Recently, my friend GC sent me the latest version of his rules for business. GC has over fifty years of career insights and has successfully founded and sold a handful of ventures, so I’m extremely lucky he’s been my friend for many years and generously shares his life and insights with me.

Over the years, I’ve also given some consideration to the whys and hows of some companies succeeding whilst others fail. I’ve worked in a global chemical company, media dotcoms (one a jv with the ‘Financial Times’), CEO-Chairman’s Office of a Tier 1 investment bank, a merchant bank start-up and in PR (one of my clients was France Telecom’s Orange mobile business unit, the other was Italy’s largest insurance company), so I’ve gained some personal insights on what works and what doesn’t work. This has been compounded by being trained by managers with Ivy League MBAs, taught corporate finance by the Dean of INSEAD and mentored by friends like GC.

My rules are simple:

(1.) Genuine democracy is better than disguised dictatorship.

(2.) Reciprocity of respect — value and treat your customers and team in the same way you want to be valued and treated.

(3.) Own your responsibilities — if things go wrong, have the backbone and the humility to address the situation and find a better solution rather than falsely blaming third parties.

The character of a person is defined during times of disaster and how they deal with these issues, more than when everyone tells them they’re wonderful.

(4.) Be brave enough to think and be different from others.

If you see the iceberg ahead whilst others are being myopic or burying their heads in the sand (or even downright stupid, wreckless or arrogant/narcissistic), have the consideration to speak up and maybe save the business from hitting the iceberg and sinking and taking innocents down with it.

(5.) Work with people who share the same vision and values as you.

Don’t waste your time on people who are clueless, inconsiderate or cowards.

Last year I made the mistake of giving goodwill to a SemWeb play which proved to be the biggest business disappointment I’ve come across to-date. Frankly, the experience was a total waste of time: the company made itself a technical, marketing and customer service failure — this despite all the positive contributions from its core users. The team abused users’ trust, decimated users’ content and have values and standards of business practice which are not the same as mine. As a result of that experience, I will NOT give my goodwill to another dotcom like that ever again.

Looking back and learning from it, I’m simply thankful all associations with that SemWeb play are over.

There are some entrepreneurs in the world worth listening to and whose practices are worth following and learning from (e.g., Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Michael Bloomberg, Li Ka-Shing and friends like GC).

Then there are the pygmies and they should be ignored or they’ll drag you down to their levels of myopic small-minded thinking, disrespect for customers and sub-standards.

Always aim for and associate with the better rather than the banal.

That’s how businesses stay the course and succeed. Business models are one aspect (PPC over PPA, customer STP, eCRM analytics etc.). Even more important are the values of the business and the people leading the team. If they lack proper vision, principles, ethics, genuine commitment to delivering and concepts of respect for customers then sooner or later they’ll hit the icebergs or their venture will derail through their own actions.

I end this posting with a quote from GC’s rules which has also been an edict in my mother’s family:

” IT IS NOT A PROBLEM IF MEN DO NOT KNOW YOU, IT IS A PROBLEM IF YOU DO NOT KNOW MEN “ — Confucius.

My maternal grandmother was also a successful entrepreneur so I think this edict must be a good one!