The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

Assemble the right team of lieutenants.
As the leader of a reality group,
you need the ability to focus on the larger picture and the overall goals
that matter. You have only so much mental energy, and you must
marshal it wisely. The greatest obstacle to this is your fear of delegating
authority. If you succumb to micromanaging, your mind will become
clouded by all the details you try to keep on top of and the battles
among the courtiers. Your own confusion then filters down through
the group, ruining the effect of the first strategy.
What you need to do from the outset is to cultivate a team of
lieutenants, imbued with your spirit and the collective sense of
purpose, whom you can trust to manage the execution of ideas. To
achieve this, you must have the right standards—you do not base your
selection on people’s charm, and never hire friends. You want the most
competent person for the job. You also give great consideration to their
character. Some people can be brilliant, but in the end their poisonous
personalities and egos make them a drain on the group’s spirit. (For
more on judging character, see chapter 4.)
You select for this team people who have skills that you lack, each
individual with their particular strengths. They know their roles. You
also want this team of lieutenants to be diverse in temperament,
background, and ideas. They show a willingness to speak up and take
initiative, all within the framework of the group’s purpose. They can

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even challenge some rules that seem outdated. Feeling a part of a team
but able to bring their own creativity to the tasks will bring out the best
in them, and this spirit will spread throughout the group.
For this team of lieutenants, and for the group as a whole, you want
to make sure that members are treated more or less equally—no one
has special privileges; rewards and punishments are doled out fairly
and evenly. If particular individuals are not living up to the ideal, you
get rid of them. Now if you bring in new lieutenants, they naturally are
absorbed into the healthy dynamic. You are also leading from the
front. If there are sacrifices to be made, you share in them as much as
any member. In doing all of this, you will make it harder for people to
feel envious and resentful, which can sow divisions and make people
political.