1.
FOLLOW THE GOLDEN RULE

It is more than a lesson in morality and a guide for getting along. It is a cardinal principle of ideaship.

All the good people you work with believe they can do more. Much more.

Indeed, most dream of running the company, or at least some department in the company, just as you did when you were in their positions.

Most dream of coming up with ideas that will invigorate or revolutionize the company, just as you did when you were in their positions.

The way you wanted to be treated then is the way they want to be treated now.

You didn’t want to be treated as a servant or a follower, as a person who could not think but only take orders. Neither do they.

Instead, you wanted to be treated as the person you would one day become. You wanted your boss to see the potential within you.

So do they. And just as you are only as good as you think you are, so are they.

You must help make the people you work with believe in their greatness. Unless they do, they will never attain it.

In short, if you want them to explode with creativity and attack their work with alacrity, you must treat them not as slugs, but as people who bubble with ideas.23

“When we treat a man as he is,” Goethe wrote, “we make him worse than he is. When we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.”