New York Times, April 24, 2006
Raytheon Chief's Management Rules Have a Familiar Ring
By LESLIE WAYNE
William H. Swanson has become something of a
management guru thanks to "Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management." It is a
compilation of folksy business advice from Mr. Swanson, the chief executive of
Raytheon, that the company distributes as a free booklet. No. 3 in his list of
33 rules begins: "Look for what is missing."
What is missing from Mr. Swanson's 76-page booklet, as an engineer discovered
last week, is any reference to what appears to be the source of many of his
rules: the 1944 book "The Unwritten Laws of Engineering" by W. J. King, an
engineering professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
When USA Today published the list of rules on its Web site on April 14 with an
article about management and character, Carl Durrenberger, a chemical engineer
and blogger in San Diego, thought some of them sounded familiar.
He was in the process of moving to a new office at Hewlett-Packard and had
recently come across a copy of the 1944 book that he had received when joining
the company five years ago.
"I was looking through it so all these aphorisms were fresh in my mind," Mr.
Durrenberger said. "It was written in a way that was very archaic in the
language it used. Then, a couple days later, I came across the USA Today
article, with the same archaic language, and I immediately knew."
In fact, a comparison of the list published by USA Today and a copy of the 1944
text available on the Web site of a California engineering firm indicates that
17 of Mr. Swanson's rules — Nos. 6 through 22, to be exact — are similar to
advice in the older book, in most cases using similar or identical language.
Mr. Swanson's Rule No. 20 says: "Cultivate the habit of boiling matters down to
the simplest terms: the proverbial 'elevator speech' is the best way." The 1944
book says: "Cultivate the habit of 'boiling matters down' to their simplest
terms."
No. 21 from Mr. Swanson reads, "Don't get excited in engineering emergencies:
Keep your feet on the ground." The 1944 book recommends, "Do not get excited in
engineering emergencies — keep your feet on the ground."
Mr. Swanson's booklet, with its modest tone, has helped polish his image as
someone who has special insight into what it takes to be successful in business
and life. It was pictured on the July 2005 cover of Business 2.0 magazine under
the headline "The C.E.O.'s Secret Handbook." An article inside quoted business
legends like Warren E. Buffett and John F. Welch Jr. praising Mr. Swanson's
insights.
The booklet has also helped to put a softer face on a company that specializes
in high-technology warfare and has benefited as military spending has increased
from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Raytheon promotes the free booklet on the home page of its Web site, asking that
those who order many copies make a donation to a charity that promotes math
education. The company says the request has raised $55,000 so far, and that
250,000 copies are in print.
Pamela A. Wickham, a spokeswoman for Raytheon, acknowledged that some of the
rules were "absolutely on track" with those in the 1944 book, but she said that
the final booklet had been shaped by Mr. Swanson's own experiences.
"Bill readily admits that a lot of these rules come from many different places,
some original, some he has learned, heard and read from others," Ms. Wickham
said. She added that the material "came from professors, mentors and from his
entire career."
Ms. Wickham also pointed to Mr. Swanson's introduction to the booklet, which
says, in part: "I urge you to be sure to share the credit. I happily do so here
and now. This is really a product of experiences over the better part of a
lifetime, of people I have learned from and things I have heard and read." The
booklet does not cite any specific sources.
In a separate article about the booklet in USA Today last December, Mr. Swanson
was quoted as saying that since joining Raytheon as an engineer in 1972 he had
jotted down insights and quotes on scraps of paper. When he was asked to give a
speech about entering management, he said, "I grabbed my scraps and turned them
into a presentation. One day we sat down with a tape recorder and turned it into
a book."
In a letter to USA Today last week that he also posted on his personal blog (neuromatix.net/Blog),
Mr. Durrenberger listed the rules that were near-perfect matches with lines in
the older book. (The rules that do not match up include: "You can't polish a
sneaker," and "Beg for the bad news.")
"I'm calling him a plagiarist," Mr. Durrenberger said in an interview. "It may
be a little hard. But the definition of plagiarism is taking someone else's work
and putting your name on it. So I'm calling it the way I see it."
Mr. Durrenberger said yesterday that he had not yet received a reply from USA
Today.
He said "The Unwritten Laws of Engineering," which is still published in an
updated edition by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, was recommended
reading. "It's dated," he said. "But it's fantastic."
