Rules of Work, 5th Edition

RULE 1

Knowledge is power

Everyone comes across with more authority when they think they’re right. The trouble is, as you’ll have noticed, sometimes people think they’re right when they’re not. And if you behave as if you have the argument, plan, decision clinched, but in fact other people can see you’re not as right as you think, you can come across as a zealot. At best you draw attention to your wrongness.

A friend of mine when I was growing up had a father who was a church minister. One day my friend went into his dad’s study to fetch something, and glanced at the sermon his father was working on, which was lying on the desk. He noticed with great amusement (and passed it on to his friends with delight) that at one point his dad had written ...