Go Ahead...Move My Cheese

I want to write one of those business tomes. The whole "how-to," "seminar-style"...like the Move My Cheese one. A book that explains where people commonly go wrong in business. The Cheese one was a huge seller, rocking the chart-tops for months if not years on end. I believe the message in that one had to do with "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff." That's a lesson that I was able to absorb readily, even just from reading the title. That's why a good title is key: you have to convince people that they already know what you're going to tell them, and that it's something they want to be told.

So I was working on some titles, I thought perhaps "Turning Problems into Opportunities" would be a good one. But that's a bit too spot-on, it's not synergistic enough. You want something maybe a little more mystified, like "How to Turn Problems Into Issues." That's actually the subtitle, the whole title is going to be Crossing The Lake: How To Turn Problems Into Issues. See, that's got it all. The travel metaphor, very people-want-to-see-themselves-doing-it. Ah, but what's on the other side of The Lake? That's what we all want to find out! See, that's your "hook."

A good book title is like a metaphor for what people want to find inside. You also want to make sure to load that book with pithy aphorisms, such as "It's Only Work If You Do It."

And the book would contain all sorts of advice, for example: I think it's much more important to be boss than to try to be everybody's friend. If you're a boss, be a boss! Don't be a "friend" - what is a "friend" anyway? Somebody you can ask favors of? Well, there's no place for that in the workplace! I don't want to be working for a boss who's exchanging favors this and that all over. How do you know that someone won't hold that favor over your head, like in The Godfather? Next thing you know, the supposed "boss" is beholden in some way to perform some act that is illegal in some way, or immoral - or bad for the company's best interests. That's no way to gain your workers' trust. It needs to be a relationship of equals.

Speaking of bosses, what if your boss has sex with you? Is this acceptable workplace behavior? Another thorny issue to be dealt with in my book. My personal guess is that if you're going to have sex with the boss, it had better be good. I don't think I could respect a boss who I knew to be no good in bed. Sometimes you have to just look at the risks and say, it's better to just preserve that mystery intact. For the good of the company.