Dispatches from the New World of Work

Be Irreplaceable

In your next interaction with a customer, try this: Be irreplaceable.

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.]

EXCELLENCE?
Always?
Yes!

(As Far as I'm Concerned.)
(And I'm right.)
(Damn it.)

I have some fear that you'll read this and accuse me of playing "holier than thou"—the good news is that I know you'll let me know if that's the case.

I went to town earlier today to do some errands—including, yes, getting yet another brushcutting tool.

On the way, I was delayed by a crew doing some roadside tree trimming. One lane of VT Route 30 was closed—and there was, naturally, a Flagman at each end of the work area.

As is my habit ("Tom being Tom" is Susan's term for it), I waved to the flagman—not some big full-body "Hiya," just a little flick of the wrist. It ain't a great job, and a dollop of recognition can't hurt—right?

The guy on the front end waved back—a similar flick of the wrist, and perhaps a little nod. But as I approached the other end, I almost cringed. The Flagman there had as sour-grim an expression as I've seen in a long time. Not aggressively, attack-dog sour, just sour-sour. (Presumably you know what I mean.) I waved anyway, but as expected received no response whatsoever.

Maybe Flagman #2 was fired from a two-hundred-thou-a-year job at Lehman. Maybe Wal*Mart laid him off. Maybe his wife is pissed off at him. Maybe he has a nasty head cold. Any of those things is possible, or a hundred others—plus the job's not exactly a major career step.

Or is it?
(More accurately, could it be?)

I use a lot of quotes in my speeches; but the fact is that I commit very few to memory. But one that is etched indelibly into my synapses comes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."

I'm sure there are multiple interpretations of this, and for awhile I had a touch of trouble with the quote: Did it mean that our street sweeper should aspire to no more than street sweeping? I decided not necessarily. To my mind, the quote means that whatever you are doing for whatever reason can be (ought to be, per Dr. King) turned to a Work of High Art and Fullblown Commitment.

I remember, on a visit to Rome at Easter a couple of years ago, racing at one point to catch a glimpse of a world-famous (!!-true) cop who stood in the center of a mid-city roundabout directing traffic with the same style-vigor-artistry with which Leonard Bernstein conducted a symphony orchestra or John Madden coached from the football sidelines.

It's a truism, as I see it, that a Flagman's job, per Dr. King and our Grand Roman Traffic-circle Cop, could indeed be turned into High Art. Or at least the work could be performed with a positive-vigorous-engaged attitude.

My sour Flagman made me sad—mostly for him, but it also put a wee dent in my day. These are troubled economic times. Some readers are doubtless doing something "less" than they were a year ago—perhaps both their ego and wallet have been dented.

But no one but no one but no one can rob you of your attitude. It's all yours to shape and put on parade.

Maybe tough times make it tough to sport a grin. But tough times are especially good times (!!!) to Stand Out for your Spirit & Determination & Engagement & Comradeship.

Flagman, 7-11 clerk, or bank teller, there's always a promotion right around the corner—or at least something close to a short-term employment guarantee—if you live by the words of Martin Luther King. And if the great attitude is still not enough, you retain your self-respect—which is no small thing.

The bastids can't steal your attitude!
(No matter how hard they may advertently or inadvertently try.)
Your attitude is all yours!
Are you Flagman #2?
Or Dr. King's street sweeper?

[Above, my new Corona Ratchet Action Bypass Lopper RL3560. Below, feeding time in the Peacable Kingdom, West Tinmouth VT.]

Sleep In ...

Our friend Tom Asacker counters in a Comment with this wonderful piece of quasi-Haiku:

Sleep in tomorrow.
Unplug.
Take a walk in the woods.
Don't try to figure out a damn thing.
Breathe.
Make a whistle from an acorn top.
Say, "You are very lucky. Be at peace." At least a dozen times.
Be invisible.
Be of open heart.
Catch a fish.
Or not.
Repeat weekly.

Presumably the two lists could be used together. I think so. Don't know what Tom A's view is—or yours.

Consider ...

Daily Wisdom for Troubled Times

Get up earlier.
Go to bed later.
Work harder.
Finish what you start.
Learn one new thing.
Renew one contact.
Ask, "How can I help you?" at least once.
Make yourself visible.
Be of good cheer.

Catch a break.
Or not.

Repeat tomorrow.

"Dealing with Recessionary Times"

I am constantly asked for "strategies/'secrets' for surviving the recession." I try to appear wise and informed—and parade original, sophisticated thoughts. But if you want to know what's going through my head, read the list below:

You work longer.
You work harder.
You may well work for less; and, if so, you adapt to the untoward circumstances with a smile—even if it kills you inside.
You volunteer to do more.
You always bring a good attitude to work.
You fake it if your good attitude flags.
You literally practice your "game face" in the mirror in the morning, and in the loo mid-morning.
You shrug off shit that flows downhill in your direction—buy a shovel or a "pre-worn" raincoat on eBay.
You get there earlier.
You leave later.
You forget about "the good old days"—nostalgia is for wimps.
You buck yourself up with the thought that "this too shall pass"—but then remind yourself that it might not pass anytime soon, so you re-dedicate yourself to making the absolute best of what you have now.
You eschew all forms of personal excess.
You simplify.
You sweat the details as you never have before.
You sweat the details as you never have before.
You sweat the details as you never have before.
You raise to the sky the standards of excellence by which you evaluate your own performance.
You thank others by the truckload if good things happen—and take the heat yourself if bad things happen.
You behave kindly, but you don't sugarcoat or hide the truth—humans are startlingly resilient.
You treat small successes as if they were Superbowl victories—and celebrate and commend accordingly.
You shrug off the losses (ignoring what's going on inside your tummy), and get back on the horse and try again.
You avoid negative people to the extent you can—pollution kills.
You eventually read the gloom-sprayers the riot act.
You learn new tricks of your trade.
You network like a demon.
You help others with their issues.
You give new meaning to the word "thoughtful."
You redouble, re-triple your efforts to "walk in your customer's shoes." (Especially if the shoes smell.)
You mind your manners—and accept others' lack of manners in the face of their strains.
You are kind to all mankind.
You leave the blame game at the office door.
You become a paragon of accountability.
And then you pray.

[This post sent to you from the business lounge aboard the M/S Star, en route Tallinn to Helsinki—and fully wired, or, rather, wireless, at Sea, crossing the Gulf of Finland. Photo above.]

[The list is also available in PowerPoint.—CM]

Is Civility a Sin?

HP boss Mark Hurd gets his moment in the sun as cover boy for the 16 March Fortune "Mark Hurd's Moment." He's a numbers maniac and tops in a recession, it's said, though Fortune wonders whether or not he's a "CEO for the ages."

I think he's done a fine job on following through with the utterly amazing corporate culture revolution that Carly Fiorina launched. She transformed HP from hyper-nerdy-nerds-making-stuff-for-nerds to super-cool and consumer friendly, too, then iced the change with the successful Compaq merger—about the only one of those big suckers in recent (or not so recent) memory that has worked out more or less as intended.

But the above is not the point of the post. The point is an off-to-the-side remark by P&G CEO A.G. Lafley concerning Mr. Hurd: "When we meet there's no chitchat or warm-up. It's right to business."

So my question du jour: Is numbers-obsessed-no-chitchat the guaranteed way to run a business successfully?

I am well aware of the problems with numbers' obsession—I've devoted the last 30 years of my life to questioning obsessive numbers-come-first-and-last management. But this adds a new dimension: Is civility, too, a sin, comparable to focusing on more than the numbers?

(Related query, does Mr Hurd ask his kids about grades first, then, and only after getting the numeric answer to the grades query, ask how their day went? Just wondering.)

(NB: I had the privilege of "wandering around" with Sam Walton on a few occasions. When talking to a store manager, he invariably began with queries about wife and kids—and to my amazement he usually remembered something or other about a spouse or a child.)

What a "Personal Brand" is NOT

A personal brand is your promise to the marketplace and the world. Since everyone makes a promise to the world, one does not have a choice of having or not having a personal brand. Everyone has one. The real question is whether someone’s personal brand is powerful enough to be meaningful to the person and the marketplace.

I thought it would help to highlight what is NOT a personal brand. Here is a quick (partial) list:

1. It's NOT what you say about yourself.

In simple terms, what you say about yourself falls under the category of "freedom of speech." You can say whatever you want. Does not mean a thing. Your personal brand is an assessment the marketplace makes about who you are and what you bring to the marketplace.

2. It's NOT an extension of your employer's brand.

Unless you are self-employed, it is hard to extend your employer's brand to make it look like your personal brand.

3. It's NOT your presence in the social media.

Yes, social media can amplify your personal brand, but the presence itself cannot be a substitute for a personal brand. There are a few exceptions here, as some people have built a brand as social media experts and they live in the social media (for obvious reasons).

It is also NOT how "popular" you are in the social media. You can be entertaining (and funny) and become popular, but that does not automatically grant you authority unless humor is part of your offer to the marketplace.

4. It's NOT something that you can ASK for.

People give it to you when you deserve it.

5. It's NOT something that you are entitled to.

It does not come with a job position or a title. A job or title might help with your personal brand, but it can't be proxy for your personal brand.

6. It's NOT a perk.

It is not something a company can decide to give you as an "extra" because you did a good job.

7. It's NOT about the power alone.

While it provides you the power, a "personal brand" is mostly about giving. Power and influence are mostly the side benefits of your personal brand.

Here is something to think about:

What is it you are giving to the world that is so valuable that the world will reward you back with a powerful personal brand?

8. It's NOT a gift that someone can give you.

Someone cannot give you a gift of a "Personal Brand," but they can give you a gift to amplify an "already powerful" personal brand. A well-deserved link, an endorsement, a testimonial, etc., are all gifts that can amplify a personal brand.

9. It's NOT permanent.

It's not something that you can get and keep it for life. You have to work hard to get a powerful personal brand. But that's only the first step. You have to continue to work hard to keep that powerful personal brand and grow it.

[Cool Friend Raj Setty works with like-minded entrepreneurs to bring good ideas to life and spread their adoption. You can learn more about him at www.rajeshsetty.com or follow him on his blog, Life Beyond Code, or on Twitter @UpbeatNow.]

Brand You: Ten Years Later, Needed More Than Ever

[Julie Anixter was a key part of the Tom Peters team behind the Reinventing Work books. His R&D gal, Tom called her "Official Muse," as she had the passion and stamina to go toe-to-toe with him on these ideas and then take them out into the world and crusade for them. She can currently be found as CMO of the design firm Brandimage - Desgrippes & Laga and blogging at www.thinkremarkable.com.—CM]

If year-end is good for reflection, this year-end has got to be one of the most poignant in a long time, as we watch and wonder and slide between the chaos (Wall Street, Detroit, our 401Ks) and the promise (an Obama & crew heading towards 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and clean green technologies poking through the haze of unconsciousness thanks to Thomas Friedman and others.)

Each time my own heart breaks a little for every laid-off worker, every ravaged "everyman and everywoman" whose non-Wall Street career adds up to a whole lotta loss despite loyalty and hard work, the next thing I know my neural networks careen toward the idea that Tom dropped like a big stone in our cultural pond, in August 1997, with the now-famous Tide "kapow-take-that!" Fast Company cover story "The Brand Called You." A year or so later, I was challenged to the hilt myself, collaborating on three books and educational programs with Tom, and his inner circle of creatives, three great little lists of 50 calls to action: The Project50, The Professional Service Firm50, and The BrandYou50.

Tom called these three topics "The Work Matters" movement, and we, like elves before Christmas, had an incredible sense of urgency about getting these ideas out to the world because dot-com mania and outsourcing were making it clear that white collar jobs were going to decline and anxiety was beginning to twist in the air. In retrospect, perhaps we—the collective we—weren't ... anxious enough.

Perhaps the idea that you too could be your own box of Tide, ready to be grabbed off the shelf (which would in fact make you one of the best loved, most valuable franchises on the planet), of branding yourself—like most big ideas—was a bit hard to swallow at first. Perhaps just a little too ahead of its time. Tom claims he always wants to be five minutes ahead—but this idea of "being a brand" and all the self-focus (aka self-care) was extremely ahead and is still not well embraced ... particularly in many leadership suites where individual brands were viewed as big recruiting targets and a pain in the ass.

Just think, if the brand-centric idea of doing work so well, so remarkably, so worth noticing, had become inherited wisdom, if it had become a survival strategy that any self-respecting job holder-careerist, blue, white, or green collar had to hold on to ... this season's sheer human greed and destruction would be a little easier to swallow. Because we'd all just pick up our tools, our resumes, our reputations built on our WORK, and move to the next team, job, town, or wherever, that we were "in demand." Come to think of it, it's not a bad idea now, today, circa 2009, to try on that remarkable thinking for size.

Maybe the most profound learning I had through that whole wonderful project was that we are all, already, walking brands. We just have to polish them so that we can see them shine. So read the book, take it to heart, or just check out Tom's challenge from the article:

The real action is at the other end: the main chance is becoming a free agent in an economy of free agents, looking to have the best season you can imagine in your field, looking to do your best work and chalk up a remarkable track record, and looking to establish your own micro equivalent of the Nike swoosh. Because if you do, you'll not only reach out toward every opportunity within arm's (or laptop's) length, you'll not only make a noteworthy contribution to your team's success—you'll also put yourself in a great bargaining position for next season's free-agency market." (Tom Peters, "The Brand Called You," Fast Company, August 1997)

Repeat!

I used this quote last week in a post. Since then, I've shared it with dozens of people in professional and personal settings. Almost no one has failed to say, "Email it to me—I want to circulate it." Hence my decision to re-inflict you with it:

At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, "Yes, but I have something he will never have ... enough."

—John Bogle, Enough. The Measures of Money, Business, and Life. (Bogle is founder of the Vanguard Mutual Fund Group.)

Gradually ... Then Suddenly

In the book The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway paints a scenario where one of the key characters, Mike Campbell, is asked, "How did you go bankrupt?" His response is "Gradually ... then suddenly." This is so very applicable to a recession scenario. Actually, it is applicable to all our lives—you don't fail suddenly; you fail gradually through a series of small failures everyday. The day you fail is just a culmination of all the small failures you have had.

Yes, you can get away with "no progress during a recession" by blaming the recession, but really, if things are not going well, you should blame yourself for the way you behaved leading up to the recession.

"Gradually ... then suddenly" is the phenomenon that will explain a lot of mess we are in today. We are trying to find instant solutions to problems that we have created over years.

If you are a knowledge worker, there is a big dilemma today. If you are engaged in a craft that can be "well defined" chances are that sooner than later your job will be outsourced. Not to another location in the U.S., but to another country. Hard work won't help. Why? Because technology really makes it easy for commodity skills to be leveraged from a remote location without a large overhead. An overseas worker may match you on your commodity skills, but you can't work for the same wages.

So what should one do?

First is to realize that general job skills (like technology skills) provide only an entry ticket. You can't thrive (or even survive for long) with just those skills. You need skills beyond that. Skills such as building a personal brand, building long-term relationships, learning how to learn, etc.

This Thanksgiving I wanted to do something to help.

Looking back, I recall that this was exactly the topic of my book Beyond Code (foreword by my hero Tom Peters), which was published in late 2005. The book did very well both here in the U.S. and in India. I had spent ten years researching and writing the book. One simple plan was to give this book away for FREE—no strings attached. Kenzi Sugihara from Select Books (the publisher) was in full support.

So, as of yesterday, the complete version of Beyond Code is free. You can download the book with no strings attached. Here is the link.

Finally, here is a thing about life:
Something that has been built over a long period of time can be destroyed almost instantly. However, the opposite is not true—something that has been destroyed over a long period cannot be restored instantly.

I wish you the very best for this holiday season

(Cool Friend Rajesh Setty is intimately involved in working with like-minded entrepreneurs to bring good ideas to life and spread their adoption. You can learn more about him at www.rajeshsetty.com.)

Tomorrow Is the First Day of the Rest of Our Lives!

In response to my 1 November "political post," Dave Wheeler wrote, among other things: "This election cycle is soon to end. I for one will make it a point to go out and become active in my community again. It's time to put the 'citizen' back in citizen government …"

Brilliant, Dave!
Let's heed his words—and turn them into deeds!
Now!

When folks bitch about government in a seminar, my automatic response is, "So why don't you run for the school board?" (Or whatever.) This particular path is, of course, harder in Milwaukee than in Tinmouth VT. But there are always numerous things, many quite small and achievable, of abiding local significance to get involved in. The world is, in fact, not all that flat—and Local Engagement is, was, and will be forevermore the Centerpiece of democratic government.

For those who made new friends while doing campaign work, in particular—take advantage of these new civic-minded colleagues more or less immediately. How, now, immediately, can we begin to harness this outpouring of civic virtue into the service of pressing local, typically non-partisan needs? For those who were engaged in Internet politics during the campaign, how might we convert these amazing, mostly new in many cases, networks into vehicles to promote the common good in a way that bears little or no relationship to national party concerns?

Almost 50% of us will be licking our wounds tomorrow morning. Fair enough. But how about, on Thursday, or at the weekend, beginning—no kidding, tiny steps—to harness our newfound activism for the local public good?

Take It From Your Old Pappy

If you're like me, you've heard a dozen dozen people say, "I can't wait until the election is over." I share the feeling—sorta.

Fact is, we say this kind of thing a lot: "I can't wait 'til Spring." "I can't wait until _____ makes his mind up, so that we can get moving." Etc.

Bad!
Bad!
Bad!

Your correspondent (me) will be Sweet Sixteen, whoops Sixty-Six, next week. And since I don't expect to live to 132, I can say with assurance that I'm playing in the second half. And therefore I refuse to allow myself to fall into the "I wish it were next Wednesday" trap—even though I more or less do.

I have at least disciplined myself to the point of giving myself a verbal slap in the face when the "wish away" thought crosses my mind.

One does reasonably wish the surgery were over, that final exams were past, that their kid would get back from Iraq. Nonetheless, and I'm no Zen practitioner, the goal, as in the goal, is always, as in always, to make the absolute most of the moment—because, to state the obvious but often ignored truism, the moment-this moment is all we ever have.

And it is absolutely positively as true at 26 or 36 or 46 or 56 as it is at 66.

I am still not very good at this—and often "wish this trip were over" so I can get back home. Well, I do want to be at home, but my life for the next few days is here (lovely Durango CO and then magical Mexico City) not there—and I damn well don't want to piss away a moment of it. Neither should you.

Civil! Civil! Civil!

I will not use this blog for political purposes. Period. What follows is not political.

I got involved in something this morning. Someone asked me to do something for a candidate. They began with a nasty, longwinded riff on how awful some candidate was. On and on it went.

Until I hung up.

Emotions are running high in this election. But that is no cause for incivility. Ever. I was tempted to swear like a sailor at this guy—but it would have defeated my purpose.

Tempers flare in elections—and in business everyday. I don't object to sounding off in the privacy of a pub with two friends. I do object to such intemperate sounding off in more or less public discourse.

In politics.
At work.
Period.

(Plus: It doesn't work and makes you the idiot.)

The World Is a Liar!

In case you missed this:

"In a way, the world is a great liar. It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day it doesn't. It says it adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn't, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. At the end it gives its greatest tributes to generosity, honesty, courage, mercy, talents well used, talents that, brought into the world, make it better. That's what it really admires. That's what we talk about in eulogies, because that's what's important. We don't say, 'The thing about Joe was he was rich.' We say, if we can, 'The thing about Joe was he took good care of people.'"—Peggy Noonan, "A Life's Lesson," on the astounding response to the passing of Tim Russert, the Wall Street Journal, June 21-22, 2008

(Truth is, and Noonan acknowledges this, I thought the Russert-mania was a little over the top. As in, "Stop the press, decent human discovered inside the Beltway." Nonetheless, Ms Noonan's assertions about what matters, and what doesn't, with which I agree 100.000%, are well worth repeating ... again & again & again.)

Get To (Serious!!) Work ... On Your Presentation Skills!

Now!
Now!
Now!

CNN wire, afternoon, June 4: "He was an obscure state lawmaker. But after a 17-minute star-making turn as a keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and a scant two years in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama is on the verge of becoming his party's presidential nominee."

You can love or loathe Senator Obama, but you presumably will acknowledge the accuracy of the remark above!

Seventeen minutes!
Seventeen minutes!
Seventeen minutes!
Seventeen minutes!

(FYI, my First Post at tompeters.com was a rave review of Senator Obama's 2004 speech in Boston.)

Seventeen good minutes—and you, too, can have a 50-50 chance of occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!

Well, probably not, but you get my point—I've made it before, albeit without evidence that's this drop-dead compelling.

Fact, in "our" more modest worlds: Poor or average or even "okay" presentation skills trip up or hold back an incredible number of very talented people at all levels, including the highest in big orgs—and yet it is rare to see someone launch a martial-arts-training-like, no-bull, I'm-gonna-master-this-or-die-trying offensive on presentation skill improvement.

Why not?

Video Problems and Politics

First, an update on the problems several of you have reported with the videos. We had tried loading them onto our server and embedding them onto the front page. That didn't work. Now, we're moving them to Vimeo. This change will make the front page open much more quickly, since the videos won't load every time. We hope this will be a great improvement. Let us know! Thanks.

Second, politics is the subject of the latest Skillsoft video (1 minute 44 seconds). In this piece, Tom gives his opinion of politics on the job. That is, politics is part of every task, and if you don't want to "play politics," you really won't get much done. If you want to succeed at implementation, then you'd better want to do politics, too.

Tom Peters on Politics from Tom Peters on Vimeo.

[If you'd like a PDF transcript of Tom's video, you can download it here: Politics]

So, Work Really Does Matter ...

Readers of this blog will be well aware of the TP/TPC bias towards work. For many years now, the mantra "the work matters" has been at the heart of Tom's and TPC's philosophy, so it is always heartening when solid research comes to the same conclusions as we do! A recent study in the UK by CHA Communications Consultancy has shed light on the motivation that people have towards their work. Their study of over 1500 UK employees from across public, private, and charity sectors points to the fact that over three quarters of those surveyed want to feel that the work they are doing is worthwhile. Their definition of what makes a job worthwhile: that the work contributes to society, that it is a job they can do well, and that it is a job they can be proud of.

Sadly, almost half of those surveyed are looking for a more worthwhile job than the one they now have. And ironically, although those in the private sector see the charitable and public sectors as being more promising places to find worthwhile work, at the same time, a quarter of public and charity sector workers are frustrated enough by bureaucracy and red tape to be considering a move in the opposite direction!

I am left wondering, in today's world of Brand You, whether the challenge of finding meaning in one's work should be down to the employee herself? Surely it is up to each of us to make the connections and to discover for ourselves the purpose in what we are employed to do? It would be great if leaders could do this for us, but since work means different things to each of us, surely we have at least some responsibility to do this for ourselves?

To follow the tone of Tom's recent "reality" blog, what do you believe is realistic to expect of our leaders as they set a context for our work? And what should be done by people for themselves?

When Five Sigma Trumps Six Sigma

[This is the first blog post at tp.com, by special request from Tom, by Cool Friend Jeff Angus. You may remember him as the author of Management by Baseball. Hence, this blog entry.—CM]

A week ago, Tom posted an entry about a recent book by an adoring courtier of Jack Welch, though reading it suggested to Tom ... "a self-serving picture of an organization run by a misogynist egomaniac—you'd have to be nuts or a former male Navy Seal to want to have worked there. Welch comes across as a brutal, soulless, foul-mouthed boss who revels in putting people down in the most demeaning ways."

And yes, it's inarguable, as one of my favorite MBA ex-clients who wishes he could have been a courtier in Welch's operation has said, that Welch's combination of vision and execution made him "Six Sigma" as an organizational operative. Stats nuts know that Six Sigma represents the 99.99999980268th percentile, and it's no coincidence that to get there he achieved soullessness.

But, you don't have to commit soullessness to achieve excellence. A Five Sigma (the 99.99994266969th percentile) talent like former Major League baseball player Doug Glanville achieved extraordinary, one-in-1,744,000 excellence, making it through the perfect zero-sum competitive crucible of the minor leagues, getting into the majors, and sticking for over 1,100 games. Unlike a Six Sigma, however, Glanville relentlessly held tight to his humanity, resisted the urge to do "whatever it takes" to devour that last 0.000057133, judging it wasn't worth his soul, even if he could have closed that imperceptible (at least in the business world) gap.

In spite of the hysterical tone of the reports of supplements and performance-enhancing drugs, there is no Enron in baseball; the sport is fully accountable, the books always balance. Unlike in business, there can be no juicing the books—to perform successfully, you must perform in a demonstrable way, with the true outcomes visible to all watching. So, the temptation to close that last gap is as understandable as it is potentially damaging, at least the way Glanville described it in his wonderfully insightful op-ed piece in the New York Times, "In Baseball, Fear Bats at the Top of the Order":

A healthy amount of fear can lead to great results, to people pushing themselves to the brink of their capabilities. ... Yes, baseball players are afraid. Not just on opening day and not just because of the 400-page Mitchell report and not just because of a Congressional hearing on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball ... but because they always have been afraid. A player's career is always a blink in a stare.

In this game, change happens fast.

Human nature wants to put the brakes on that rate of change. There is a tipping point in a player's career where he goes from chasing the dream to running from a nightmare. At that point, ambition is replaced with anxiety, passion is replaced with survival. It is a downhill run and it spares no one.

If that doesn't sound to you exactly like the Welch-ian drive so many worship, you aren't listening very closely, because that style of leadership relies on fear.

Glanville is not one of those who dabbled in the substances that are now under scrutiny. As competitive as he is, he kept his ambition to be the best in control, enough to resist the temptation. Because he leads—and has spent his adult life leading—a balanced life, with avocational interests outside of work, plus active charity work, continuing education, and all the things that earning over $11 million before the age of 35 can give you the affordances to do (background here).

True, he isn't going to the Hall of Fame (the sixth of those sigmas), but note, that like most of the people who strive for Welch-like soullessness, most of the players who tried to close that last gap didn't succeed any more than those who didn't commit to "whatever it takes." As Glanville said:

We're scared of failure, aging, vulnerability, leaving too soon, being passed up — and in the quest to conquer these fears, we are inspired by those who do whatever it takes to rise above and beat these odds. We call it "drive" or "ambition," but when doing "whatever it takes" leads us down the wrong road, it can erode our humanity.

The game ends up playing us.

Listening, Secular Variety

I've been talking about the power of listening, offering what I'll call the "spiritual" version—which I commend. But I thought I also owed you the "secular" version, including a doubtless inappropriate remark. You'll find it below and as an attached PPT.

Listening may or may not be an "act of love" or way to "tap into people's dreams," but it sure as hell is (1) an uncommon act of courtesy and recognition of worth from which (2) you will invariably learn amazing stuff if you can just keep your damn mouth shut and ears open with an expression of interest on your face and (3) it will build-maintain relationships beyond your wildest dreams. (And if you are young, which I am not, the surprisingly uncommon act of listening is the most foolproof seduction "tool"-"method" ever invented, because no one, M or F, is ever able to resist the overwhelming attraction that comes from being listened to and taken seriously—and when I was young I was always amazed at how the most unlikely sorts, compared to me, "got the girl" because they were able to keep their mouths shut and ears open and at least act as if they cared more than anything on earth about what they were hearing.) Also, above, Dubai, 26°C (78°F), 1210.07, from my hotel room window.

Brand You50 Revisited

Cody McKibben, who blogs at ThrillingHeroics.com, has written a review of Tom's Brand You50. But more importantly, for those of you who prefer a Cliff's Notes summary, he's created his own shorthand version. Thanks, Cody.

Reinvention:
All in a Day's Work

For those of us who spend our days at tompeters.com or Tom Peters Company, a sentence like this jumps off the page: "He believes he always needs to reinvent himself, which is why he developed a cut fastball to go along with his high heat, split-fingered pitch ..." I found it in this article about Jonathan Papelbon, where he describes his new pitch ... the slutter.

Then I realized that it shouldn't come as a surprise that a professional athlete lives with reinvention on his mind and in his repertoire. Any day could bring a trade, an injury, a slump. And, at the end of their careers—the ultimate reinvention. Sometime after the age of thirty(?), forty(?), fifty if they're extremely lucky, they all must re-imagine themselves. And Tom's message, for years, has been that the rest of us have to look at our careers the same way. Are your Brand You skills and reputation polished to the point where you could replace your livelihood overnight?

Sentence Spartan

We've been hearing a lot lately about the struggle to keep your email inbox under control. Our Cool Friend Mark Hurst outlines a scheme in his book, Bit Literacy. Lifehack.org tries to help you avoid email bankruptcy. Today, Biz Stone pointed to an appealing strategy: three.sentenc.es. You choose a number—two through five—that will be your personal sentence limit when responding to any email. Committing to curbing verbosity might just make the task of responding to all those emails less overwhelming. Have any other inbox-wrestling tips to share with us? Or are you more of a Cool Friend Dave Freedman Perfect Mess fan?

Trump II

Is Trump's staying power, given the likes of the above, "proof" that "Excellence in 'Brand You' Development" trumps skill?

Happy 10th Anniversary, Brand You!

Reading and commenting on Nick's blog of June 29th, I realized that this is the tenth anniversary of the publication of "The Brand Called You" in Fast Company magazine (the actual date was August/September 1997; it seems like yesterday!). This is a good occasion for everyone to revisit that article and take a refresher course in why Brand You is so important. And, for those who've never read it, it's a good time to take a first look. Happy Anniversary to Tom and the Brand Called You!

The Infinite Power of Positive Thinking and Acting

"Think positive" is a/the watchword of almost every "improving performance" seminar or self-help book. Thinking right (positive) is dead on, but far easier said than done—obviously.

Nonetheless, I wish to hell my U.S.A. could find a way to get back into the positive mental orbit. Suddenly (9/11/01), we are all about borders and barriers. Don't I believe there's a serious terror threat? Well, actually, that's my point.

I think there is a severe terrorist threat—and that there will be for as far into the future as I or my 20-something boys can see. (And there will doubtless be nasty events in the process.) The disruptive power of one person, or a small band, is matchless, and will only get worse. Forever and ever, Amen—and regardless of the size of our Army or the CIA or Homeland Security.

And, I think, perhaps arrogantly, that the single most important step toward ameliorating (not eradicating—impossible, even unthinkable) the terrorist threat (small bands, not nations with well-defined positions on maps) is for the United States to continue to be the matchless, energetic, open, self-improving Beacon of Hope it has been for two-and-a-quarter centuries. (Maybe we can even brighten the wattage of that Beacon.) I'm reading a marvelous and thoughtful book, Inventing Human Rights. In effect, there was not even the idea of human rights until the 1700s. And—clearly!—the American and French revolutions were the seminal landmarks in the one giant step for mankind toward human liberty. Then the U.S., unlike France, blessed with an infinite horizon, what we now call the continental United States, took the next giant step and effectively invented Positive Thinking. "Strike out on your own! Move West (the Appalachians first)! Re-define yourself." Re-imaginings and Re-definition and Exploration and Entrepreneurship and Brand You (sorry, couldn't help myself—but Ben Franklin would have applauded) were and are the underpinnings of America's great, successful, productive society—along with our steady flow of immigrant-malcontents setting out on ridiculously dangerous voyages of re-definition and self discovery. (Immigrant = In Search of Re-definition. Right?)

My conclusion then, as an apparently strong voice in the unabashedly Positivist Reagan Revolution, is that the power of positive thinking must be retained or regained at all costs. (My White House friends of that era tell me that In Search of Excellence was a seminal clarion call, perceived as such, for American businesses to stop hiding behind our growing protectionist walls and emulation of Japanese management—and come out swinging in our own style, which we subsequently did). Which to me means that we must deal with, and to some extent learn to live with, the near-infinite in length threat of havoc, never to be fully eradicated, caused by somebody at any given time pissed off about something—and return posthaste to our more careful to be sure, historic positivist selves. Of course we must be "tough with terrorists," but the idea that bombs and fortified borders and cowering behind said borders are the solution is insane. Positivist, open, daring, freedom-obsessed America is still the world's best hope.

I say all this because I have been troubled of late, very troubled, by the strident words of several of our 2008 presidential candidates from both parties. Their message: Build walls and hide now and forevermore.

And I say that all this from me is the antithesis of a political statement. American-style Positivism is my life's work at home and abroad. Cubicle slaves and bedraggled corporations—in Turkey or Romania or Siberia or in Kansas City or Miami or Boston—rise up and cast off your self-imposed shackles. Join the Global Economy (you have no choice, for God's sake), re-imagine and re-invent yourselves or your company. Understand that pioneering is the back to the future requisite. It is indeed—again—your great grandfather's world of self-reliance.

To hide is the ultimate victory for Osama and other terrorists. If we build walls, bomb, and slash the flow of immigrants, we may survive for awhile, even decades—but we will cease to be America and to be the globe's Beacon of Liberty and the Infinite Possibilities of Re-imaginings.

(Why the hell do you think I called my last book Re-imagine—it was a 300-page Technicolor rant that said ... rise up and regain your great grandfathers' sense of infinite possibilities and accountability. My Grandfather Peters came to our Beacon of Hope, Baltimore variety, in about 1870 and proceeded, from nothing, to become a wildly successful contractor and philanthropist—until he was wiped out, never to recover, by the Great Depression. He was gone before I arrived, but I never stop thinking of him, his victories, and his losses; perhaps he was my Quintessential American Beacon, when, at age 22, helped along by the Navy, I migrated to California and proceeded to stay there for the next 35 years—making my way, as a noisy participant, through the birthing and coming of age of the Silicon Valley colossus; in the process I avoided my father's tiresome professional life as a Cubicle Slave in the Tall Towers of the Eastern Seaboard.)

Four deafening cheers for the power of positive thinking—and acting! May we re-discover it posthaste!

Showtime!

My Brand You mantra includes the necessity to realize you are always on stage. Hence I loved this headline from Time (04.16.07): "Acting Like a President: Most politicians who make it to the White House have also become masters of the art of performing."

Reminds me of a favorite quote I often use in my presentations:

"It's always Showtime."—David D'Alessandro, Career Warfare

Now Don't You Worry Your Little Self ...

The economist Alan Blinder calls himself "a free trader down to my toes." But what's that goop seeping between his toes these days?

This from a must read-ingest, major Wall Street Journal piece (yesterday/0328): "Mr Blinder ... remains an implacable opponent of tariffs and trade barriers. But now he is saying loudly that a new industrial revolution—communication technology that allows services to be delivered from afar—will put as many as 40 million American jobs at risk of being shipped out of the country in the next decade or two." And that staggering stat, per Mr Blinder, is "only the tip of a very big iceberg."

Four-zero million!
Just the start!
Zounds!

Suggests to me it's time, per a Post earlier this week, to dust off the "Brand You Plan." There probably will be, alas, counter-productive Federal legislation. But that will be a wee finger in the dike.

The message is clear—and, to a point, simple. Work on your "value proposition" with renewed urgency. Your odds of landing on your feet are directly proportional to the uniqueness of what you have to sell to the world.

(As I've said 100, or 1,000, times, this does not translate into dog-eat-dog competition. To the contrary, you will be the architect of, valued participant in intricate Webs of Value Added that involve many, many others from here, there, and everywhere.)

Hence, unprecedented team skills and individual prowess are both a must.

I'm not an alarmist. (Much.) Still, I'd argue that ... today is the day to act! (Yesterday would be better.) Is the project you are working on right now worthy of becoming a chapter, or at least a sidebar, in your emergent & urgent "Brand You Saga"? If not, what do you aim on doing to make it so? Moreover, what on-line course/s (or whatever) are you looking at as another part of your "investment portfolio"?

The problem is more or less simple. The solution is more or less simple. All that's left is the 98.3 percent called Urgent Execution.

Necessary Evil

Acid-tongued Lucy Kellaway, whose column, "Business Life," is the first thing I turn to in the Monday Financial Times, allows as how she thought my somewhat well-known Fast Company article, "The Brand Called You," was "one of the ghastliest, most irritating articles on management ever written." Well, that does certify impact on a discerning reader. Now, a decade later, she still considers it "ghastly." But acknowledges, in a very amusing riff yesterday, that it may be a ghastly necessity. I guess that's progress.

See for yourself.

Did You Know?

Came across this wonderful presentation Karl Fisch, the Director of Technology at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, put together for his students. It's called "Did You Know?" What a wonderful educator using technology to inspire and inform his students. It struck me as something all of us Tom readers would appreciate. Enjoy.

[Note that the link takes you to Fisch's blog. I'd recommend that you explore there for a moment or two.—CM]

Reinforcing the Need for a Sense of Personal Urgency

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Re-Versioning

The turning of the new year puts many in the goal-setting, self-analysis mindset. Tom's very good friend, Laurie Sain, hasn't limited herself to contemplation. She's very recently started a new blog called Re-Versioning Your Life. She's sharing her journey as she transforms herself to "Laurie 2.0." Her first few steps have included choosing her "personal board of directors" as well as an exercise in pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone with expression. Laurie details how to do each step, so if you're ready to make a change in your own professional or personal life, you may find her strategies and tools very useful. Since we thought "Laurie v 1.999" was already fabulous, we can't wait to see the launch of "Laurie 2.0!"

As Good As It Gets

As worthy a New Year's Resolution as you'll find (or I'll find):

"Do one thing every day that scares you."—Eleanor Roosevelt

Welcome Aboard!

Tom Peters (me) and Alan Webber, co-founder of Fast Company, congratulate Time and welcome Time's "Person of the Year" ... "You." As co-inventors of the "Brand You" notion, over a decade ago, we are delighted to see the world catching up and, more important, waking up!

The "Brand You life" is damned hard work ... and so, so, so satisfying compared to "your father's world" as, likely, a Dilbertian "cubicle slave." Talk about liberating! As Time says, it's all about self-control. Nothing cooler! And nothing more daunting, because, of course, self-control only works, on the Web or off, age 19 or 69, with its disciplined mate, self-responsibility, at its side.

(To be sure, Time's "You,"circa 2006, is a bit less restrictive than our "Brand You." While we were celebrating, as does Time, the newfound possibilities of self-control/self-management ... we were also erecting defenses for your or my "career" against the incursion of microprocessors and lower-wage offshore substitutes. Nonetheless, "You" or "Brand You" ... we, too, salute you and your year and your potential.)

[Tom's photo above: Amsterdam canal. See more at Flickr.]

You're Not Alone

"In many ways, an office job is like a prison sentence." That's Michael Malice, the co-creator of overheardintheoffice.com. He's quoted in an interview with Kevin Ohannessian of Fast Company. Malice's site collects stories from the cubicle mazes of the world, in an effort to make the "prison sentence" a bit more bearable. Just when you think you're experiencing the most preposterous behavior in your own work environment, a visit to overheardintheoffice.com will lead you to new reaches of the absurd:

"A VP says to an IT guy, 'Have you installed Google on my computer yet?' And the IT guy responds, 'Just yesterday.'"

Thanksgiving 2006: A Tribute to Brand Yous

Did the Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock? Did they break bread with the Indians on Thanksgiving? Are we white folk responsible for genocide concerning the Native Americans?

I don't know the answers to any of those questions, other than "open to debate." But there is something I do know ... for sure. The folks who came from England on the Mayflower, landing somewhere or other, and breaking bread with someone or other ... were a flinty, tough, strong-minded, determined, resilient bunch. And America's subsequent long march to global leadership is indeed a reflection of wave after wave of such determined, tough immigrants ... many of whom, after a generation or two, broke into the clear and made a mark. For example, my Grandfather Peters, who came here from Germany in 1870 or so, and became a leading Baltimore contractor; my grandmother Peters, in turn, founded one of that grand city's leading charities of the day.

So my perhaps odd "Thanksgiving message" (how pretentious!), or rant (far less pretentious), is about, um, "Brand You."

Huh?

Yup. "Brand You" was not, as some critics contend, an idea born of the '90s desire for self-adulation. To the contrary, in the late '90s I saw technology begin to supplant workers, increasingly skilled workers; then as the calendar turned to the new millennium-century I saw the astonishing explosion of energy and determination arising in the likes of India.

American economic isolation came to an end in a flash. We all, even "management gurus," became part, overnight, of a global labor market. Wages stagnated. Outsourcing soared, and technology got smarter and smarter. A pal, Dan Pink, said, more or less, "Here are the options: Do you choose to lose your job to an Indian? Or a microprocessor?"

It's not quite that dire in reality. But it is psychologically. Any sense of lifetime job security is caput. Health insurance is a distant dream for millions. Pensions are no guarantee of a cushy, or at least adequate, retirement after 40 years as a loyal Cubicle Slave.

Enter—as I saw it and see it—Brand You. What Brand You really means (to me) is a glorious (yes, glorious) return to the idea of those flinty Pilgrim men and women. A return to Franklin's (the true Father of Brand You) principles and Emerson's self-reliance. And the spirit of the brave ones heading West in the rickety Conestoga wagons. Or the spirit of Charles Lindbergh. Or Jackie Robinson. Or Martin Luther King or Elizabeth Cady Stanton ... or Carly Fiorina.

Ms Fiorina flatly said, "There is no job that is America's God-given right." Wired guru Michael Goldhaber adds, "If there is nothing very special about your work, no matter how hard you apply yourself you won't get noticed, and that increasingly means you won't get paid much either." And Sally Field tells us, "The only thing you have power over is to get good at what you do. That's all there is; there ain't no more."

Yes, I do see this as good news, and not just for Ivy Leaguers. Ivy Leaguers? America—God bless America—now has about 11 million women-owned businesses—damn few were started by Ivy Leaguers. (But that's another story.) In our abiding attention to Google's or Yahoo's next micro-move we blithely ignore the thousands of brave entrepreneurs I talked to last year who had the guts to roll the dice, skip out on ordinary means of security, and take on the responsibilities of starting and owning tanning salons!

Is it a lonely life that I propound? To the contrary. Those hearty first white New Englanders were at once self-reliant ... but had the support of an extraordinarily tight-knit community. My "Brand Yous"? On their own—but, if they're wise, creating their own, resilient communities of reputation and support. Face-to-face or, increasingly, online. (Web 2.0? 3.0? Who cares; it can work.) I mostly work alone, or, rather, with the assistance of a wee group of colleagues in Vermont and Boston. And a powerful band of supporters from hither and, increasingly, thither. To tell the truth, I feel a lot more secure with my self-created network and devotion to self-improvement than I ever did at, say, McKinsey or Stanford. It's up to me, per Sally Field, to constantly get better-different than yesterday; and it's up to me to expand and mind my network.

Hence my flavor of Brand You is at once distinctly Solo and distinctly about creating and minding a Network-Community of, mostly, one's own construction.

My Thanksgiving suggestion is to remember the true nature and character and determination of those Pilgrim Fathers & Mothers as their little band, alone on the East coast of a great continent, carved out the beginnings of a truly New World that eventually became a Beacon of Freedom and Opportunity for all others around the globe.

(Have we dimmed the light of that Beacon of late? Perhaps. But "they" still line up at the portals of our embassies around the world—wanting in. God help us when those lines get shorter.)

There is an absolutely stunning article in this issue of Fortune about Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp. As a Princeton senior, 17 years ago, she had a dream. Seventeen years later fully 10% of the graduating classes of Yale and Dartmouth, in the midst of a more or less bull market for college hires, applied to Teach for America. All told 19,000 seniors applied for 2,400 slots. After only a few weeks of "basic training," these bold, young Brand Yous, circa 2006, will enter classrooms in some of the toughest schools in America. Hats off, way off, to the Golden Ten Percent at Yale and Dartmouth. And hats off, way, way off to Wendy Kopp. Can one person make an enormous difference in a still complacent nation of 300,000,000? Damn right.

Happy Thanksgiving to our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locales. To, especially, our active-duty National Guard types, often serving a second tour in the desert. Happy Thanksgiving, Wendy Kopp. Happy Thanksgiving, Yalies and Dartmouth youngsters and the rest of the 19,000 volunteering for tough active duty of another sort. Happy Thanksgiving, brave tanning salon owners and pioneering women business owners.

The hell with those pensions-for-time-served-in-cramped-cubicles. Welcome to a New Age of Self-reliance in a flattening global society of equals.

Thanksgiving considerations, honoring the chutzpah of our Pilgrim forebears:

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"—Mary Oliver

"A year from now you may wish you had started today."—Karen Lamb

[Tom is home—and the family's Designated Shopper; part of Susan's list is above.—CM]

Whence These Google Numbers?

Tom posted his most recent Google-juice numbers in the "Bio & PR" section of the website late last week. As good Brand Yous, we assume you're all googling yourselves on a fairly regular basis. (The first thing anyone does after meeting you is to go home and google your name, so you better know what they're seeing.) I took a look at Tom's document (which you can find on this page in the right-hand column) and then googled "Tom Peters" (using the quotes in the search) and came up with a number that was quite a bit lower than the one he had documented. And so asked him about that. Nothing devious or untoward as it turns out. Seems that the Google search results fluctuate wildly. As Tom notes, he's been as high as 3.9 million and as low as 1.8 million in the same week. (And, no, he's not checking his numbers every day!)

Do the same search at Microsoft's Windows Live and Ask.com, and while the numbers of results are significantly lower, they remain more or less constant day to day and week to week. Go figure.

Guess I'll Keep on Truckin'

As you know if you follow this Blog, I occasionally have "crises of faith" (as a Priest friend of long standing, who knows me well, puts it). As in: What the hell am I doing running around like a madman at 63.9? God help me, is it all ego?

Yesterday [Meet the Press, 09.24.06], in response to a question by Tim Russert, President Clinton said in part: "The biggest problem confronting the world today is the illusion that our differences matter more than our common humanity. That's what's driving the terrorism."

As my out-of-U.S. work, for the first time, eclipses my in-U.S. work, I do to some extent (a significant extent) see my role as "Ambassador at large"—salesman for humanistic capitalism perhaps. You may recall that I returned to "excellence" (Excellence. Always.—my new signature) and the "basics" on the occasion of my April trip to Siberia. (Trying to answer my own query: "Why the hell am I in Siberia?") Furthermore I added a PPT slide and said, and believe, that:

"Business* [*at its "excellent" best] can be: An emotional, vital, audacious, innovative, joyful, frightening, risky, creative, entrepreneurial endeavor that breathes life & fire into our work & life & elicits maximum concerted human potential in the wholehearted effort to help others ** [**employees, clients, suppliers, communities, owners, temporary partners] succeed & profit & imagine & reach places they'd never dreamed they could go."

To usurp Clinton, that is effectively a plea to vigorously engage as many as possible to produce and pursue the fruits of our "common humanity." Amidst my far-flung travels, when I discuss "cultural differences," my unyielding perspective is that "of course they exist"—but a person who exudes common human decency will prevail—if not with bowls of profit, at least with the self-knowledge that her or his passing has added rather than subtracted from humanity's plight.

So, thanks, Mr President. Guess I'll keep on truckin.'

Humanity. Conflicting Notions of

I pretty much tore into the late Peter Drucker a couple of weeks ago for his description of, as I see it, you and me as "mediocrities," even "idiots." (Perhaps not you, but I know for a fact he thought of me as a charlatan-idiot. Well, I didn't think much of him either—so fair is fair.) (I participated in a Drucker tribute a few weeks after his death, appearing with several grandees. I was supposed to open with 5 minutes of laudatory remarks; me, essentially "never at a loss for words." I've seldom worked so hard on a thing—but in the end I couldn't pull it off, couldn't make it work—so I demurred. I did remain as a for once quiet participant—and did murmur a few supportive words—which, concerning constrained subjects, were genuine. Not gonna make the Highlights Tape.)

For me, as you know, the answer to everything is ... another PowerPoint. (Hmmmm ... maybe I am an idiot.)

The poet (my favorite) Mary Oliver said: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Picasso said: "Every child is born an artist. The trick is to remain an artist."

I'm hardly he-who-wears-rose-colored-glasses. Yet I do have a rather exalted view of human potential—daily headlines on human barbarism notwithstanding. Attached you'll find the Special PowerPoint Presentation: "Peter & Mary on Their Fellow Humans."

Depends on What the Meaning of "Is" Is:

Or, Why I Don't Watch the Evening News. Or, the Speech Is the Thing.

Katie Couric is quoted as follows in BusinessWeek's "What Makes a Winner: The Competition Issue" (08.21-28.06): "Television is one of the most competitive arenas anywhere. I think the only way to thrive and survive in that atmosphere is to have the love of competition in your blood."

(For the record: As an avowed, vociferous champion of women in leadership roles, I'm delighted that Ms Couric has become the first solo woman anchor on network evening news.)

That quote helps me realize why I don't watch evening news. If your ultimate goal is to "compete," presumably for ratings supremacy, in my opinion you are/one is doomed to mediocrity.

Start here: I am an obnoxiously intense competitor, and have been for a half century, with no let up in sight. Among other things, today I regularly Google myself against the "competition" in "speaking world"—weekly vs Jack Welch and Rudy Giuliani. (Mostly keepin' the lead, though RG will nail me as the presidential election campaign approaches—but then he won't be on the circuit.) I want badly to "win" in comparative speakers' ratings at big conferences—and I'm in despair for days when that doesn't happen. I track book sales; etc; etc.

But ...

But the fact of the matter is that the only person I truly compete against is myself. Is it the best damned speech I could give? Did I push "them" hard enough, too hard? Did I connect in a way that makes a difference in a few attendees' lives? Is there enough genuinely new material in the speech? Did I take risks with new-provocative material? (Risks that might clobber those evaluations after the fact. OH LORD, I SHUDDER AS I RECALL TWO RECENT EXAMPLES—I survived 'em both, and one led directly to a Big corporate change.) Was the entire two hours or whatever spent, without a second's letup, living on or near or past the edge? Were they scared-aroused? Was I scared? Was I literally sick with mental & physical exhaustion when I staggered off the stage? Can I sincerely continue to claim, even if only to myself, that I am perpetually re-imaging the entire world of management thinking & business practice (yikes)? Etc.

When Rather "competed" against Brokaw and Jennings for ratings, the competition per se was the thing—and the product for all three, while competent, was and long has been same-same. Take a true risk, and perhaps watch ratings wobble for 6 months? What a joke!

In late 2003, Dorling Kindersley and I published Re-imagine! Did I want good sales? Damn right! But if "good sales" had been the principal goal I would have penned the "big book" that other publishers wanted. I went to DK because of one and only one thing (surely not the advance!): I wanted to re-imagine the business book! (And they were game.) Did I track sales? Of course. (We—publisher and I—were moderately happy.) But I mostly loved the Amazon reviews: Nothing in the middle! People loved the book, and indeed its attempt to change the genre. Or hated it. (NB: As a speaker, I far prefer 1s or 10s in my evaluations to a bucket of 7s.)

Renée Mauborgne and Chan Kim, authors of Blue Ocean Strategy, tell us: "To grow, companies need to break out of a vicious cycle of competitive benchmarking and imitation." "Value innovation is about making the competition irrelevant by creating uncontested market space. We argue that beating the competition within the confines of the existing industry is not the way to create profitable growth." (As usual, Churchill more or less got there first: "The short road to ruin is to emulate the methods of your adversary.")

Here's the sort of thing I dearly wish Ms Couric had said: "Ratings are the least of it. Evening TV news is stale, in the tank, even laughable. It doesn't need a 'cool' or 'refreshing' 'female' anchor. It needs to be blown up and re-thought from the ground up. If the program I anchor looks or smells or feels anything at all like evening news of the Cronkite-Rather era I will have failed miserably and horribly abused a golden opportunity, even if I do edge out the guys at the other networks."

Kim and Mauborgne dote on Cirque du Soleil. (Me too.) Our Montreal pals re-imagined the whole idea of "circus"—and took an insane risk in the process. And they indeed turned their and our world upside down—in fact they unequivocally invented a new planet within the larger solar system of entertainment. That's the idea!

In On Becoming a Leader, Warren Bennis makes this intriguing claim, based on his muscular research: "No leader sets out to be a leader per se, but rather to express him- or herself freely and fully. That is leaders have no interest in proving themselves, but an abiding interest in expressing themselves."

I burst at the seams, at 63.8, as I anticipate the opening of the 2006 "fall season" in Adelaide 10 days from now. I want to "express myself"—to bore in deeper to the souls & hearts & minds of my participants, to make my renovated message of Excellence resonate and act as a clarion call to "risky" action in halls and boardrooms across the/all lands.

Will I read the evaluations from Adelaide? Of course! Will I still Google Welch & Rudy & me? Of course! But the-speech-is-the-thing! My "competition," my hypercompetitive-need: Will it have been the best & most provocative & original & troubling & exciting speech I have ever even attempted to give? If not, as 'tis said, it will be a long plane trip back from Australia!

Please, please Ms Couric—don't "compete" with those other predictable saps. Stun us with the audacity of your effort to help us understand anew and cope with the bizarre world in which we are trying to somehow make our way.

Ben & Jerry

I really don't want to be run out of the State of Vermont.

Your comments [in reaction to this blog] have been fabulous and stunningly thoughtful, and I will respond as the days go by. One person said he was surprised that I'd consider not speaking to B & J. I had to respond ... before I head down the driveway at my VT farm. Namely:

No! No! No!

I was simply trying to make the generic point about slippery slopes—and plastic definitions. If one is an avowed, vociferous champion for the "War on Childhood Obesity," could one in good faith speak to B & J about making the process of "marketing-megacalories-to-kids" more "excellent"?

At one level I have and will consider the nature of every institution I speak to, if for no other reason that time is in short supply and there is (praise be) an "oversupply" of opportunities. As to my examples of B & J, lawyers, and those whose service level pisses me off—the specifics were for illustrative purposes only!

(NB: I happen to be a fan of lawyers. Societies based on the Rule of Law tend to do a little better than others over time.)

Incidentally, I have had B & J problems—before they sold out to Unilever. E.g., the Holier-than Thou B & J founders bragged that no one was paid more than six (?) times as much as anybody else. "No one," that is, except Ben and Jerry and a few others who owned the company. (I don't care what their W-2s proclaimed.) Then there was the new CEO hunt based on applications submitted on ice cream container lids. How cool! Well, it didn't produce viable candidates, so B & J went to a headhunter, and after they had their man they had him fill out an ice cream lid. If you were looking for the one thing I most hate, and you said "hypocrisy"—you'd be spot on. (NB: As best I can determine, the Lid Tale is not Urban Legend.) (NB2: This case of hypocrisy would not have led me to turn down a speaking gig.)(NB3: I have not in fact, pre or post buyout, talked to B & J. "Why not?" you ask. Um ... they haven't invited me.)

Keep those comments coming!

(NB4: Why this discussion redux? Because I took a vacation pause and Susan happened to ask an "innocent" question that wasn't! It was, oddly, in reflection upon a novel she'd just finished. I think such Fundamental Noodling is imperative. I have a Catholic priest pal with a huge urban parish. I occasionally act as his de facto confessor—an apt role for a moderately lapsed Presbyterian. He often ... yes "often" ... at age 55+ ... as he puts it, "question my beliefs, and go through long troubled periods of wavering faith." He argues—and I wholeheartedly agree!—that you should never trust a religious leader who doesn't question his/her faith from time to somewhat frequent time. Among other things it leads him to greater empathy—and hence effectiveness as counselor—with the troubled among his parishioners. TP: So, too, "management gurus"!)

Help Me Here!

Your turn to do the work!

While we were on vacation in Norway & Sweden, one evening's conversation took a serious turn. Susan questioned the propriety of a particular speech I was giving this Fall. It led to a sweeping & intense & lengthy family discussion of what it is I do and whether there are certain groups I should not talk to.

It subsequently led me to do a little writing to figure out what I thought about what she was arguing.* I will share it with you soon enough. But as I prepared to Post it today, I thought it would be useful to hold off and get your thoughts and biases on this all-important (to me) issue.

(*Back to my Principal Professional Bias in Life—and the topic of several pre-vacation Posts. Detailed planning vs Action First/Think-Do vs Do-Think. When confronted with an imponderable issue like this, I rarely or never "think about it," but always & immediately start writing—I figure the writing per se will be my path to action-clarity. CK Chesterton: "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" Reporter: "Mr Drucker, why are you still giving speeches at 90?" PD: "How else can I figure out what I'm thinking?")

The discussion included the sublime and the ridiculous. I say I'm a Health-Wellness-Obesity-Hospital quality nut, and I'm increasingly talking with religious zeal to participants in that industry. So must I refuse to talk to cigarette companies and fast-food outfits? (I've spoken to Philip Morris, KFC, Boston Pizza, and Dunkin' Donuts, among others, in the last couple of years.) (And obviously I'd turn down in a flash Ben & Jerry's, the so-called do-gooders who clog arteries for a living.)

My wife's biases leaned toward her deeply held views on War & Peace. Do I talk to weapons' contractors, the Military, nations run de facto or de jure by dictators, nations that support terrorists (I reminded her of U.S. citizens' sub rosa support for the IRA in the past—that didn't go over well)? Nations that, in the distant past, gleefully burned down the White House?

Oil companies came under scrutiny as well. I tossed in financial services companies just for the hell of it—usurious practices, etc. Companies with crappy environmental records? Companies that put you on hold for long periods when you try to do business with them? Companies, like Dell, with questionable commitment to customer service? Companies with very low quantities of Women in senior roles? Church leadership groups, because extreme religious beliefs are responsible for most human conflict over the Ages? Congress? Recreation-industry groups because I think time off is a Mortal Sin? Law firms because, you know, "First thing, let's kill ..."? The Tom Peters Company, because it serves some of the categories listed above?

Obviously, before the evening was over it was clear that retirement was the only option. I jest, of course, because the question is in fact a damn good one. And I'd like your serious input. It is true that if you apply incredibly tight definitions of holier-than-thou morality you end up on the beach and without influence. But it's also true that too plastic a definition of morality is also intolerable—unless you've got the insane belief that you are here to right all the world's wrongs and can turn the tide at will.

My glib rebuttal in this family mini-drama was that (1) I am always a goodwill ambassador for the United States; (2) the World is a nasty place; (3) I am an avowed Capitalist Pig and believe that light regulations (don't ban fast food) and hearty economic growth is the best way, or at least the best we can do, to help Humanity forward a bit;** (4) my core message is about Human Liberation and Human Potential; (5) etc; (6) etc.

(**E.g.: I just read an excellent piece on the insane death total due to rampant malaria that claims, with a ton of supporting evidence, that malaria eradication happens almost automatically as per capita income increases.)

So you tell me: Declaim to all comers? Follow a restrictive path in extreme cases? (What's extreme, please? Be specific!) Retire?

(As you can tell, summer "vacation" in the Peters-Sargent family is not just a day/s at the beach.)

(I've obviously been flippant upon occasion in this Post, but that's because Susan put me on the defensive—and the issue is indeed so serious.)

More Brand You

Just in case you all hadn't had enough of brand you...our Cool Friend Raj Setty, author of Life Beyond Code, has created an ebook available as a free download at his site. I think this book began as a pdf but now it is available in NXTbook format. Looks like a pretty cool technology. Check out Raj's site for more details. When you get there, just click on the image of the flipping pages.

3 in 5 = Yuck

Three international redeyes in five days (Boston-Madrid, Madrid-São Paulo, São Paulo-Chicago); no way to treat a 63-year-old (or 33-year-old) body. That's why in the Men's room in the Red Carpet Club, I passed a mirror (bad move) and figured out what "3 in 5" does—not pretty.

Q: When will I learn? A: Never. I had wonderful audiences in both Madrid and São Paulo. (I was asked by a TV reporter in São Paulo what made a "good speech." My answer was "good body language from the audience" and "that I'm so exhausted by the expenditure of emotional energy that I collapse into the arms of the organizers the second I walk off the stage.")

Escaping the Cubicle

In the Boston Globe blog, March 13, 2006, there is an entry titled: "The Fidel Castro of office furniture" and it reads: "Reviled by workers, demonized by designers, disowned by its very creator, Robert Propst, who deemed it 'monolithic insanity,' the cubicle still claims the largest share of office furniture sales—$3 billion a year—and has continued to outlive every design meant to replace it. It is the Fidel Castro of office furniture. The only thing likely to slow the Borg-like cubiclization of our lives? Telecommuting."

The Globe writer was commenting on this article from Fortune. I am glad to say I've escaped the cubicle—how about you?

Washington (G.) in Winter

Those of you who inhaled, as I did, David McCullough's 1776 will remember that 230 Februarys ago George Washington and his ragtag, disease-ridden army were holding the British at bay during a very nasty winter in Boston. Saturday I was traversing the Boston Public Garden as snow began to fall. I thought of a snowy February 1776 as I walked past GW's statue.

By the way, Washington looked about as good on a horse in reality as he does in statues like this. The uncommonly tall & perfectly postured General was one of the Colonies' best and most graceful-elegant horsemen. I mention this because Washington's purposefully self-managed demeanor was essential to the Army's success—the General's bearing per se went a long way toward convincing the British that we were a force to be reckoned with. (Hint: We weren't.) Thus Washington's "Brand You abilities" carried the day those 230 winters ago! (Or that's the way I see it.)

More Big Ben!

Seems as though Ben Franklin invented most everything worth inventing including effective American diplomacy. A couple of wonderful comments on an earlier post suggest that he merits these two additional accolades: First Blogger. Father of Open Source.

Nice!

Bad News, Good News

Well, "Google world" or not I seem to have blown Ben Franklin's birthday. January 17, not February 24. Thanks for alerting me in a Comment ... and for not ripping me up for such a glitch.

That's the bad news. The good news is that old Ben is indeed 300 this year, and I'm glad I had an excuse to do the Post. He is a "brand you" extraordinaire, and hence I do declare that Brand You is indeed 300 years old! (What lengths one goes to NOT to take credit for an idea! Ben beat me by 290 years, and I'm delighted!)

Happy Birthday, Brand You!

The Big Week is here! Brand You turns 300!

Thursday. February 24, 2006. The 300th birthday of my favorite American ... Benjamin Franklin. Born 24 February 1706. Boston.

I'm in the midst of re-reading Ben's Autobiography, a marvel and perhaps more apropos today then when he wrote it. Franklin, born to humble circumstances and subsequently a polymath who was the toast of Europe and America, oft considered the world's most famous citizen, arguably did more than anyone to define and shape the American character. He believed in frugality and decency and hard work. He was the ultimate self-made man, and made no bones about it. Though indeed a champion of frugality, he was also a champion of commerce and welcomed the profit therefrom. He became in Philadelphia a wealthy man, and then at about 40 "retired" to doing four decades of good deeds—such as inventing America and in his 70s taking on some of the thorniest tasks associated with the Revolution.

As to the "brand you" bit, Professor Kenneth Silverman, discussing, in his "Introduction," Franklin's youth, notes, "He not only worked hard, but also arranged to be noticed doing so." Throughout his long life, Franklin arranged his reputation with the same meticulous care that he applied to his many businesses and his scientific experiments; in fact, over the years he carefully constructed many different personas to be trotted out as needed—and was the unmistakable manager of his own legacy, of which the autobiography is an essential part.

(His attention to persona went so far as to encompass his peculiar dress—and its impact on others. The "father" of "dress for success," or "dress-for-impact," too? Doubtless so.)

As one who has been on the sharp end of much criticism that my Brand You idea is "self serving," I can at least take solace from the fact that Franklin, too, was repeatedly excoriated for being too self-centered and oriented toward "material success" and reputation.

Also, many dismiss the Covey-Robbins sorts of "formulas" for self-guided development as "simplistic." Maybe, but again Franklin got there first. He unfailingly began his carefully planned and productive days, Silverman reports, by asking himself, "What Good shall I do this Day?" and ended his day, at 10 o'clock sharp, with the follow-up self-assessment, "What Good have I done today?"

Happy 300, Ben.

(NB: In re Brand You, consider this headline in the "BostonWorks" section of Sunday's Globe: "The Ladder Isn't the Only Way Up: More grads eschew the entry-level job in favor of working for themselves." Not your father's world. On the other hand, Ben's world.)

(NB: My favorite Brand You quote, courtesy the author Isabel Allende, "You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend or not.")

Two New Year's Questions

In the last month I've been chewing on the question an audience member once asked Tom: What have you done this year? For a New Year's Eve exercise with friends I switched the question to: What's the most IMPORTANT thing you've done this year? (This clarifies your values, as you sort through what makes something important to you.)

So, I thought a fun way to start this New Year is to invite you to answer the following two questions (publicly if you
dare, concisely if you can):

1. What's the most important thing you've done in the last year?
   
2. What's the most important thing you'll do in the next year?

Raw Meat for "Resolutions"

I may write more, even a lot more, about New Year's Resolutions. Or not. But when I sat down, quietly, to think about my stance toward 2006, a quote of Eleanor Roosevelt's drifted before my mind's eye: "Do one thing every day that scares you."

I don't know where I'll go with this, if anywhere—but it feels like a perfect, and in fact profound, stepping off point. (And I do believe that New Year's is indeed an opportunity-punctuation mark along life's path not to be missed or dismissed.)