I read the Diary of a CEO in preparation for seeing the author Steven Bartlett speak in Brisbane.

I found it a really easy read, getting through it all in 1 day and took some simple practical tips from in which were reinforced by his presentation.

Here is a summary of the 33 Laws which is broken down into key pillars

 

Pillar 1- Your self

Law 1- Fill your buckets in the right order

The five buckets

1 What you know-  your Knowledge

2 What you can do –  your Skills

3 Who you know –  your Network

4 What do you have – your Resources

5. What the world thinks of you – your Reputation

 

Prioritise filling the first two buckets in your foundations will have long-term sustainability you need

A setback or disaster can take away your resources your network or your reputation but could never remove your knowledge and never unlearn your skills

 

Law 2- To master a skill you must create an obligation to teach it

If you want to learn something read about it,

If you want to understand something write about,

If you want to master something teach it

 

Having Skin in the game, or an obligation, gives us something to lose

 

Feynman technique- If you want to master something do it publicly and do it consistently

 

Being able to simplifying idea and successfully share it with others is the path to understanding

1. Learn
2. Teach it to a child
3. Share it
4. Review feedback

You don’t become a master because you’re able to retain knowledge you become a master when you’re able to release knowledge to othrrs

 

Law 3- You must never disagree

Healthy relationships are when those involved are working against a problem.

Unhealthy conflict exists in a relationship because those are both working against each other.

 

Start with what you agree on which will let them feel listened to before you start negotiation

 

Law 4- You do not get to choose what you believe

Our most important beliefs we have no evidence at all, except that the people we love and trust hold those same beliefs.

First party evidence from your own physical senses is the most powerful force for belief change.

 

Four factors that determine whether a new piece of evidence will change an existing belief

1. A persons current evidence
2. Their confidence in their current evidence
3. The new evidence
4. Their confidence in the new evidence

Confirmation bias is where we search for information that confirms our existing beliefs or values

 

Self review is more likely to change beliefs than someone else telling them they’re wrong.

Quickest and surest way to conquer fear is to do the thing you fear and keep doing it

 

Law 5 -You must lean into bizarre behaviour

Leaning out is being arrogantly sure you are right and refusing to listen and learn and pay attention to new information.

Cognitive dissidents is the teaching experience where your thoughts conflict with your behaviour

We don’t like to be wrong and will fight tirelessly to prove that we are right even when we weren’t

Lean in people can see the merits of the old way at the same time without the compulsion to reject either idea

 

Law 6- Ask, don’t tell – the Question /Behaviour Effect

Questions unlike statements elicit an active response they make people think

A yes or no question doesn’t give you any wiggle room to deceive yourself it forces you to commit one way or the other

 

Law 7 – Never compromise your self-story

Your self story creates mental toughness- those with a positive self story will be more optimistic, persevere for longer, handle stress better and achieve their goals more easily-  they are resilient

What you do is the strongest way to change yourself story

 

Law 8-Never fight a bad habit

The behavioural rebound effect means that people who think about not doing something I’m more likely to do it.

Do you end up doing the thing you’re focusing on? So don’t focus on the bad habit, rather focus on the behaviour you wish to replace it with

 

Are you 68 if you feel good and not if you’re either stressed or you haven’t had a good night sleep

 

Willpower diminishes the more we use it

 

 

Law 9-Always prioritise your first foundation

Look after your health and your body

 

Pillar 2- the story

Law 10- Useless absurdity will define you more than useful practicalities

Use the strange unusual things about you to sell yourself.

Absurdity is more effective and more fun

 

Law 11-Avoid wallpaper at all costs

Habituation is the neurological device that helps us to focus on what matters to tune out things that we don’t need to focus on

The mere exposure effect is the tendency of people to develop a preference for things that are more familiar to them because of repeated exposure

Call to reciprocity-  A psychological phenomena on that shows people will do something for you if they feel you do done something for them

Wallpaper is the over use of popular terms in our calls to action to the point where the brain habituate to them and choose to forget them

 

Law. 12-You must piss people off

Make people feel something either way

Indifference – when people don’t love or hate you-  it’s the least profitable outcome

 

Law 13- Shoot your psychological moon shots first

A psychological moonshot is a relatively small investment that drastically improve the perception of something

The peak end rule- cognitive bias that describes how people remember experiences  i.e. we judge and experience according to how we feel at its peak and at the end rather than the average over the whole event

Idleness aversion – active people are happier than those who are idle

Operational transparency explaining what’s going on E.g. Uber allows you to track where everything is up to.

Uncertainty anxiety –  it is less psychologically stressful to know something negative than to be left in uncertainty.

It’s nearly always cheaper, easier and more effective to invest in perception than reality

The gold gradient effect -speeding up near the finish line.

 

Law 14- Friction can create value

Sometimes making things more difficult means the consumable value them more e.g. Betty Crocker cake mix was too easy, but there were more sales when they made it more difficult ie they had to add an egg

 

Law 15-The frame matters more than the picture

The weight of a package has a big impact on how it is received and the value perceived by consumers

Reality is nothing more than perception and context is king i.e. 90% fat free sounds better than contains 10% fat

 

Law 16-Use Goldilocks to your advantage

Anchoring is accompanied by a so individuals rely too heavily on seemingly irrelevant information when making decisions

Presenting two extreme options next to the option you’re hoping to sell, makes the middle option appear more attractive

 

Law 17- Let them try and they will buy

The endowment effect is a cognitive bias that causes people to over value the item simply because they own it regardless of the objective value

The ownership experience is more powerful than a hard sell eg I phone sales people make sure those in store touch and feel to make them buy.

 

Law 18-Fight for the first five seconds

You need to be able to gain the attention of your most uninterested customer

 

Pillar 3 – The philosophy

Law 19- You must sweat the small stuff

Kaizen- continuous improvement- Focus by everyone in the team on small incremental changes.

Motivation crowding – attaching a financial reward can interfere with ambition. When hobby becomes a job- motivation stops.

 

Law 20- A small miss now creates a big miss later

The pursuit of perfection is a matter of discipline

The aviation one in 60 rule means being off target by one degree will lead to a plane missing at the end of the destination by 1 mile for over 60 mile flight.

 

Law 21- You must out fail the competition

To invent you have to experiment, when you experiment you’ll fail

Get to 51% and make the decision-  perfect decisions exist only in hindsight

 

Creating a pro failure philosophy

1. Remove bureaucracy
2. Fix the incentives
3. Promote and fire
4. Measure accurately- use KPI’s that measure failure rates
5. Share your failure

 

Law 22- You must become a plan A thinker

The only way you go forward is because you cannot go back- there is no Plan B

Having a backup plan can make you less motivated and likely to achieve

 

Law 23- Don’t be an ostrich

Don’t stick your head in the sand. The person with a fewest blind spots stand the greatest chance of victory

1 Pause and acknowledge

2 Review yourself

3 Speak your truth

4 Seek the truth

Law 24- You must make appreciate your privilege

Believing stress is bad for you is actually worse for you then experiencing stress

Those who reframe stress as excitement can improve their performance

1. See it – awareness is the first step
2. Share it- Sharing with a supportive community changes the psychological impact the stress has on it by creating resilience
3. Frame it- own it by recognising the positive role pressure plays
4. Use it- use the adrenaline and dopamine to succeed

 

Law 25- The power of negative manifestation

The pivotal question is why will this idea fail?

The reasons we don’t ask this question

1. Optimism bias- we focus on good things and ignore bad things
2. Confirmation bias- we pay attention to information that supports our existing ideas
3. Self-serving bias- we believe our success is a result of our own skill and effort and overestimate our abilities
4. Sunk cost fallacy bias- we stick with the decision because we’ve already spent time and money on it
5. Groupthink bias- don’t want to disagree with the group

Steps in the premortem process

1. Set the stage-  explain the purpose of the analysis
2. Fast forward to failure – ask your team to imagine the project is failed and then visualise the scenario in detail
3. Brainstorm reasons for failure- best to do individually to avoid groupthink
4. Share and discuss
5. Develop contingency plans

 

Law 26-  Your skills are worthless your context is valuable

1. Your skills hold no intrinsic value they’re worth what someone is willing to pay
2. The value of the skill is determined by the context in which it is required
3. The perception of a skills-  rarity influences how much people value it
4. People assess the work based on how much value they believe you can generate for them

 

Law 27- The discipline equation death time and discipline

Prioritise what truly matters

Discipline is the ongoing commitment to pursuing a goal independent of motivation by consistently exercising self-control, delayed gratification and perseverance

The discipline equation

1. Your perceived value of achieving the goal
2. How psychologically rewarding/ engaging the process of pursuing the goal is – gamification can help by providing rewards
3. How psychologically costly and disengaging the process is – reduce friction

 

Pillar 4 – The team

Law 28- Ask who not how

We don’t need to be able to do everything we just need to hire people that can do it well

 

Law 29 – Create a cult mentality

The ingredients of a cult

1. A sense of community and belonging- purpose, meaning and vision
2. A shared mission
3. Inspirational leader
4. An us versus them mentality

The 10 steps to building a company culture

1. Define core values and alignment with mission, vision and purpose
2. Integrate culture into every aspect and policy procedure of process
3. Agree upon expected behaviours and standards
4. Establish a purpose that goes beyond the companies commercial goals
5. Use myths stories and vocabulary to reinforce culture
6. Develop a unique identity and pride within the team
7. Create an atmosphere that celebrates achievement
8. Encourage camaraderie community and a sense of belonging
9. Remove barriers that enable employees to express themselves authentically
10. Emphasise unique qualities and contributions of employees and the collective

 

Law 30- The three bars for building great teams

When you Fire, hire, train – consider this:

If everyone in the organisation had the same values, attitude, and level of talent as this person would the bar be raised, maintained or lowered.

Law 31-  Leverage the power of progress

If we aim for perfection we fail because perfect it is so far away but if we aim for progression, we can achieve and feel good

Forward momentum can bring small wins

The reason people procrastinate is they are trying to avoid some form of psychological discomfort in their life

How to create the perspective of progress in teams

1. Creating meaning
2. Setting clear and actionable goals
3. Providing autonomy
4. Removing friction
5. Broadcasting the progress

 

Law 32. You must be an inconsistent leader

Need to know how to get the best of each individual person- not treat everyone the same.

 

Law 33. Learning never ends

 

 

 

Author: Donna Bruce