At 6 a.m. on 3 July, on NPR, I listened to about 10 people take turns reading a paragraph of the complete Declaration of Independence, 233 years old 18 hours thence. (I teared up, which surprised me—and then it didn't. What's not to tear up about the document and what it stood and stands for?) On 20 January I had also teared up, less for what Mr. Obama's taking the oath meant than for the spectacle of a peaceful transference of power ... AGAIN ... in what has become the most powerful and wealthy nation in history.

As Iran and then Honduras have demonstrated in just the last few weeks, representative democracy is a fragile creature—which makes July 4th and what it portended all the more miraculous.

To top it off there comes the fact that the Declaration of Independence was an utterly absurd idea. Britain, though distracted, was the most powerful nation on earth itself, as of the summer of 1776. And through it flowed much of the Colonies' lifeblood. Washington may well have looked the part of a Commander in Chief, resplendent on one of his grand white horses from the Mount Vernon stables, but he was, in fact, inexperienced (an earlier, botched military foray of his had ignited the French & Indian War), and his army was poorly manned and poorly equipped.

Yet the long odds came in, with many a nod to our beloved ally—France. (God bless!) And hence the first large-scale experiment in citizen sovereignty began. The journey included the burning of Washington by the very same Brits, a ghastly war among brothers, and on through the trenches of World War I, Iwo Jima and D-Day, and the 40-year cold war, when the potential nuclear cloud hung perpetually low in the sky.

The journey was never easy. And so it remains today. Iran and North Korea and Afghanistan and Pakistan are volatile beyond measure. Capitalism's nasty side effects have also caught up with us with a vengeance, as they occasionally do.

And yet on we go. We have many democratic mates today, from massive India to the massive European Union to Japan and Southeast Asia and Oceania and almost all of Latin America. We have an economy that continues to produce and fund entrepreneurs at an undiminished rate—Americans by and large see the impossible as a shot all but in the net—from Bentonville, Arkansas, to Houston to Palo Alto to Portland to Bethesda to Las Vegas to San Diego to Cambridge MA.

There is much work to be done, many potholes to fill, but also an incredible amount worth smiling about and taking pride in. It's been another tough year. And, yes, another great and amazing year in the 233-year journey from Independence Hall.

While it is customary to thank in particular our troops abroad at such a holiday, and so I wholeheartedly do, this year I want to single out the American worker—in particular the small business owners, by the millions, who have redoubled their already Herculean efforts to stay afloat and serve their communities and their employees; and the many, many workers who have taken pay cuts in preference to watching their peers laid off; the involuntarily unemployed who each day get out of bed and pursue the possibility of another job; and the entrepreneurs in tomorrow's industries who continue their 24/7 efforts to build an energetic, and exotic future. Due to so many of these folks it's actually been, in its own way, a grand year—so many have dug deep within and discovered and exhibited astonishing resilience. After all, it's the tough times that, in fact, define us—always has been the case, always will be the case.

Here's to year 234!
Welcome!

(And thank you, dear old Philadelphia!)

Above, R.K. Miles, our home and hardware store in Manchester Center VT—competes successfully with a nearby Home Depot. Below, my local country store, Mach's, in nearby Pawlet VT.

Have you been tuned into the debate? Malcolm Gladwell reviewed Chris Anderson's book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Chris Anderson responded, in part. And Seth Godin chimed in as well. Let us know what you think about the future of Free in the comments.

Cool Friend Rod Beckstrom has recently been appointed the impressive position of CEO of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).

Tom loves talking about design, and never shies away from a debate about gender differences. Cool Friend Andrea Learned has a recent post involving both that we think you might enjoy.

If you're not a texting fiend, you might find this acronym decoder site helpful. HTH! (Hope this helps!)

See directly above. It is the "control panel" of my new Black & Decker SmartBrew coffeemaker.

One switch.
Two positions.
"On."
"Off."

I hereby declare that B&D not only wins Tom's User Friendly Grand Award—but retires the cup!!

(Some of you snobs will go on & on & on about the limitations of my Dearest Delight. And I will reply with a smirk. In a blind taste test, my coffee will be as good as yours!)

Home:

Interior designer: $25,000.
Landscape designer: $15,000.
Architect: $10,000.

Logic: We live and work and play inside the dwelling (mostly) and outside the dwelling (some to a lot, depending on the climate). The skin that divides in from out, the architect's work, is a third-order concern.

Office:

Interior designer: $30,000.
Landscape designer: $12,000.
Architect: $8,000.

Logic is pretty much the same, with a little added emphasis on the interior.

If this makes sense from a use perspective (and "use" is what we do), why is the architect typically treated like God, and the interior designer and landscaper as second-stringers ... if we use them at all?

I suppose because "we" like pictures of the places we live and work better than the places themselves? (Ever notice that in architectural magazines, there are never people?) (Okay, I'll be fair, there are rarely people pix in interior design mags either—again, alas, we design for a good picture rather than livability.)

Full disclosure:

My wife is a tapestry artist and home furnishings designer-entrepreneur.
My hobby is landscaping.
I despise most Frank Gehry buildings as extravagant ego-exercises.*
[*There is one architect I love. Christopher Alexander—coauthor of the magnificent Pattern Language. He focuses on living in/using a space—inside and out—rather than the sexiness of the skin.]

Reading about Ms Pennington, I was reminded of the virtually opposite story of Ignaz Semmelweis, another pioneer in the field of sanitary conditions. While his work, and that of his peers, eventually had enormous impact, it fell flat for decades—in spite of the obviousness of his findings. Rather than making common cause with the doctors whose practices he was trying to alter (wash your hands), he instead did such things as writing letters to the press at times denouncing the docs, per Wikipedia, as "irresponsible murderers."

It is "just" a "Monday rant" from me reminding us, as the week begins, of that "all important last 98%" called implementation—and, of course, that implementation is a matter of respect and listening and carefully nurtured relationships 98% of the time.

Sure you're pissed off that the folks who will be the BENEFICIARIES (!!) of your Magnificent Work "just don't get it."

Hint: Calling them the likes of "irresponsible murderers" won't help!

Rule: Don't trashtalk prospective users of your programs—even in the most private of private conversations with your most trusted friends and allies!!

The Financial Times reported yesterday that Harvard b-school students created, and over 1,000 have signed, an oath specifying acceptable behavior. Among other things, they promise to pay equal attention to "shareholders, co-workers, customers and the society in which they operate." On the one hand, as writer Michael Skapinker says, it's easy to dismiss; the oath hardly represents "breakthrough thinking"—except perhaps in prestigious b-schools and on Wall Street. On the other hand, it is perhaps a small step in a useful direction, and deserves a tiny nod or at least temporarily suspended laughter. Some of this seems to follow not only the financial crisis, but the famous/infamous recent Jack Welch disclaimer. Welch, father-patron saint-cheerleader-haranguer-in-chief of the ubiquitous "shareholder value movement," recently dissed the primacy of shareholder value as "the dumbest idea in the world." Presumably dismissing as scurrilous the primary thing you stood for in your widely heralded career does not tarnish your reputation (Welch was just reported as starting an online B-school); to me, it makes the former GE icon a self-anointed laughingstock.

Speaking of laughingstock: My b-school alma mater, Stanford, has just appointed a new dean, Garth Saloner. I am sure he is a fine fellow, doubtless very bright—and of course I wish him well. But Stanford surely wins no out-of-the-box honors; in fact they seem to have defined "trapped in the same frigging box we've been in approximately forever." The new dean is a white-male-economist. Dear God-oh-God-oh-God-oh-God, why why why why why why another economist? Solaner, the latest poster child for non-diversity, makes the third or fourth economist in a row—I've lost track. (Before the economist streak started, we had an accountant who starred in the Enron fiasco.) The lack of imagination is nothing short of mind-boggling. I only wish I'd been giving my b-school a lot of money, so that I'd have the unalloyed pleasure of cutting them off.

Speaking of the Stanford b-school redux: I recently mentioned an excellent Harvard Business Review article, "The Buck Starts (and Stops) at Business School," in which author and former b-school dean Joel Podolny says at one point, "The degree of contrition at business schools seems small compared with the magnitude of the offense." In the issue of Stanford Business I just received, the outgoing dean, Robert Joss, offers his own assessment of b-school contrition: "A better balance is needed."

Please pass the barf bag!

To quote Tom from an April, 2006 blog post:

I got so damn sick of "excellence," so worn out by "excellence" ... for years after "the book" became a hit. Distanced myself from it. Ran from it.

But no longer. Excellence is back in a big way. If you've looked at any of Tom's slide presentations lately, you'll see that the first slide always includes: "Excellence. Always."

When Joy began to think about Excellence (which hereafter will always be capitalized at this site) and images for a banner, she thought about the wheel, and when she thinks wheels, she thinks bikes. (As a fan of bicycles myself, I’m glad that the banner begins with a bike in motion.) Joy discovered the black and white spiral while exploring the Golden Mean, also known as the Golden Ratio, and she liked the energy of it. (Cathy's concern: "When you scroll down our front page, the black spiral seems to pulse in and out. I hope we don't cause any seizures.") Yes, we all here at tompeters.com hope we don't cause any seizures, either, unless you’re seized by an urge to sit bolt upright and realize that you can begin right now to always be Excellent.

Flowers are Excellent, of course, but especially this flamboyant one. (No meek and mild-mannered flowers here.) (Recall also that Tom suggests not cutting back on your flower budget even during this recession.) And what could be more Excellent than fresh-grown garden tomatoes? From the earth, pictured next. As for the star, isn't Excellent work always rewarded with a star? (Maybe not in real life, but certainly in school. But maybe real-life Excellence should be rewarded with stars, too?)

Joy likes to include a silhouetted character in her banners. You may or may not think it's Tom, flying a kite. (His hair has never been that long in our recollection.) Think Ben Franklin and the discovery of electricity, think wind power. The words in the speech balloon clearly are Tom's, part of his new clarion call, "If not EXCELLENCE, WHAT? If not EXCELLENCE now, WHEN? " After that, we move on to the sunset, our Excellent reward at the end of each day.

That's the lowdown behind the new Summer/Excellence banner.

With that, we here wish all of you a wonderful, warm, relaxing, and Excellent summer. (As always to our friends in the southern hemisphere, best wishes for an Excellent winter.)

As always, we welcome your comments if you were there. And you can get three PPTs for the event here: Excellence. Always. ExpoGestão, ExpoGestão, Long Version, and a special deck titled The Innovation 24.

In preparation for a short speech at a Nature Conservancy fund raiser, I re-read Bill Birchard's Nature's Keepers: The Remarkable Story of How The Nature Conservancy Became the Largest Environmental Organization in the World. When former president John Sawhill was at TNC's helm, at one point he appointed a key task force to do a ground-up look at the organization's strategy. More specifically, per Sawhill's charge: "What areas should the Conservancy focus on and more important—what activities should we stop doing?"

In general, for you or me or our organization, consciously-systematically-strategically working on "stop doings" is of the utmost importance—and often overlooked. We might stop doing some distracting thing, or lower a priority—but that's not the same as a personal or organizational look at entire areas to excise from our agenda. (And then planning in exacting detail how to withdraw.)

So, I suggest:

In the next 90 days, work with your leadership team on a "Stop Doing Strategic Review." As I said above, once decisions have been made a careful execution plan must be developed.

(Along the way, do the same thing for yourself—with the eventual help of a "stop counselor.")

[Sorry, this isn't available online; you must subscribe to Newsmax.—CM]

Namely: What is this candidate's track record—in exacting detail—in developing people. Though hardly locked in concrete, I posited that "the ONE question" might go something like this:

"In the last year [3 years, current job], name the three people whose growth you've most contributed to. Please explain in some significant detail where each was at the beginning of the year, where he or she is today, and where each is heading in the next 12 and 24 and 60 months. Please explain your development strategy in each case. Please tell me your biggest development disappointment this past year—looking back, could you or would you have done anything differently? Please tell me about your greatest development triumph—and disaster—in the last ten years. What are the 'three big things' you've learned about 'people development' along the way."

As I see it, it's not the boss' role, for instance, to make strategy. It's the boss's role to develop the best strategist—and the boss's role to ensure that the process thereof is moving along rapidly and imaginatively. And so on.

Finally, as I see it, this in some form applies to pretty much every promotion. And it even has a bearing on evaluating a non-manager on a 3-month project. That rather junior person will, for example, in several instances be responsible for accomplishing a milestone—and to do so, she must engage her team members, and engage them in a way that they go away with some learnings—that contribute a bit to their development.

What do you think about this riff?

See above. The promotion decision should be dominated by the candidates' detailed track record at people development. The candidates' assertions should be carefully checked with the people the candidates claim to have developed.

Diamond and Fink graced page B1 of Saturday's Wall Street Journal. The story was of BlackRock's purchase of Barclays' money management operation. It was reported that the top 400 Barclays execs would divvy up $630 million—and Diamond would receive about $36.5 million.

What bugged me was not the $$$-signs per se.

What made me gag were the big, gaping grins on the two guys' faces. I think that is appalling-insensitive-stupefying-outrageous-disgusting-sickening in June 2009.

Would I love to find a check in the mail for $36.5 million? Damn right. Might it light up my face? Sure, but hopefully in the privacy of my entry hall at home. Not some big silly ass public grin—as thousands more are in the process of receiving pink slips in the same mail delivery.

One suspects that the pathetic saps actually think they deserved the bucks for "hard work" and personal brilliance. And maybe they even think the 20,000 a day who lose their jobs in the U.S. alone deserve their fates for not having kept their collective noses close enough to the grind stone.

But ...

But (not the first time I've used this phrase of late) ... have they no shame? If the photo was a must, couldn't they have shown a little sobriety of demeanor? I'm not asking for grim—just the tiniest inkling that they comprehend that not quite everyone experienced a $36.5 million payday on 12 June 2009.

Sorry bastards!

I do not wish them harm.
I do not wish them well.

As a vociferous 30-year critic of the b-schools, almost every word was music to my ears. Podolny and I share views at the 99.999% level.

[NB: In the same HBR, check out "Relentless Idealism for Tough Times," a terrific interview with Chez Panisse founder (1971) Alice Waters. Among other things, Waters insists that her chefs spend FIFTY PERCENT of their time away from their kitchen learning new stuff!!.]

Robert Samuelson is no right-wing nut. But he is a severe critic of President Obama's health plan. And I agree with almost every word he wrote in an Op-ed in the 15 June IBD. Here are a few of those words:

"Much medical spending is wasted. It doesn't improve Americans' health; some care is unneeded or ineffective. [TP: Some estimates of unnecessary care hit the trillion-dollar mark per annum; and some estimates suggest that in cases like bypass surgery, over 90% of the time it's used it's unnecessary.] The central cause of runaway healthcare is clear. Hospitals and doctors are paid mostly on a fee-for-service basis. ... The open-ended payment system encourages doctors and hospitals to provide more services—and patients to expect them. ... That's the crux of the healthcare dilemma, and Obama hasn't confronted it."

[NB: The same day I read Samuelson's piece, I also perused "The Health Reform We Need and Are Not Getting," by Arnold Relman, in the 2 July New York Review of Books. A brief excerpt: "Economists say that the primary reason for high costs is the ever-expanding use of expensive kinds of diagnosis and treatment, such as new drugs, diagnostic tests, imaging methods and surgical procedures. Physicians in most other advanced countries have access to virtually the same resources, but use them less. This difference is partly explained by a higher proportion of specialists in the U.S. who rely more than primary care physicians on expensive technical procedures for their livelihood, and in general are much more highly paid than primary care physicians—one reason why primary care doctors are now in short supply. The American College of Physicians attributes much of the high cost of the US health system to its relative excess of well-paid specialists and lack of primary care doctors. ... In seeking consensus, Obama's health reform policies do not address the central causes of rising costs, and propose nothing likely to have much effect on them."]

[NB: In short, per Samuelson, Relman and me, if you don't go after (1) fee-for-service, (2) unnecessary care, (3) mal-practice tort reform, (4) evidence-based medicine, (5) geographic spending variations, (6) redirection of resources to wellness, prevention, and chronic-care, and (7) the excess of specialists and shortage of primary care physicians, then healthcare reform is a joke. Ergo, healthcare reform is a joke.]

On a cheerier note: above, an aptly named "beauty bush" outside my studio; below, one of Susan's Peonies.

If you wait tables, make sure that the customer's experience depends on you, and who you are, and would have been different with another server who served the same meals.

If you are a technology consultant, make sure that your client's experience would be totally different if another consultant were delivering the same advice.

If you are a doctor, make sure that your patient's experience is made special by who you are, and would be different if another doctor delivered the same diagnosis.

Relationship-building encounters don't happen between "waiter and customer," "consultant and client," or "doctor and patient." They happen between human beings. It is, of course, critically important to treat your customer like a full person, and honor what makes her unique. But that is only half the equation. Make sure that you represent yourself in the encounter, not as a representative of your job role, but as you. Interact with your customer in a way that could only be done by you, a way in which another person could not substitute for you without making the experience different.

Early in my days as a consultant I had a breakthrough moment. I realized that I didn't want my clients to think of me as "our marketing consultant, Steve," but as "Steve, our marketing consultant." This is not a subtle distinction. It's the difference between being replaceable, and irreplaceable.

In one sense, being irreplaceable isn't easy. But in another sense it is, because there's no one else on earth like you. Be you. Be irreplaceable.

[See more by Cool Friend Steve Yastrow at www.yastrow.com.]

Regular commenter Ian Sanders sent us a link to a good customer service story on his blog. Actually, an over-the-top, awesomely out-of-the-ordinary, beyond-what-you'd-ever-expect customer service story.

Tom Asacker is another person who comments regularly on our blog. We got to know him because Tom Peters used to quote something fun he wrote in a letter to the editor at Fast Company magazine (don't ask how long ago). Asacker sent us a link to a PDF at his site you might enjoy reading: Wealth Flows from Health. Again, customer service is the focus, but it encompasses many aspects of business health.

Here's an article that smacked of Tom's leanings so much that it jumped out at us. "The Forgotten Market Online: Older Women" lays out the case that "New Fashion Sites Target Youth—Though Most Web Apparel Sales Are to Women Over 35."

For those Free Agents out there (and the people who love them), this recent article, "Self-Employed Depression," from the New York Times will most likely ring all too true.

Finally, someone turned us on to a new service which might be useful to someone who doesn't have their own website. Nombray.com is about collecting your online identities (LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, etc.) in one place.

Postscript: Cool Friend Andrea Learned blogged at her site about logo genderfication, and we thought you might like to read what she has to say.