---
title: "Five rules for managing abstraction"
description: "Practical rules for keeping people real and relationships trusting as an organisation scales."
canonical: https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/leaders-eat-last/five-rules-for-managing-abstraction/
updated: 2026-11-03
---

# Five rules for managing abstraction

> Practical rules for keeping people real and relationships trusting as an organisation scales.

Simon Sinek's framework, from Leaders Eat Last, pp. 95 to 143.

Framework 3 of 6 from [Leaders Eat Last](https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/leaders-eat-last/index.md) by Simon Sinek. Category: Offers and pricing.

## The steps

1. **Rule 1. Keep it real.** Bring people together face to face, because trust is formed across a table and not through a screen (p. 129).
2. **Rule 2. Keep it manageable.** Obey Dunbar's number of about 150 and rely on leaders at every level to extend the Circle (p. 131).
3. **Rule 3. Meet the people you help.** Let staff see the human result of their work, as the five-minute scholarship student visits did for fundraisers (p. 134).
4. **Rule 4. Give them time, not just money.** Offer attention and energy, which carry absolute value, rather than relying on gifts or bonuses (p. 137).
5. **Rule 5. Be patient.** Allow more than seven days and fewer than seven years for real trust to form (p. 139).

## Where it comes from

From chapter: THE PATH WE CHOSE, pp. 95–143

Parts 4 and 5 trace how a post-war boom, the Baby Boom and the firing of 11,359 air traffic controllers on 5 August 1981 made mass layoffs and short-term thinking acceptable. Sinek argues that abundance does harm through abstraction, as distance and numbers turn people into statistics. Milgram's obedience experiments show 65 percent of volunteers delivering the final shock when they could neither see nor hear the student. Following the letter of the law, as the Titanic's owners and Apple did, still breaks trust. Sinek offers five rules for managing abstraction, then names the imbalance of selfish and selfless chemicals as Destructive Abundance.

## The animation

24 seconds, 4:5, no sound.

- MP4: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/leaders-eat-last/five-rules-for-managing-abstraction.mp4
- MP4, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/leaders-eat-last/five-rules-for-managing-abstraction-dark.mp4
- Still: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/leaders-eat-last/five-rules-for-managing-abstraction.png
- Still, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/leaders-eat-last/five-rules-for-managing-abstraction-dark.png