Bill Canady lays out four leadership rules: share bad news early before it surprises senior leaders, keep team pace steady so quarterly gates hit by day 30, make decisions with 25 to 80 percent data rather than waiting for certainty, and measure results, not effort. A .300 batting average gets you fired in baseball and business alike.
Rule number 1, no surprises. Bad news, relatives, and fish all stink after 3 days. Your, your chair never hears something bad first in a board meeting. You want to tell them beforehand. 2, be on pace. Too fast, you leave everyone behind you and you're doing it alone. Too slow, you're the bottleneck. Every quarter has a gate and you know by day 30 whether you're through it, not day 85 when you're building the deck. Number 3, be data-driven. Under 25% of the data, you're guessing. Waiting for 80, you're probably too late. The work lives in the gray middle, the ambiguity, and that's the job. Get comfortable with it. Number 4, results matter. Someone's going to say we did the best we could, and we are not a best effort company. Bat .300 in baseball and you're in Cooperstown. Bat .300 here, you're probably gone.
