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MLK/Longevity
As I do upon occasion, I speed walked yesterday listening to several of Martin Luther King's most prominent speeches. I do so for reasons spiritual as well as, frankly, professional. No declamations, including Churchill's, are so moving. (I listen to a lot of speeches.) In a professional vein, I have no idea who comes in second to Dr King as a public orator, but whoever that might be is a distant second. I could easily expend 5,000 words on the details of his speaking Excellence—from the emotion to the brevity to the excruciatingly slow build to the storytelling to the matchless use of alliteration to the urgent call to action to the shaming of those who would sit on the sidelines and not act. One of King's most moving speeches was in Memphis, right before he was assassinated. He anticipated that tragic event. I stopped and listened to a brief section three or four times, scribbling as I did. Here's at least a close approximation:
[Moving recitation of the last decade's events in the Civil Rights Movement, such as Selma.] "And I got into Memphis last night, and some say the threats are 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 get chills all over again even as I write this, but if I dare trivialize it, I want to make another point. "Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now. ... I may not get there with you. ..."
I simply don't buy "built to last" in any way, shape or form—and this passage reinforced that abiding belief. "Built to Impact" is/has been/will be my Rallying Cry. Dr King changed the world—and died at 39.
To trivialize perhaps: Netscape changed the world ... and died at about age 6. I am desperately trying to change the world in some teeny tiny way, I have but a few years to go, and I have purposefully not created any "institution" to attempt to move my case forward when I'm gone—the world will take care of that (or not) without me. I frankly don't give two hoots about longevity—other than spending time with my family. I've done what I can do as well and as hard as I can do it up to and including last Friday in Singapore. And that's that. Period. (I don't want my professional life to be a run-on sentence.)
Kjell Nordström and Jonas Ridderstråle bluntly make this point in Funky Business: "But what if [former head of strategic planning at Royal Dutch Shell] Arie De Geus is wrong in suggesting, in The Living Company, that firms should aspire to live forever? Greatness is fleeting and, for corporations, it will become ever more fleeting. The ultimate aim of a business organization, an artist, an athlete, or a stockbroker may be to explode in a dramatic frenzy of value creation during a short space of time, rather than to live forever."
(NB: GM's shining hour—and shine it did!—lasted from about 1950 to 1975. Hooray, thanks a ton, and I won't really miss you if you go kaput.)
"Built to Impact"—TP
"Explode in a Dramatic Frenzy of Value Creation"—KN & JR
"I may not get there with you [but] mine eyes have seen the glory ..."—MLK
Now consider this from Simone de Beauvoir: "Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself. If all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying." (Think about a surviving GM?) I scrounged this marvelous [Marvelous = Abets my Life's Argument] quote from a marvelous book I picked up in the airport in Bangkok. It's Robert Tomasko's BIGGER Isn't Always Better.
Tomasko makes a reasoned, data-rich argument that echoes Simone Beauvoir. He does not, for instance, dismiss big mergers out of hand, but provides a strict definition of the few that work. This wee saving remnant uses the merger to help the enterprise perhaps "explode in a new frenzy of value creation," to paraphrase Nordström and Ridderstråle. (Immelt's unabashed aim at GE.) Tomasko, however, devotes the lion's share of the book to strategies and tactics for keeping energy and excitement going and growing in a corporation—this rarely or never encompasses growth-for-growth's sake or bigger-ness for bigger's sake. (Think Bo Burlingham's Small Giants, much praised in this Blog.) Typical chapter titles are: "Growth Is About Moving Forward" and "Are You a Fixer or a Grower?"
"Built to Impact"—TP
"Explode in a Dramatic Frenzy of Value Creation"—KN & JR
"I may not get there with you [but] mine eyes have seen the glory ..."—MLK
"If all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying."—SB
My case rests.
(For now.)
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Comments
Why does it have to be a zero-sum game, Tom? Why can't a corporation (or other institution)be built to last AND impact? Why does it have to be about going out in a blaze of glory? Look at Japanese companies, for instance. The truly successful ones (Toyota, Honda, etc.) are planning decades ahead. DECADES. Kaizen (continuous incremental improvement) and kaikaku (revolutionary change) are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one often leads to another.
GM--I don't have any stake in GM, but why do the only choices for GM (or pick your favorite stumbling corporation) have to be extinction or mediocrity? Why can't there be a third alternative of re-achieving greatness?
You truly have no interest in any legacy? You don't want your impact to remain after you are gone? If your impact lasts only a heartbeat, was it really worth it? Was the impact real? What if Ford, Edison, Eisenhower, Bacon, Newton, Marshall, Billy Durant, Eli Whitney, and a host of others had thought that way? If there is no LASTING IMPACT we have to keep reinventing the wheel all the time.
Posted by Mike at August 8, 2006 4:25 PM
I agree with Mike.
Someone who tries to build an organization to last will never succeed unless the culture can continually make products and services that have impact. We all should be striving for impact and if the market rewards our ability to conitnually have impact by letting us stay around for a long time, well I guess we are built to last as well.
Tom, you seem to have a thing about beating up on the work of Jim Collins. Why don't you try letting go? It has value. Your work has value. And so do the ideas of dozens of others. Even people who aren't middle-aged white guys.
Smart people are able to dissect and discern the viewpoints that will give them the competitive edge, form their own integrated philosophy, and discard the rest.
Posted by Jeffrey at August 8, 2006 6:32 PM
The interesting thing about building things to last is, as Tom points out, MLK was shot in the head, assassinated the day after his prophetic speech. It occurss to me that change agents frequently get consumed by the changes they try to bring about. Sometimes literally. Building corporations to last, I don't know. It seems we have to try to have an impact while trying to. just. survive.
Against that reality, most of the bizbooks, etc. come up short.
BTW, there's a brief blog post about MLK's last speech (including some audio) at http://tinyurl.com/hv6ep.
Posted by Bill Berry at August 8, 2006 7:05 PM
The MLK URL is http://tinyurl.com/hv6ep
Sorry.
Posted by Bill Berry at August 8, 2006 7:07 PM
We are not gods, therefore we are living a "limited time offer." God intended Himself to be the only One to last. Corporations and civilizations come and go. We've been given the gift of life to impact...first and last.
What MLK, Jr. gave us was a glimpse of God's greater vision (the second greatest commandment)for America.
Thanks for inspiring me Tom!
Posted by Eric Pennington at August 8, 2006 8:17 PM
Here, here Mr. Pennington. As I read the comments above the words that came to mind are : Nothing truly lasts.
You could go for lasting impact, but I doubt you'll know you're doing it. The most we can hope for is to have an impact: on our client's business, in our family's lives, in our employee's careers. I'll save immortality for the Gods and Jim Collins. (BTW, I consider Good To Great one of the all-time great business books. I've yet to see a TP slide that says "Fire the right people".)
What has impact? Ideas, inspiration, integrity, innovation. Big and small. And in Tom Peters' style, baring your soul never hurts.
Great post Tom. We'll see if your long post, short comments theory holds.
PS - "I don't want my professional life to be a run-on sentence." Made me LMAO.
Posted by Paul Davidson at August 8, 2006 10:46 PM
Tom,
I read a quote by Gerstner (I think in his book) where he suggested that one should never try to get into a merger with the "hope" of creating some new businesses. The reason he gave was that it's just too tough for ordinary companies to do.
Stick to the two most tangible reasons - getting the other guy's customers and/or cutting costs in operations.
My own feeling is that if you did want to execute on something Wow!, you need to hire the people who can carry that out. The cost savings of a merger could just fund such Wow! projects
As a helping hand you could use this brand new book "10 rules for strategic innovation - from idea to execution" from Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble.
Am I on the right track here?
Arun
Posted by Arun Sadhashivan at August 9, 2006 1:31 AM
Arun...maybe you would want to comment on Prof.VG's Blog...? Click on this link below
http://www.vijaygovindarajan.com/
Posted by K.Sriram at August 9, 2006 2:45 AM
"Be not afraid of death. Be afraid of the half-lived life" - unknown
Posted by jimi at August 9, 2006 7:21 AM
Tom, your point is not an either/or case to be made. "Built to Last" has made an impact, and this diatribe of yours, which motivated this conversation, is proof enough of that. Getting people to think, to communicate and, yes, to argue, benefits everyone willing to listen and learn from the discussion.
As an eight-year Vietnam-era veteran, I, too, can spout examples of those who died young and made an impact. The same can be said of many veterans still living and still making an impact.
As for your MLK example, I marched for Civil Rights and was a follower of MLK. Yes, he made an impact; however, the movement died with his death. How was his death preferable to the impact he might have had if he had lasted? It is good to note by the way that MLK strategized and had goals?
All that said, there is plenty of room for the Tom's who hate planning and goals and for the Jim's who believe in them, and to argue Tom gets better results than Jim or that Jim gets better results than Tom is, I think, being either arrogant or defensive. Both can get great results.
Posted by Lewis Green at August 17, 2006 3:47 PM