The author here assumes, throughout much of his book, that his reader is someone in the corporate world (a company setting) and, in that sense, attempts to lay down, in simple words, the rules to ensure a speedy path up the career ladder. Overall, the book is straightforward and doesn’t leave much to ponder about. For a person well raised and possesses a good range of soft skills, the book is rather redundant; however, for someone who is indeed struggling in their career, the book could be illuminating.
One of the first rules that come to mind (from a total of 109) is ‘under promise and over deliver’ (RULE 5). “If you know you can do it by Wednesday always say Friday,” Mr. Templar recommends. This point resonated with me well, and it does make sense and gives one less pressure to meet a deadline. RULE 10 also comes to mind here (‘Develop the right attitude’), where the author reaffirms that “the right attitude is head up, never moaning, always positive and upbeat, constantly looking for the advantage and the edge.” In RULE 21, the author reminds the reader to ‘be cool’ where I couldn’t agree more. One must indeed keep their composure and appear in control of things regardless of the circumstances. Two rules later, the author says “always make your signature big – big signature, big person,” as a way to emphasize the importance of how written things matter.
In RULE 50, the author advises to ‘keep records’ at all times. Don’t delete old emails, he warns, as they can come in handy to settle a dispute or remind someone of an initial agreement. Before reading this rule, I was thinking to delete some of my old emails to save some space, but Mr. Templar made my job easier by not needing to go back and determine which email I should delete, I’ll be keeping them for now. ‘Put things in perspective’ is another important rule that I feel many people often miss, and a good habit to build. After all, things might not be as serious as many presume.
‘Ask questions in times of conflict’ (RULE 80) came across to me as a good strategy to apply while in conflicts, it can reduce the tension and shift the attention to something else. Moreover, ‘Know the psychology of promotion’ (RULE 102) was an eye opening rule where the author lists several possible reasons behind offering a new post, but perhaps most notably was to get rid of someone by offering the new post to an unsuitable candidate to have grounds for sacking them. In a way the author is trying to be preemptive here.
The author ends his book by saying ‘know when to break the rules’ as to say that someone should always employ their judgment at all times. Over the course of his book, the author often repeated himself unnecessarily (e.g. RULE 21 – Be cool and RULE 84 – Never lose your temper). I am not sure whether this is partly due to the curse of career writers who sometimes simply look for content to fill the pages of their books, but still, good rules of conduct always in a way overlap. To me, the book should be read on the side, but not consumed as a main course.