15 Rules for Manufacturers – Unless You Want to Add a Few of Your Own

Everybody has a set of rules that they live by, but not everybody follows the same rules the same way. That’s why the 10 Commandments haven’t stopped adultery or abuse of the elderly – despite their apparent clarity on the matter.

It’s also true that not everybody works from the same list at all times. If you play golf on Saturday mornings, you probably use a different set of rules (never press the Nassau with the well-tanned stranger carrying a worn set of 1971 Ben Hogans) than if you prosecute alleged criminals during the week (never ask a witness a question to which you don’t already know the answer).

So with that grain of salt, here are 15 rules to live by for manufacturing leaders:

1. A spreadsheet may reveal problems, but it can never fix them.
2. Profit is a byproduct of success; success is a byproduct of everything else.
3. Don’t try to B.S. an engineer.
4. Silver bullets are too rare to be part of the business plan.
5. You’ll be a better leader if communicating is the only thing you do than if it’s the only thing you don’t do.
6. A dollar in savings is worth more than a dollar in sales, but…
7. …You can’t save your way to growth.
8. Conditions always tend to favor the leader.
9. There is no job title so important that it precludes continued learning.
10. Success and failure are two phases of the same cycle.
11. Under-promise and over-deliver. (No, it’s not original, but it’s indisputably effective.)
12. It takes 100 steps to make a great product – and one misstep to ruin it.
13. The right answer is never in the extreme.
14. When bean counters start running your business, your business becomes the counting of beans.
15. If nothing else, treat people well.

Do you have any personal rules that you operate by? Feel free to share by commenting.

By Bob Rosenbaum, Editor