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Wrong.
Thirty Times Over.
While on holiday in New Zealand ... I got to thinking. As time goes by, "one" (me) tends to complexify one's approach to almost everything. The innocence (and clarity) of "days gone by" is blurred. I know that I am "guilty as charged." (By me.) And I think most of the other "gurus" (horrid term, but it's become part of the biz language) have also gotten away from reality. Hence, I began taking notes for a book-like "thing" that is not, in fact, a book. I titled it:
Excellence for "The Rest Of Us":
A "Book" for "Real People," Working in "The Real World" in 2008
The book-that's-not-a-book begins with a Thirty Count Indictment of "guruworld." I have provided 30 contrasting pairs, "Guru focus" versus "RW," Real World. Below I am offering the list, FYI.
The "Indictment" is the opener of a 62-page (so far) "paper" (that's not a book). Attached you will find the entire 62-page, 19,000-word plus document.
Enjoy!
(Or not.)
More to come!
[If you wonder about the origin of "all this," perhaps the sign, discovered on a beach on Golden Bay, New Zealand, will offer a hypothesis.]
Guru focus versus the "real world":
Guru focus: Big companies and attendant first-order, industry-redefining strategic issues.
Real World: Most of us, still, in 2008, don't work for Big Companies; we labor in "SMEs," Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. (Or the likes of government agencies.) And if we are in a big company or agency, most of our focus is the 17-person department in which we labor. (As to "SMEs," Germany is, ahead of China, the planet's #1 exporter, thanks mainly to focused, high-end middle-sized companies, the Mittlestand enterprises.)
Guru focus: Public corporations.
RW: Most of us work in privately owned companies. (Or in those government agencies.)
Guru focus: Cool industries.
RW: Most of us aren't in "Cool" industries, we do pretty ordinary stuff—like my pal, Larry Janesky, who makes a buck, and then another ($60 million, actually), creating "dry basements," that are free of toxic mold and can be used as a spare room or for a playroom or storing anything and everything; or Australian Jim Penman, who has over 2,500 franchises worldwide doing such things as walking dogs, washing dogs, and installing antennae.
Guru focus: "Excellence" is reserved for GE and GE and GE (or Google or, until last week, Boeing).
RW: "Excellence," bar none, is the fabulous, friendly, informative, instantly responsive pharmacy next door that takes on docs and insurance companies with vigor and usually victory. (Gary Drugs on Charles Street in Boston, for me.)
Guru focus: Boss-less, flat, friction-free, self-defining organizational settings.
RW: Most of us have "bosses." Most of us are assigned tasks.
Guru focus: "Getting ahead" means becoming a "Brand You," in a world where what our peers think of us is more important than the Boss's evaluation.
RW: Most of us still must cater to our bosses to get ahead.
Guru focus: "Cover boy" CEOs with G-4s, trophy wives, and the kids from all three marriages in prep schools with tuitions starting at $50K.
RW: Most of us work for government agencies or in schools or fire departments or in private companies perhaps run by the "millionaire next door," who owns two suits, a 2006 Lexus, stops in the coffee shop on the way to work, and sends his kids to public school.
Guru focus: New "virtual organization" forms of doing business; workplaces with hierarchy are "so yesterday."
RW: Most of us work amidst a rather clear "hierarchy" as depicted on a standard organization chart. (Though there are probably a few less layers then there were a few years ago.) (Want hierarchy? Try Home Depot.)
Guru focus: Creative right-brain weirdos, "with it" in these odd times.
RW: The majority of us are not "new age creatives," but are occasionally quite clever ... and pretty good at "blocking and tackling" in order to "get done what needs to be done."
Guru focus: The immediate threat, to millions upon millions, of being "outsourced."
RW: Most of us aren't especially threatened by the prospect of having our jobs outsourced to India or China or Romania.
Guru focus: Global enterprises "playing in the big league," in a "flat world."
RW: Many (most) of us are only marginally affected by globalization, and our firms don't sell more than a modest share of their products or, especially, services beyond our national borders. (The primary reach of the 18-person accountancy in a mid-sized city of 84,000 is perhaps three miles.)
Guru focus: A world where "the Web is everything, changes everything."
RW: Most of us haven't had our world turned anything like "upside down" by the Web, though the Web has surely had a significant impact. (We communicate with the plumber by Blackberry email from our car, but he's still 5 hours late!)
Guru focus: Our ability to be in instant communication with anyone, anywhere.
RW: Use email, but still practice MBWA—Managing By Walking Around.
Guru focus: An encompassing IS-IT strategy, with everything wired to everything else.
RW: While integrating IS is very important, most of us muddle through, trying to ensure that the IT-enhanced bits (the front-line sub-systems) are marvels of simplicity that deliver the goods for those front-line folks and their internal-external customers.
Guru focus: Strategic planners and CEOs desperately seeking "blue oceans."
RW: Most of us don't spend much or any of our day making grand plans. Never have. Never will.
Guru focus: Thinking "outside the box," of course.
RW focus: Most of us obsess on "doing," pretty much inside the box. (There are enough damn problems in the box—pissed off customers of long standing, etc.)
Guru focus: Complex "systemic change."
RW: Most of us believe in and spend our time doing on-the-cheap, rapid experimentation, picking off the "low-hanging fruit," muddling our way through to big change.
Guru focus: Imposing words-phrase such as "business models," "scalable," "strategic talent management," "customer-retention management," and "knowledge-management paradigm."
RW: Most of us try to use everyday language such as "the way we make a buck" (instead of "business model"), "let's grow this sucker" (not "Is it scalable?"), "hire good people and treat 'em well and give 'em a chance to shine and thank 'em for the stuff they do" (rather than "strategic talent management"), "bust our ass to keep our customers happy to keep 'em coming back" (instead of "customer-retention management"), and "share the stuff you learn with everybody ASAP, don't hoard it" (rather than "executing a knowledge-management paradigm").
Guru focus: Best data base + sexiest algorithms win in our customer-centric enterprise.
RW: Most of us spend our time on "trivial" acts of relationship building with customers, suppliers, leaders in our community, etc.
Guru focus: The relentless pursuit of "synergies."
RW: Most of us focus, focus, focus in order to stand a chance of succeeding in the marketplace. (Those astounding German "Mittlestand" companies again, or Larry Janesky, the dry-basement guy.)
Guru focus: Marketing sleight of hand!
RW focus: Sales! Sales! Sales!
Guru focus: Put the customer first!
RW focus: Put the front-line employee and the front-line manager co-first! (In order to maximize the odds of repeat business.)
Guru focus: Acquisitions and mergers aimed at expanding our "reach" and "market penetration" and "market share" amidst a zero-sum game, thus reducing risk courtesy a "diverse" portfolio and smothering ("killing") the competition.
RW: Play from our strengths, work like hell to enhance those strengths, and survive-thrive via "organic" growth and executing very, very well.
Guru focus: Totally "new rules for a new game," dramatic new "management tools" that "change everything."
RW: Most of us are learning new things, but nothing that's particularly "revolutionary" as we labor mightily (fulltime) "just" to "get stuff done," improve relationships, find good folks and keep 'em by showing appreciation and respect, and providing opportunities to get ahead.
Guru focus: Hiring PhD mathematicians to design obscure algorithms that allow the creation of the likes of "risk free" derivatives and, hence, stunning "competitive advantage."
RW: For most of us, snappy execution of the "timeless" "basics" is Job #1. (And Job #2. And Job #3.)
Guru focus: A fetish for the diabolically clever.
RW: Most of us know that "relentless" pounding and pounding and pounding, and then pounding some more, on those Golden Basics wins.
Guru focus: Built to last.
RW: Most of us muddle through, trying to make it to the end of the week while keeping our customers content.
Guru focus: Disruptive Innovation is #1.
RW: We "invent" everyday "tools," such as Xeroxed (paper) checklists, aimed at preventing "line infections" and thus saving thousands-of-lives-per-year of ICU patients, in the U.S. (In a similar vein, as it were, the British observers estimate that over ten thousand lives per year could be saved in hospitals by providing most patients with compression socks that help prevent deep-vein thrombosis.) (Call it "un-disruptive innovation," with inordinate power?!)
Guru focus: Describe "new age" mortgage bankers, loaded with "intellectual capital" and "integrated systems" who "package" loans as soon as possible and sell them to financial service institutions who create and sell derivatives based on the packaged mortgages—which are in turn re-packaged as super-derivatives.
RW: As, say, a young mortgage-lending officer in a town of 18,000, whose Dad runs a local car dealership, take Mary and John to lunch to get a grasp of who they are before lending them $450,000; and after the loan, call or drop by every, say, three or six months to see how things are going—even if all payments have been on time.
Guru focus: "Changing demographics," "the new Gen X world," as many discrete market segments as there are customers.
RW (I wish): Our primary customers [85% of the time] are women—find the right team [lotsa women in senior management] and go for it. We also, to make a buck, have gotta aim more at boomers or near-boomers, and "geezers" [who collectively have all the dough], and less on callow, so-called "trendsetter" youth.
There's my thirty—and I plead "guilty-as charged" to many-most of them!
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Comments
Great, great post! And I suppose I should now be ashamed at the moniker bestowed upon me by you. :)
Posted by Tom Asacker at March 18, 2008 5:17 PM
‘I got to thinking. As time goes by, "one" (me) tends to complexify one's approach to almost everything.’ - I love that thanks – I rest my case on simplicity.
I don’t really get this posting Tom.
Are you saying we shouldn’t take any notice of gurus because they are not in the ‘real world?’ We all recognise the real world in your 30 statements but surely we need to aim high. You often use this quote in your presentations;
‘The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.’ Michelangelo
Whilst Gurus may not be in the ‘real world’ in some respects we surely need them to encourage us mere mortals to aspire to something above the 'ordinary.'
Or … more likely ... Am I missing the point aqain? :-)
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 18, 2008 6:18 PM
The term "guru" has always implied a rather negative connotation for me. I've never liked the word. It tends to separate the highly persceptive, talented, enlightened, generous, hardworking one from mere mortals from which his (usally not hers) enlightenment has sprung. Often times gurus believe the hype that they are somewhat different, hence better. But gurus are not created in vaccums. Without us, there would be no them. The knowledge of gurus, even genuises, is collective.
Maybe this is the point exactly; the adjectives above may not define gurus at all, but rather enlightened ones -- those who exist in the real world in spite of the hype. The latter, of course, includes TP. I am currently reading A PASSION FOR EXCELLENCE for the first time (nearing the end, page 411.) Call me sappy, but I am often moved to tears by its profound wisdom and understanding. I love the story about TP's school teacher mom and her "bumbling assistant." TP is no guru in the generally accepted term, but he is most certainly incredibly enlightened. Thank you.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 18, 2008 8:38 PM
This post bothers me. Stringing together a bunch of out of context buzzwords and phrases is hardly an indictment of gurus - whoever they are.
And in reality - RW people don't walk around thinking about "snappy execution of the'timeless' 'basics'". Only a 'guru' would talk like that.
Honestly, the feeling I get most from this post is a disturbing disconnection from reality. Sorry.
Posted by Jim Crocker at March 18, 2008 8:56 PM
Tom
I have never been hailed as a Guru (hope I never will be) but I am guilty as charged (by me) to most of those 30 items. I note that if I had not been so inclined to be that way then I would not have achieved (with the help of hundreds of talented and gifted real world people) any of things that in the end gave real meaning to my life.
I thought at first this was you recanting what you have been on about for three decades but it is not - so I am confused as to what it really means.
My take on all this is of course not simple...
Guru: Invents the sub-prime derivative to lower the risk and cost of mortgages for borrowers with little or no equity. These mortgages are bundled up and spread around the flat world of global financial services - the implementation of this innovation is excellent. The complexity of this system is staggering but the key is trust (within the banking sector). Trust is withdrawn due to rising cost of short term money - the global system falters and becomes ill-liquid. The system fails.
Real World: We all embrace the availability of unregulated and expansive credit without ever trying to understand the way it is engineered, sold, or managed. We all now suffer economic consequences of a sub-prime meltdown. We are the victims of this tragedy so we point our collective fingers at everyone but ourselves. We are at fault here because we let these gurus and their super sales people sell us a complex financial instrument as if it was as simple as selling us nappies or soap powder.
Go figure!!!
Richard
Posted by Richard Lipscombe at March 18, 2008 9:18 PM
Jim Crocker...this is rather funny. Your second sentence seems to define your first which makes your third and final sentence perplexing. The point that gurus speak in such terms seems to imply to me that that the term itself is one of hyperbole, one with little real world substance. Your "disturbing disconnection" seems to be solidly connected in the reality of the post itself. But then again...I may have missed the point of the post, perhaps creating my own. This in indeed probable.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 18, 2008 9:27 PM
Halleh...F$%#@ng...lujah!
Posted by Dennis at March 18, 2008 9:59 PM
Down right honest post Tom...This IS the revolutionary post- All Gurus are declared and exposed naked !
Can I repackaged the million appreciation thanks for all your previous posts to a "super-derivative thanks" after this post?
Posted by Joseph at March 19, 2008 12:02 AM
Now this is really funny...It's 1:14 am and I'm still up. I just flicked on the TV and turned to a show called, above all titles, "The Guru." Now, I have no idea if this comedy is even funny. The guide reads, "An ambitious dancer from India goes to Manhattan to become an actor but winds up becoming a sex guru in this quirky comedy. A delightful spoof of 'Grease' and Bollywood musicals, the film also takes aim at New Age mysticism." Apropos? Probably not! But more later if there's even a hint of the discussion here or even if it's worth viewing.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 19, 2008 12:17 AM
I dont agree with this being an Indictment post. The approach maybe becoming stale(GE is a constant case study) but the concise nature of business wisdom brought forth by many Gurus is simply mind blowing. It would require though decades of experience before one fully understands the wisdom in all its dimensions.
I have found Sumantra Ghosal on Strategy to be terrific (though its not something new that I am reading; had read it already in B-School). Its like reading a book and seeing its making into a movie. The transformation needs to be ultra smooth else both the book and movie lose their sheen.
I would rather be worried about Quacks (self styled Gurus). Remember Seth Godin predicting Search is not a business and Google is not viable.
My bet is still out on the Gurus.
Posted by chandra kumar at March 19, 2008 2:41 AM
The GURU ship had a few shots across it bow here, but something tells me it won't go down easily.
http://www.afei.org/pdf/Barraba_Ackoff_article.pdf
Posted by Tibor Kalman at March 19, 2008 6:21 AM
Bravo. Don't get me wrong, I have been inspired by the collective gurus throughout my working career. And I must say, I learned some things that have made me a better business person. But the truth of the matter is, I think most gurus coming from the world of academia and research could benefit from a stint as a front line supervisor in an auto plant. Nothing brings theory into focus more than being told to take your ideas and put em where the sun don't shine...or the always popular reaction on the floor "go f yourself". It is not that the gurus get it wrong, indeed I wish it worked the way they see things. They just need to think more often through a practical, how's it play in Peoria, lens. Thanks...
Posted by Mike Neiss at March 19, 2008 7:19 AM
Well said Mike - your comments remind me of some alleged 'Guru's' in healthcare that haven't met a patient or a family carer for the last few decades and yet they talk and write a good Business Plan :-)
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 19, 2008 10:45 AM
To me Gurus are simply sources of ideas or catalysts to stimulate my own ideas. It's important to look openly but critically. At the end of the day the buck stops with you not with the guru who gave you the idea.
Perhaps critical thinking is the key skill that is not tought in our education system?
I think a lot of consultancy engagements that don't work out are probably as much the fault of a customer with woolly objectives as the consultant.
Posted by PaulH at March 19, 2008 11:27 AM
Outfreakinstanding! Much of what is actually written in leadership and management over the past decade are variations on themes and concepts pioneered by Deming, Juran. Drucker, Crosby, and many other of decades past. That proably sounds a lot more negative than I mean it to be. It's just that the linkages are seem clear to me regardless of how it's labeled. The "Guru" label is often "self annointed", used as a marketing ploy, and overused.You might not get to pick your family, but your friends and "guru's" are a personal choice. The 62 pages reminded me of the "lessons learned" or "After Action Reports" of my days in the Air Force. You did something, you assessed, reviewed and dissected what you did, you looked for strengths and opportunities to do better, and you excuted what needed changed/improved. A "re-calibration" if you will. A good "O-3" is a marvelous and valuable resource and, as I read the words, the frontline leadership experience of a great 0-3 came through loud and clear. "Listen to the locals"...WHAT A SIMPLE CONCEPT!...yet why do so many "educated" folks fail to grasp this very basic and valuable piece of advice. The Planners and Searchers" concept...this captures the essense of the dis-connect between the Consultant-Company Leader view of what's wrong versus the frontline's reality of what's truly wrong. I also perceived an element of "accountability"in this post that is noticeably absent but sorely needed in the business world today. It is exactly this type of self analysis and thinking that makes the "lessons learned" and "after action" such a terrific and productive tool for improvement. It's not about solving "problems" where the first step is to assign blame and punish. It's about saying "What were we thinking?" and moving on to finding a way to do it better, smarter, more efficiently. There is not only wisdom in those words, there are tons of performance and productivity "multipliers" in there as well. It can change one from a frontline supervisor/manager who gets told to f-off to a frontline leader who gets folks to "do you want done because they want to do it"....(General Eisenhower I believe?) Thanks Tom....your ideas play well on the frontline and have for the many years I've used them.
Posted by Dave Wheeler at March 19, 2008 11:52 AM
Had my wrist slapped recently for asking a guru not a million miles from here whether he was writing about (firmly stating) things as he would like them to be rather than as they actually are. I think there definitely is Guruworld and Realworld, but isn't that usually the point? That gurus lead us to somewhere beyond the current reality? The risk is when they say words like "the customer" and actually mean "people like me". Gurus need a degree of critical distance, not to put themselves in the role of Everyman (Latin homo rather than vir here).
Posted by Rob at March 20, 2008 4:31 PM
Back in the 1930's, I put a uninal in
an art museum and it became art because it was in a art museum.
In the same way, this 'Real World' rant has is considered wisdom only because it has
the right person as an author.
Posted by rMutt at March 22, 2008 11:32 AM
rMutt,
Back in the 1910s, I put a Norman Rockwell among the abstractionists.
But it wasn't considered art because the gurus didn't like it.
John
Posted by Shakespeare's Fool at March 26, 2008 12:18 AM
Excellent read....
For another excellent example of "Graphic Evidence Of The Source Of Your Passion" (the Charlie Wilson lessons section of the document) check out the movie Amazing Grace and see how William Wilberforce did something similar to show how evil slavery really is.
B
Posted by Brian Routley at March 26, 2008 12:34 PM
Tom,
You write:
As time goes by, "one" (me) tends to
complexify one's approach to almost everything.
The innocence (and clarity) of "days gone by"
is blurred. I know that I am "guilty as charged."
Herman Hupfeld: "As Time Goes By"
“This day and age we live in
Gives cause for apprehension
Its speed and strange inventions:
Now things have four dimensions?
“Yes, we’ve grown a trifle weary
Of professor Einstein’s theory
So we must get down to earth again,
Relax. Just be our selves again
“For no matter what the progress
Or what may yet be proved
The simple facts of life are such
They cannot be removed.â€
Of course Hupfeld was talking about “when two
lover’s woo,†but even in “Business @ the Speed
of Thought†people do not move near enough
the speed of light to experience the effects of
relativity.
And, as you point out, businesses rarely work in
the realms of many guru’s thinking.
I think many of your points are exactly right:
•Most of us aren’t in “Cool†industries.
•Few of us are “Brand You,†but must please
the boss.
•Almost no one works in a “virtual
organization†almost everyone works in an (at
least nearly) traditional hierarchy.
I wonder how often the theoreticians of science
and politics get away from the real world and
lose themselves and us in the rare or imaginary
realms of guru thinking?
Physicists seem to love to talk about relativity,
black holes, and the end of the universe, but
most of the work of the world is closer to the
actions of the six simple machines.
Computer chips may be getting closer to using
Joephson junctions, but most of the work we do
on them is typing, talking, and sharing videos.
So your ideas on gurus and management may be
useful far beyond business.
Well said. Great first statement on what
promises to be most useful to managers and
— if extended — to people in many other
professions
John
Posted by Shakespeare's Fool at March 26, 2008 8:52 PM
I agree with Tom. But if these people call themselves "guru," they are mistaken. Pundits, experts, and gurus must act from a minimum baseline of Century-21 wisdom. Yes, extremely unconventional wisdom to commensurate with the rate of changing change. I find it that most of this people want to have it easy and not endure. I am tired of seeing that happening. It seems--to my greatest concern-- that in the Western Hemisphere people are more into the easy challenges than to overcome the summit of the Himalaya.
Many of them left university/college a few years ago and forgot to place the highest premium on their own education and formation. No teacher, no professor, no supervisor is going to run the zillion extra miles required to get it done right. Education and, even better, self-education, not even terminates with one's end of life.
Many don’t capture the wisdom of valuable lesson learned in experimental frameworks to bring about a major breakthrough. Do they know that they cannot keep on using the PAST TO VALIDATE THE PRESUMPTIVE FUTURE? Yes, that as-of-now future that, at least, requires you to habitually manage on the fringe of chaos/order forever.
A guru is not a status granted on to someone graciously; it’s a great responsibility and the only way to determine perseverance to constantly refine, in real-time, your thinking towards many challenges that surround you. If the designated RESOURCES do not allow you not to be overwhelmed by problems’ defiance, one is no “guru,†just a person in the wrong career. It’s getting tougher and tougher in business by the day. And it’s going to get tougher without a fail.
The problem and solution is that no one discipline alone is enough to solve today’s problems. You must have been around, cultivating yourself and your prepared mind. If it is too much, it won’t wane down to comfort the troubled guru never ever.
Andres (Andy) Agostini
Posted by Andres Agostini at April 6, 2008 9:47 PM
I perceived an element of "accountability"in this post that is noticeably absent but sorely needed in the business world today. It is exactly this type of self analysis and thinking that makes the "lessons learned" and "after action" such a terrific and productive tool for improvement.
Posted by Max at April 7, 2008 3:53 PM