Don’t turn your back on the monarch. Ever. If you need to leave the room, shuffle away backward.
Don’t sit in the monarch’s presence.
Don’t speak unless spoken to.
Do bow at the throne, even when it’s empty.
Do wear a sword to court, but make sure it’s not too long or too short.
These were just a few of the many rules surrounding the monarchies of Queen Victoria and Elizabeth I.
When Mary Barra stepped into the CEO role at General Motors in 2009, she inherited a similarly complex rule-set: a 10-page dress code.
She replaced it with two words: “Dress appropriately.”
The US Code of Federal Regulations spans nearly 200,000 pages. Someone, at some point, decided each one was necessary.
That’s because most new leaders add things. New processes. New rules. New systems to prove they’re doing something and have shiny, new ideas.
The best ones add by removing the unnecessary.
As Elon Musk said, “The best part is no part. The best process is no process. It weighs nothing. Costs nothing. Can’t go wrong.”
Or as Steve Jobs reminds us, “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it.”
We’ll leave you with two things to think about: are you bowing to an empty throne? Is the throne even necessary in the first place?
