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Forewo/ard, March!
There will be a 2009 edition of Re-imagine! I was asked to write a new foreword—which I did. Finished it last Friday.
Following a rule I generally break, what follows is the first 800 words, with a continuation which you may choose to peruse. We also have a PDF version of the entire 7,000-word piece.
[Please keep in mind that the text is a draft, which Tom urged me to remind you. Changes, as always, are to come.—CM]
Preface to 2009 Edition: Re-imagine!
Does any of what follows, in a book published in 2003, make sense if, or as, the world is falling apart? That's the obvious, and only, way to start a foreword in early 2009. The answer, of course, is "Yes"—and "no."
Re-imagine describes a brave new intertwined world of commerce, organizational formats, and career strategies in which many or even most of the old rules have been broken, then shredded. While the economic system is dramatically altered in 2009, and will surely be altered more in 2010 and perhaps beyond, the old rules that were broken that animated Re-imagine in the first place are still broken; much of the work to be done in 2009, beyond dealing with day-to-day survival issues, comes from the work list we laid out in 2003—there is far more unfinished than finished business when it comes to readiness for unrelenting, global, speed-of-light 21st century marketplace competition.
Boundaries are disappearing—and, altered circumstances or not, neo-protectionism or not, we live in a global village; mind-blowing new technologies are announced, it seems, by the day, from Apple's latest to the consequences of full-blown genetic mapping, and new members of the Vital Economy Club only enhance that reality. Most any task can be done anywhere. Alliances of every imaginable flavor are created, do their thing, and evaporate. Radical tools such as "crowdsourcing" change dynamics of work and human communication that are thousands of years old—and such tools continue, regardless of macro-economic circumstances, to arrive on the scene and grow like Topsy with startling regularity. And hence the race to add value to keep one's job, or to keep lots of jobs at home, or to enable a going concern, even a small one, to survive has only intensified.
Hierarchies are dying, at least in larger firms; and the economic situation accelerates that—lard in the superstructure is first on the chopping block, and not just at GM and Citi. We do most of our work via project teams that involve members from hither, thither and yon; and that last a year—or a week. Order shouting is out. These disparate team members from disparate places asked to concoct new stuff based on combining ideas of every description can only be motivated by persuasion and passion and the promise of personal growth, not the rattling of the hierarchical saber. "Who's in charge" varies by the day; Cisco Systems, the communication equipment giant, weathering the current storm by reinventing itself once again, calls it an organization based on "emergent leadership"—the de facto leader of a critical team can emerge electronically in a literal flash from three levels down in the organization, by dint of her stellar electronic contributions made from a cramped cubicle or her bedroom at home at 3 a.m.
Those of us in the high wage nations, economic uncertainty, even chaos, notwithstanding, will only survive by moving up the same "value-added" ladder described in the 2003 edition of this book—and by being prepared, as specified in 2003, for more or less constant reinvention. The rise of the likes of China and India and Brazil proceeds apace—and even with current hiccups, or the flu, the pace of these new major players' growth is nothing short of astounding—and will be more so if your time horizon moves out to, say, 15 years, a fact for readers under 40 or so. Yesterday is over is the ultimate truism, but at the moment more true, if possible, than at any time in the last 100 years.
There is a finance tsunami.
There is a generic economics tsunami.
There is a technology tsunami, just gathering a head of steam.
There is a geo-political tsunami, just gathering a head of steam.
There is a work-structuring tsunami.
There is an organization effectiveness tsunami.
There is a careers tsunami.
And they play out differently and in different combination every day.
So does this brief recitation of forces at work now, most of which were at work then, suggest that "I wouldn't change a word"?
Of course not!
I'd change a lot.
But probably in a direction you'd not expect.
Oddly, I'd look back, not forward, mostly, if I made major modifications. As on Wall Street, I'd pay attention, lots more attention, to the bedrock.
In fact, I beat myself up daily for not having done so before.
(Frankly, I'm irritated with anyone who isn't beating themselves up.)
Oddly on yet another dimension, my re-assessment began a year or so before the fissures in the financial system's under-structure began to be visible.
I can even put an exact date on the start of my re-assessment.
April 14, 2006.
There were some very modest signs of Winter reluctantly giving way to Spring at home in Vermont. But my view that April 14th was 100% ice and snow as Air Siberia approached Novosibirsk, Siberia.
I was in Novosibirsk to lead a one-day seminar. I had been invited as even this outpost was beginning to integrate into the global economy, and local leaders were keen to hear new views of enterprise management in a universally competitive environment. Others may have been asked before me, but I was the first of my sort to make the journey to what was the most forbidden part of the world when I was a boy.
I thought, if the landscape didn't send a loud enough signal, "This is different, and requires a different approach." Not condescending—this city of scientists could turn out more IQ points in a room than any short of Cambridge MA or Palo Alto CA. Yet as I pondered my approach, somehow, as it rarely did, the past after all is the past, my mind wandered back to 1982 and In Search of Excellence, and the odd parallels to the changing scenery, economic and intellectual, from which the book emerged.
"Search," as my pals and I call it, was squarely aimed at a specific pair of challenges—a formidable U.S. competitor for the first time since the end of World War II, namely Japan; and a whopper of a recession that brought double-digit unemployment, soaring inflation and sky high interest rates to my country. But the book that was born, oddly and in many ways, was a "back to the future" tome.
From the late sixties, "strategy" and "the quantification of positively everything" were the king and crown prince at the B-schools, in the consultancies (such as my employer, prestigious McKinsey & Co.), and in the corporations themselves—this was pre-Jack Welch and his merciless focus on operational excellence, and the Giant Headquarters Strategy Corps of detached thinkers and modelers was home to the best and the brightest at what turned out to be a sagging GE.
"Get the strategy right, and the rest will take care of itself." In effect, that was the mantra—and the quantification of positively everything was the animating force; if it couldn't be reduced to and expressed in numbers, it wasn't worthy of consideration.
(Sound familiar, circa 2008-2009? More later.)
McKinsey's new boss, Ron Daniel, was troubled as he assessed the Firm's work product. He fretted about the almost total absence of emphasis on implementation, and asked me, a fresh-caught Stanford Ph.D. who'd worked on organizational effectiveness for the past five years, to "take a look around"—I was shortly joined by my Bob Waterman.
Fast forward a few months, and following a series of visits I made in the U.S. and Europe looking for those new ideas about the practice of management, and you'll find Bob and I on a road trip—black-suited McKinsey consultants to the core, quantitative credentials to die for (In my last normal assignment, I'd been working on oil-discovery simulation models, doing the Fortran programming myself). We left our San Francisco office one Spring morning in 1978 and journeyed a short 30 miles "down the Peninsula," to Palo Alto. We met there with HP president John Young.
The "Holy smokes" came fast, before we officially started for that matter. The president of a billion dollar or so company, characterized by its total commitment to sustaining innovativeness, shared a half-wall cubicle, about 8 feet by 8 feet, or 9X9, with his secretary. It was a long, long way, figuratively as well as literally, from the 15-foot (!) high doors at the entrance to the secretary's office guarding the CEO's office one floor up from us in the San Francisco tower where we worked for McKinsey. Said doors, on the 51st floor, belonged to the Big Boss of ... the Bank of America.* (*Some things never change, eh? B of A, on the dole, seeking more dole, implodes—at the same time in early 2009 HP announces far better than expected quarterly earnings.)
As the interview subsequently unspooled, John introduced Bob and me to a four-letter term that remains to this day the centerpiece of my work and philosophy.
Namely: MBWA.
Managing By Wandering Around.
It means what it sounds like—getting out and about, literally wandering around. But I've come to appreciate how much more it means than that, especially and ironically, given new communication tools, in 2009. MBWA is in its largest meaning a metaphor about being in touch and staying in touch with reality. Being in touch with the car you make—not just the numbers that surround making it.* (*The founder-CEO of a giant retailer told me about sitting next to Henry Ford at a White House dinner 20-odd years ago. He was, he said, "intimidated" by Ford's recounting tale after tale of visits with kings and presidents and prime ministers. He laughed as he said, "I woke up with a start in the middle of the night and thought, 'I sat next to Henry Ford for three hours, and he never once mentioned cars.'" To my mind, alas, decades later, that goes a long way toward explaining why the Ford I rented in New Zealand in late February 2009 was so obviously inferior to the Kia I rented for two weeks earlier in the month.) Being in touch with the people who do the work where the rubber meets the road.** (**I read another MBWA story recently, about U.S. Army General David Petraeus, as he attempted to clean up the mess in Iraq. On the wall of his office in the so-called "Green Zone" was a hand-done poster on which he'd lettered the cornerstones of his philosophy. At the top of the very short list was, in exceptionally large letters, "WALK." Get out of the compound, get out of the vehicle, get close to the neighborhoods you are trying to stabilize. "WALK!" It-"walk" has become the foundation and metaphor for a surprisingly successful turn-around in this insanely difficult situation.) Being in intimate touch with "the little things" ("little," my a#%) that make a product better or get in the way of fast approvals of this or that—the "real stuff" that determines success or failure, a job done or just talked about, excellence or mediocrity.
I thought a lot about MBWA as the sub-prime crisis escalated into global economic chaos, fully 30 years after the research for In Search of Excellence began. There's a lot to the current sorry story, to be sure, but I remembered with laserlike clarity a long ago comment from a seminar participant, Chairman of a mid-sized regional bank:
"Tom, let me tell you the definition of a good lending officer. After church on Sunday, on the way home with his family, he takes a little detour to drive by the factory he just lent money to. Doesn't go in or any such thing, just drives by and takes a look."
"Just drives by"—needs to take a look. At the tidiness, the orderliness. To see if anyone's in, beavering away after hours. Just to sniff, really, to blink in the language of Malcolm Gladwell. To, yes, tacitly stay in touch.
So MBWA is the opposite of abstractions and "models," the opposite of "by the numbers" management, the opposite of "strategy as the alpha and the omega." (And numbers can indeed lie, maybe even most of the time (?), as we learned from Enron and Worldcom and are in the seemingly endless process of relearning, painfully, from virtually all of our big banks and, of course, dear old Bernie Madoff.)
Time passed, and with a hundred or more interviews and a hundred or more presentations to test our findings under our belts, Bob and I and Harper & Row birthed In Search of Excellence in 1982. Yup, back to the future. Stuff your grandfather the shopkeeper knew:
People matter most.
Give people ample room to experiment and encourage them to grow.
Honor the front-line worker over the MBA. (Whoops, Bob and I were both Stanford MBAs.)
Listen until your ears turn red to your customers—and love 'em up day in and day out, from pre-dawn to the black of the night.
Try stuff in a flash, instead of talking and talking and talking it to death.
Don't let screw ups ruffle you, just try again—and skip the soul-sapping, time-devouring blame game.
Keep it simple, fight for simple—declare total war on your own bureaucracy, and put your best general in charge.
Lay out your guiding values, like Johnson & Johnson's fabled "Credo," values that'll make your employees and your children and your neighbors proud—and stick to them.
Walk. Walk the talk. Stay in touch. Practice MBWA Monday-through the Sunday "drive by."
And aim for Excellence in everything you do.*
(*Yup, it all could have been written 200 or 500 years earlier. I don't deny it.)
Now, as I prepared for my day-in-Siberia, all the above, except the sub-prime bits that were 18 months in the offing, came back with a rush. Was I going to give my standard, hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners speech about embracing the speed-of-light global village which now included Novosibirsk? Or was I going "back to the future"?
I did both. But I leaned toward the latter. Jeff Skilling (former Enron CEO) was a colleague for a while in my McKinsey days—and as I recall he reported to jail to begin serving a, gulp, 25-year sentence, at about the time I landed in Siberia. Jeff was bright as hell and then some, but got totally caught up in the numbers game and obviously went to any length to make the numbers dance to his tune. And the "any length" made a Godawful mess of maybe millions of lives—e.g., as million-dollar pension nest eggs, earned with 30 years' work, literally evaporated to absolute zero. He epitomized the extreme end of the scale of those who lived by the numbers, for the numbers, and of the numbers—and wouldn't have known MBWA if he/they tripped over it. He and his pals didn't see the real people, one-at-a-time, screwed by Enron's playing with the California electricity market. Jeff, in short, was the enemy and villain to all that Bob Waterman and I espoused.* (*Mea culpa: Bob and I could have written more about integrity and character than we did. My lame excuse is that our parents did a pretty good job, and we took it for granted. My mea culpa is that we should have known better and sounded off—it might not have helped, but it wouldn't have hurt. B-schools deafening silence on this issue, until long after the cat had escaped the bag, is shameful at the very least—a criminal act in its own way.)
With all this churning through my mind, I labored over the approach to my Siberian seminar. To set the tone, I resorted uncharacteristically to abstract language. But I wanted to lay down the gauntlet about the bedrock of organizational life and purpose and responsibility—and set the hurdle high. Here's what the keyboard produced, almost without my intervention. I've used it probably 100 times since April 2006:
Enterprise at its best is ... an emotional, vital, innovative, joyful, creative, entrepreneurial endeavor that elicits maximum concerted human potential in pursuit of Excellence and the wholehearted provision of service to others.
I throw today and threw in Siberia that gauntlet down and, while admitting that this state is hardly the norm, asked-ask:
What could possibly be the point of organized human endeavors if not something more or less like this? ** (**Fact is, we spend the majority of our adult waking hours as members of organizations. Hence, if said organizations short-change us on growth opportunities (the majority do in fact short-change their members) than we in deep trouble—as individuals and as a nation. You might well say that National Excellence is a direct product of the collective growth opportunities offered by organizations to their workforce. This is especially true in a global economy where national growth is measured in terms of collective adult individual growth.)
Perhaps surprisingly, most in my seminars, in Amsterdam or Abu Dhabi, eventually admit, many with delight, that this is, almost obviously, the ultimate aspiration of any organized activity. From this heavenly aspiration and unstinting endorsement of human growth, excellence and service, I move/moved to the achievement thereof, offering advice consistent with the logic and tools from the first edition to this book—but never, and this is the key, and the centerpiece of my work in 2009, allowing us (me, participants) to stray for a moment from the deeper purpose of "OHB" (organized human behavior).*** (***My friend and colleague Jim Collins coined the term "BHAG"—Big Hairy Audacious Goal. I love it! One of my clients was proud of his BHAG, about transforming an industry; it was indeed a stretch, and a big and bold one. But as we talked through "the Siberia message" about higher organization purpose, he literally scuttled the old BHAG. He in fact kept the industry goal intact, but the BHAG now focused on the "total commitment to extreme human growth" within his firm that would necessarily precede marketplace success.)
I could almost, with a straight face, call the Siberian experience an "epiphany." Confronted by the strangest environment I've ever encountered, I revived my rusting clarion call for Excellence, even took it up a notch or two or three from its 1982 incarnation—and insisted on nothing less than a Jeffersonian goal for any and all organizations and units within. And furthermore insisted that any lesser aspiration was almost shameful!
(Okay, drop the "... almost" from the prior sentence. Make it "... was shameful.")
But there was another epiphany of sorts to come.
Oddly, it was the Australian Institute of Management, in September 2007, which decided to present the first major tribute to the life's work of the late & great Peter Drucker—with the likes of Doris Drucker, 9X and easily as spry as someone 25 years younger, in attendance. I was asked to keynote an event featuring many of the luminaries in the field of management studies.
I was honored.
And non-plussed.
As I carefully re-read Drucker's work, I was struck anew, in fact for the first time, by his deeply held beliefs about the power of superior management to transform all of society for the better. Hence once again I was wont to dig more deeply than my norm. The conclusion, stealing in part from, not Drucker, but Robert Greenleaf, creator of the Servant Leader "movement," was:
"Organizations exist to serve. Period.
"Leaders live to serve. Period."
And once more, as in Siberia and to my surprise, that deep digging and Mr. Greenleaf, led me to observe my keyboard, almost without my assistance, arguing that organizations, all organizations, should be ...
"Passionate servant leaders, determined to create a legacy of earthshaking transformation in their domain (a 600 square-foot retail space, a 4-person training department, an urban school, a rural school, a city, a nation), create/must necessarily create organizations which are no less than Cathedrals in which the Full and Awesome Power of the Imagination and Spirit and Native Entrepreneurial Flair (We are all entrepreneurs—Muhammad Yunus, father of micro-lending and Nobel peace prize winner) of diverse individuals (100% Creative Talent—from checkout to lab, from Apple to Wegmans, the regional grocer judged to be America's '#1 Place to Work' in 2004, to Jane's one-person accountancy in Invercargill NZ) is unleashed in passionate pursuit of jointly perceived Soaring Purpose (= win a Nobel peace prize like Yunus, or at least do something worthy of bragging about 25 years from now to your grandkids) and Personal and Community and Client Service Excellence."
I'll admit that it's a prize-grabber when it comes to the run-on sentence category, but I am not willing to edit it—tested as it is now in over 100 presentations from Baltimore to Bucharest to Bologna. And, once again, I argue to my seminar participants, be they Canadian grocers or corporate security chiefs or Silicon Valley techies:
"If not this, what?"
In fact, as time passes I find myself less and less taken aback (at myself) for arguing "no less than Cathedrals in which the Full and Awesome Power of the Imagination and Spirit and Native Entrepreneurial Flair of diverse individuals." The idea in my mind is not religious, despite my use of the term "cathedral." The idea is that the first order of business is developing people—who will in turn go all out for our customers. Frankly, I'm doing no more than stealing from Hal Rosenbluth and Dave Liniger.
Hal took Rosenbluth International from local travel agency (Philadelphia) to global travel services giant, which he subsequently sold to American Express; his winning philosophy, based entirely on maximizing internal human development, was perfectly captured by his book Putting the Customer Second—put your people first, and you'll end up giving the best service possible to your clients. Dave has made miracles for decades at RE/MAX—and calls his firm "a life success company"; make your agents successful and they'll, in turn, go all out for their customers.
I also was inspired by one of what I call "the parable books," which usually leave me (very) cold. Against my better judgment I ended up forking over a few bucks at O'Hare for Matthew Kelly's The Dream Manager. The title bugs me, too—too soft for an old engineer like me. But he captured me in a flash with a simple but profoundly important observation: We all have dreams!
The next step of Kelly's is suggesting that if we devote ourselves, in an open and deliberate fashion, to helping people—e.g., the single mother trying to raise two kids on a receptionist salary—achieve their dreams—she'd die for a college degree—we will turn them into inspired employees. Kelly summarizes:
"A company's purpose is to become the-best-version-of-itself. The question is: What is an employee's purpose? Most would say, 'to help the company achieve its purpose'—but they would be wrong. That is certainly part of the employee's role, but an employee's primary purpose is to become the-best-version-of-himself or -herself. ... When a company forgets that it exists to serve customers, it quickly goes out of business. Our employees are our first customers, and our most important customers."
So in a thoroughly revised edition of this book, there would be a long section, like the one that appeared at the start of In Search of Excellence, that dealt with the basics of the purpose of enterprise, and the duties and obligations of managers. The Great Recession of 2008-2XXX has, one hopes, taught us (taught me!) not to take the bedrock for granted. I didn't in 1982; I did, like so many others, in 2003.
In the October 2008 Harvard Business Review, Rakesh Khurana and Nitin Nohria offered us "It's Time To Make Management a True Profession." At one point the authors write, "Managers have lost dignity over the past decade in the face of wide spread institutional breakdown of trust and self-policing in business. To regain society's trust, we believe that business leaders must embrace a way of looking at their role that goes beyond their responsibility to the shareholders to include a civic and personal commitment to their duty as institutional custodians. In other words, it is time hat management became a profession."
I agree—and even the ultra-reserved Peter Drucker would, I suspect, have smiled delightedly at that formulation.
One book I've read during these troubled times has influenced me far more than any other. It's by Vanguard Mutual Fund Group founder John Bogle. His extraordinary and lasting success as an investor has flowed from always attending to the bedrock of an enterprise he chooses to support. He recently penned Enough: The Measures of Money, Business, and Life. I will simply share a sample of his chapter titles:
"Too Much Cost, Not Enough Value" ... "Too Much Speculation, Not Enough Investment" ... "Too Much Complexity, Not Enough Simplicity" ... "Too Much Counting, Not Enough Trust" ... "Too Much Business Conduct, Not Enough Professional Conduct" ... "Too Much Salesmanship, Not Enough Stewardship" ... "Too Much Focus on Things, Not Enough Focus on Commitment" ... "Too Many Twenty-first Century Values, Not Enough Eighteenth-Century Values" ... "Too Much 'Success,' Not Enough Character."
I can do no more than say "Amen."
So there's my story of the story of 2003-2009. Except for one final thing that I've implied throughout this Foreword but not been explicit enough about to this point. In a major revision of Re-imagine I would resurrect Excellence. Beginning in Siberia (14 April 2006, remember), I fell in love all over again with the idea and ideal of Excellence. To be quite honest, Excellence wore me out in the mid-eighties. (I'm not complaining!) But I have returned to the fold with a Vengeance.
Most of my presentations these days, and since mid-2006, are titled:
EXCELLENCE. ALWAYS.
And they invariably end with a slide that reads:
IF NOT EXCELLENCE, WHAT?
IF NOT EXCELLENCE NOW, WHEN?
In a recent exercise anticipating a presentation in New Zealand, my keyboard play resulted in a list that I called "The '19Es' of Excellence." Here they are:
Enthusiasm. (Be an irresistible force of nature!)
Energy. (Be fire! Light fires!)
Exuberance. (Vibrate—cause earthquakes!)
Execution. (Do it! Now! Get it done! Barriers are baloney! Excuses are for wimps! Accountability is gospel! Per football coach Bill Parcells: "Blame no one! Expect nothing! Do something!")
Empowerment. (Respect and appreciation! Always ask, "What do you think?" Then: Listen! Liberate! Celebrate! 100% innovators or bust!)
Edginess. (Perpetually dancing at the frontier, and a little or a lot beyond.)
Enraged. (Determined to challenge & change the status quo!)
Engaged. (Addicted to MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around. In touch. Always.)
Electronic. (Partners with the world 60/60/24/7 via electronic community building and entanglement of every sort. Crowdsourcing power rules!)
Encompassing. (Relentlessly pursue diverse opinions—the more diversity the merrier! Diversity per se "works"!)
Emotion. (The alpha. The omega. The essence of leadership. The essence of sales. The essence of marketing. The essence. Period. Acknowledge it.)
Empathy. (Connect, connect, connect with others' reality and aspirations! "Walk in the other person's shoes"—until the soles have holes!)
Experience. (Life is theater! Make every activity-contact, inside the firm or out, memorable! Standard: "Insanely Great"/Steve Jobs; "Radically Thrilling"/BMW.)
Eliminate. (Keep it simple!)
Errorprone. (Ready! Fire! Aim! Try a lot of stuff and make a lot of booboos and then try some more stuff and make some more booboos—all of it at the speed of light!)
Evenhanded. (Straight as an arrow! Fair to a fault! Honest as Abe!)
Expectations. (Michelangelo: "The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." Amen!)
Eudaimonia. (Pursue the highest of human moral purpose—the core of Aristotle's philosophy. Be of service. Always.)
Excellence. (The only standard! Never an exception! Start now! No excuses! If not Excellence, what? If not Excellence now, when?)
The story goes that the senior Tom Watson, de facto founder of IBM, was once asked how long it takes to become excellent. He is said to have replied (three decades before the one-minute manager rode on to the scene), "a minute." Asked to explain, Watson apparently said, "It's simple. Make yourself a promise that starting right now you will not do anything in other than an excellent fashion."
As we deal with every variety of turbulence, the search for bedrock has never been so important. Make this your minute to declare for Excellence in all you do. I hope the following pages and ideas will help. And remember that it is the tough times, not the easy ones, which define a person professionally and personally. What better time for Excellence as a guiding star.
Tom Peters
Golden Bay
South Island
New Zealand
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What Tom means by the rule he generally breaks is that he never uses "read more" at the bottom of the front page entry for getting to the rest of the essay. Given the length of today's post, I think he's chosen a good one to be the one exception.
Posted by cathy mosca at March 10, 2009 9:13 AM
One of my all time favorite books now has an update....thanks Tom!!!!!
Posted by Greg Cooper at March 10, 2009 9:38 AM
This is also one of my "all time favorite books!" Cool!
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 10, 2009 11:44 AM
Tom
Thanks a lot for sharing your preface.
I found it especially enlightening the quote of Vanguard Mutual Fund Group.
The last chapter is a punch: too much "success"...
I appreciate your effort to put things in a imaginable way - whoever wants to succeed from now on will need lots of these skills.
I believe the idea of "passionate servant leaders" is fantastic and radical anyway you look, because the ultimate motivation or inspiration seems to come from an ethical root - serving.
I once read that Henry Ford was severely criticized by Wall Street for trying to use moral values where they didn´t belong.
Maybe "Back to Basics" fits here.
I hope some day "soft" will be "hard" enough to make evident that the journey is its own reward, and intangibles are more important than hard bucks.
Posted by gerson barbosa at March 10, 2009 4:10 PM
Great entry Tom and congrats on the new edition.
When I first read Re-imagine! way back when, something clicked. I understood a call to action. But like all "action", it required leadership at all levels. I understood that I must take the initiative - but I also expected leadership from other fronts. I have continued to battle on and am on my third attempt to make a difference.
I have not found many allies, and in my naivety, expected some leadership from you Tom (although being a guiding star is definitely a great help and motivator. But as I read Robert Greenleaf (which you do not link) I understand that you like he, might have to forgo action and continue to comment from the outside. I feel that Greenleaf is more realistic in the evaluation of the task ahead - it is huge, it is systematic, it must impact all institutions of our time. Your call to action to the individual is commendable, but as I have experienced - we are all in this together.
Those of us in the trenches (as Greenleaf states - action must come from within - not from consultants) also need coaching, mentorship and leadership. We do not have this. We need organization, common expression of the goal, partnership and advice etc. What few discuss is our current anti-leadership culture where "the agents of the system" actively search out and destroy potential leaders, rather than the opposite that Greenleaf proposes.
From this point of view, what you and Greenleaf propose is a Revolution. I have even called it "Tom's Revolution" but that has not generated much action. I have searched out other "weird" people as you have advised and I believe that I have found a home. We have laid a very small foundation in the past twelve months in order to start changing our 40,000-person organization one person at a time. Things are still so small that the establishment might still stamp them out, but we have hope. And we act ("do something that scares you every day!").
So Tom, are you still reaching for excellence? What act scares you?
Your humble servant,
Posted by Steve Robert at March 10, 2009 6:32 PM
Thanks Tom - the book made a major difference to me - 1st saw it at the Mountain Quest Institute in early '04 - Alex & David Bennett have the largest private library I've ever seen.
A main thing to me was the magazine like look & fun feel to the book - am now hooked on 20 magazines per month - thanks for that?
Posted by C Love at March 10, 2009 7:11 PM
TP,
As I read this, unfortunately, I became bored. Looking backwards, rhetorical statements, blah-blah about this or that. Very simple reasons for why our nation is in discord and trillions have been sucked from our economy: greed, corruption, stupidity, outsourcing, "the rich getting richer", etc.
When people, of the blog, need to interpret the meaning of what rule you're breaking, I lose interest. How about this for an idea in management?
Get out of your f%$king office
Quit worrying about yourself and your bi-monthly paycheck
Why don't you, Mr. Manager, go first!
Less communication = more productivity
I think one of your bloggers had synthesized one of your lists a few blogs back and you thought it was great. Continue with that logic..
Closed doors = dumbass managers who don't know what they're doing.
I was sitting in a sales meeting last week and managers were tossing around ideas of desperation. One of the managers had mentioned funding to continue operations for the next seven months, after that daily operations were going to be a crapshoot. Shortly after the manager discussing the seven month itch left the room another manager asked the sales team, "So, did you takeaway that we were going to be closing after seven months?" Most sales reps in the meeting didn't know what to say and passed on offering up an answer to the question.
In my wisdom and big mouth I responded, "Do we really have to wait that long?" Regardless of this blog and what great thinkers have to say, the reality is this...MOST LEADERSHIP IN TODAY'S CLIMATE IS S*^T. Now, moreso than ever, I hear people saying, "I'm just happy to have a job" which translates to "I'm just happy to have a paycheck". Productivity is at all time lows because people feel like they're going to be tossed at any time.
Sorry my post is so negative, but I live this every day. I don't see many managers employing the ideas you promote, and I'm not sure why...I wish they would.
Long live the front lines...because they are the ones that take on the most casualties.
Posted by Scott Peters at March 10, 2009 10:58 PM
I hate, detest, and abhor the word "empowerment". It's empty. To empower is to give authority to do something. But if I don't increase one's capacity to do that something by providing the time, tools, training, etc...needed to meet the performance standard I as the leader established, I have set you up to fail. The "E" word I have found as an alternative is "Enable". Enable, "to make possible or easy:". It is leadership's job to provide the resources. They, not the frontline team member, need to be held accountable when standards aren't met.
Posted by Dave Wheeler at March 10, 2009 11:18 PM
Great post!
I think the problem for big companies will be the ability to attract the passionate people.
Big companies need to change habits today, before it is too late...
Posted by Kristina at March 11, 2009 2:57 AM
Hi Scott,
Read Greenleaf - not your vocabulary, but you may see part of your message.
Steve
Posted by Steve Robert at March 11, 2009 8:07 AM
WOW! Tom Peters this is FANTASTIC! Thank you! There is just SO MUCH here. The overall tenet of the preface is so central to what's happening today that it clarifies and sets direction by, nonetheless, returning to the basics of forever beginning anew the fundamentals which will keep us in good stead in 21st Century. Excellence! Excellence is and will always be the forever standard, for it is the basis of love. Anything that is done with excellence is done with love. There is nothing that we have ever done that is of significance that lacks love and excellence, no matter how small or large the feat or accomplishment. Thanks for this reminder.
Recently I wrote a piece on the Huffington Post using TP's model of MBWA to explain President Obama's leadership. Yes, we all know that it will ultimately be the outcomes of his leadership, but what we can say for sure is that it resembles TP's MBWA. He is probably one of our most active presidents, though he is being berated for being too present. He is seen everywhere. He has aimed high, created a plan, assembled a team, and manages by wandering around. This is leadership with confidence in his team and in the American people. It is also indicative of many of the E's TP has presented here. Think about it: Engaged. Electronic. Encompassing. Emotion. Empathy. Experience. Eliminate. Errorprone. Evenhanded. Expectations. Eudiamonia. Excellence. The President has such high approval ratings for being and doing these things to a lesser or greater degree in his first 50 days. Let's hope he succeeds.
I love the inclusion of "the open and deliberate fashion, to helping people-e.g. the single mother trying to raise two kids on a receptionist salary-achieve their dreams." I also appreciate the single working mother with children example. Sometimes a mere image, as that of that single working mom with kids, breaks through in ways that printed words on a plaque of set core values eludes. The image breaks through the staid example of men in the workplace that we are so accustomed to embracing and allows for a greater sensibility to what others are experiencing and perhaps will change the dimension of ethics in the workplace as well as variance. This will affect what and how things are done.
Men, by and large, ran the global financial markets off the cliff. Men largely brought on this financial "Pearl Harbor," spoken of by Warren Buffett. I cannot help but to wonder would such have been the case with the inclusion of more women in decision-making. With or without approval change is coming, nationally and internationally. There is a beautiful necessity of the old-fashioned example of women being a help to men.
I'm sure some women may be railing right now at the above thought and some men perhaps thinking that they don’t need such help. But we are helpers one to another and everything needs to be taken in its context and in the light of everything else. Women may have made the difference. What are we doing in moving forward? Will we continue the same old same old in likeness and structure? How much change occurred after the S&L scandal?
While there are other models out there, when we think of organizational excellence we often think of the Welch model, especially those of a certain era. I have read Mr. Welch's books and have appreciated the principles therein. But it also may not be by coincidence that the large companies that have followed the GE model such as Home Depot and now Chrysler, where the leaders have been groomed in a particular management style and structure, are in such dire straights now. I really dunno. I'm no expert. This is just a mere observation. Maybe it's just the time.
But perhaps GE is in such straights because of GE Financial which seems to have engaged in bogus derivatives like the big Wall Street banks. Producing things seem to have become a side gig for this once great product producer. (Maybe bigger is not always better.) I also wonder about any leadership model that does not focus on small things and whose leaders are essentially cut from the same cloth, following the same model, industry after industry.
Excellence is not a model; it's a forever pursuit, though I'm aware that structure is necessary.
Technology is becoming more and more of an intense interest to me for its ability to constantly create and innovate. It does not seem like a model but a constant necessity of change and continuous improvement—science on steroids, in fact. There is a pulse created that evades typical business models, though I'm sure that a structure of such exist in the thick of this culture. But the focus on pure innovation based on the desires and needs of people is most relevant and its impact in ways that Van Jones writes and speaks of is most important. (Erik Hansen and Julie Anixter introduced me to Jones.) TP's recent post here about the need to take a look at what's happening in California in Silicon Valley was a great analogy to me for its insistence on innovation.
The model of innovating is invigorating. While technologies are being created, it is people who are doing so and jobs being created for the enjoyment and betterment of people in various industries worldwide, including the health industry. It is also a forever brand new world of seeing things differently. It is essentially one of science, one of discovery. Detroit has lagged behind in this and is now reaping the whirlwind. (Education nationwide is reaping such too! Bob Foster has a great piece about this on his blog, "US Falling Behind in Innovation Part I," at http://bizmaverickblog.com/us-falling-behind-in-innovation-part-i/. If nothing else, the pulse of the tech industry is needed, not to mention the science needed for its development. (Zed – are you out there? :-))
Thanks again, Tom Peters. The preface is pure beauty and brilliance.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 11, 2009 8:07 AM
Dave W, I guess that the word "empowerment" is just as empty or meaningful as we choose to make it. For me it's about a whole lot more than giving or being given authority to do something, and it's more than "enabling" as well, which seems far more functional and far less aspirational in its connotation. My own view is that "empowerment" has been so debased by lazy and manipulative usage that it has become the equivalent of a cliche, which is a great shame. Because empowering (including the confidence, capability, permission to go off-piste, licence to fail and much, much more) is what we need a whole lot more of, certainly in my neck of the woods. All the best.
Posted by RobCH at March 11, 2009 10:25 AM
Steve,
Thanks for the recommendation!
Judith----Comprende on much of what you say; however, my measure of a good post is whether or not I can read the material to a group of laborers, manufacturers, and those struggling to make it in today's world.
For instance, if I read: "There is a pulse created that evades typical business models, though I'm sure that a structure of such exist in the thick of this culture" the employees I work with would look at me like I'd lost my mind. Leadership from the top-down will not save our bacon. New models of leadership from the top-down will not yield different results. The power of masses, largely quiet, will determine the fate of our economy. Their confidence, their commitment to education for the next generation, their ability to make it through this will determine our success. Even Colin Powell was telling the next generation to "pull up its pants" and take note; I thought that was hugely funny. What concerns me most is the Playstation Generation has very little understanding of where this country is at and where it's headed.
Even in the Titanic's final hours, life boats were being launched at 1/2 capacity and the Captain had largely disappeared from the fray (I saw the movie). Regardless, some of the most timeless lessons in life, business, and ship building can be found lying at the bottom of the Atlantic.
Lessons---sure, safety became paramount to passengers and everything that enters the ocean is sinkable...same with the NYSE.
Posted by Scott Peters at March 11, 2009 10:55 AM
Tom I love your approach because I find it not only edgy and provocative but extremely logical. The one problem as I see it, and as Scott Peters commented on, is that people are just happy to get a paycheck and they are in the survival mode not the thrival mode. People are numb, exhausted, passionless and almost non-productive.
Everyone that we see isn't even willing to look to the future or let alone create it (and this includes leaders). We feel like now more than ever people need to invest in their personal energy, resilience, capacity and brain performance so they can even begin to become the type of leader you so perfectly write about. Personal sustainable high performance is a HUGE missing link.
The book Sink, Float or Swim is coming out soon and it will address this but you all should really visit www.tignum.com and check out the blog because high performance habits are the foundation of all leadership.
Posted by Scott Peltin at March 11, 2009 12:10 PM
Scott - I hear you. Though, I must say that we cannot be all things to all men or women and what is most important is for us to be true to ourselves in each situation, considering the audience and reader, and measure our words and ideas based on this. My desire was not to see if every word that I wrote responds to every group out there or every person. I have no interest whatsoever in what you think a good post is or isn't. Your thoughts on this matter simply have zero value for me.
But I did think it was pretty funny that your comment began with "Comprende on much of what you say" and implying thereafter that a great many others will not. (By the way, do you speak Spanish?) Your analysis of my writing style seems aligned with your arrogant assumption that "most sales reps in the meeting didn't know what to say and passed on offering up an answer to the question." How do you know that?
If I were specifically addressing "a group of laborers" or "manufacturers" perhaps the language would be different. (To everything thing there is a time and season.) But I would also like to think that simply because one is a tool and die maker that he or she can also comprehend sentences beyond 8 words and include ideas that would perhaps take even them to the next level or ignite a passion. By the way, I have assisted writing training manuals for Fortune 500 companies and governments that made a difference for government officials, frontline employees, senior management and even delivery people.
Since we are on the topic of style, your words above can be perceived as crass, base, uninspiring, limiting, reactionary, arrogant, etc. Who would they reach? Do you think that the laborers and manufactures that you spoke of would better understand this language? Would it make a difference in the results? Or, would they simply respond to this base bravado in kind or perhaps not? The interesting thing about words is that we all use them differently and for different purposes. While I would not have expressed myself as you have done above, I'm OK with it.
Do you see the masses as idiotic baffons? I do not. I also have hope and faith in our ability to be better and do the necessary things to enter this brave new world. I am attempting to do my part daily.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 11, 2009 12:24 PM
Judith,
Yes----I speak Spanish.
Yes----I believe that most of the leaders I've encountered over the past two decades are idiotic baffons interested in their own stories and promoting their own brands...the verdict is still out on you though.
Crass, base, uninspiring, limiting, reactionary, arrogant, etc. applies more to our government and leaders than my words. You are obviously smarter than me and I concede this portion of the debate. Your words flow freely without source or substance on many posts.
See, the difference between you and me is this---I'm on the front lines and you merely advise those who manage the front lines. There is an obvious gap in our understanding of each other.
I would prefer a less "dynamic", less "baked", less "branded", and less "wordy" approach from you on occassion; I would prefer a more real approach to responses and blogging. I agree with many of your statements, but you have the tendency to beat people down that don't agree with your Vision, your brand, and your approach to "live long and prosper". I'm not attacking you, I'm merely pointing out that cliff notes may be needed for many of your blogs.
On occassion, please address some of us frontliners in your comments so we can understand too. And yes, given the opportunity, most people will not rock the boat or speak up to point out the absurdity of today's leadership. They are afraid!!!! They fear losing their jobs!!!!!!
If my points or blogs had zero importance to you, you would brush me off and not respond. However, you take the time to tell me what an ass I am, and in the process, you become one yourself. Welcome to the party...
Let's see if you can not respond to this post that has absolutely zero importance.
Posted by Scott Peters at March 11, 2009 7:27 PM
Rob CH...You are absolutely correct and we share the same thought I believe as "debased by lazy and manipulative usage" is exactly why I hold the word in such low regard. The attributes you define like confidence and license to fail have to be a part of the organizations culture. Regardless of the word used, it not what your mouth says, it's what your ass does. Leaders who set performance standards and then don't give folks the time, training, equipment, and other resources needed to achieve them aren't doing their job...but who gets held accountable.
Judith...your point on "underestimating" the knowledge level of your audience is an excellent one and a trap many trainers and managers fall into. You have to know the audience and tailor the message. I think one reason many don't see that is deep down they really like the position but don't like the people that go along with it.
I'm reminded of the movie Trading Places where the "Dukes" were explaining the commodities market to Billy Ray (Eddie Murphy), a homeless street person..
"Exactly why do you think the price of pork bellies is going to keep going down, William?
Billy Ray Valentine: Okay, pork belly prices have been dropping all morning, which means that everybody is waiting for it to hit rock bottom, so they can buy low. Which means that the people who own the pork belly contracts are saying, "Hey, we're losing all our damn money, and Christmas is around the corner, and I ain't gonna have no money to buy my son the G.I. Joe with the kung-fu grip! And my wife ain't ain't gonna make love to me if I got no money!" So they're panicking right now, they're screaming "SELL! SELL!" to get out before the price keeps dropping. They're panicking out there right now, I can feel it.
[on the ticker machine, the price keeps dropping]
Randolph Duke: He's right, Mortimer! My God, look at it!
Folks may reason it differently but never underestimate their power to comprehend!
Posted by Dave Wheeler at March 11, 2009 8:25 PM
I came back to Tom Peter's site because I thought -- "What does Tom think of ALL OF THIS?" I didn't quite get what he thinks (some of my own and collected thoughts, also in English language, are on http://ivankomarov.com) but I loved this latest post about 2009 preface to "Re-Imagine" which mentions us, Siberians, as the Turning Point (everything is a brand this days, is it not?).
For me it was a turning point too. (I was Tom's interpreter at the event and spent a good couple of days with the Man trying not to torture him too much with questions.)
Excellence is THE word to come back to. My wife loves it and praises it as the only thing to get from Tom. My father inspired generations and the whole perestroika agenda with the 1982 book which he could find somehow in the information hungry word of 80's Russia.
My colleagues who invited Tom to Siberia use Excellence. Always. as their motto.
As the final remarks... well, the Crisis is devastating in Russia as I understand because of it dependence on the US capital and US oil consumption. The "new-new" (as Clark would say -- just listened to "The New New Thing" by Michael Lewis -- is it on Tom's reading list? -- and it is all there and then already) economy has not been created (despite my working for a small telco piece of it), and so the exchange rate turbulence despite sound financial policy is making people run faster than ... well, at least than in the past 10 years. 1998 was worse. And before that it was even worst. And credit and liquidity (my dissertation topic at U of MD) were TOTALLY absent so that companies had to trade in barter and debt instead of money.
Best wishes, and congrats for the 3rd anniversary of your visit, Tom, to Siberia,
Ivan Komarov
from Novosibirsk, Russia
Posted by Ivan Komarov at March 12, 2009 2:47 AM
Having spent the last 8 weeks delivering workshops to close on 1000 front line health care workers I continue to learn so much from them. What I've re-learned (I've always known it) is that front liners should be trusted completely; they should be allowed to just get on and do stuff rather than be constrained by petty silliness and restrictive management from managers who don't know anything about front line work or customers; front liners only need managers for one thing - to provide broad parameters and then get out of the way; the last thing front liners need is management jargon; front liners can teach managers about how to solve customer problems in the real world.
All the stuff Tom has been telling us for the last few centuries.
Simplicity, common sense and pragmatism - just 3 of many qualities front liners possess.
Long live front liners! - Phew that feels better!
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 12, 2009 3:53 AM
Dear Scott,
I'm sorry. You misunderstood me. It isn't that your thoughts generally have no interest for me, I specifically said, "Your thoughts on THIS MATTER simply have zero value for me." I typically read all the comments here and respond if I so desire. Regarding my writing style, I shall say it again: "Your thoughts on THIS MATTER simply have zero value for me." None.
While I understand that my words above have obviously angered you, your comments here defy what you have written of me in previous posts. But no worries one way or the other. It's all good--really. You have made some valuable points as you appeared on this blog as Scott earlier, Candyman later, and now Scott Peters with many words or fewer ones.
For any words that you have written here that have gotten me to think about a matter differently, I am appreciative.
For you and your success, I wish all the best.
Most sincerely,
Judith
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 12, 2009 8:58 AM
Dave - I love your comment. Thank you.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 12, 2009 9:23 AM
Judith,
No need to split hairs over POtato or PotatO, some people spell with an "e" too. I'm not sure if you want constructive feedback or not, and based on the zero value/none statements, you may not. However, sometimes I don't have the slightest idea of what you're talking about. I understood most of your post, but many people would not based on the verbiage, etc. Most of the people I work with did not have an opportunity at higher education and live week to week. They work hard for their families and bring their lunches to work (most), because every penny is precious. They are a segment of America that needs a bailout moreso than any other segment in our country right now. They serve clients and me very well and I'm very grateful for their efforts. They are losing everything right now...
A manager friend of mine was cut yesterday and his wife was already unemployed. He was cut because he'd worked himself into a reasonable/modest salary and the company just backfilled with one of his reports. I also spoke with a Driver at the establishment I work at and he was struggling just to make it because his hours had been cut to between 30-35. He's been at those levels for several weeks. He said, "It's like losing a mortgage payment or car payment every month with the reduction in wages." He just can't keep up and the grass insn't greener elsewhere. He is slowly losing everything. I look at much of life through their eyes and how they may see their set of circumstances.
I'm not angry at you, I'm angry at a very unfortunate set of circumstances right now. When you need to lean on someone that's on the front lines, feel free to query me. I walked away from executive leadership to return to the front lines of an organization. I'm glad I did. I've seen and done things I'm not so proud of in a leadership role. I felt like I would take some of the pain, with several 100 good employees, and walk away.
Thanks for the wishes and they are sent in return. I have blogged as others and that was kind of fun, but I really am, Scott Peters.
Posted by Scott Peters at March 12, 2009 3:13 PM
Scott - Thank you. I accept your wishes. A few questions for you: Who do you think is reading this blog, namely executives, tool and die makers, entrepreneurs, autoworkers, writers, trainers or managers? Who? Do you think most have had some college education or training? While TP's books are easily understood, who do you think buys them?
The beauty in Re-Imagine for me is that this business book is itself highly imaginative. It's like an art book! It addresses essential cover business matters expectionally well but done in an incredibly creative way that can be placed on a coffee table or waiting room of any corporate office.
The inclusivness of various topics and professions is stunning. I love this quote from Re-Imagine:
" 'Talent,' the Term
Talent. I love that word!
So different from 'employees'
So different from 'personnel.'
So different from 'human resources.'
Talent just uttering the words makes you puff up and feel good about yourself!
Talent I do indeed love that word!
I love it because of the...images...that it brins immediately to mind. Yo-Yo Ma playing the cello. Pavarotti at full volume. Gene Hackman or Nicole Kidman in complete command of a scene. Derek Jeter turning a double play. Michelle Kwan doing a triple axel. Michael Jordon 'parting the waters'...and making that a famous last shot that won the Chicago Bulls their sixth championship during his tenure with the team.
The fabulous guy at, of all places, the international-arrivals hall at Newark airport who sings-yes,sings weary travelers towards the baggage-claim area at 6 a.m.
Talent!
What a word!"
How inspiring for anyone at any level. Not all executives and managers see themselves as talent, even though they are paid well. I know quite a few who are in doubt consistently (this may not be all bad) and often have feelings of insignificance. Inspiration is not about speaking to what exists. This is often evident. It's about redefining situations and giving hope. When I read the above quote from Re-Imagine, I re-imagine that I too can be better still. Re-imagining rocks! Often times it begins with a single word or series of words.
Words matter.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 12, 2009 5:26 PM
Scott Peters - totally enjoy all your comments - you have super valuable stories to tell - especially in these challenging economic times. I look forward to your future comments as your new career(s) unfold.
Tom's Re-Imagine foreward draft to me:
1. Lacks focus in its early draft - I like the Siberia mention - but is it a metaphor for something relating to anything - has my luxury lifestyle distorted my comprehension here or does the drabness of Siberia underwhelm?
2. The Russia (Siberia) & FDR comments leave me cold since Russia's economic/political world is near collapse & FDR kept us in the recession for 10 years too long - has my wealth & youthful health warped my ability to see the world as it is/was?
3. Love to hear how this great recession is affecting Tom's family & their enterprises & real estate & business dealings - that story would add a lot to this 2009-10 timeframe & Re-Imagine's newness. Shall my life of excess & pillage/plunder cause me to forego a modest quest of such pertinent information?
Meanwhile Scott, there will always be those who make low IQ negative comments & have no sense of humor - the Huffington Post is a perfect place for that far too often. Ms. Huffington - dumped by her husband who then decided he was gay - hence the site seems to attract that caliber of loser liberal & bitter personality.
Shall we continue to proclaim love & peace as always? :>)
Posted by C Love at March 12, 2009 7:28 PM
Some of us can be as "humorous" and foul as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 12, 2009 8:58 PM
Judith,
This type of blog and management vernacular is targeted for executives and middle managers. I personally don't believe that much of the fodder applies to the masses, only those who are in a position to lead the masses. Now, if there was some more digestible material that the masses could find nutritious, there would probably be a broader audience. Therefore, the blog and Mr. Peters attract a certain audience, predominately white collar decision makers. Not necessarily a bad thing.
However, there is also the another side of the spectrum that needs to have its voice heard to balance the opinions of omniscient managers and leaders, that of the hourly employee, the janitor, the truck driver, etc.. Remember the movie Breakfast Club? Sometimes I feel like all we hear is the endless ramble of the Principal at the high school. It's not until the Janitor tells the Principal what a dope he is and the Principal reads the letter from the detentioned students that he realizes he has no effect or impression on their lives. The beauty of C Love and his posts, some of them have even mocked me, is that he's cynical to the point of reality and vice versa...some really funny shit too.
Trevor mentioned a few posts ago about front line employees and liberating them to work freely to develop and innovate the very ideas you describe. You can't force compassion and you can't force creativity; they must be experienced through the employees via mistakes, successes, and profit taking (wages).
While TPs books are easily understood, they're not very well translated to the masses. Leaders have egos and their inability to share power is problematic from my perspective.
C Love, I believe we've moved more to adversary and detente. Thanks for your kind words and support, and for that, peace and love my friend. C Love S Corp, LLC, and proprietorship shall take the world over one blogger at a time, either by surrender or hostile takeover. Take no prisoners!!!!!!
TP should go out and chat with the door man, taxi driver, bagel maker, zookeeper, ditch digger, truck driver once a month and post their comments and his thoughts on this blog. That way we won't all feel like we're disclocating our shoulders by patting ourselves on the back too much. I'd be curious to see what the real people have to say about some of our ideas, TPs ideas, and their current management today. Hell...Trevor's already seen 1000 NHS workers over the past month, he could even chime in by interviewing these people and seeing what they "really" think of today's leadership and economic climate.
To be truly grounded, we must drop in elevation a few 10,000 feet. Sorry about the length of this post.
Posted by Scott Peters at March 12, 2009 9:30 PM
I agree with Scott about the input from the door man, taxi driver, bagel maker, zookeeper, ditch digger, truck driver.
My problem with TP is he is basically a celebrity.
A celebrity for business geeks, but still a celebrity. And exactly what has he run that if if failed would have a big impact on his finances (like he'd have to sell his house). If I was from Texas, I'd say he's all hat and no cattle.
Posted by dan at March 12, 2009 10:54 PM
"TP should go out and chat with the door man, taxi driver, bagel maker, zookeeper, ditch digger, truck driver once a month and post their comments and his thoughts on this blog."
This is good suggestion. But do you think that these thoughts are not being translated in his books via those who read them? I, for one, enact them. And there is, for me, a real emphasis on people. This includes ALL people. There is also probably a target market for the books and blog. As I mentioned earlier, we can't be all things to all people, though there is a real simple approachable sense in TP's books and blog.
I think the principles in TP's books and on this blog are transferable to any environment. I agree that the books and blog are more geared towards entrepreneurs, executives, consultants, managers and the like. As you inferred, there is also a need for these principles nationally and internationally for these groups too, otherwise the books would not have sold so well.
When he appeared on the scene with his stories and study there appeared to be a major need for them. Come to think of it, many books that he has written, which I have only read in the last 14 months -- pretty much all of them-- are very much needed now. This is a perfect time for the re-emergence of "Re-Imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age."
Another thought: Perhaps you should start a blog and do precisely what you are asking here. I may even pop in on occasion and perhaps my vernacular will be somewhat different. :-)
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 12, 2009 11:36 PM
“Hell...Trevor's already seen 1000 NHS workers over the past month, he could even chime in by interviewing these people and seeing what they "really" think of today's leadership and economic climate.”
Most readers here probably know my views on this. The best and most effective managers are in touch with their front liners – the worst and least effective are not – it really is that simple. Why complicate something we all know to be true?
Leaders and managers who sit in the comfort of their warm office writing reports that no one reads - in indecipherable language designed to impress the boss and stroke their own ego will never be credible with front line folks. Meeting all these folks in the last couple of months has merely reinforced my entire career held views. I was lucky enough to have an article published in the New York Times last year where I suggested the following list of good boss/bad boss. Nothing has changed my opinion and I doubt my opinion will ever change on this very simple list.
My best bosses
• inspired confidence
• were humble
• had integrity
• knew what they were talking about
• let me get on with things
• were always there when I needed help
• usually said ‘yes, try it’
My worst bosses
• never seemed to be around when I needed them
• always asked me to justify what I wanted to do
• always wanted to know what I was doing
• often said ‘no, we can’t do that'
• gave the impression of being distrustful
• didn’t smile much
• talked about themselves a lot
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 13, 2009 3:37 AM
Scott - To be more specific about your question, several people in the last two months on my workshops have said things like (I paraphrase); Please explain things simply: I don’t know what the hell my manager is talking about half the time: Why does this stuff have to be complicated; I just don’t know what most of the stuff means; I just want to be allowed to get on with my job; I don’t understand the language; We know how to solve customer problems …. The list goes on and on and on … I’m sure you get the picture :-)
For me, one of the greatest qualities of any leader (manager) is the ability to make it ‘real’ for the follower. For instance, telling stories to bring something ‘alive’ is under-used (not used at all by poor managers). I’ve often asked why we never see story telling on business school prospectus.
Even when the more ‘in touch’ managers do use story telling brilliantly, those ‘other’ managers (the type who sit in their offices) invent ridiculous, silly jargon to describe it such as “The use of narrative” – why the hell do we do that? – IT IS STORY TELLING FOR GOD SAKE!! … ‘Story telling’ means something ‘Use of narrative’ is simply unhelpful management jargon for ego strokers.
I’m afraid to say that is a typical example of ineffective managers inventing unnecessary language for absolutely no other reason than to confuse us ordinary folks and to make them appear more intelligent. The great news is that front liners see straight through the BS in seconds and far more quickly than any manager.
WOW!! what a lovely start to another glorious early spring morning in Shakespeare’s County – I feel so much better for those two rants!
It is time to take the dogs for a walk to chill out ………
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 13, 2009 3:52 AM
Democrats in the USA are totally out of touch with the front line - case in point - the nefarious Pelosi flying large military aircraft to the neoliberal haven of San Francisco. 2010 elections are coming fast!
PS - Coulter & Limbaugh are super wealthy - crazy like foxes. TP could highlight the de-evolution of San Fran in his foreward.
Posted by C Love at March 13, 2009 7:18 AM
I believe that Trevor has explained much of what needs to be said. I don't need to start a site because there are already blogs that focus on more simple approaches to management and leadership (Three Star Leadership and Simplicity Blog). I have a book about my fall from the executive ranks...just click on my name. You'll find out more about me should you choose. A book based on true events and what I saw during my stint as an executive.
The issues evident to me are the disconnects between the theorists and pragmatists. There is really a bipartisan effort to become better leaders and both parties rarely come together in agreement...because they are promoting a brand (including me :)). I'm a pragmatist and believe in actions that promote simple leadership highly influenced by integrity. I see more theorists with their MBAs promoting ideas and models, and rarely, in my experience, do they ever work...they never interpret well to the lower levels.
Case in point. I was in a budget meeting years ago with the CEO, President, and many of the high level VPs. One of the VPs that was promoting his segment of the organization; i.e., his brand, was trying to explain something to me because I didn't "get it". He says, "Let's have a positive probe on this." I looked at him kinda funny and stated, "I had a doctor tell me the same thing last week and the probe wasn't so positive." He was so focused on his words that he couldn't communicate with me effectively. What if I asked my client to have a positive probe with me?
Theorists and pragmatist should be feeding off each other, but they don't in my opinion. We merely find forums like this to disagree with each other and become more bipartisan.
Posted by Scott Peters at March 13, 2009 7:46 AM
Dear All,
I always think of Tom's work as being peppered with references to 'pizza dough flippers, bricklayers, parking attendants' et al - he is fully aware that they 'get it' or rather that they need to 'get it' and it's those of us in positions to stand in the way of that who neeed to listen to what he says.
I thought the purpose of a blog was to bounce around ideas & work in progress - I'm sure Tom appreciates the feedback but the tone of some of the comments is unjustified I feel. I personally think it's rather cool that we get to read & respond to a draft in this way, at this stage.
I just had one simple question - I heard a rumour that Tom had addressed the - arguably THE - issue of climate change in the first draft of the first edition of Re-imagine! I did feel it was a major ommission last time - so, will global warming and how we might respond, be addressed in the 2009 edition?
Posted by Stephen Spencer at March 13, 2009 8:11 AM
"I thought the purpose of a blog was to bounce around ideas & work in progress - I'm sure Tom appreciates the feedback but the tone of some of the comments is unjustified I feel. I personally think it's rather cool that we get to read & respond to a draft in this way, at this stage."
Thank you, Stephen. I agree wholeheartedly. It's WAY COOL that we get to "read and respond to a draft in this way, at this stage."
Thanks, TP!
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 13, 2009 8:43 AM
buy viagra in australia with paypalStephen,
Well said...however, you too make assumptions about pizza flippers, bricklayers, parking attendants, etc. You're also making a huge assumption that TP gets it. My point was, why don't we ever hear from the pizza delivery driver, the ditch digger, and the parking attendant? Aren't they judge and jury? They're the ones who ultimately deliver on a brand. My guess is that 99% of them have no idea who Tom Peters is, other than a neighbor around the corner or the guy who owns the pizza joint. TP needs to hear a different tone from pragmatists so he'll hopefully stay grounded in his practice. The blog is serving its purpose.
I'm not tryting to drag this out any further, but, in the very essence of your statements, you validate the concerns of a pragmatist like me. What's wrong with saying that, in some cases, TP doesn't get it and he completely misses the mark? When's the last time he flipped dough or parked a car? I'd like to hear from the pizza flipper...any out there?
Posted by Scott Peters at March 13, 2009 10:08 AM
"TP needs to hear a different tone from pragmatists so he'll hopefully stay grounded in his practice."
Scott - Why don't you STOP saying what other people "need" to do and YOU do it! And I'm sure if anyone wanted your particular advice they would ask you for it specifically. Your unsolicited counsel is becoming rather annoying. By the way, I'm assuming that the "pragmatists" that you hope some would listen to would include you. Hmmm? I find the books that I have read by Tom Peters and this blog to be very pragmatic. Plus, unless you're hanging out with him, you have no idea what he's doing.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 13, 2009 11:18 AM
Interesting to see Mr Madoff is 'sorry' about his $50bn (£35bn) fraud!!
Oh yeah!! .. . 'Sorry' he got caught to be more accurate - what about your victims Mr Madoff?
• Once more we see the evidence of front liners paying for the price for corrupt management.
• Once more we see the dubious ‘benefit’ of capitalism (world depression; Madoff et al; how much more evidence do we need to tell us something doesn’t work)
• Once more we see the results of light, hands off regulation
• Once more I’ll hear how I’m immature because I believe in socialism and that I am trying to make it far too simple.
• Once more I’ll proudly plead guilty
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 13, 2009 12:26 PM
Judith,
Are you the pizza flipper? I want to hear from the pizza flipper!!!! the parking lot attendant, or a hot dog vendor would do. I have not said, in any terms, that people need to go do something. I'm merely looking for the pizza flipper on this blogsite.
I have kidnapped the blog and I'm holding it ransom. Until someone produces the pizza flipper, I will continue to annoy those reading this portion of the blog. I want pictures too! You can't just say that you're dough boy.
I'll hang out with just about anybody...let me know when you're ready.
Posted by Scott Peters at March 13, 2009 12:36 PM
Stephen,
I clicked on your name and that's a cool link...well done. What's your affiliation if you don't mind me asking?
Posted by Scott Peters at March 13, 2009 12:38 PM
Scott - I make a great Pizza and I flip an even better English Pancake - does that qualify?!
Trevor Gay
(AKA "Angelo Valanti Pizza Take-Away PLC")
Mission Statment - Proud of my jumbo size Marguerita!
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 13, 2009 12:46 PM
Knock, Knock
Who's there...?
Madoff
Madoff who?
Get it...ha ha ha ha. You're right Trevor and you're quite immature and guilty because you actually believe in something.
Posted by Scott Peters at March 13, 2009 12:47 PM
Knock, Knock
Who's there...?
Madoff
Madoff who?
Madoff with all you're money.
Ha ha ha ha...I'm just making this up as I go. Trevor, I'll be over next year to check out your pizza parlor. Look forward to it.
Posted by Scott Peters at March 13, 2009 12:53 PM
Scott - I'm down for a beer and a slice of pizza anytime. But in the meantime, why don't you produce what you want to see as opposed to telling others what they "need." This is how things are done most effectively, no?
The annoyance stems from your apparent arrogance or ignorance, no disrescpect intended, that you know what people are thinking and doing based on what YOU want to see on this blog from commenters and the man whose name bears it.
This is utterly ridiculous.
If you want to specifially see a pizza flipper, parking lot attendant, hotdog vendor, produce it! YOU do it!
Your insistence on behalf of frontliners in this regard falls flat.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 13, 2009 1:03 PM
Not quite...just ask Trevor. I quit my executive role to become a frontliner once again. I'm a sales rep in the building materials industry...yipes! I work with laborers, manufacturers, sales support, and at times, if I'm lucky, really filthy residential and commercial builders and framers.
I do know and I believe that creates some fear in those who don't.
Read my posts. I'm working with wage earners, I'm one myself, and not one person reports to me. I report to the builders that are buying products and services. Beer and pizza's on Trevor when we get together. I'll share my W-2s with you to prove my worthiness of being arrogant...if not downright stupid. However, I have a wife that stands by me. I bought my life back and the price tag was expensive.
www.droppingalmonds.com. I'm here to take bad leadership down one blog at a time.
I am the very person you want me to produce...I can prove that too.
I was also a counselor during grad school and I have the abilities of Hannibal, sans Chianti and brains for dinner. Sliding scale shit from professional people to one step away from homeless. I'm no expert, but I believe I'm right most of the time ;)
Now that's funny right there. Didn't you like my Madoff Knock Knock?
Posted by Scott Peters at March 13, 2009 2:16 PM
Yes, I liked it, although I had heard it at least a couple of dozen times. The "knock knock" part was a nice spin. :-)
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 13, 2009 3:09 PM
I'll toast that...
"To Judith, the best sparring partner ever".
"You don't know the power of the dark side!"
Have a good wkend. Peace for now.
Posted by Scott Peters at March 13, 2009 4:49 PM
"You don't know the power of the dark side!"
There you go again. But for the sake of your peace I shall let it slide.
I think I'm beginning to better understand your ultimate motivation after all evident in...
You and Trevor's mutual back patting high fiving horn tooting look at me...
On the other side shooting...
And on that note, a good weekend to you both.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 13, 2009 6:33 PM
And a great weekend to you too Judith and Scott :-)
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 13, 2009 7:33 PM
M-W-F: Trevor is pitcher and I'm catcher
T-T-S: I'm pitcher and Trevor is catcher
Sunday: We flip a coin.
Don't make me mad or I'll bring out the penis envy comments :)
You too!
Posted by Scott Peters at March 13, 2009 7:38 PM
Wow...ya'll have this teed up real nice so let me take a swing at it. I'm a trainer, who has the title of manager. I teach front liners how to be front liners. I show front liners how to survive the poor leadership and management that runs over 39 percent of them out the door before they reach the 130 day mark with the company. My folks seem to stick at a much higher rate...a testimony to them not me. The only thing I do differently is to remember what it was like to sit in the chair they will soon be sitting in and teach and model accordingly. If I don't pass the test as a front liner...oh well.
Why is it I keep getting this image of some folks posturing using the old "Front liners?, some of my best friends are front liners!" like folks of one pigmentary persuasion have and still do to those to those of another as if acquaintance implies understanding and kinship. I am also confident that we don't need to go out and speak to bricklayers, counter clerks because their answers will be the same as ours were had they questioned each of us on our first jobs. Low pay, no respect, no input into planning and decision making...the list is long and familiar. So it would seem we all have that common core experience when it comes to being on the front line. Much like leadership and management theory, nothing has changed over the course of those years. Deming, Juran, Drucker and others defined it in the 40's and 50's. Much of what I read are just variations of the same themes and that is a good thing because they work. There are a few authors out there who have taken those theories and have found a way through their books and video's to translate them into examples, stories, testimonials or whatever else that folks could use and relate to so they could CHANGE! After all, isn't learning about changing behavior? The best at doing that in my opinion was, is, and always will be Tom Peters. I know from experience.
Never read In Search of Excellence...some day I will. My boss "stole" the copy we ordered and all I got was "A Passion for Excellence" (he doesn't know what he missed because it was terrific). If you don't see "MWBA" as Tom's way of telling leaders they best get up off their ass, out of the office, and out on the floor, you missed something. A front liner can read that and relate. This is exactly why I will respectfully disagree with anyone who says he doesn't lacks frontline perspective or credibility. A manager will see it, understand the reason, and sometimes does nothing because there are angry folks out there. I would definitely ask anyone who says that Tom Peters isn't "grounded" to give some specifics. Many whine about those lists that have 57, 96 or 2157 items on them. "Give me 2 or 3", "That's to many" waa waa waaaaaaaaaaaa! The man is simply giving you multiple approaches and strategies to get stuff straight. If you show up on the front line and look like President Bush 41 having the scanner at the supermarket cash register explained to him by the cashier stay in your office. You have no credibility. Which Bill Clinton exploited by pointing out how out of touch he was with the common folk. So to keep you from looking like George Bush out there he says later on the list to wander over to the shipping department, the supply area...network. Many front liners "get" Tom Peters, I know as they ask me why I am so different from many of the other managers they have contact with. I read a lot of books that are very long on theory and very short on application. That's why I recommend they start with Tom Peters as I did a couple of decades before. Trevor and Judith may express it differently, but I can see the same themes and tenets in the way each of them express themselves. This isn't the "White Men Can't Jump" riff about you can "listen" to Jimmy but you can't "hear" him. They both "get" it and adapt it to what they do.
One more thing if I might. I think it's been about a year and half since I began to visit this blog and during this time I've seen a member of this community have her ethnicity, gender, intelligence, integrity, and many other things questioned and commented on. Yeah and every once in a while someone actually takes her to task on her perspective and when she defends that then many will go to all of the above. She always engages the discussion, states her opinion with eloquence, class, and every now and then can go straight up "street" on folks. That's range and one of the reasons I respect her. I also notice she never holds a grudge with the folks she scraps with, a favor that isn't always returned. This person in no way needs me to speak on her behalf, just my observation. I've yet to see one who "spars" with her lay a glove on her. I recall a saying years ago about throwing spit wads at a battleship thinking you are going to sink it. She's gonna respond as she should when tweaked, she's not gonna back down as she shouldn't, she will concede a point when you make sense, and always treat you with a level of respect that some in the past don't deserve. You can "tag team" but she just elevates her game.
These types of discussions are getting old, tired, irrelevant, so I'm gonna do exactly what I tell my students to do when confronted with an angry and moronic customer...ignore it. Don't feed it with words, attitude, or comment. If they do that...the fool on the other end of the phone quits playing and starts working with them to fix the problem or they hang up and call back looking for a rep who will take the bait. Sorry but I won't apologize for the length...just had a lot to say. Thanks folks for the patience however if you made it to these words...
Posted by Dave Wheeler at March 13, 2009 9:44 PM
Dave, much appreciated, and I both agree and disagree. "Give me 2 or 3": spot on. "..eloquence, class, and every now and then can go straight up 'street' on folks"; if that means routinely dismissing others and their opinions here as arrogant and ignorant (and a whole derogatory lot more besides) instead of just "engaging the discussion", then I'm sorry, but it is unsuprising "these types of discussion" are the result. Strong argument need not be personal or dismissive. I remember something from Tom Peters recently celebrating courtesy. As Gandhi said about Western civilisation, I think it would be a good thing. Please.
Posted by RobCH at March 14, 2009 6:12 AM
Dave - Thank you for your words. ALL of them.
The amazing thing about words is that what is "engaging," "personal" or "dismissive" to one may not be to another. Another interesting thing is the necessity of some to guard their particular sensibilities and tastes to the more purposeful provocative words when others choose to use them. Some use words that avoid outright provocation but are quite "arrogant" and "dismissive" of women, contrary ideas, etc., though they are often on the genteel side. So, I ask you, which is worse? Also genteel words sometimes do not necessarily focus a matter in ways that others may. Words are all about how we use them and why. Sometimes I am successful; other times I am not. When I am not successful or when my words have offended others, I would always hope to have both the courage and humility to admit this publicly and privately.
Gentility and wordsmith, in and of themselves, do not automatically equate to respect or being non-dismissive. I also find that some here do not wish to enter another kind of discussion or perhaps it is simply that they can't. I understand both. Perhaps this is also a matter of age or gender or both. What are the ages of women outside of your home that you actually have conversations with? Do you have any ethnic women colleagues? What are your perceptions of them? What kind of women are you married to? What kind of women do you relate to at the office, if any? What are your expectations of them?
When these things are taken into consideration often times what is expected of others solidifies or broadens. (It's funny that not one word was spoken about all the swearing that should be offensive to a sensitive soul. But I guess this is OK because a man did it, eh? I'm cool with the swearing, though I have never been around such and it's not my thing.) For the former, what is most comfortable is often what's generally accepted, even though the discussion could be around the need to change this thing or the other. For these it would not matter necessarily the words or style used, because what matters most is keeping in line with their particular sensibilities which often equate to status quo, wittingly or not. Even though cloaked in gentility, using less provocative words, the tone is still often disrespectful and dismissive, arrogant too.
So, I ask you again…which is worse?
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 14, 2009 8:29 AM
RobCH..."Strong argument need not be personal or dismissive. I remember something from Tom Peters recently celebrating courtesy. As Gandhi said about Western civilisation, I think it would be a good thing. Please"
One of the best pieces of advise I ever received was from a Colonel I used to work for when I was learning the whole organizational development "consultant" job. He said "Screw trying to fix problems. If you look at things that way you have to point fingers,assign blame and waste time discussing the past. Position it as exploiting an opportunity so you don't the time hearing them trying to avoid accepting responsibility for their screw ups."
Consensus isn't about agreeing, it's about being able to live with the plan or policy and moving on once it's discussed and the decision gets made. I do agree however 10,000 percent with the sentiment you expressed so eloquently above. Thank you sir!
Posted by Dave Wheeler at March 14, 2009 12:34 PM
Hi Dave and Judith. Thanks for the feedback. I just prefer basic courtesies, full stop, or as Tom would say, period. The debate/disagreement can go on just fine without having to get personal. I don't condone behaviour because of someone's gender, ethnicity, age or anything else - online who knows most of the time anyway? I love a lot of the discussion here, and Judith the place is a whole lot less interesting when you're not around. It just gets too squabbly from time to time for my taste. In answer to one question, although I'm working in the Middle East, stranger in a strange land, I am currently only married to one woman, whom I respect, adore and miss terribly as she is at home in London. She is (of course) far more intelligent than I am.
Posted by RobCH at March 15, 2009 6:11 AM
Wow...I was off for one full day and the sparks are flying. Aren't we all arguing the same point from a different perspective?
Dave, you have made a great points though. After 50 years of books, seminars, affinity diagrams, branding, blogging, mind mapping and everything else consultative, we still suck as leaders and managers. I guess that positions us well for the next 50 years...You obviously prefer a West Coast offense more to Nebraska football. Simplicity is the key!
What's up with the sucking up to the "undisclosed" woman? Wow. Most people, I would think, would prefer to defend themselves in a blog; however, seeing as you're the trainer of trainers, the manager of managers, the frontliner of frontliners, a pro golfer may I add, you completely trump others by making such "defamatory" comments. I'm on the front lines and you want to deny me that, oh Mr. Trainer of Trainers? The problem is, guys like you can't ignore me and you need to tell everybody to just ignore me, how ridiculous is that.
I happen to like Judith's posts very much, and yes we do spar, but I have learned much from her. With your dissertation of rant, I've just learned much about you Mr. Wheeler. Let Judith stand on her own two, she does just fine.
Posted by Scott Peters at March 15, 2009 10:34 AM
Hi RobCH - Thank you. I appreciate your words and the spirit of your comment. I hope that you will soon be reunited with your wife. We are all helpers one to another in so many ways. I value input from everyone, including those who disagree with me, even those who ignore me. It's all good. :-)
Listen, I'm the youngest of 12 children: 7 boys, 5 girls, half Republicans, half Democrats who married spouses from various parts of the world, including Africa and Pakistan, and whose parents are a mixture of African and Jewish ancestry. Trust me, difference of opinions is an asset, as is the tremendous respect and love that we have for one another. I must also say that conversations and emotions can reach decimal levels in my family, but there is no love lost and NEVER EVER any rancor.
Regarding getting "too squabbly from time to time," I was thinking about this last evening on my walk and was going to post something on debating points less and perhaps somewhat differently. I agree with you about being less squabbly and will be more conscious of this moving forward. But I can't make any promises. OK? I will, however, most certainly try my darndest. Is this at least acceptable? If at first I don't succeed, I will try try try again. And you well know that my efforts often do not wane in this regard. This should at least give you some comfort, some hope in me.
All the best, Rob.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 15, 2009 10:59 AM
This I must acknowledge openly in turning a new leaf: I will ignore a few of Scott Peters' points above, although everything in me wishes to do the exact opposite. But I'm cool. I'm good. I'm good. This is cathartic. Say it again: I'm good. I guess it would have been better had I not written anything at all. OK OK. OK. This is, at least, a step in another direction.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 15, 2009 11:10 AM
Judith, I'll do my darndest to live up to your example! All the best to you too.
Posted by RobCH at March 15, 2009 11:39 AM
Now, the pressure it is on! :-)
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 15, 2009 12:53 PM
Scott:
'...you too make assumptions about pizza flippers, bricklayers, parking attendants, etc. You're also making a huge assumption that TP gets it...They're the ones who ultimately deliver on a brand. My guess is that 99% of them have no idea who Tom Peters is, other than a neighbor around the corner or the guy who owns the pizza joint.'
First: Tom is THE MAN when it comes to telling business leaders that it is the front line who ARE the brand. Surely you must know that?!
Second: It's irrelevant whether 99% of the front line know who Tom is! But he definitely knows who they are - as anyone who 'gets' Tom's work would know!
Third (and last): I manage the business you refer to. And it is absolutely our front line that matters most! And I pretty much learned that from Tom, over a decade ago.
Posted by Stephen Spencer at March 15, 2009 1:22 PM
I’ve been commenting on Tom Peters Blog since the beginning and I still love it. Over four years I've made many friends through it. I’ve upset, and been upset by various folks. I’ve found myself in open arguments on this Blog. I now realise that’s a pretty futile exercise that no one gains anything from. I’ve learned about the ‘art’ of commenting over 4 years and finally I think I’ve 'got it.' I’ve finally realised I mustn’t take these things too seriously and not to heart. We all express our views in our own way and I accept that. I don’t accept personal rudeness – I’ve learned to ignore that. Frankly, life’s too short to fall out with each other especially in Tom’s front room where I am a guest. My stance is therefore to try and avoid confrontation and instead seek constructive debate.
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 15, 2009 2:48 PM
Stephen - That is a most wonderful comment. Thank you.
Trevor - Blah...blah...blah... Ignore that! Oh, God, I'm failing already.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 15, 2009 2:55 PM
I forgive you Judith :-)
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 15, 2009 3:00 PM
I didn't ask for forgivness! God, do you hear me?
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 15, 2009 3:13 PM
Way to go Judith... buy viagra mastercard
Hey, I love everyone on the blog and that's no lie. I love the squabbles, the differences in opinion, and openness to criticize me. Have I ever, in all my dubious posts, ever asked someone to ignore somebody else? Because I may be a little different, because I may want to stir the ubiquitous pot, are people to ignore me? In my opinion...very contemptuous.
TP may be the man and he offers up some great stuff; his own success is evidence of such a fact. All-in-all, through the squabbles, I learn a lot from others and a lot about myself.
I think Trevor was posing as God and forgiving you :), and yes, based on most of our Christian beliefs (assumption on my part), you don't have to ask for forgiveness. The passion in this blog is unduplicated and TP has a great forum for us; until he throws me off of course.
As stated by David Crockett in his last days at the Alamo, "I think we had better march out and die in the open; I don't like to be hemmed up." What a great leader he was to redefine the history of our nation in the southern state of Texas.
Posted by Scott Peters at March 15, 2009 3:50 PM
Judith and Scott - Life is good from where I sit - especially today after our half marathon run ... despite aches and pains that will pass by tomorrow :-)
http://www.simplicityitk.blogspot.com/
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 15, 2009 3:58 PM
Trevor and Judith,
Life is good. I provided the David Crockett quote because I'm looking out the window at Alamo square. There were so many different ethnicities fighting for the freedom of Texas during that time. I believe, and I'm not sure, because I was rushing through the Mission de San Antonio, that a black man also fought for the freedom of the Alamo. He was essentially a freed slave fighting in the south long before the Civil War.
They have flags from all the countries and states of the 200 fighters that perished at the Alamo. Great story and another slice of history for Texas and the free world.
Posted by Scott Peters at March 15, 2009 4:36 PM
Stop typing my name--PLEASE! Both of you.
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 15, 2009 5:41 PM
Hope is restored when I read the article from the Boston Globe sent to me by my friend Tom Asacker. It proves so many things about how we can value front line workers.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/12/a_head_with_a_heart/
Paul Levy is my kind of CEO - good luck to you Sir!
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 16, 2009 4:58 AM
On the topic of the post - the draft - I would normally have expected Richard to pitch in. Does anyone know if he and his family are okay?
For me, admittedly with a something of an early morning attitude on, the new intro, while fascinating, says Re-package! rather than Re-imagine! Just seems a bit of a contradiction in terms somehow. Not helpful I know when a new edition has to be produced, but that was my feeling. Probably driven by an ulterior motive - I'd like to see a whole new book, not just a new introduction.
Posted by RobCH at March 17, 2009 1:04 AM
Hi RobCH - I had an email discussion with Richard over the past weekend and he was particularly happy as his team Liverpool beat my beloved Manchester United!! :-)
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 17, 2009 3:54 AM
Good news. About Richard I mean. Liverpool won, eh? I imagine it must have been a close match...
Posted by RobCH at March 17, 2009 9:54 AM
Hi RobCH - no, it wasn't close! 4-1 - the worst league defeat for Man Utd since 1992. (sorry Trevor!)
Posted by Stephen Spencer at March 17, 2009 10:10 AM
4-1!!! Hard to believe, but I can see why Richard was pleased. Was it at Liverpool?
Posted by RobCH at March 17, 2009 10:20 AM
Please, please please RobCH and Stephen – don’t remind me - I've had so much stick since Saturday from my Liverpool mates.
I was just beginning to recover recovering when you announced the score to the world ... I will now need to go and lie down for an hour in the darkness to recover from this public humiliation … just joking .. It will only be 30 minutes :- )
The consolation I have of course is that we (Man United) are way clear at the top of the Premier League yet again and looking good for our 11th title under the great man Sir Alex .... While our greatest rivals Liverpool have not won the title for 20 years ….
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 17, 2009 10:58 AM
I hope our US friends forgive the football (soccer) diversion but in the words of the late Bill Shankly:
"Football (soccer) is not a matter of life and death ... it is far more important than that"
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 17, 2009 11:00 AM
Trevor, doubtless normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. Thanks for the news on Richard, his gloating notwithstanding.
Posted by RobCH at March 17, 2009 11:09 AM
RobCH, Thanks for asking about me and mine... Please be assured we are all well and happy now - it has been raining for the past few days and nature is regenerating our property. It is amazing to see the transformation here in just a few days. Again thanks for your concern and your good wishes - we really appreciated them.
Now back in the real world. It was worse than Trevor will admit because Man U jumped us with a penalty goal. Yeah Liverpool was 1-0 down and then rallied as champions do with 4... yeah, 4 unanswered goals! It was a game played in heaven!
Richard
Posted by Richard Lipscombe at March 17, 2009 8:25 PM
I'm sure the last few comments will be of great help to Tom with his foreword!! :-)
Posted by Stephen Spencer at March 18, 2009 5:46 AM
Makes a change from Siberia!
Posted by RobCH at March 18, 2009 7:44 AM
And good to see you back Richard
Posted by RobCH at March 18, 2009 8:36 AM
The efficacy of these comments with regards to TP's forward may be debatable--not really. :-) But Manchester United may be trouble, as AIG may be required to stop financing them. After all, the taxpayers own 80% of this company now. Is this the best use of our money?
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 18, 2009 12:14 PM
"But Manchester United may be trouble, as AIG may be required to stop financing them.!
Judith - as a Manchester United fan since I was 11 years old in 1963 I am not worried at all about AIG withdrawing shirt sponsorship. Rest assured there will be a long queue of world famous companies desperate to replace. Man United have the most famous brand name in world football.
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 18, 2009 1:33 PM
Great! Let the withdrawal begin as well as the clawback of millions of taxpayer dollars that went to British AIGers!
Posted by Judith Ellis at March 18, 2009 2:09 PM