Free If You Don't Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails by Barbara Corcoran, Bruce Littlefield

more of something. Containers, like Esther, are naturally inclined to keep everything in order. One without the other always runs into trouble, because after a great idea is birthed, it needs to be nursed.
    4. Always choose attitude over experience. Always.
    People with the right attitude are a pleasure to work with. They are willing to learn, eager to try. and excited to discover something new. If someone likes to do things their way or no way. don't hire them. Bad attitude is bad news.
    5. All things being equal, always choose a woman over a man.
    Women have more to prove than men, and they'll work much harder proving it. They work differently from men. their style is more collaborative, and they know how to read between the lines. Women are pragmatic, much more likely than men to tell the truth, and they're definitely more fun to work with. Besides, choosing a woman puts you on the cutting edge, since women are taking over anyway.
    6. Make sure they fit in.
    A good organization is like a box of crayons. You need different colors of the spectrum, but all the crayons should fit in the box.

    7. Make jobs for people, don't squeeze people into jobs.
    Everyone has something they do best, and a manager's job is to find it and wrap a position around it. Esther Kaplan's purse indicated that she had the organizational flair to run a tight ship.
    Most of the positions in my company were created around the specific people who hold them. Some examples:
    • Our Welcome Lady. The beautiful young woman I found sitting behind the counter at my neighborhood florist had a smile I'd walk the extra four blocks to see. She was an anomaly, a smiling New Yorkerl I hired her as a walkin', talkin' smile for our business. She warmly welcomes out-of-towners to our city and quickly introduces them to the right salespeople. Ours.
    • Our Swing Manager. One of our talented salespeople spent half her time between appointments helping and coaching her colleagues, yet refused my offer to become a full-time sales manager. She said she had no interest in being tied down to "the twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week" routine of running an office. (And she was right, our sales managers never really had a peaceful day off.) We created a new position of "swing manager" around her. She got the flexibility she wanted, and the new position guaranteed our sales managers days off and carefree vacations.
    • Our Marketing Coach. There's always a day when a great salesperson decides he or she "doesn't want to be in sales anymore." So, when one of our best salespeople and self-promoters made that declaration, I handed him a paintbrush and told him to paint a picture of his dream job. The picture he painted was one of teaching other people how best to market themselves to get more business. He's now our in-house guru on self-promotion and a singular attraction in luring good salespeople from other firms.

    8. Make sure people see their gift.
    It's the manager's job to find the gift and underline it. Just like my mother identified the gifts in her children, a good manager helps people see their potential and reminds them of it regularly.
    9. Tell them to make mistakes. Make it part of their job.
    Failing and growing are the same thing, and a good manager communicates that belief. Fve found that sharing my own failures is the surefire way to put failure in the positive light it deserves. It's no good if people are afraid to fail, or afraid to tell you theyve failed. That atmosphere leads to a lot of skeletons stashed in closets. It's not fun when thej start spilling out—and they always do.
    10. Throw them the ball and cut the string.
    Make sure people understand that they don't need to report each day's progress. But make sure they also understand that you expect to hear from them whenever they get stalled.
    I've found that the more confidence you express in people, the harder and more creatively they will work to solve a problem. When you tell someone, "You're a