My book club is currently reading a biography of Helen Gurley Brown, the amazing, self-assertive author and editor. Not only was Brown a trailblazer with her book “Sex and the Single Girl,” she was also an enormously successful editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. Success being measured by increased readership and advertising revenue, and she was there for 32 years.

Helen Gurley Brown also became known for her management style, which led to her cultivating an incredibly loyal staff (many top editors and her personal assistant staying with her for more than 20 years). Given her success, Fortune magazine profiled Brown in 1996, inviting her to share her insights about successful management. Some of her tips include (from pg. 157 of “Bad Girls Go Everywhere”):

• • • • Spending money is good; wasting it is dumb
      • Don’t lose your temper, as you already have control
      • Listen to ideas, but have your vision in place and stay loyal to it
      • Leave your door open, but try to visit others so you can control the time spent together
      • Don’t show off good people, just give them responsibilities
      • Give credit to employees, sometimes even when it was your initial idea
      • Put up with employees who need to deal with family issues on the workplace clock
      • Fraternize with the staff when it feels right, as some may become close friends

Her final piece of advice, which rings true for any setting and accounts for a great deal of success: “work harder than everyone else.”

Over a decade later, Jack and Suzy Welch, in a BusinessWeek article, offer some strikingly similar advice to college graduates, “The way to get ahead is to overdeliver. Expand the organization’s expectations of you and exceed them.”

The Welch’s go on to expand their “overdeliver” credo to include:

• • • • Get off your computer – build relationships by talking and maintain them electronically.
      • You’ve got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues – in this marketplace, flexibility is a reward, not an entitlement.
      • Love everyone – shed the cynicism and listen to every voice.
      • Stop apologizing – there’s no need to feel shame about business; it is a force for progress in the world.

I’d say that is some snappy advice from Brown and The Welch’s. And, advice that is fitting for all of us whether you are a jobseeker or currently employed, working in retail or another workplace. In short, we all need to work harder and overdeliver.