Dave Packard's 11 simple Rules

Ran across these today.  As applicable and effective as ever...



Dave Packard's 11 Simple Rules

Bill Hewlett (left) and Dave Packard (center) serving food at the company picnic. Photo circa 1958.

"Elegant" and "timeless" describe 11 simple rules first presented by Dave Packard at HP's second annual management conference in 1958 in Sonoma, California.
Discovered in Dave's correspondence file, these rules show his philosophy of work and life.


11 Simple Rules 1. Think first of the other fellow. This is THE foundation — the first requisite — for getting along with others. And it is the one truly difficult accomplishment you must make. Gaining this, the rest will be "a breeze."
2. Build up the other person's sense of importance. When we make the other person seem less important, we frustrate one of his deepest urges. Allow him to feel equality or superiority, and we can easily get along with him.
3. Respect the other man's personality rights. Respect as something sacred the other fellow's right to be different from you. No two personalities are ever molded by precisely the same forces.
4. Give sincere appreciation. If we think someone has done a thing well, we should never hesitate to let him know it. WARNING: This does not mean promiscuous use of obvious flattery. Flattery with most intelligent people gets exactly the reaction it deserves — contempt for the egotistical "phony" who stoops to it.
5. Eliminate the negative. Criticism seldom does what its user intends, for it invariably causes resentment. The tiniest bit of disapproval can sometimes cause a resentment which will rankle — to your disadvantage — for years.
6. Avoid openly trying to reform people. Every man knows he is imperfect, but he doesn't want someone else trying to correct his faults. If you want to improve a person, help him to embrace a higher working goal — a standard, an ideal — and he will do his own "making over" far more effectively than you can do it for him.
7. Try to understand the other person. How would you react to similar circumstances? When you begin to see the "whys" of him you can't help but get along better with him.
8. Check first impressions. We are especially prone to dislike some people on first sight because of some vague resemblance (of which we are usually unaware) to someone else whom we have had reason to dislike. Follow Abraham Lincoln's famous self-instruction: "I do not like that man; therefore I shall get to know him better."
9. Take care with the little details. Watch your smile, your tone of voice, how you use your eyes, the way you greet people, the use of nicknames and remembering faces, names and dates. Little things add polish to your skill in dealing with people. Constantly, deliberately think of them until they become a natural part of your personality.
10. Develop genuine interest in people. You cannot successfully apply the foregoing suggestions unless you have a sincere desire to like, respect and be helpful to others. Conversely, you cannot build genuine interest in people until you have experienced the pleasure of working with them in an atmosphere characterized by mutual liking and respect.

11. Keep it up. That's all — just keep it up!

Tim Keller re: Supposed Inconsistencies between Old and New Testaments

http://thegospelcoalition.org/mobile/article/tgc/making-sense-of-scriptures-inconsistency

Scary Thought

One of the scariest realizations I've come to is that I am responsible for thinking things through and for the resulting decisions and consequences.

50th Anniversary of The War on Poverty

While fighting "wars" against states of mind (terror) and existence (poverty, obesity, etc...) is patently absurd, the most unfortunate aspect of the thought process that leads to such wars is that it subtly necessitates a belief that the consequences of individual decisions must be borne primarily by society at large and prevented by communal, rather than individual action.  This means that rather than allowing the painful consequences of poor decisions to be shouldered primarily by those who make such decisions, society (i.e. it's 'agent', the government) must bear the costs of poor decisions and prevent future occurrences by curtailing the rights of all, with each failure of the former necessitating increased severity of the latter. The fact that our "caretakers" obtain power in ever increasing degrees as a part of the process and exercise their "duty" with increasing measures of glee is, of course, just a happy coincidence.

Still, the most tragic irony isn't the aforementioned "big brother" syndrome or the fact that a middle class person somewhere has a higher tax bill as a result; it is that a lack of consequences robs us (I'm really good at making bad decisions, mind you) of the opportunity to learn.  It might seem terrific at first to be unable to feel the pain of being burned, but such pain is ultimately healthy - it keeps us from injuring ourselves further or even irreparably. It may seem compassionate to shield a person from the consequences of his or her decision (and in some cases it is), but in many cases it retards one's growth as a human being and ultimately produces greater suffering in the end.