Comments

Tom

Good luck with your "women's thing"... You know I disagree with you on a lot of your stuff on women... Most of all I just do not see the point of getting "louder" about your "women's thing" when most people either know it already or clearly do not want to listen...

But you have a business to run and after all you have been doing more than OK for a generation so who am I to say what is good business for Tom Peters and for Tom Peters and Company...

All I know is at the end of the day the more you rant, rave, yell, get loud, etc about this stuff the more I am going to TUNE OUT, LOWER THE VOLUME, or SIMPLY NOT LISTEN ANYMORE...

The world caravan is moving on from all this anyway... Did you see all 1,800 MIT courses are now available FREE to all comers all around the world over the Internet... No accredited degree, no contact with faculty staff, etc but an MIT education (in part) for FREE... This is the way the best institutions of the world are going about EXECUTION and continued EXCELLENCE in 2007.. They are joining the new (virutal) world where there is no need to exclude any age group, gender, race, etc from the bounty of a first class education... They understand that the new world is networked and the more you include people in your networked world the more benefits there are for all... The zero sum game of exclusion and competion based on price and national boundaries is fast disappearing....

Welcome to Richard's (and my sons' new world) Tom.. It is a world of inclusion and free goods and services... The new world is creating more wealth than I ever believed possible and as they say "you ain't seen nothing yet"... This is a world of "use value" not "value add" (1,2,3,4,5,etc)... The good news is that MIT, Google, Skype, etc do not have to be loud about this new world they just have to get on and Execute with Excellence what they are already doing...

The big issues for my sons' generation - generation Y - will be awesome... These issues include - Climate change, Water redistribution, Fire fighting strategies, flood mitigation and control, Carbon trading regimes, global equity funds (the emerging economic power), decline of National governments, protection of freedom of speech, redistribution of wealth from old to new economies, etc, etc..... Now those are issues to be LOUD about perhaps....

Stay well and have fun...

Richard

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at March 12, 2007 8:28 PM

Today's excellence is tomorrow's necessity.

Posted by Hitendra Patil at March 13, 2007 4:31 AM

Yesterday I was talking to a healthcare manager who told me that the female family doctor in her organisation gets consistently higher scores on communication skills with patients than her male colleagues through formal and robust patient surveys. No surprise there of course and in my healthcare experience this is a consistent and universal story. This is not about the TECHNICAL competence of doctors - it is about communication skills (which by the way I say SHOULD be considered part of the technical competence of doctors – and will be in the UK in future, at long last, after much lobbying)

Richard is right - we all know what Tom is saying but then I see example like I mention here and I realise key decision makers, policy makers and regulators are still not hearing what is being said. They just don’t ‘get it.’

Shouting louder is one way but I think an equally effective way is for women to just carry on doing the business quietly and effectively and teaching us guys about communication skills.

Posted by Trevor Gay at March 13, 2007 4:38 AM

Inspired by Tom Peters and his Master Slides I've been thinking on my recent "The Customer Lies" post.

The Research & Development of our company should be the first to be cleared from all those five.

I feel myself a lucky guy; I've visited a thousand companies for business, all R&D departments; therefore I've had the pleasure to meet the very VIP's: the people who innovate products and methodologies.

I've met many talented engineers, with a deep understanding of their product and a wide knowledge of the technologies available. They were all working for succesful -market leading companies.

I never get whether it is the bright product-innovator or the succesful company, that came first.

Posted by Giorgio Buccilli at March 13, 2007 3:05 PM

Your points are very, very well taken Richard. My defense is not to disagree but is to stake my claim on pragmatism, or "seeing around short corners" as I sometimes call it. While all that you say will likely dominate the first half of this century, I deal with the audiences that I see daily. Truth is, their life is not so different from the last few decades (we don't all work for Google), and they deal, a la Dilbert, with conventional organizations and power distributions. In these still rather conventional settings they try to make a difference--and I try to help a little. Today I talked to an excellent hospital system, but the patient safety issues they grapple with will use modern tools--but with prettty mundane applications, except that these uses may save 10s of thousands of lives. As to the women's thing, you are nuts, which is to say out of touch with yesterday. I still look out at a sea of white male faces in a world where white male economic clout is evaporating by the second. Most companies are living in the past on this; it is doubtless another "short corner"--but a very importantt one. I am not a futurist, never have been; I am an avowed "present-ist," to coin a (very) ugly word. You worry about 2025, I'll stick with 2010 at the most.

Posted by tom peters at March 13, 2007 8:58 PM

Trevor

I work in IT support business. Similar things apply - I know engineers who are average technically but great communicators - they get higher CSAT ratings than gurus who often actually solve the incidents faster. Technical support (like I suspect healthcare) is as much about delaing with the emotional needs of the customer as the "technical" problem. I haven't done an analysis on the Male/female break down on this buut I suspect it would be quite interesting!

Posted by PaulH at March 14, 2007 2:58 AM

Tom

I too deal with short-term issues - as you know clients pay for what is now and most of what is now is a direct consequence of what they did or didn't do yesterday... I am definitely not a futurist (not that smart or arrogant) but I do have a context that is "out there" (I guess) as I am looking out to 2025-50... But I do it for the here and now as I want your "present-ist" to know that MIT is open to them and is free (Stanford also has free courses on the Internet)... I want them to use modern technologies to "reform" their workplace, organisation, communities, lives, etc if they possibly can but I understand having been on the open cut of change in such organisations that their real chances of changing much is slim...

I do not imagine that most people will want to work at Google (16-20 hours a day often on the least known of Google products or services, or dealing with 1400 emails a day as Marissa Mayer was reported to get a couple of years back) but I do expect them to use its free search and to understand that when Google makes YouTube work it is entirely possible that we will not be blogging but will be podcasting in short videos...

I understand that you want to appeal to the great majority and that is a "noble" cause but I also want to appeal to that group in a different way... I want them to stretch their mindsets as if they worked at "Google" rather than "Sierra Healthcare" (which by the way I admire in the health sector)... I want people who serve me at Best Buy or JetBlue or Starbucks, or Tom Peters and Co to be eager to go home because there they are able to take full advantage of the emerging "virutal world"...

In the final analysis I am not predicting the future but looking back 100 years... People worked at the Blacksmiths, Grocery Store, Saddlery, Western Union, Well Fargo, etc.... They believed in the future of the "horse and cart"... They were not anti the horseless carriage but they just did not see a future for it... Others worked at those very same places but they believed in the future of the horseless carriage, the railroad, morse code, etc, and so they inherited a new world...

Finally, I totally understand that women are doing well in all aspects of the working world - I am delighted by it... I understand therefore that you want to "sell" to women... But I do not understand the rant and rave that women are the best leaders etc, etc... Women are different to men in the workplace as elsewhere I welcome that difference... But is Dr Rice the best Secretary of State ever simply because she is a women? Will Senator Hillary Clinton be the best President ever because she is a women? Was Margaret Thatcher (sorry Trevor) the best ever Prime Minister of Britain because she was a woman? Women are making a huge contribution but that does not suddenly mean that are the best thing since "sliced bread".... I just do not agree with you on this one - some women are truly WOW! some are not some men are truly WOW! some are not end of story... Women are getting more and more opportunities to show what they can do and why they do what they do differently to men - the world is a better place for that!!!!

Stay well and continue to have fun..

Richard

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at March 14, 2007 3:18 AM

Interesting debate. I think I understand why Tom bangs on about the woman thing but personally I want to see less work done on women or boomers as a market (which is important and I'm not decrying it) and more done about getting talented women into the appropriate and equally well-remunerated position as their male counterparts. And my use of the "talent" word brings me on to where I think the focus needs to be (and please excuse the arrogance of trying to second guess you guys):

Execution
Substance over style (but style matters)
Quality
Equality of opportunity and meritocracy
Ethical, responsible, sustainable business
Life-long education
Healthcare

Old fashioned? Maybe, but I prefer timeless.

Posted by Mark JF at March 14, 2007 3:46 AM

Hi Richard - you certainly don't need to apologise to me about your question is Mrs Thatcher the greatest ever Prime Minister - the answer is DEFINITELY NOT - she is a long way down the list regardless of her gender.

Interestingly enough I can’t remember who it was but one Cabinet Minister once said Mrs Thatcher was 'the only member of the Cabinet with balls' … I leave that image to your imagination.

Fascinating discussion about the gender issue – I love Mark’s ‘old fashioned list' and I agree with you 100% Mark - even if you and I disagree passionately on the merits of Mrs T - or maybe should that be Mr T? :-)

I love 'life long education' - I have always said there is no such thing as an overnight success. Give me someone who has served their apprenticeship among the muck and bullets at the front line any time and it makes no difference whether that is a man or a woman. I have had crap bosses who are men and crap bosses who are women and I have had fantastic bosses of both genders too.

This 'women' thing is clearly in the eye of the beholder and I think Tom's biggest point is there are still toom many 'blind people' around about the rightful place of women as equal partners.

Posted by Trevor Gay at March 14, 2007 9:43 AM

1. Seems to be a tie so far for the Free 90210 $100k voucher between Tom & Trevor [who claims he is 'Trevor Peters' ... lost baby brother of TP] ...

viagra purchase buy Posted by sean_90210 at March 14, 2007 10:44 AM

" ... but personally I want to see less work done on women or boomers as a market ... and more done about getting talented women into the appropriate and equally well-remunerated position as their male counterparts."

Mark I totally agree. But I have also long believed that often the best way to bring about change is via the bottom line. Hence I believe that if you buy the economic argument you must change the leadership arrangements to pull it off. In very short form, my opening shot (women, African Americans, Hispanics etc) is: "Short of quotas, which I do not endorse, your [client] executive leadership team should-must roughly resemble the market you serve."

Posted by tom peters at March 15, 2007 8:08 AM

Women:
1. Encountered glass ceilings and other impediments to the corporate pinnacle.
2. Opted out in order to achieve. Started their own businesses by the gazillion.
3. Realized their economic clout and used it to patronize women-centered, women-controlled businesses.
4. Largely responsible for the new world of business 2.0 (built on relationships), small being the new big, etc.
5. Ergo--women are responsible for the new economic order we perceive today. Not completely, but in large part. The new, nimble, agile, small, networked, entrepreneureal business is just as likely to be lead by a woman than a man.

That's a completely unscientific analysis, but it feels right in my gut.

Posted by Mike at March 15, 2007 12:59 PM

Mike

Your "gut feelings" make interesting reading...

I agree with you on one point. Women are at the cutting edge of WEB 2.0 relationship building - how do I know this? I know it through empirical observation. I get most hits on my blog site from young women (and girls) from all around the world (most of them regrettably do not speak english or more regrettably I can not speak to them in their language - they follow up with emails and I have the same problem BUT and here is the big BUT these women are all - almost exclusively all - Generation Y (basically 14 years to 29 years old)... It is the young who are leading the revolution not boomers or middle age women...

Seth Godin says "small is the next big" (indeed he wrote a book on the subject) and much as I adore Seth for his intellect, his ideas, and his insights on this occassion my gut feeling is he could not possibly be more wrong... I sense that BIG (like MASSIVE!) is the next big...

Finally, in a general sense people who are risk averse will stay in coporates right now and those who are not will leave and try their luck on their own - women have decided "to back themselves" and so they have gone out and begun to build businesses (so too have the get up and go men in the world) and that has seemingly been a huge success - more power to them!!! I welcome it and benefit directly from it!!! The global economy needs more and more people who are willing to take risks and to build success.. It is exciting therefore that so many of these people are emerging in China, India, Korea, Thailand, etc.

What is equally exciting is that Generation Y girls, boys, women and men are all using new technologies to do different things OR to do the same things differenly to my generation and we will all benefit from that simple fact....

viagra online free shipping australia Richard

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at March 15, 2007 11:19 PM

Richard says – ‘people who are risk averse will stay in coporates right now and those who are not will leave and try their luck on their own - women have decided "to back themselves" and so they have gone out and begun to build businesses (so too have the get up and go men in the world) and that has seemingly been a huge success - more power to them!!!

This got me thinking about my own situation … first about ‘risk’ and second about ‘business planning.’

RISK

Three years ago it took me many months soul searching to actually ‘leave’ the perceived ‘security blanket’ of a corporate 35 year healthcare career. I remember a friend saying ‘You emotionally ‘left’ the healthcare months ago and your body will catch up soon' He was right. It did.

At that precise MOMENT – I remember it well - anything remotely resembling a ‘risk’ disappeared from my mind. I’ve never regretted that decision for a nano-second -even though I no longer have the GUARANTEE I previously had in ‘corporate misery’ of sufficient income each month to eat. Women may be better than men at the ‘risk’ business - I have no idea academically about that - BUT I do know from PRACTICAL and PERSONAL experience that ‘apparent and perceived risk’ is worse than the reality.

BUSINESS PLANNING

I would love to engage in virtual discussion with anyone interested in the TP community about my latest thoughts of challenging STUFFY AND BORING STRATEGIC BUSINESS PLANNING and putting some 'FUN' into planning by proposing weekly or even daily business planning .... which is how I survive .... just :-)

I have another book in my head about business planning - a title something like ‘PLAN TO EAT .... BY THE SEAT OF YOUR PANTS’ …. Sounds like a blast and a bit of collaborative fun …. … Anyone interested in sharing thoughts please contact me trevor.simplicity@gmail.com

Must get on – work to do on the gloriously sunny spring day in England … I’ve secured work to make sure we will eat in April …. So today we plan for May.

Great discussion - thank you guys!

Posted by Trevor Gay at March 16, 2007 3:39 AM