided is still chalk full of management goodness.

  1. Learn to say "I don't know." If used when appropriate, it will be used often.
    How many times have you been in meeting with someone who felt compelled to contribute even though her or she obviously did not know what to say? Silence is golden in these circumstances