How Things Change

I was listening to Steely Dan on my iPod today, and heard a familiar line in a new way:

"Rikki don't lose that number, you don't want to call nobody else. Send it off in a letter to yourself."

In 1974, sending a letter to yourself seemed a very odd and obscure thing to do. But how many of us today send ourselves voicemails or emails? We all do!

I've even noticed different styles people use when leaving themselves messages. I'll admit to a quick, curt, no-frills monotone on reminder voicemails I leave to myself ("Call Larry, get dog food"), while other people (like my wife!) are much more polite to themselves, saying "hi" and "bye" and using warm vocal inflections.

Which style are you?

New to Our Blogroll: Lawrence Lessig

I'm in ecstasy from discovering (courtesy Halley Suitt/Halley'sComment) Lawrence Lessig's blog. (Lessig authored The Future of Ideas and Free Culture among other things.) We proudly add it to our blogroll! Today (29 August), for example, it includes incredible commentary by jurist Richard Posner. If the state of the world, electronic and otherwise, interests you—this is a place to hang out.

Revisiting My "Respect" Blog of 08.19

This could be a "comment," but I want to put the issue "at the top" again. "Respect" said that women were the empathy freaks, and we guys aren't—and that the Excellence in Empathy bit yields greater Sales Effectiveness. Several of you remind me that empathy is not the "exclusive domain" of women. I agree! My problem is, after eight years of study, that I am frighteningly aware of differences. I'd like to think I've got a pretty damn good "empathy quotient"—and I think my record as a public speaker attests to that. On the other hand, my observation says I can't hold a candle to most women on this and a dozen dozen important like issues. I'm decently trained in statistics, and well aware of the key idea called "central tendencies." That is to say, there are many, many empathetic guys—and there are many, many un-empathetic women. But on the whole, women score much better than we do on that empathy scale—which, in the case of the 08.19 blog, is essential to sales success.

One of our colleagues asserts that I'm a "total moron" ... "pathetic" ... "anti-male" ... "politically correct." Generally there's not much value to replying to such remarks, but I do want to say a few things:

First, I'm obviously NOT politically correct—or there would be a woman running for President this November!

Second, I am not "anti-male"—but I readily admit to being "pro-female." And I am unabashedly "pro-market"—and developing products and marketing effectively to women is ... THE BIGGEST PROFIT MAXIMIZING OPPORTUNITY IN BUSINESS TODAY.

And then there's just plain uncontestable & uncomfortable stuff like this ...

Fact: 8 of 500 Fortune 500 CEOs are women; a stupid waste of talent, or not? And, from Closing the Leadership Gap, the book by Marie C. Wilson: "Internationally, the United States ranked 60th in women's political leadership, behind Sierra Leone and tied with Andorra."

Fact: Alas, men are responsible for over 90 percent of domestic violence and 90 percent of non-domestic violent crimes and 90 percent of international violence—that does not make me especially proud of my gender. Likewise, the famous Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, which invented the wildly successful concept of "micro-lending" (tiny loans to start businesses), grants about 90 percent of its loans to women (women use the money as intended, to improve their family's lot; while men tend to often as not drink up the proceeds)—and that does not make me terribly proud of my gender.

As to the "pathetic total moron" charge—IYAMWHATEVERIYAM.

Sunday Reading

For those snobs who got PARADE magazine with their Sunday papers—and discarded it—go to your Recycle Bin and dig it out! The cover story is titled, "Why We Believe He Is The Most Important Coach In America." Joe Ehrmann is The Man. He coaches at Gilman School in Baltimore. (He played pro ball—13 years as a defensive lineman—mostly for the Baltimore Colts.) Some of his rules ("To Be A Better Man"): "Recognize the 'three lies of false masculinity': Athletic ability, sexual conquest and economic success are not the best measurements of manhood." "Allow yourself to love and be loved: Build and value relationships." "Accept responsibility, lead courageously and enact justice on behalf of others: Practice the concepts of empathy, inclusion and integrity." And so on. And on. Incidentally, his team finished three of the last six seasons undefeated, and in 2002 was Maryland's No. 1 (and No. 14 in the nation). (Full disclosure: 45 years ago I played lacrosse against Gilman; and the BALTIMORE Colts were my favorite football team.)

Offering No. 2 comes courtesy the New York Times Book Review. Conservative Judge Richard Posner writes "The 9/11 Report: A Dissent." Read it! I have put off blogging the 9/11 report, because I had so much to say. Now Judge Posner has said it—better than I could have. Much of the debate over Recommendations swirls, as it should, over issues of centralization (of intelligence activities) versus decentralization. Posner points out the problem with centralized solutions aimed, essentially, at fixing yesterday's problem: "It is almost impossible to take effective action to prevent something that hasn't occurred previously." It's true in business when Dell or Wal*Mart offers an entirely new business model—and true in this chaotic (key word!) struggle against decentralized terrorist networks. As to the Commission, Posner is clear: "[The Commission] believes in centralizing intelligence, and people who prefer centralized, pyramidal governance structures to diversity and competition deprecate dissent." Read on! Please! Incidentally, you can fetch this, free for one week (you must register) at nytimes.com. (Also, see my blog immediately below, titled "Only One Big Issue.")

Only One Big Issue

As I've said in a couple of recent blogs, I'm living in the period 1787-1800 these days. Among other things, it reminds me of the eternal struggle between Centralization and Decentralization. The contentious 1800 election was between the Federalists' "elite" (centralist) philosophy of governing and the Republicans' (no relation to the current party by the same name—quite the contrary) "populist" (decentralized) philosophy. The debate still rages—Big Government v. Small Government, Elitist v. Populist. I am a Libertarian by philosophical bent (though not party registration): Small government populism is my bag. Same in business, where I've championed Radical Decentralization for three decades.

Problem: In truth, you need both! In Child Rearing (the uneasy mix of rules and freedom—is there anything else?); in government; in business. Centralist hierarchies ensure consistency—a virtue of the First Order. (Think TQM!) Decentralist approaches spawn adaptability and innovation—a virtue of the First Order. (Entrepreneurialism of the Silicon Valley flavor.) Alas, the answer is not some mindless plea for "balance." In fact, there is always virulent, irresolvable tension—e.g., the Finance and Manufacturing and Logistics Barons versus the R&D and New Products and Marketing Barons. In fact, successful institutions tend to wobble back and forth over the years between too little centralization and excessive centralization. (One CEO's legacy is "tightening things up," the next stood for "innovation." Both are eventually fired for overdoing it!) Nonetheless, I have a Big & Longstanding Problem: There is an almost inevitable institutional drift toward Centralization & Complex Processes & Hierarchy ... at the expense of Innovation & Adaptation; the "cost" is often the Death Penalty.

Consider these two succinct statements of the problem that I dug out of past works of mine:

"People think the President has to be the main organizer. No, the President is the main dis-organizer. Everybody 'manages' quite well; whenever anything goes wrong, they take immediate action to make sure nothing'll go wrong again. The problem is, nothing new will ever happen, either."—Harry Quadracci, founder, Quad/Graphics (from Liberation Management)

"The IBM 360 is one of the grand product success stories in American business history, yet its development was sloppy. Along the way, Chairman Thomas Watson, Sr., asked then vice-president Frank Cary to 'design a system to ensure us against a repeat of this kind of problem.' Cary did what he was told. Years later, when he became IBM's chairman, one of his first acts was to get rid of the laborious product-development structure that he had created for Watson. 'Mr. Watson was right,' he conceded. 'It [the product development structure] will prevent a repeat of the 360 development turmoil. Unfortunately, it will also ensure that we don't ever invent another product with the impact of the 360.'"—In Search of Excellence

In this brief discourse, or even in one that was ten times longer, I cannot and will not offer any definitive solutions. There are none ... except to be ever attentive to the debate and to beware the ICD/Inexorable Centralist Drift! (Addendum: This idea is as critical to your career path and the leadership of a 6-person project team as it is to the structure of national intelligence assets.)

5:27 A.M., 29 August

Ahhh .... 5:27A.M., Sunday, 29 August. First Canadian Geese, flying South, landed on the Farm Pond outside our bedroom window in Vermont. The Summer has been too short! Now the 9-month Winter begins!

Badvertising: Miller Lite

The legend is that the Chicago Cubs are cursed, and can't win a championship. This legend was reinforced last year when fan interference prevented the Cubs from winning the National League title and going to the World Series.

We Cub fans get pretty depressed about the Cubs' inability to win, and don't like talk of curses. So, explain the thinking behind this: Miller Lite has a billboard over a building right across the street from Wrigley Field's right field fence, visible from virtually all seats in the park, with the headline: CURSE QUENCHER

Cub fans I've talked to think this ad is really stupid. Is Miller saying they have the power to make the Cubs win? As one fan put it to me, "Who are they to talk about ending the so-called curse, when they have their name (Miller Park) on the stadium of the Cubs' rivals, the Milwaukee Brewers, only 1 1/2 hours away up Interstate 94."

Who was asleep at the meeting when the ad agency got approval for this one?

Yesssssss!!!!!!

"It's a Woman's World in Athens"—AOL Headline/Noon/27August/Topic: U.S.A. Women in the 2004 Olympics

This Just In ...

Just picked up what looks to be a great (mind-stretching) book. More later, but for now I'll tell you it's The Power of Impossible Thinking, by Yoram (Jerry) Wind, and Colin Crook, both of the Wharton School, and Robert Gunther. Cover tag line: "If You Can Think Impossible Thoughts, You Can Do Impossible Things." That doesn't translate into goopy self-help jelly—rather, the ideas here are, in the main, byproducts of the "hard" neurosciences. Consider this zinger from the prologue:

"Researchers asked subjects to count the number of times ballplayers with white shirts pitched a ball back and forth in a video. Most subjects were so thoroughly engaged in watching white shirts that they failed to notice a black gorilla that wandered across the scene and paused in the middle to beat his chest. They had their noses so buried in their work that they didn't even see the gorilla.

"What gorillas are moving through your field of vision while you are so hard at work that you fail to see them? Will some of these 800-pound gorillas ultimately disrupt your game?"

Nice! (As I said, more later.)

Name That Year

"Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will all be openly taught and practiced. The air will be rent with the cries of distress, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes. ... [There is] scarcely a possibility that we shall escape a Civil War."

What is it? Bush or Kerry gone mad? One of Election 2004's out-of-control 527 groups? Try, instead, John Adams v. Thomas Jefferson in Campaign 1800. Adams was the Federalist President who succeeded Federalist George Washington in 1796; his Vice President, Jefferson, the Republican challenger. (As most know, Federalists were more or less the progenitors of today's Republican party—representing the elite. Republicans, circa 1800, were progenitors of today's Democrats—representing the masses.) The brutal language above was an autumn 1800 Federalist (Adamsonian) attack on Jefferson. Federalists feared the masses taking over—and introducing unacceptable disorder into society. Republicans believed the Federalists had turned into no more than a thinly disguised Monarchist party, intent on suppressing the masses.

And you thought 2004 was rough!

Source: Susan Dunn, Jefferson's Second Revolution: The Election Crisis of 1800 and the Triumph of Republicanism

Do Three Things Today

I'm doing a coaching gig. Client: Small biz at a critical crossroads. Getting some serious ameliorative stuff done in the next 120 days is almost a life & death issue. The Boss is a wreck, swamped with an agenda a mile long. "So what's most important?" I asked. "Everything," was his ever-so-reasonable and emphatic reply. After a half-day's head scratching & head banging, we'd come up with two priorities. (I insisted on just one, but, what the hell, two beats "everything.") Next: Express each of the Big Two in 10 words or less. (We're not talking about an ad tag line for Diet Pepsi here, but it is imperative that each key idea be expressed in clear, compelling, succinct, dramatic verbiage.) Next: Convince one and all (about 25 people) that ... Life v. Death = Abiding Attention to Two Big Things over the Next 120 Days. My advice to my Client on this score: "Upon presenting your case, you must do THREE THINGS EACH & EVERY DAY [Measure this!] that will clearly illustrate your unmistakable & unflinching commitment to THE TWO BIG THINGS." "Moreover," I added, "one of the three daily actions must be a little bit bizarre, to illustrate the lengths to which you'll go to make this 'fix' happen. The key words are: FOCUS [two big things] ... CLARITY [10 words max] ... INTENSITY ... ENTHUSIASM ... OPTIMISM [if it kills you] ... VISIBILITY [out and about and intrusive] ... REPETITION [three actions per day] ... EXTREME [one of three daily actions demonstrates 'over-the-top' commitment]."

Two weeks have passed, and what's most visible is remarkable hustle. It more or less turns out, I believe, that the specific ideas are actually less important than the Intensity of focus on results in general.

Lesson: I think a process like this has more or less universal applicability—to a wobbly project as well as a business about to tank. Try it! (Let me know if you've ever done an exercise like this. Or if you try this, let me know how it works.)

Damned Engineers

Engineers are literalists. (I am one.) Has its virtues. (Good bridges ... if you're a Civil Engineer like me.) But there are also problems ... if you're managing people (people mess up everything, as we engineers all know) and/or attempting to bring about Big Change.

I once worked with a troubled aerospace firm. At the end of a crucial offsite, the Boss summarized the findings, and declared the fix as good as done. As I recall he said something like, "We've discovered that virtually all our issues boil down to simple mis-communications problems. So let's commit here and now to putting this chapter behind us."

Sure.

Many/most engineers (and other literalists) more or less implicitly believe, I've observed, that if you collect the facts, arrive at a logical conclusion, and explain yourself in plain English—you ought not be troubled by having to explain it or say it again. But the fact is—in the Real World—that there's only one operative rule: REPETITION RULES!

I've reluctantly come to understand this over the years. Recently a trusted colleague, an academic and a woman, sent me an email after I shared something I'd just written with her. "I'm glad you won't let up on your 'Women's Rants,'" she wrote. "Most academics say something, assume that once it's in print it becomes the last word, and move on. Fact is, tectonic plates shift very slowly—and only merciless repetition, perhaps over a period that extends out a decade or more, has even a slight hope of reversing the tide of conventional wisdom."

"Rapid change," then, typically occurs "rapidly" only after an idea has accreted and accreted and accreted through its ceaseless repetition to the point that it suddenly becomes inevitable—a tipping point occurs, to use the now overused phrase.

Hence:

You want to make Stupendous Client Service Experiences the hallmark of your tour of duty? Proclaim it? Sure. Define it? Sure. Measure it? Sure. Put processes and incentives in place to enable it? Sure. But, mostly, consciously find three or four "minor" excuses a Day ... to reinforce your Personal Visible Commitment to Stupendous Client Service Experiences. (And, like the pols in election year, use the exact same phrase—Stupendous Client Service Experiences or some such—over and over, and over, again.)

Think: TENACITY ... PRECISION ... REPETITION ... DAY-AFTER-AFTER-DAY-AFTER-DAY.

Words to Remember

Inducing Big Time Change is the inadvertent topic of several of today's Blogs. So I must direct your attention to my pick as "most profound statement concerning 'change management.'" It comes from Bob Stone, who created a mini-revolution in facilities management at the Department of Defense 20 years ago; then topped himself by leading VP Al Gore's surprisingly successful and mostly unsung effort in the '90s to "re-invent government."

My favorite Stone-ism: "Some people look for things that went wrong and try to fix them. I look for things that went right and try to build on them." (From Stone's Lessons from an Uncivil Servant; also see Chapter 17 of my Re-imagine!)

That is, Stone understood the utter futility of attempting to "overcome resistance to change" that inevitably occurs when one frontally attacks the current establishment and their icons of past success. Instead, success/change most often emerges from blithely ignoring the establishment's entrenched kingpins—and, instead, prowling organizational byways in pursuit of pioneers who, through sheer guts and grit, have been nefariously installing Exciting New & Revolutionary Ways of Doing Things, simply because they believed it was the Right Thing to Do. Next, our Ignore-the-Negative/Accentuate-the-Positive Change Agent (or Uncivil Servant like Stone) publicizes and celebrates the hell out of the Exciting New Stuff (and its Heroic Purveyor-Champions) ... and openly invites others to emulate this new cadre of Hero-exemplars.

If you stayed awake in Psych 101, you know Bob Stone's approach is the Basic Tenet of Rat Psychology. If you punish bad behavior, the net effect is not, as intended, to wipe it out—but, instead, to drive it underground and inadvertently entrench it. Rather, reinforcing positive behavior causes more and more positive behavior to be emitted—thence simply crowding out the negative stuff until it simply vanishes. It ain't that easy—with rats or bureaucrats—but it ain't that hard either if (if!!!) you stay the course.

Wal*Mart: Ever More Influence

National Assoc. of Convenience Stores Magazine, August, 2004: "Because of its buying power, Wal*Mart can sell all of its products at retail for less than the price at which most of your wholesale distributors can buy the same product from the manufacturer ... It's scary to think small retailers might get better prices by purchasing directly from a Wal*Mart store than they can from buying from their own distributor/wholesaler."

What this means is that Wal*Mart has not only changed consumer buying behavior, they have changed the way distribution channels work. Many manufacturers know that much of their Wal*Mart volume, especially what they sell through Sam's Club, actually represents trade sales and not consumer sales. We've all heard about the impact Wal*Mart has on its retail competitors ... how big will this impact on trade channels be?

Boomer Babies

As more and more Baby Boomer-targeted products appear, here's one that the manufacturer did not predict would fare so well with the "mature" market. Japanese toymaker Bandai has sold more than 800,000 robotic dolls, primarily to mature women buying the dolls for themselves. Primopuel has the vocabulary of a 5-year-old ... and a website selling accessories.

One 54-year-old owner says, "I've never been appreciated by my husband, but this little baby understands me and gives me comfort." So far, Primo's popularity seems limited to Japan, but there are plenty of grandma wannabes to spark production of other versions. As the younger generation tends to have fewer children, later in life, virtual grandparenting is on the rise.

(Not) Getting Away

How did your last vacation go? It seems too many of us have forgotten what "vacation" means. We haul our laptops, mobile phones and PDAs with us so our temporary relocation won't interfere with the work in progress. An article at the Globe and Mail sums up the hidden cost of vacationing as "a heavier workload, worries while away and a re-entry burn so severe that no apres-sun cream can soothe it." We find ourselves at "the beck and call of a technology-driven work environment that has quickened the work cycle to a punishing pace."

Everyone I know understands this complaint. What can we do about it? Maybe, as the article suggests, airlines could "search your bags and confiscate anything suspiciously work-related: 'I'm sorry, sir, you simply can't take the Smithers file with you.'" More realistically, can more managers learn to give people permission to take a break that restores and reinvigorates instead of upping the stress level?

Cool Friend: Kevin Roberts

As CEO Worldwide of Ideas Company Saatchi & Saatchi, Kevin Roberts oversees an international team of more than 7,000 creative people in 82 countries. A prolific traveler and coveted speaker, he is a constant source of inspiration to thousands of people through his vision, clarity of purpose, and inimitable, straight-talking approach. He wrote Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands, and when tompeters.com talked to him, we asked, "This is a beautiful book. How did it come to look the way it does?" He answered,"We tried to make the book live, to walk the walk, talk the talk. It's designed to be a lovemark. So, if you think that at bottom lovemarks are mystery, sensuality, and intimacy, the book is full of mystery. You're not meant to know what's going to happen on the next page."

In other words, the book is very much in the same class as Re-imagine! where design is concerned. If you loved the look of Tom's book, you will love the look of this one. Welcome aboard, Kevin! For the full interview, click here.

Frequent Flier

Tom's tips for travelers in the New York Times, 24 August, 2004:
Travel Heavy; Arrive Early; Then Relax.

Badvertising: Century 21

Have you seen the Century 21 ads where the real estate agent insists on showing only ranch houses, even though the client said "no ranches?"

We are then told about "Century 21 Pledge #13: You will only see houses you want to see."

Oh, gee. That's compelling. Is there really a problem with real estate agents showing you houses you don't want to see?

This doesn't pass the "so what?" test. Century 21 has focused on something people care about—seeing houses you want to see—at the expense of communicating a meaningful point of difference. In the spirit of "Delta Gets You There" they promise to deliver the most basic, low-level benefits, and haven't told us anything unique about themselves.

Kudos to BusinessWeek Online

Preparing for a speech on mass marketing. Remembered a BusinessWeek cover story of a few months ago. Went to BusinessWeek.com (I'm registered), and then to archive. Quickly found the story. (No great surprise.) But, Wow, what a fabulous collection of Online supplements—about 3 or 4 feature-length supplements, such as interviews with the chief marketing officer at P&G and McDonald's. Easy to access. Great Total Package. Nice!

From Common Sense to Swift Boats

Tom's blog on Thomas Paine (2 entries down) is inspiring. ... It's a shame to think that we've gone from Paine's Common Sense, which assumed that Americans were smart and discerning, to this season's version of political persuasion, built on smear ads that assume we are lazy, superficial thinkers who can't discern when we're being duped. Message to both sides: We can!

Good on You, Voters!

There's a poll up at FastCompany.com right now. Playing off an innovation article about GE, we are asked which one of four GE "rules" of innovation is most important. To my mind, when I last looked, poll participants (including me—voting more than once, I was so passionate) were getting it precisely right. Here's the latest tally: "Big ideas happen at the fringes" ... 51%. "Bet on the industry, not the technology" ... 22%. "Set intermediate goals" ... 14%. "Make innovation pay its way" ... 11%.

If you want to know more about how I feel about the importance of "fringes," see Chapter 23 ("Think Weird") of my book Re-imagine!; or see Wayne Burkan's Wide-Angle Vision: Beat the Competition by Focusing on Fringe Competitors, Lost Customers and Rogue Employees.

Who's Your Favorite?

Who's your favorite Blogger? Me? Halley Suitt? Andrew Sullivan? Seth Godin? Or: Martin Luther? Tom Paine?

I assume I lost. And that my magnificent pal Seth lost, too. My own vote goes to Tom Paine.

I have two huge points to cram into this wee blog: (1) Ideas matter. (2) Grassroots idea brushfires (called "Blogs" in their current incarnation) are your tool and mine to change the world.

The trigger for all this is the very important election 2004. Its monster shadow over almost every breath I, at least, take has shaped my Summer Reading Program. I've effectively and intensely been living in the 1770-1800 period for the last several weeks. I'll share more later, but for now I'll limit myself to a single book: 46 Pages: Thomas Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Point to Independence, by Scott Liell. Turns out that 229 summers ago, as the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in July 1775, the sentiment for full-fledged Independence was not at all clear. One year later the deed was done. Many things happened in the intervening year, but none more important than the arrival of Tom Paine's Common Sense in January 1776. John Adams later said, "I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs ... than Tom Paine." Author Liell says of the slim, 46-page rant, "Within the space of a few short months during the winter and spring of 1776, Common Sense accomplished what even bloodshed at Lexington and Concord could not—a wholesale annihilation of the emotional and intellectual ties that bound the American colonists to the British crown and country."

So Paine was the clear instigator of the World's most famous "tipping point." His unvarnished language—ever so widely and rapidly distributed to the masses—moved those masses to in turn push their often reluctant Continental Congress representatives to embrace the Declaration of Independence. He was, my fellow bloggers, the common man who was the trigger for the most Beautiful Revolution in human history.

There are actually far more than the two aforementioned messages here. Among them: Ideas matter! (A LOT!) (Lexington and Concord were important—but it took Common Sense to make common sense out of what was and what could be.) "Viral Marketing" Rules! (Luther's 95 Theses posted on the door of Wittenberg castle in 1517. Paine's scant 46 pages which "annihilated" the longstanding ties with Britain.) (See my recent Rants on Direct Marketing!) "End runs" are required. (When the idea is new, one must find a route and medium that circumvents the conservative "establishment"—in this case the Continental Congress of 1775.) Keep It Simple, Stupid. (The new book's title: 46 Pages. Not 466 pages! And in the language of the masses to boot. "The" book's title: Common Sense. Not: A Discourse on the Nature of Humanity and Its Relation to Those Who Would Choose to Rule, or some such obscure twaddle.) It takes a Renegade. (T. Paine, a newly arrived immigrant, was no colonial establishmentarian, and he chose not to take his case "through channels.")

These are lessons that affect our careers and businesses. And I hope you'll take them to heart. But I'd add, if you are deeply concerned about the election in November, regardless of who you support, get off your backside and volunteer. Blog. Stuff envelopes. Help "get out the vote." Whatever. Just don't put it off, then engage in "coulda-shoulda" on November 3 if your favorite finishes second.

Web Seminar Slides

The Microsoft©Office Live Meeting web seminar with Tom and Dan Pink was a great success. You can get Tom's PowerPoint slides from Outsource-Proof Your Career here. We'd love to hear from you with comments on the event!

Believe It and Weep

While previewing a new manuscript from my friend Stephen Covey, I came across some terribly dispiriting figures from a Harris Poll of 23,000 full-time U.S. workers in key industries. Herewith a sample: 37% have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve; 20% are "enthusiastic" about their team's goals. [TP: could the sample include the U.S. Olympic basketball team?]; 15% feel their organization enables them to execute key goals; 15% describe their organization as a "high-trust environment;" 10% believe the organization holds people "accountable for results." (And so on.)

On the one hand I'm old enough to be jaded about organization life, and hence not surprised. On the other, how can one suppress a "What a waste!" Why don't you (bosses) try these questions out on your unit of 3 or 333—and see how you measure up. And then consider in each case concrete, small, within-15-days steps to improve.

Key to the above: "15 days." Life Rule #1: Don't ponder such polls to death. Hit the road, electronically or physically, listen and take some "small" actions ... IMMEDIATELY.

Respect

Was talking last week to a world-beating salesperson. (Female.) She dismissed most sales training as stuff and nonsense. "They teach you to 'deal with' 'objections' and the like. They ought to teach you how to keep your mouth shut and listen. You know, Tom, the old one about why God gave us 'one mouth and two ears.' 'Great sales skills' are 99% about respect and empathy and listening."

I'm afraid my immediate reaction was to go into a funk about my own lost sales opportunities. Most have not been because I failed to 'close,' or some such. They were by-products of being so full of my product and its advantages that I'd go on for 20 minutes without taking a breath! (I point out that my discussion partner was a woman, because I believe women do make the best salespeople. Some may be less aggressive than a red-meat devouring male—and that may well be their primary advantage! Think about it—before you make your next sales hire.) (Hey, let me know what you think ... please.)

Why "TALENT" Matters

Came across this quote from Microsoft's former chief scientist, Nathan Myhrvold: "The top software developers are more productive than average software developers not by a factor of 10X or 100X or even 1000X, but by 10,000X."

For what it's worth I think the same is true with waiters and trainers and parking lot attendants. So ... keep that "slot" open a little longer, and find the "10,000X woman or man." Addenda: Finding the "scouts" who can unearth "10,000X people" is obviously Step One. My observation: Some people are gifted Talent-finders, and some aren't. One sterling CEO I know is awful at finding talent. "For one big thing, he talks too much during interviews," a colleague reported to me with a chuckle. "An 'interview' with him is an excuse for a monologue." The good news: My CEO pal knows his weakness—and has a great stable of talent-finders at his beck and call!

Communications 101

If IM, Skype, and text are verbs in your vocabulary, you won't need this information. However, if teenagers and techies seem to be speaking a language you don't understand, here's a communications tutorial from the New York Times that will help. Written from the point of view of a college student explaining it all to his parents, the article makes text messaging, instant messaging, video chatting, and internet phone calls easy to understand. (It even addresses Mac/PC compatibilities.) When you're ready to try it, here's another site with about 250 text messaging abbreviations that will come in handy.

Even if you decide to stick with "old-fashioned" cell phones and email, at least you'll know what your kids are talking about. IYKWIM.

I Hate Spam

I had a dream last night ... (OK, I didn't really have this dream, but please imagine that I did. It makes a better story ...)

In my dream it was the first day of "Worldwide I Hate Spam Week," in which people all over the globe unite to boycott companies who invade their computers with email spam and pop-up ads, refusing to buy their products for the entire week. There were well-publicized lists of these companies, so everyone could see what products to avoid.

Expedia and Travelocity saw their bookings drop to zero. American Express Blue not only saw new card enrollments plummet, transaction volume became negligible. News media publicized these stories and many others, adding momentum to the anti-spam movement.

Spontaneous anti-spam rallies started happening concurrently all over the world. Corporate communication departments scrambled to get their CEOs on TV to pledge to end all unsolicited electronic marketing. It became regular practice to avoid buying from any company that sent you a spam, well after the week ended. The age of spam was coming to an end ...

... could it happen? Or are we stuck wading through this—the most uncreative kind of marketing—for the rest of our lives?

Olympic Inspiration

Doping scandals, fears of terrorism, ever-growing commercialization, etc., etc., etc. It's enough to dampen a person's enthusiasm for the Olympics ... but not mine. I love the Olympics.

Awesome examples of athletic prowess, personal achievement, and successful teamwork abound, and no other athletic event lets us see so much multi-national cooperation, world-wide communications, and great design all over the place. (The uniforms alone are worth a design seminar, not to mention the flags, medals, signage, and all the other paraphernalia.) I'm spending my evenings in front of the TV for a couple of weeks. You could call it research on leadership, globalization, and branding.

Re-imagining IT Services

Business techonologist Wilhelm Hamman of Computer Associates Africa cites Tom's PSF (professional service firm) model in his itweb.com article about on-demand computing. His conclusion about what it will take to transform the IT service business to meet the demands of on-demand computing:

We need entrepreneurs focusing on enabling the new, laying the foundation for transformation and fighting the battles for the brilliant men and woman that produce extraordinary products and services in the IT department today. Forget the old MBA models generated for the industrial age, and accept the new thinking engulfing our age. It's the business of change, innovation, young people, new technology and great products and service.

Somewhere in Johannesburg, there's a well-read copy of Re-imagine!

Check Into This

Seth Godin's blog is listed in our blogroll on the left side of our home page. Two of them, in fact. Brand new from Seth: ChangeThis is a sort of manifesto roll call. Click through on a front page entry, and you get an opportunity to—voluntarily—sign up to be contacted every two weeks, and to download a PDF file of whichever manifesto caught your eye. Here's how ChangeThis defines a manifesto:

It's an argument, a reasoned, rational call to action, supported by logic and facts.

And its political position:

We are against demagoguery, dishonesty, shortsightedness, superstition, fundamentalism, unequal rights, and violent argument.

And, you know, if three people do it, it will be a movement. ChangeThis ... go there and join the movement of your choice.

This Is (Bad) Branding

I was having a really tough time with the CD drive in my laptop yesterday ... I couldn't listen to CDs, I couldn't burn CDs ... it just wouldn't work. I called Dell tech support, and, after trying a few things, Ashley of tech support told me that I had to reinstall the operating system to get the CD drive working again.

Reinstalling the operating system is a fate worse than a root canal ... it basically means wiping the hard drive clean and starting over.

My daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend came to pick her up as I was suffering with my computer. He told me one simple thing to try, and the problem was fixed in less than five minutes.

How many clever, funny Dell ads will I have to see to resuscitate my Dell brand impression after this confidence-shattering brand experience? Hey Dell—don't forget ... everything is marketing, but marketing isn't everything.

Why Direct

Following on Tom's comments on direct marketing and direct selling ...

The starting point for me is that BRUTE FORCE DOESN'T WORK any more. The "old" advertising-based view of marketing posits that if you interrupt your customers 20 times in a week, and a competitor only interrupts them 7 times, you're more likely to make the sale. In today's world, that thinking is ludicrous. Today's customers are way too savvy and scrutinizing—and way too busy—to fall for that.

So ... what kind of direct marketing/selling can work in an environment where brute force is no longer an effective marketing tool? Much direct marketing is no more than "advertising in envelopes," meaning that it's just more "get in your face, interrupt your life" brute force communication.

That's not the secret to success. The answer is to use direct tools to engage with a customer in the kind of dialogues that, in concert with all other experiences she has with your company, build a strong Brand Harmony in her mind.

Direct selling and marketing tools can be a very effective part of that mix, helping a customer get to know you and your product and be able to say to herself, "I get it ... I want it ... and I can't get it anywhere else."

Direct! Direct! Direct! Direct!

I beg you ... please ... please ... comment on my "direct marketing" blogs of 08.05 (Direct Roars—and Roars) and 08.02 (Duh, as in Duh-rect). I met yesterday with a "direct marketer"/ Web-buzzbuilder ... bzzagent.com. We (Tom Peters Company) plan to make these exciting- audacious- outrageous folks a key MOF (Member of our Family). I truly believe, tiny company on the make or large company in pursuit of customer intimacy-loyalty, that some form(s) of Direct Marketing must DOMINATE your marketing scheme. All aboard! (If you disagree—and do not have direct as a/the marketing mainstay—please explain yourself ASAP!)

Whither Fast Company

Check out the debate-discussion over the future of my beloved Fast Company magazine. Go to the Brand Autopsy web site.

If you want my take, read my comment at their site.

Speechifying 1994-2004

I'm sometimes asked how much of my speaking is outside the United States. "About a third" is my casual answer. Well, I just renewed my passport and checked the old passport (1994-2004) for entry stamps. Here's where I've been in the last ten years. One reaction: "How cool." My reaction: "A lot of Frequent Flyer miles!"

Russia
China
Singapore
Thailand
Korea
The Philippines
Japan
Malaysia

India
Sri Lanka

United Arab Emirates/Dubai
Bahrain
Saudi Arabia
Egypt
Kuwait

South Africa
Zimbabwe
Zambia
Cape Verde Islands

Australia
New Zealand

Mexico
Argentina
Chile
Brazil
Ecuador

Canada
Vermont
Northern California
Wal*Mart
Fort Meade, Maryland

Bermuda
Virgin Islands
Anguilla
Puerto Rica
Dominican Republic
Jamaica

Spain
Italy
England (over 50 entries)
Scotland
Ireland
Wales
Portugal
Greece
Turkey
Norway
Sweden
Finland
Poland
Slovenia
Holland
Denmark
Germany
Belgium
France
Switzerland
Monaco

FYI, my records (exercise log) also shows 48 of our 50 states—only North Dakota and Wyoming are missing. (Sorry!)

Bravo, Office Depot

I was shopping online for ink cartridges when I spotted Our Commitment to Women at the bottom of Office Depot's home page. One click took me to a list of programs supported by Office Depot, such as Count-Me-In, a non-profit organization that raises money from women to be loaned to women, and Success Strategies for Businesswomen Conference. Interestingly, the first woman profiled in the Success Stories section is Nancy Michaels, recipient of the Tom Peters WOW!Project Personified Award in 2002. A quick peek at Office Depot's list of executives proved this is not just lip service to draw women customers. Apparently they really do "get it."

The items I needed were out of stock, so I moved on to Staples, where I read all about their commitment to recycling and environmental protection. Now when I need office supplies, I'll have to choose between saving the planet and supporting women in business. Life is so complicated!

Presidential Lessons

You're invited to a complimentary web seminar on August 18. Join us as James Taranto, editor of OpinionJournal.com and Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House talks about the lessons business leaders can learn from America's best (and worst) presidents. Following a 20-minute presentation on the principles that defined our presidential leaders, Mr. Taranto will take your questions.

The seminar will be delivered via web conferencing at 12 p.m. Eastern Time. Go to Microsoft©Office Live Meeting for details. All you need is a web browser and a phone.

Leadership Diversity

In a global economy, a diverse leadership team can be the key to a company's success. An article in Pittsburgh's Post Gazette says that "savvy CEOs ... make diversity part of their company's strategy." Philip Merry, a cross-cultural management consultant based in Singapore, noted:

Once the group works through the potential clashes that diversity brings, the diversity of the leadership team in itself becomes a competitive advantage. Most managers tend to choose team members who are similar to them in one way or another, often with disastrous consequences. For example, putting only intellectually bright people together in a team was especially problematic, as they spent most of their time arguing about who had the smartest idea.

A leadership team that reflects diversity in gender, ethnicity, education, age, experience, etc., can surely see more possibilities and imagine more paths to success.

Stay in Bed (in Tokyo)

One hugely important benefit of foreign travel doesn't require long dinners, endless mid-summer museum queues, factory tours, and the like. While the museums and dinners and tours are invaluable, so is simple immersion in the local papers and magazines, assuming the country, like Japan where I am now, has a vigorous English-language press. Of course, what I'm about to report could be extracted from the Web, but at least for me, the antennae aren't likely to be fully tuned unless I'm on the ground with a pressing need (such as an imminent speech) to absorb some serious ambience. Hence what follows, from Nagano and Tokyo between August 4th and August 8th, was "work" done while reclining on a couple of pillows propped on my futon, fighting off jet lag:

(1) Competition in Japanese domestic markets is intensifying, the Nikkei Weekly reported on August 2nd. But winners are increasingly cut of a different-than-the-past stripe: "Low-price strategy is now outdated. Firms gaining more market share are fueled largely by the incorporation of design and unique functions into popular products." True, there's no Wal*Mart in Japan, but nonetheless I find the trend worthy of note. (Especially since I'm such a noisy design champion in general. And so annoyed that so damn few "get it.")

(2) "Japan Firms Count on High Tech," blares another Nikkei Weekly headline on August 2nd. Japan is appropriately obsessed with Chinese incursion into its markets at home and beyond. "Only original core technologies," the analysis begins, "will give Japanese corporations the edge needed to retain their top spots in global digital electronics markets." Japan depends far more on manufacturing than the U.S. or Europe (understatement!), and is in a panic about keeping a grip on traditional bases of competitive advantage. An op-ed piece in the Daily Yomiuri (8 August) makes the same point. "Japan's future," the article gravely intones, "depends upon its manufacturing industry. It is essential to retain within the country its core, cutting-edge technologies ... an environment in which one new technology after another can be created [by] keeping domestic manufacturers creative."

All this is in stark contrast to U.S. concerns. When we talk about manufacturing, it often seems, our sole concern is with keeping-protecting jobs "on shore" (think Lou Dobbs) and at any cost, not with competitiveness per se. On the other hand, I'm almost dumbstruck by the degree to which so many in Japan seem to be singing "manufacturing ... or death." While I am a technology fanatic of the first order, I see the future of high-wage nations largely as services-driven, albeit very, very high-tech services of the new-UPS variety.

(3) Singapore is services- (high-tech services) driven, but still not satisfied, as "off shoring" threatens its extraordinary performance of the last two decades. Hence the efficiency-fanatic Singaporeans are relentlessly seeking ... Cool! "Stimulus for Creativity," read the Japan Times August 6th headline. The story tells of Singapore going all out to beat Milan and Taipei to win hosting rights to the World Cyber Games 2005. (San Francisco hosts the 2004 WCG finals from the 6th to the 10th of October.) "The World Cyber Games," the article contends, "is a nice fit for Singapore's new program of promoting a creative industry sector in graphic design, game development, filmmaking and postproduction work." Bravo Singapore, per me!

(4) Is it just me? I work at keeping up, but I find day-to-day Asian news still short-changed by the U.S. biz press. (Admission: I don't read the Asian Wall Street Journal daily—I should!) (I will!) For example, consider just a couple more headlines from the August 2nd Nikkei Weekly: "Taiwan's Top Four Chipmakers Planning Record Spending on Production Capacity." Note: Similar U.S. investment spending still borders on the anemic. "Samsung Set to Boost Memory Output." Samsung is already # 1, but aims to thwart new Taiwanese and Japanese challenges. The "feel" of these headlines is important. All we Americans read about Taiwan has to do with National Security ... just a part of the picture in an increasingly muscular Asian economic renaissance.

(5) Trends increasingly start ... wherever. (Not just California—don't tell Arnie.) In particular, global tech trends often are born in Japan. So consider the two pieces I read in that dog-eared Nikkei Weekly. The first, titled "Bathrooms Become Entertainment Centers," describes a flood of products aimed at moving electronic virtuosity into the land of the shower, sink, and crapper. Wow! The second, "Washer/Dryers Take Drudgery Out of Dishes," reveals that the demand for tabletop dishwasher-dryers in Japan has passed that for the built-in variety; sure, that's abetted by Japan's relatively low kitchen square footage, but my first reaction was, "Where can I get one? A.S.A.P.?"

So ends my little tour. I feel like a kid in an idea candy store when I'm out of the country, particularly when I'm in Asia. So much going on beyond our borders! The planet is not just the U.S.A. and the Middle East! I just turned in my 10-year-old passport ... which included entry stamps from 51 countries. So I'm not parochial by most standards, and I do try ... but I really feel soooo xenophobic in outlook! What about you? And what do me/you/we do about it?

China! China! China!

(DAMN IT!)

Okay, I'm a broken record. Okay, I'm obsessed. But what if I'm right? What if most of us are paying far too little attention to China? It's the "little" stories that are telling, the give-aways.

Consider a wee piece in the August 8th New York Times, "China in Africa: All Trade, With No Political Baggage." An included chart reveals that Chinese trade volume with Africa has quietly risen from $6 billion in 1999 to $19 billion in 2003 ... a three-fold (plus) increase in just four years. Not earth shattering, but clearly (to me) indicative of the ubiquity of China's expanding economic reach.

It recalls, at a broader level, a slide I just added to my PowerPoint palette, from a New York Times Magazine feature that, ironically (?), appeared on 4 July 2004. Thesis: "China's size does not merely enable low-cost manufacturing; it forces it. Increasingly, it is what Chinese businesses and consumers choose for themselves that determines how the American economy operates." Talk about strong language!

So, can you say in earnest, that you're as tuned in to China as you need/ought to be? (If you are among the nonchalant, at least you can claim to have heady company. The White House and the platforms of both parties are surely about 99 percent silent and 100 percent deficient on this issue.)

Nagano Treat

At the Infosys client event I spoke at in Nagano, I had the treat-honor of sitting next to Toshiba's Chairman and Nissan's Vice-chairman on a panel. A bigger treat was meeting Sakie Fukushima. Her day job is Managing Director-Japan for Korn/Ferry International. It was her part-time job that interested me: She's recently become the first woman on Sony's board! Ouch, what took so long? Hooray, it happened!

Back in Bed (in Tokyo)

What's a "management guru" doing offering beach fiction suggestions? Whatever. It's why I love blogging ... nothing is off limits. Okay, I'll hook it in to management. I've long contended that great fiction beats professional tomes when it comes to management instruction. Why? Enterprises are nothing other than canvases upon which human dramas are enacted. Right?

But forget my rationalizing, and, damn it, take Justin Cronin's The Summer Guest to the shore this month. I'm a thriller fan, but I admit that most thriller writers don't exactly set records when it comes to developing characters—the exceptions such as Ian Rankin or Alan Furst notwithstanding. The Summer Guest will get to you and in you, I can almost promise. The setting is a remote fishing camp in Maine, and the story is simply the interplay of a small handful of characters over a couple of days' period. The plot nonetheless races forward. May not be your cup of tea, wasn't sure it was mine—but it was—in spades!

It Just Could Be ...

It just could be ... WORLD'S COOLEST COMPANY. Full disclosure: They paid my way to Japan. But I am not, by nature, an endorser of my speaking Clients. As one colleague, Nancy Austin (co-author of A Passion for Excellence), said in print, "Tom almost takes pains to trash those who pay him, so acute is his sense of integrity." Thanks, Nancy! So when I say I'm besmitten with Infosys, I'll promise you it ain't no paid endorsement. I guess you could call them exhibit #1, pro or con, of off-shoring.

Infosys is Bangalore-based, and do quite a bit of their work near home port. But make no mistake, they're winning top-of-the-market work because they are good and aim stratospherically high, not because they are cheap! In fact, the hook for me is their audacious vision for leading the revolution in IS/IT—and the Talent they're amassing from around the world to pull it off.

Infosys aims to do no less than generate revolutionary approaches that turn whole industries upside down. They are not only not limiting themselves to mundane IS chores, they are not limiting themselves at all—they are ready, willing, and able to take on an IBM or Accenture as strategic enterprise masterminds, as well as effective implementers of complex enterprise-system activities.

They have won every international quality award you can name, and I am eagerly looking forward to visiting their Bangalore campus next month (on my own dime) when I accompany my wife, Susan Sargent, on her semi-annual sourcing trip to India. (She'll do textiles; I'll play at bits and bytes.) Wherever they operate, Infosys is accumulating a talent pool to die for. For example, droves of U.S. and European top-school grads, including MBAs, are signing up to do a tour in Bangalore for a quarter or less of what they could earn elsewhere.

If the firm can contend for "best there is," and I believe it can, a lot of the reason is Chairman Narayana Murthy. The softspoken but far-seeing boss, like his company, has won every conceivable Best Boss/Entrepreneur/Businessman in Asia award. Why not "Best in World," I'd ask. He is a true business visionary—both in terms of the impact he insists Infosys can have on the world and the humanity of the enterprise he has created. It takes but a few minutes in his presence for even an old (!) and well-traveled (!) hand like me to feel I've had a near once-in-a-lifetime exposure to a special person. And to the amazement of an/this American, his humility runs as deep as his accomplishments run tall.

Hey, check Infosys out! (Start with the annual report, available at Infosys.com.)

Not Your Ordinary Vision

Consider this extract from the chairman's letter in the Infosys annual report, describing the company's Global Delivery Model, these days featuring strategic consulting: "By making the Global Delivery Model both legitimate and mainstream, we have brought the battle to our territory. That, after all, is the purpose of strategy. We have become the leaders and the incumbents [IBM, Accenture, etc.—TP] are followers, forever playing catch up. Every company now needs to articulate an India strategy. ... However, creating a new business innovation is not enough for rules to be changed. The innovation must impact clients, competitors, investors and society. We have seen all that in spades. Clients have embraced the model and are demanding it in even greater measure. The acuteness of their own circumstance, coupled with the capability and value of our solution, has made the choice not a choice. Competitors have been dragged kicking and screaming to replicate what we do. They face trauma and disruption, but the game has changed forever. Investors have grasped that this is not a passing fancy, but a potential restructuring of the way the world operates and how value will be created in future. ..."

Brash? Absolutely! But oh so much better than 100 ... or 1,000 ... corporate value statements that begin, "We aim to create value for our stakeholders ..." Infosys does aim to enrich its stakeholders, but to do so not by pocketing the leavings from a few efficiency improvements, rather from Changing the World! Amen ... for the audacity. (Hint: I'd not bet against them! See you in Bangalore!)

Progress

I rail ... and rail and rail ... about our inattention to the Women's market and the Boomer/Geezer market. Upon arriving in the U.S. (O'Hare, it of the endless delays in The Summer of Late), I grabbed the most recent BusinessWeek, and was treated to the following headline: "BABY-BOOMER, COME HOME: Gap Hopes a New Chain Will Bring Back Women Who Once Bought Its Jeans." Yes, Gap plans to give The Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy a full-scale new sibling, aimed directly at boomer women, a group correctly (in my view) called "marketing's sweetest of sweet spots" by the author of the marvelous book, Ageless Marketing. There's hope. Perhaps.

WIRED

WIRED is, as usual, wired this month. Read the August issue lead story on former Celera Genomics boss Craig Venter. In his latest venture, he aims to learn everything about everything, when it comes to life on the planet. Oh how I love such boldness! Ego the size of Mount Rushmore? Sure. And why not! Timid souls leave me cold, in August or any other month.

Women's Rights Pay Off

For those of you who share my passion for the "women's thing," purchase a copy of the May/June 2004 issue of Foreign Affairs. Then read the awesome piece by Isobel Coleman titled "The Payoff From Women's Rights"(free preview). She argues persuasively that the issue is not merely about the right thing to do, but it also helps curb extremism, spurs democracy, and is ... The BEST Way ... to spur Economic Development. As women become fully educated and engaged economically, incomes rise, birth rates fall, agricultural productivity improves, more emphasis is placed on educating one's kids, etc, etc, etc. Also included is a strong pitch for micro-financing, of which I've been a raving fan for years. The article quotes economist, Harvard president, and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers as saying that "girls' education may be the investment that yields the highest returns in the developing world."

Good stuff! (Awesome stuff!)

Photo Op

Tom got a chance to rub shoulders with Bill Clinton at the infoUSA event in Aspen, Colorado, on 16 July 2004. Tom was honored to meet him ... to say the least.

dym.com

Meaning: Destroy Your Music.com.

I went to see Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan Friday night—two American legends on one bill! Catch this tour if you get a chance! Willie did all his old favorites. His set felt comfy, as familiar as an old friend—fantastic. A surprise: His son Lucas did Stevie Ray Vaughn's "Texas Flood." Lucas didn't try to duplicate Stevie; he made the song uniquely his own.

Bob Dylan, too, did all his old favorites. But ... he hacked 'em up, rasped 'em out, rocked 'em hard ... and generally tore them to pieces. Only to put them back together in new and exciting ways. With every note he was saying—shouting—the Dylan you remember is no more, he's gone. This is Dylan here, this is Dylan now. Embrace it. Love it—or not.

Lesson: Reinvention is a wonderful thing. It's possible in any life, at any age, in any enterprise. Of course, Dylan has done it before. How about you? When was the last time you re-imagined yourself?

Merging Resurging

In this week's USNews.com article on the current resurgence of the corporate merger, Jodie T. Allen quotes Tom as the "naysayer." Tom's reaction to last fall's merger and acquisition fever was a warning that merger is too often "what you do when you run out of other ideas ... At best, 50 percent work, and the pessimists say 20 percent." Tom does praise the "carefully built conglomerates" that benefit both stockholders and consumers, but cites the motivation for agglomeration in one word: "Ego."

Event Slides

Tom speaks to the Infosys Leadership Forum 2004 in Nagano, Japan, 6 August 2004. Get the slides here.

Having a Ball!

Delays in Albany. Delays in O'Hare. (No surprise.) Twelve hour+ flight to Narita/Japan. Meaning: Blog time! I'm having a ball with this! As you saw we finally added "Comment" capability last week. Thanks for taking advantage of it so quickly! I promise to respond to some of the Comments as soon as my jet lag recedes. What day is it, anyway? Virtual Tom sends regards to one and all from Nagano. (Where I am ruefully preparing my first seminar ever to tippy-top Japanese management. Ye gads! How do you think "China Roars" will go over as a headline?)

Direct Roars—And Roars—At Home and Abroad

Normally I pay as little attention as possible to "Special Advertising Sections," but in my 16 August issue of Forbes I read "The Direct Selling Phenomenon" word-by-word. (See also my DUH-RECT blog of 08.01.) Roger Barnett is an investment banker specializing in direct selling. "This industry is global and is growing exponentially," he says. "It's been the best kept secret of the business world."

Perhaps there's less hype in that bold assertion than many would imagine. The Direct Selling Association claims, for instance, that 175,000 Americans enlist as at least part-time direct sellers each week; worldwide that number is 475,000 ... per week! While we may think mostly about the likes of Mary Kay, almost any industry you can name is represented, including telecoms and financial services; recent success stories even include Crayola's Big Yellow Box subsidiary.

International growth is a phenomenon all to itself, with Avon now garnering 70 percent of its sales from overseas and Tupperware 75 percent. China, India, and Eastern Europe are all at the takeoff stage and then some. Overall causes for the Direct Explosion may include everything from backlash to impersonal "big box" retailing to job security uncertainty to direct sellers' relatively low cost of entry and expansion.

Also, the entrepreneurial allure of so-called MLM ... multi-level marketing ... is an important element in the accelerating growth. While 56 percent of direct sellers used MLM schemes in 1990, the share had grown to 82 percent by 2003 (e.g., Avon went MLM five years ago, fuelling a desperately needed revenue spurt).

Bottom line: It's a very big deal, getting bigger by the hour, and still mostly given short shrift by the traditional business "establishment." Hey, I'm hooked! Not as in "hook, line, and sinker," but as in no longer in the least bit dismissive.

Enthusiasts Rule!

Typically understated Fortune gives California Guv Arnie S. a hearty endorsement in "Arnold Power" (August 9). They mostly like his enthusiasm, and claim there's a good chance that it will rather quickly rub off on Wall Street, leading to a "California's back" investment and general economic surge. Reminds me of an earlier California governor with the ability to radiate optimism and attract others to his vision. In war and peace, optimism and enthusiasm rule ... and can move mountains and continents.

Six Degrees

        OF SEPARATION MADE EASY ...

Forbes (August 16) has a great little article, titled "I'll Introduce You," on software start-ups such as Spoke Software and Visible Path. They help sales folks, HR recruiters, and others figure out who knows whom how well in the company's ecosystem, which can abet the process of making contact. (Beats cold calling is one key message!)

Sophisticated algorithms help judge how closely various folks are linked to others by measuring such things as email and phone traffic, weighted by such variables as how rapidly an e-mail is responded to, or by determining if someone in our company is a physical neighbor of someone on a target company's payroll. Yup, a little freaky ... but that's no surprise by 2004!

Questioning Elephantine and Mating Morons

I am an enemy of most major mergers and the pursuit of bigness for bigness' sake. I apparently have a staunch ally in Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevich. I love this quote: "I don't believe in economies of scale. You don't get better by being bigger. You get worse." Pretty unequivocal, eh?

Not so incidentally, Wells' financial performance easily outpaces bigger, more acquisitive peers such as Citigroup, Bank of America, Wachovia, and J.P. Morgan Chase. A key pillar of Wells' relative success: cross-selling beyond lip service; Kovacevich's troops simply get far more bang-per-customer.

(Hey, it's another great find from Forbes of August 16, devoured on my endless flight from O'Hare to Narita/Tokyo.)

A New (Old?) Day Dawns at GE

Years ago Jack Welch rounded on Michael Porter and me in a Wall Street Journal article. To Welch's chagrin, both of us had the temerity to suggest in print that the Edisonian spirit of banner innovation was atrophying at GE. Well, I'd agree that Welch earned a helluva 20-year report card, but it seems that successor Jeff Immelt is aiming to turn GE back toward its roots.

Consider this assessment from July's Business 2.0: "Welch was to a large degree a growth-by-acquisition man. 'In the late '90s,' Immelt says, 'we became business traders and not business growers. Today organic growth is absolutely the biggest task of every one of our companies. If we don't hit our organic revenue targets, people are not going to get paid.' ... Immelt has staked GE's future growth on the force that guided the company at its birth and for much of its history: breathtaking, mind-blowing, earth-rattling technological innovation."

Strong/unequivocal language indeed ... and intriguingly aligned with the Wells Fargo/Dick Kovacevich comment in another of today's blogs. A trend is born? Life beyond monster acquisitions? Is the end nigh for Giant Bumbler + Giant Bumbler = Cool?

Words to Lead By

"Humility ... is the grace note of leadership."

I love that sentence in John Baldoni's article at darwinmag.com. If you've ever labored under an always-right leader (and who hasn't?), you understand it only too well. As discussed in The Leader's Voice, it's often the cover-up, not the foul-up, that crashes careers. I'm sure we can all name a few folks who've learned this lesson the hard way.

Let's Start a Discussion

It's been a while since Tom posted his outsourcing rant: Twenty Hard Truths. So, since our website now has comment capability, we thought it would be a good idea to start up the discussion again. Especially as it's about two weeks to the web seminar with Tom and Dan Pink called Outsource-proof Your Career.

We've heard from many of you who want to comment on this subject. Here's your chance to tell the world. This excerpt from an email we received from Eric Wroolie in the UK should start the ball rolling nicely:

Before I re-invented myself as a software developer, I was a soldier in the US Army. I was a Chinese linguist, in fact. Now, six years later, I have a very high salary as a contractor (serving mainly investment banks).

Last year, while I was between contracts, I started contacting IT firms in China—using my language skills. I was astounded by the high quality of these companies and the low rates they could charge for the work they do. The average hourly rate was between $10 and $20 for developers of my skill. Everyone I spoke to at these Chinese companies spoke English. They all had a very good grasp of technology. I foresaw the decline (or at least the severe devaluing) of my profession.

As a result, offshoring was big on my mind. I told every developer I met what I had learned. I told them that we must distinguish ourselves (and learning a new development language like C++ was no longer the way to add to our value). I told them that they should develop a second skill. A project management course would be ideal.

What thanks did I get for sharing this information? None. My entire profession is in denial.

I hear every excuse in the book about why their jobs can't be outsourced. "You don't get the same quality." "They don't have the same standards." "The language barrier is too great." Some guys even got very aggressive with me—as if I personally was going to take their jobs away.

I've begun looking out for myself. I set up my own company—Overpass, see www.overpass.co.uk, laying the groundwork for when my current skills are no longer needed. I have established relationships with outsourcing companies in China, India, Russia, and Romania.

I'm starting small, but I'm starting. It may grow. It may fail. But I'm not waiting for this ship to sink.

Here is a list of future professions that current developers could market themselves as:

1. Code Reviewer (someone to make sure an organization's offshored work meets the standards of a company)
2. Project Manager (someone who can talk to developers—former software-coding PMs are rare in my experience)
3. Offshore development liaison
4. Systems Designer (not coder)

I'm sure there are others. There is incredible opportunity out there for those who want to accept the changes ahead.

Comments, anyone?

Rock On!

Quote of the day, courtesy Gail Sheehy and More magazine: "For today's emancipated, educated, high-expectation women, the mid-forties to mid-fifties is the Age of Mastery."

Translating this into a capitalistic marketing opportunity, consider a statement from David Wolfe, coauthor with Robert Snyder of Ageless Marketing: "Baby-boomer Women: The Sweetest of Sweet Spots for Marketers." And yet 9 of 10 "big" marketers don't get it; they may pay lip service to the concept, but are miles and planets from full-scale strategic re-alignment around the idea-topic-stupendous opportunity.

Hint: Maybe it would help if we had more than eight women CEOs in the Fortune 500! (Speaking of gyrating demographics, Ms. Sheehy also reminds us that the mythological American family is, in fact, myth; only 10 percent of American households have a "stay-at-home mom and breadwinner dad.")

TP Bottom line/s: ROCK ON, EMANCIPATED 50+ YEAR-OLD WOMEN! Marketers: WAKE UP, IDIOTS! CEO search committees: WAKE UP, IDIOTS!

Sober Reading

While stuck with an airport delay in D.C., I decided to compound my agony by starting Peter G. Peterson's Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do about It. Peterson, a sage investment banker and former Republican cabinet member, offers frightening arguments about the size of our debt, the problems with allowing foreigners to finance our debt, the coming catastrophe in Social Security as the Boomers descend upon retirement, and much more.

Yes, Peterson is a certified alarmist; but I came away from this reinforced in my belief that there is much to be alarmed about—and that, indeed, neither party is very interested. By the end of the Introduction, my flight delay was the least of my worries.

I've Changed My Mind

Said I wouldn't rant about my recent airline screw-up blog. Well, as promised, I'll still steer clear of trashing employees. But I must ... once again ... berate the airlines for my #1 bugbear: THE REPEATED FAILURE TO TELL THE TRUTH.

Dozens of flights were screwed up at Reagan, and I even ran into non-Americans who had been wandering around the airport for two days! (Seen Tom Hanks in Terminal? You must!) Meanwhile cancelled flights were shown as leaving on time, flights would be apparently randomly dropped and added from various boards, and airline employees literally (!) barked when asked for updates. Herding people into dingy corners and on and off buses to nowhere was also a favored tactic.

The only saving grace—it's happened to me before—is that it got so bad that it became comedy! ALL I WANTED WAS THE UNVARNISHED TRUTH! I would have been giddy with joy if a single gate person had looked me in the eye and bluntly proclaimed, "We are clueless." It would have empowered me to be clueless too, instead of my holding on to the dim hope that things might work out.

On the topic, I read a story about a change consultant named Norm Guitry. He began a Client meeting by proclaiming, "All you need to know about mental health can be summed up in only two words." He then proceeded to a whiteboard and wrote: "DON'T BELITTLE." His mighty mantra: "Don't ever, ever make people feel small." First, I think he's right to ascribe such oceanic power to those two words. And second, I think it applies times 10 to the airlines. They routinely belittle me, make me feel powerless. And only the Patriot Act and inherent Ashcroft-panic keeps me from lashing out with my tongue as I used to.

Psychologists, who agree on darn little, agree that ... THE NEED TO BE IN PERCEIVED CONTROL ... is the most powerful force in the universe. It causes everything from the rise of Hitler to air rage and schoolyard shootings. There, Ashcroft notwithstanding, I got my rant off my chest!

Read It

This week's Newsweek, the "My Turn" essay. Title: "Live Life to the Fullest: Enjoy Every Sandwich." The author begins, "Getting cancer didn't move me to climb mountains, but it has made the ordinary feel better than ever." Great advice for all of us! And implementation does not require a grim medical event! Meanwhile, I'm off to Tokyo. Enjoy Every Sandwich while I'm gone!

Military Maneuvers

Fast Company has assembled What Warfighters Can Teach Business Leaders, a collection of articles providing some lessons about military strategies and tactics that can be applied to business. For instance, the commander of a $1 billion warship discusses leadership:

There is no rocket science to leadership. Leadership is a collection of seemingly minor things that, taken as a whole, create a climate in which people feel honored and valued. When people feel as if they own their company, they want to do great things to help it and its leaders succeed.

Interesting advice from some (perhaps) unexpected sources.

It Began as a Rant

Airline foul-up. Catch 22. Code share computer flummox. (Repeatedly told I did not exist!) United villain-in-chief, USAir co-conspirator. Location: Ronald Reagan National in DC. Plan: Rant! Decision: Why bother?

Seems the major airlines are in a (near) death spiral. Costs totally whacky. Must cut. Do cut. Cut muscle as well as flab. Understaffed everywhere! (Hopefully not mechanics!) So service deteriorates. So more switch to cut-rate competitors. So more cuts by majors. More bods in the streets, pension cuts. Service deteriorates, morale in the tank. (Impossible to hold even a 30-second grudge relative to an airline employee in the high-travel summer season. They try their best in a hopeless situation ... then wait for the next "give back" "request.") So: Even more PAX exit for the lower-priced spread.

Answer? Perhaps none, except to truly and forever lose a couple of the majors. I, for one, doubt that the industry, as it now exists, can be saved. As for me as a business traveler, I cannot afford stress-inducing rants. Hence (see recent blogs) I've resorted to stress-reducing breathing exercises ... at RR National such a quick breathing regimen reduced my pulse from a post-episode 84 to 58 in about three minutes.

Duh, as in Duh-rect

I've written a lot about the Web as a premier marketing tool over the last six or seven years. I've even been called a "wild-eyed advocate" at times. But in a larger vein, "it" all came home to roost for me in the last ten days, thanks to a rather large series of coincidences.

The "it": "Big 3" TV ad-marketing-customer connection dominance is ... dead. Welcome to ... Direct World! As to those Coincidences:

(1) Ten days ago I was in Aspen, Colorado, attending a client meeting for infoUSA. By some measures the $300-million Omaha-based company maintains the largest private customer/client/human database in the U.S.A. I chatted into the wee small hours with scores of database-direct marketing gurus/execs from firms of all sizes and shapes.

(2) Last Tuesday I listened as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee claimed on prime time that the Dems have caught up with the Republicans on life and death issues of database reach and effectiveness. (Also listened to Howard Dean's remarks—while he is a clear "loser," his grassroots-Web initiatives certainly will be perhaps the highest impact happening in politics in the last 50 years.) (Incidentally, infoUSA is, I understand, intimately involved in the transformation-reformation of the Democrats' Herculean direct customer/voter contact activities.)

(3) Also last week I began to shape a Tom Peters Company relationship with BzzAgent.com, one of the most intriguing Web-based proactive-purposeful-strategic "buzz builders" around. Their slogan: Exponential Word of Mouth Marketing and Customer Feedback Programs. (I'm going to test them on some forthcoming publications—stay tuned.)

(4) Upon re-reading Michael Levine's Guerrilla PR Wired: Waging a Successful Publicity Campaign Online, Offline, and Everywhere in Between, I summarily decided that my future—for good or for ill—lies to a significant degree in blogging. (Again: Stay tuned!)

(5) I went to dinner with some high-powered "party plan" consultants working with my wife's home furnishings business; she is contemplating a major strategic thrust in customer intimacy (and market share!) via an aggressive foray into home parties. (I agree with her. Stay tuned!)

(6) Finally, this past Friday and Saturday I attended a "little get-together" of about 15,000 reps-independent contractors from the field force of the World Financial Group, a huge "MLM"/Multi-Level Marketing organization which is owned by the giant Dutch insurer AEGON N.V. While I've had some skepticism about some MLM activities, I attribute that in part to a marketing traditionalist's (me) inherent bias. I left fascinated and intrigued and ready to shed my biases.

Bottom line: Who knows why all six of these things occurred in the space of just nine days? Whatever the cause, it ended up being an accumulation of affairs the led me to the edge of a—and over the edge—tipping point. (Maybe even an epiphany!?) Supporting data point: In the last decade, mega-giant American Express has reduced its share of marketing dollars spent on TV from 80 percent to 35 percent, according to Ad Age ... and American Express is hardly alone.

To me it (now/finally) seems obvious that everything from mass-customization manufacturing, Dell-style, to the Web, to databases such as infoUSA's and database manipulation software from the likes of Oracle to "CRM" (Customer Relationship Management) software from Seibel Systems, salesforce.com, et al., to MLM's increasing legitimacy and reach is racing, raging in the same direction: the first truly revolutionary shift in "customer contact" (marketing!) since the advent of "modern" marketing at P&G and the Harvard Business School 50 to 75 years ago. Winners (survivors!) of all shapes and sizes will ... Think Direct ... first and foremost! That is: Welcome to Direct World! On the bus ... or off the bus. Posthaste.