But it's important to note, the rules I'm talking about aren't the ones that governments enact or that companies put in their policy manuals. The rules I'm talking about are the ones that truly drive action, the ones in our heads that tell us what kinds of outcomes we can expect if we take or avoid certain actions. Think of the great Japanese banks over the past several years as they ignored their bad loans, or GM every year since 1980 as they avoid the issue of designing and building really great cars, or IBM giving the keys to the PC kingdom to Bill Gates, or General Foods allowing Starbucks to capture the premium coffee market. All had smart people. And all committed one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins of Business.
Sins have bad consequences, and that's true in business too.
You might say that many of these sins are more sins of omission than commission. Yes, of course. And then pray that we sin less often or on less important matters than our competitors do. Less than meets the eye. Where they are different, I think, is in the amount of emotion they bring to the task and engender among others.