Some of you send emails to Tom, using tom (at) tompeters.com or info (at) tompeters.com in an attempt to get a response directly from him. Tom sees the emails, but I answer them, so that we can be sure that every message gets a reply. Though Tom occasionally answers the email, if you'd like a direct response from him, you are much more likely to get his input by commenting on a blog post (brilliantly!). And, as we've said before, please try to keep your exposition in our comments section short and to the point, remembering that we follow the "living room" rule—don't behave in any way you would not behave towards guests in your home.

What are they reading in China? According to Joe Nocera in the New York Times this past Saturday, everything to do with business management, and their Tom Peters book of choice is Re-imagine! See what Nocera has to say at NYTimes online.

[Note: Tom himself will not be speaking on this webinar.]

Not from Vermont!
From New Zealand!

Back on 20 February.

[VT pic above, NZ below]

Steve will be speaking to Neil Cavuto on the show named Cavuto, Thursday, 31 January 2008, 6:00 p.m. Eastern (U.S.) time.

Fox Business Network is a new cable TV network in addition to Fox News Network. Search your cable stations.

And I got into Memphis, and some say the threats were all around. Well, I don't know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me, because I've been to the mountain top. Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will, and He’s allowed me to go up the mountain. And I've looked over. And I have seen the Promised Land. And I don't mind. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. I am not worried. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

I got, at birth, for better or worse, a full dose of the male gene set. I am not very squeamish, and I must reluctantly admit a predilection for rather nasty movies and TV shows—from Platoon to Syriana, to my favorite movie of all time, Apocalypse Now, to 24. (I even own an old video called, I think, The NFL's Hardest Hits.)

I suppose I've been a solo moviegoer for 50 years. And I've never walked out of a movie, no matter how many bombs were exploding or how much blood was flowing.

Until this Sunday.

At the 15 minute mark I left the Rutland VT Movieplex 9, where I was watching No Country for Old Men. It has won a bucketful of awards, and reviews have indeed remarked that it is pretty violent.

I can state without (personal) doubt that I have never seen such continuous, gratuitous, barf-inducing, disgusting violence in my life, including dog shootings, which I abhor.

If the movie wins the Academy Award for Best Picture, I will probably throw a rock through my TV screen.

Your call.

(Some of it is complimentary, some isn't, some I didn't understand—I assure you I only skimmed it.)

God knows, I'm not recommending it.

As I said, whatever.

Call (C-A-L-L!) (NOT E-MAIL!) 25-50 (NO LESS THAN 25) people ... TODAY* ... to thank them for their support this year (2007) ... and wish them and their families and colleagues a Happy 2008!** *** **** ***** ******

*Today = TODAY = N-O-W (not "within the hour")
**Remember: ROIR > ROI. ROIR = Return On Investment in Relationships. Success = ƒ(Relationships).
***This is the most important piece of advice I have provided this year.
****This is ... Not Optional.
*****Trust me: This is fun!!!!
******Trust me: This "works."

Happy 2008!!!

Lessons About Life, Enterprise, from Baking Christmas Cookies

A couple of hours in a hot kitchen can teach you as much about business and management as the latest books on re-engineering or total quality management. That's my take, anyway, after a bout of Christmas-cookie baking. Here are 11 lessons for life (and enterprise), fresh from the oven:

1. Engagement. Watching others helps, but you've gotta get your hands dirty. I hadn't made cookies for years, so I observed a friend do a few batches. I thought I was learning something, and I suppose I was—but nothing really clicked until my hands were covered with flour.

Lesson (for trainers especially): Cut the lectures. Get folks involved in "real stuff" very quickly!

2. A plan. I'm not keen on planning in general, but a time-tested recipe is a godsend. First, it's roughly "right." More important, it gives you the confidence to get started.

Lesson: Any plan is a help; it gives folks the sense they aren't aimlessly flailing.

3. Art. The plan is an outline—not Holy Writ. Plans, including recipes, are made to be tinkered with—and eventually torn up. Cookie making, software design, and real-estate lending are art. And it's the artists, not the slavish followers of others' recipes, who land in the world's halls of fame.

Lesson: Blind devotion to any plan is downright dumb!

4. Trial and errors. Yes, I'd watched a master at work (or at least a pretty good cook), but in my first hour of hands-on work, with instructions close at hand, I made dozens of mistakes, large and small. And in business life, real life, and cookie-making life, error is the fuel that drives you.

Lesson: Don't "tolerate" mistakes. Embrace them!

5. The same mistakes. "Mistakes are OK," some concede, "but don't make the same mistake twice."

Rubbish! I made virtually the same errors, in something as relatively simple as cookie making, over and over ... and over.

Lesson: Nobody ever did anything (interesting) right the first, or 51st, time.

6. A sense of humor. I was awkward at the start. (And at the finish.) I turned the kitchen into a disaster area. Kids and adults made their day laughing at me (or so it seemed). Experimentation—the nub of life and business—depends on learning to laugh at yourself.

Lesson: Learning is precisely about making a fool of yourself—often in public.

7. Perseverance. An ability to laugh at yourself and suppress your ego is key—but so is steely-eyed determination. Sure it was "just" cookie making. But I did want to do it right.

Lesson: Winners want to do everything well, no matter how trivial; and that takes focus and unrelenting drive.

8. Perfectionism. Certainly, the kitchen was a mess. Yes, I was the object of ridicule. But to master one's craft requires nothing less than pain-in-the-butt perfectionism. Most see artists, and creative types in general, as scatterbrained. I'm sure there are scatterbrained artists (and bakers), but their work doesn't end up in museums (or cookbooks).

Lesson: Creativity and perfectionism are essential handmaidens.

9. Ownership. It was made clear to me: I was responsible for the Christmas Eve dinner cookies. There were no backups available—and a long ginger-cookie tradition hung on my frail (i.e., incompetent) shoulders. The monkey was ensconced squarely on my back. So I did the job.

Lesson A: No ownership, no passion.
Lesson B: No passion, no perseverance.
Lesson C: There is no half ownership.

10. Accountability. When I'd helped with some previous cookie making (the day before), I'd screwed up the baking time twice. Now I was on my own. That should have made things more difficult. But, to the contrary, I was so attuned to the task that I didn't come close to blowing it.

Lesson: Until you're engaged in all aspects of a job, you don't fully engage.

11. Taste. OK, I'll brag: I made good cookies. Greatness takes practice—and exquisite taste. I may or may not practice more, but I doubt I'll ever become to baking what Tom Clancy is to techno-thrillers.

Lesson: If we want great products, we need to find, attract, and retain great creators. Period.

If you'd like to get a copy to spread around, you can download one here as an MSWord file or in a PDF version.

Below ... a different kind of holiday photo. Tom sent it with this caption: "Nothing to do with the post, and I do not confuse myself with the King of the Beasts. But this is how I plan to spend my holidays." Source: His July trip to Botswana.

*If books he hasn't read yet are on offer.

My apology.

I more or less believe it—but I surely shouldn't have said it so crudely, and it surely wasn't personal.

My craft this summer has been brush-cutting and landscaping. I've been putting in about 6 hours a day at it—each session ends when exhaustion makes it end. Typically, I do one in the morning around 7:30 a.m., and one in late afternoon, around 4 p.m. I religiously avoid the midday sun.

Yes, I love Posting and love seminar-ing. But I can honestly say that this has given me more pleasure than anything in recent, or not so recent, memory.

First, there is one helluva lot to say for doing outdoor work in the sun, hour after hour, to that point of exhaustion. This may be particularly true for those of us who spend most of our lives parked at a keyboard or parked in a conference chair or parked on a tarmac. Our primal bodies need this sort of thing! And while regular exercise is great, this is of a whole different character—this is really participating in the outdoor world, not just using it to tone heart muscles, important as that is. Second, this is a seriously cool project of my own design; doing heavy-duty yard (farm) work is one thing, and rewarding—but creating something that you dreamed up is a whole different deal. Third, every day brings surprises. Nothing beats surprises! (E.g., I didn't even know that wonderful boulder was there, as it was covered with brush! What a beauty!) This project started out as a simple effort to clean out a stream filled with debris from the forest in which it started—perhaps 20 years of debris. But the "work" meandered and grew day by day into this opportunity to create a fascinating, enchanting zen-like space that reveals a smidgen of the magnificence of this little piece of Southern Vermont heaven. I never know how the day is going to proceed—how sweet that is. Fourth, this project doesn't aim to impress a soul. At 64, I still have hundreds of stomach-knotting "final exams" every year—my 65 or so speeches where expectations are invariably ridiculously high and a "bad day at the office" is not an option, and the likes of the numerous Posts at this Blog (not every Post is a home run, or even a single, but every one is the creation and exposure of something that will be measured by an incredibly diverse crowd. I am "my own man," and somewhat known for my independence of thought—but there are always those external customers, up to 3 or 4 thousand at a speech, tens of thousands here at tompeters.com. Each one is an examining magistrate. Well, there is one customer for this project—me. To be sure, Susan, the artist in the family and a first-rate gardener, offers suggestions, and we and various visitors will use, and perhaps appreciate, the space. But I firmly feel that I am doing this for the sheer joy of doing it, unbidden. Hall of Fame basketball player Larry Bird was once asked what he wanted his epitaph to be; surprisingly, he said that he wanted to have played as hard at practices where not a soul was in attendance as in Game 7 of a World Championship series. Nice.

So that's the deal. Why am I posting less? Because I'm out in the yard (on the farm) doin' my thing, and when I'm not in the yard I'm recovering from that work, and bandaging a thousand cuts from brambles (it looks like I stepped on a mine and barely survived, a friend said—no photos attached) and putting ice on twisted ankles and the like.

(Sorry, I am unable not to conclude this way—I can only imagine the Comments. Where would I most like to be on the 4th? As I've been only once on this date, at the wall with 58,000 names, chatting up a few of my missing pals.)

Better late then never. In Boston this Day of the Irish paralleled a dig out from our latest storm of note. Above, you'll see a bench on the Commonwealth Avenue promenade—not quite ready for Spring. Below, St Patty's traditional Boston Public Garden attire for either Jack or Kack or Lack or Mack or Nack or Quack or Pack. (Based on the children's classic Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey. Some commentator will, I trust, fill you in on the details.)

Time: 2 minutes, 23 seconds

MP3 File

Voter turnout, in the snow (see below), was over 50%. The decision between public voting at Town Meeting (a 222-year tradition) and secret Australian ballot was on the table. Feelings ran hot, but the meeting was orderly and respectful—and the arguments pro and con so compelling that they changed my mind. It was a wonderful display of Cap-D Democracy. Our issues may not have been directly about war and peace—but they were heartwarming, dramatic even, confirmation of what Mssrs Washington, Adams, et al. were about two-and-a-quarter centuries ago.

In the end, the Australian ballot won by 8 votes. Thus ends a 222-year streak. (I almost wept.)

Tom is sharing the platform with his long-term friend, Charles Handy, who is widely recognised as Europe's best known and most influential management thinker. Although their work has been constantly cross referenced since their Skunk Camp and Age of Unreason days, they have never before shared a conference platform. It will be a very special day.

Full conference details are at www.benchmarkforbusiness.com. We hope to see you there.