Raw Meat for "Resolutions"

I may write more, even a lot more, about New Year's Resolutions. Or not. But when I sat down, quietly, to think about my stance toward 2006, a quote of Eleanor Roosevelt's drifted before my mind's eye: "Do one thing every day that scares you."

I don't know where I'll go with this, if anywhere—but it feels like a perfect, and in fact profound, stepping off point. (And I do believe that New Year's is indeed an opportunity-punctuation mark along life's path not to be missed or dismissed.)

Joys of Global Blogging Recalled

Thanks for the thoughtful and heartfelt comments on my last Post. As I read them, I as usual enjoyed the content—nodding, smiling, and scowling as I proceeded. But I was also, maybe mostly, thrilled (right word) anew at the global reach of the Web and Blogging. After 63+ years as a U.S. citizen, I obviously write with and cannot conceal, even if I wished to, a distinct U.S. bias that I'm not even aware of much of the time. (Not so much "pro-U.S." as, "Hey this is the only thing I know at a deep cultural level.") Nonetheless, it was a thrill (that word again) back in 1982 to see that so many from so many places took a shine to In Search of Excellence—a 100% American book. The reason, in retrospect, was obvious and not nationalistic—the book was "just" about people, people treated as intelligent + creative + worthy of the utmost respect, people contributing/capable of contributing to a greater goal that was fulfilling, even uplifting, to their enterprise and themselves, and hopefully a larger community beyond their/our immediate environs. (And to re-state the obvious, these obvious ideas that obviously led to better-sustaining performance were largely unobvious in all nooks and crannies around the world.) Likewise today in the Blogosphere, here at your-our site, tompeters.com, we are all humble and connected servants of matchless (exactly the right word!!) opportunities to engage in and contribute to this carnival called GlobalLife.2005, GlobalLife.2006. "Flat world," "global village," whatever ... we are indeed full-scale participants in a borderless (overused word—but the right one nonetheless) conversation (overused word—but the right one nonetheless) of utterly unheard of proportion—just 5 years ago. I love it, outrageous problems notwithstanding, outrageous opportunities considered—and as I said when I began these remarks, I am so heartened by the contributions/comments that appear here at all hours of the day from all corners of the globe. May our modest community continue to thrive and needle and contend about some very important (and unimportant!) stuff in 2006. I guess I should close with a homily about a "fulfilling," "uplifting" New Year. Instead I'll stick with the tried—and still true: Happy New Year! (While—to stay on message—readily acknowledging as a striving Yankee globalist that even new year's at the end of this week is very un-global. Among other things, Anglo-Saxon Moi, as usual, looks forward to traipsing to San Francisco in a couple of months for the sole purpose of enjoying an annual highlight—the Chinese New Year's parade!) (Hmmmmm ... maybe "start Mandarin lessons" ought to be on my upcoming Resolutions list.) (And, yes, I do know that Cantonese—Guangzhou-ese?—is the S.F. Chinese-American community principal non-English language, not Mandarin or simplified Mandarin.)

A Touch of Thoughtfulness from Thee & Me

Following a brief and successful hospitalization last week to deal with a decade+ old arrhythmia problem, I plan to take it easy over the next two weeks. (Healthcare criticisms aside, my minor procedure was a tribute to MedicineTech2005!! Of course—conundrum of the first order—I was lucky enough to have the best-of-the-best slicing & dicing.) The "event-with-happy-ending" makes me more aware than usual of my blessings as 25 December approaches. I'm healthy as a hound. My head is "in a good place" as our New Age pals would say. Susan, Max, and Ben are likewise skipping along with personal and professional success. I'm loving what I'm doing (!!!!), learning new stuff, enjoying blogging and our blogging community.

The world beyond the end of my Vermont farm's snow-covered fields, of course, does not lack for major-flabbergasting problems. I was giving a speech to senior big-project managers a couple of weeks ago, and was questioned on off-shoring and its "devastating" impact on America (no, it was not Lou Dobbs); after giving my rather perfunctory "professional answer," I actually exploded ... mostly at myself. "We are spoiled brats," I snapped, "300 million North Americans, 325M citizens of the EU, and 125M or so Japanese ... out of a 6B global population. What right do we have to bitch & moan about a handful of jobs going to India & China?" (I apologized to the CEO for my rant—a few days later he emailed me to say it might have been the best/most important thing that happened to him this year.) I am not sure of my own direction. "You can do so much, Tom," some of you will say. We'll see.

I know action beats talk 1000:1, but at least this holiday season give a thought and prayer to, in particular, our neighbors in Africa, living daily with unimaginable burdens that the rich states are as usual mostly ignoring. (Yeah, yeah, a little debt relief, farm subsidies tagged to end in 2013—in France? Right.) How many Africans, other than the dictators, near-dictators and their cronies, could have had the procedure I had last week at Inova Fairfax in VA? Alas, many hundreds of millions will not see an age old enough to even develop the sort of problem-irritant I had.

Enjoy the season of rejoicing, and at least for the Christians among us, think long & hard about the beliefs concerning the needy that the guy whose birthday is coming up pronounced upon so passionately.

Be well. My best to you and your families and neighbors.

(I miss my Mom—AWOL after giving me 64 years of love and support. The best I can do is a red and green bouquet on her grave in Annapolis tomorrow. My heartfelt condolences to those of you who have lost close friends and relatives in 2005.)

TP's Healthcare Twenty-seven/December 2005

In preparation for a healthcare client conference call, I hastily jotted down this list of my more or less "beliefs" about healthcare (no particular order, not in order of importance—but main points are BOLD):

1. Fully utilize Physician's Assistants to do routine work in a timely fashion. ("Doc in a Kiosk" at Wal*Mart is great!)
2. Maximize Outpatient Services!
3. Short hospital stays work!
4. Support home care to the max. (E.g., "Declaration of Independents"—Beacon Hill/Boston)
5. STOP THE 100K+ NEEDLESS DEATHS—much/most of the "quality stuff" is eminently fixable. (Don Berwick for President! AHA for Hall of Shame!) (Strong, vicious insurer incentives!!!)
6. FLIP HC 177 DEGREES TO EMPHASIZE PREVENTION & WELLNESS. ("Steps" are being taken but not enough. Med schools: Awful! Insurers: Little better. Support for appropriate-proven alternative therapies is an important part.) (HUGE INCENTIVES FOR EFFECTIVE WELLNESS-PREVENTION PROGRAMS-MEASURABLE SUCCESSES.)
7. "Boomers" will determine HC's (very different?) future. (They are from a different & demanding planet compared to yesterday's Oldsters.)
8. "Focus on Women." (It's my generic—and correct—rallying cry, and it applies to HC in spades, women-as-patients-with different-woes-than-men; women-as-HC decision makers at the "consumer"—and commercial—level.)
9. "Patient/Consumer-driven" may be a buzz phrase bandied about all to easily ... but it is true. (And changes the game.)
10. Reduce incentives for unnecessary tests. (Malpractice caps would help, though the issue is complex. Insurers-HMOs doing so-so on this.)
11. OUTCOME-BASED MEDICINE IS A MUST! (There is a long, long way to go!) (Measure until you're blue in the face!)
12. Science-based medicine is a terrific idea!! (Many-most "therapies" unproven scientifically, uneven in application when proven.)
13. Over the next 5-25 years, the Life Sciences Revolution will make the likes of the "info revolution" look like small beer. (Get ready.)
14. Radical increase in "best practices" utilization—inculcate in Med school!
15. Med school "revolution" imperative—outcome-based medicine, abiding emphasis on Wellness & Prevention, etc.
16. Get info to Patients! (HIPAA mostly good.—"I wanna see my records!") (Detailed hospital-by-hospital, disease-by-disease, doc-by-doc success records a must—despite controversy.)
17. Upgrade IS-IT in the entire system, starting with acute-care institutions. (Current grade: D-.) (Winners include: Indiana Heart Hospital; Inova Fairfax Heart Institute.)
18. Healtheon WebMD-like (if it had worked) mega-, integrated-info network will-should emerge. (A healthcare Google+?)
19. MOVE HEAVEN & EARTH TO IMPLEMENT ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS. NOW.
20. By hook or by crook, something approximating basic universal care, starting with kids—50 state partial experiments is a help; some are quite far along. ("Market-based" as much as possible—but this is far from a "perfect market.")
21. Deal with the enormous HMO "I want my doc" perception problem. (Fact: MARCUS WELBY, STATISTICALLY, AIN'T THAT GREAT A HEALER IN TODAY'S "HIGH SCIENCE" WORLD! Incidentally, same perception problem re Congress, schools. "My Congressman is great, Congress has 434 other crook-clowns." "My kids' school is good, the system is awful.")
22. Blitzkrieg of Patient/Customer/Citizen education (e.g., re "outcomes-based HC," "Get the most for your HC dollar"). (Corporate cuts should motivate this.)
23. "Healing-centric" care supported. (E.g., Planetree model—reduces future problems.)
24. Emphasize front-to-back "customer care" practices—cuts waaaaay down on malpractice claims among other things.
25. Specialization in acute care works wonders, regardless of howls! (E.g., Shouldice/hernia repair.)
26. Shorten the FDA approval process. (Tom, age 63, wants the good new stuff and will accept associated risk; so will most boomers-geezers.)
27. DON'T MESS AROUND WITH H5N1/AVIAN FLU!

More Healthcare

Re prior post, I read/re-read these exceptional books as I buffed up my HKQ/Healthcare Knowledge Quotient:

The Economic Evolution of American Health Care—David Dranove

Market-Driven Health Care—Regina Herzlinger

Prescription for a Healthy Nation—Tom Farley & Deborah Cohen

The Health Care Mess—Julius Richmond & Rashi Fein

Demanding Medical Excellence—Michael Millenson

A Day ...

No, hardly time to throw in the towel, but surely one more (of a jillion) spurs to the press for dramatic change. Today, but one day, 12.21.2005, New York Times biz section, page 1:

"That Blur? It's China Moving Up in the Pack: New Economic Figures Could Put the Nation No.4 Globally."

"Toyota Closes in on G.M.: Signs Point Toward Japanese Maker Being the Top Seller Soon"

"Chinese PC Firm Hires a Dell Executive"

"Ex-Chief of Quest Is Indicted: Federal Charges of Insider Trades"

No Comment

Wall Street Journal, p.1, Section B, 12.19.2005:

Para #2: "US Airways Group eliminated health coverage for 28,000 employees and 10,800 retirees late last year. But the financially ailing airline had already guaranteed departing CEO David Siegel and his family medical coverage for life."

Para #4: "Health care is essential for our employees, and I live with the same plan as everyone."—Tom Wolf, CEO, STS Consulting (600 employees in 14 states)

"Remarkable" Is a Remarkable Idea!

"TV is not dead, but if you're going to do TV, you have to create stuff that people seek out. Just because you buy 30 seconds doesn't mean you'll have an impact. You have to do something remarkable with it."—David Lubars, Creative Director, BBDO (USA Today/12.19.2005

"Remarkable." Duh! (But invariably honored in the breach.)

Cool Friend: Castronova

Edward Castronova is the author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. Adding him to our Cool Friends brings us back to this suject. We first talked about gaming culture with J.C. Herz in December, 2000. Castronova has a more scholarly approach to the topic, but the message is the same. The worlds you enter by playing are complex; it takes time to learn your role among the many other players—potentially millions. This makes the online gaming experience unique among games you can play. Read Castronova's Cool Friends interview here.

Christmas Music Favorites and ...

The top-selling UK Christmas single ever is Slade's early-70s rocker "Merry Christmas Everybody." It has enlivened innumerable Christmas bashes I've attended over the years, but I'm not sure if it crosses the Atlantic very well? Sir Cliff Richard's yuletide shocker "Mistletoe and Wine" is the kind of release that gets the UK pop music business a bad name at this time of year. Anyone else got their best and worst Christmas party music tips ready to share?

Chip to Tom ...

Chip Bell to Tom Peters (12.20.2005): "If you were asked to be the keynote speaking coach to a new company CEO eager to do a great job, what is the one thing you would advise the CEO
to do (or not do)?"

TP: (A) Read 2 books. (1) Bossidy (& Charan) on execution ... Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. Main takeaway: Bedrock #1 for corporate success is a "culture of execution." (FYI, Bob Nardelli did this brilliantly at Home Depot, despite pressure to do sexier stuff first.) (2) Read Lou Gerstner's book ... Who Says Elephants Can't Dance: Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround. Main takeaways: Listen first, then do vision no matter how high the pressure for a "scintillating vision." Also, you must tackle head-on the extant culture head; Gerstner reluctantly did this and did it well, but Carly Fiorina didn't at HP (she led with "vision").

(B) And: LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN! (The answers are already out there, typically among the most exercised and disenchanted.)

(C) And: COMMUNICATE! COMMUNICATE! COMMUNICATE! (Esp: Keep the board informed of everything, especially hiccups!)

(D) And: Work proactively in every "little" which way, each and every day to "live" and "ooze" INTEGRITY! (Integrity begets trust which begets a good place to work which begets performance.)

(E) And: Remove or marginalize ASAP the career "career corporate politicians."

(F) And: "Do a GE": Elevate HR to the head table on the Right Hand of God, with great HR talent and an HR seat with equal power to that of the CFO. (Again, Nardelli did this spectacularly at Home Depot!)

Chip: "One thing" is cute ... but the above SIX are musts! Use all six of 'em, but do NOT feel free to choose "the best one"—SIX or naught!

Disruptive Stars

I recently came across the brief article below in my Workforce Week management online newsletter, and I thought it would be worthy of discussion by the tompeters.com community. This issue, of course, relates to the business world as well. So, what are the implications?

Disruptive Stars: The controversy surrounding pro football star Terrell Owens is generating much discussion in the business community about how managers should deal with disgruntled high performers. Owens, a multitalented wide receiver with the Philadelphia Eagles, recently was suspended by the team for making disparaging remarks about teammates. Professors at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania say Owens' case points up management lessons for people in human resources, especially relating to acting swiftly to deal with a star employee's disruptive behavior. Says Thomas W. Dunfee, a professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton: "For corporations, it's understood that if you have a double standard and look the other way for your star performers who are behaving poorly, you are corrupting the organization. The stars think ethical rules don't apply to them." Katherine A. Nelson, another Wharton instructor, says failing to address bad behavior is "tantamount to lobbing a grenade into a conference room" that produces resentment and undermines performance. "The Eagles are a perfect example of this." Adds Robin Bond, a workplace expert who is not affiliated with Wharton: "High-performing individuals who require excessive praise, have unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment, or lack concern for the feelings and needs of others can initially make a positive impact on an organization's bottom line, but are often destructive (in the) long term."

Event Slides: MasterCard

Here are the slides for Tom's event of the day: MasterCard Advisors, Final Version and MasterCard Advisors, Long Web Version.

Stuff ...

Was sidetracked by a minor medical issue for a few days. With time to spare, I seem to have been cutting and clipping and scribbling at a record pace. Herewith, some "stuff" ...

LOVE IT! Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica are about equally accurate when it comes to science articles, John Paczkowski says in an article in Good Morning Silicon Valley. "A study published in the journal Nature Wednesday [12.14] found that in a random sample of 42 science entries, the collaborative encyclopedia averaged four inaccuracies to Britannica's three. 'Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopedia,' reported Nature. 'But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively.'"

BOYS #1! Boys handily/overwhelmingly beat out girls: Learning disorders. Dropout rates. Violence. Stuttering. Obesity. Gambling. School suspensions. Suicides. D's and F's. Etc. Etc. This starts early, and gets worse with the passage of time. Number of girls in college easily trumps men in college and is becoming more imbalanced by the day—add in the graduation rates and the gap becomes positively yawning. We older boys may currently hold a huge lead in CEO chairs filled in huge companies, but there is a growing and probably appropriate concern about the decline of boys. Solution? One increasingly offered is separate education—boys and girls simply learn in dramatically different ways.

THE BEST EVER! Best (!!) article I've ever read on giving speeches-presentations was in fact about singing. New York Times, Sunday December 11: "Take Off Your Emotional Clothes and Sing," about a master class in singing by Barbara Cook. "Put your life into what you do." "Your own humanity is your pathway to artistry." Beware "stilted speech." Students "hide inside technique." Conclusion: "The lesson Ms Cook came to teach was that artists achieve their peak when they learn to stop proving themselves and simply, to borrow the Shakespearean phrase, let it be. It's their humanity we respond to in the end, their ability to strip away the self-consciousness that locks us inside ourselves, and reveal the stuff that really boils in our souls." TP conclusion: "Stilted speech" that hides our humanity is arguably leaders' Sin #1. As Ms Cook's seminars suggest, this is a learned attribute.

JUST TWO! One review of Jack and Suzy Welch's Winning makes the apparently outrageous claim that there are but two key differentiators that set GE "culture" apart from the herd. First, the separation of financial forecasting and performance measurement. Performance measurement based, as it usually is, on budgeting leads to an epidemic of gaming the system. GE's performance measurement is divorced from budgeting—and instead reflects how you do relative to your past performance and relative to competitors' performance; i.e., it's about how you actually do in the context of what happened in the real world, not as compared to a gamed-abstract plan developed last year. The second (TP: Huge!!) differentiator is putting HR on a par with finance and marketing—i.e., it's the people, stupid! It ain't quite that simple, but I must say I mostly agree with this "just two differentiators" assessment.

PPP. About 15 years ago 3M launched a program called Pollution Prevention Pays. (I did a TV show for PBS on the topic titled "Go Green, Get Rich.") In the 12 December issue, BusinessWeek ("The Race Against Climate Change") anointed the Best in Breed relative to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. These superstars hardly suffered from their good environmental citizenship. DuPont took first, with a 72% reduction in noxious greenhouse emissions (11 million tons) ... and saved $2 BILLION in the process! BP down 16% (13 million tons), with an accompanying savings of $650 million. Bayer made a 63% cut which spurred productivity and allowed the company to avoid $851 million in investments. Etc. Message/s: Pollution Prevention Pays! Go Green, Get Rich!

THEY DON'T WORK. The odd couple: Carl Icahn and Steve Case. Both want to bust up Time Warner. I talked to a whoo-whoo "captain of industry" who intensely dislikes Icahn—but nonetheless thinks TW's performance is pitiful, and that breakup is the best answer. Yes! Yes! I am an avowed enemy of monster mergers, such as TW and AOL. Why? THEY DON'T WORK. Here's GE CEO Jeff Immelt on the same topic back in July: "Almost every personal friend I have in the world works on Wall Street. You can buy and sell the same company six times and everybody makes money, but I'm not sure we're actually innovating. ... Our challenge is to take nanotechnology into the future, to do personalized medicine ..." Jeff is re-shaping Jack's GE as the home to jaw-dropping innovation on a scale perhaps never seen before.

HERB SIMON GOT THERE FIRST. In a recent Fortune article Geoffrey Colvin says that if there had been a Nobel Prize in management, Peter Drucker would have "won it every year." How silly. A "management guru" did in fact pocket the economics Nobel in 1978 ... Herb Simon of Carnegie Mellon (defining book: Administrative Behavior); I had the privilege of interviewing him for In Search of Excellence. Other worthies besides Simon (and Drucker) would include rigorous academics such as Doug MacGregor (a shoo-in), Warren Bennis (also a shoo-in), Alfred Chandler (shoo-in), James March, Karl Weick, Henry Mintzberg (shoo-in—may get the economics prize someday), Graham Allison, Richard Neustadt, and Michael Porter (also an economics candidate). But, mostly, thank God there is no "Management Nobel." Make no mistake: Management is an art ... not a science. (Frankly, it's not all that clear to many, even those in the field, that economics is a "science.")

LOSE $769 BILLION, GET RICH! Is CEO pay too high? I addressed that issue recently. The topic is endlessly debatable. There are equity issues, market value issues, etc. But maybe the market will finally "just say no." Consider this 15 December headline in USA Today: "Pension Funds Pin Target on CEO Pay." Factoid: Sixty of the worst performing companies in the Russell 3000 (which captures 99% of stock market value) lost $769 BILLION in market value over the last five years ... and paid their top five execs $12 billion over the same period.

GIVE ME THE DUMB ONES! Got a pre-pub copy of Napoleon on Project Management by Jerry Manas. Here are NB's "six winning principles" per Manas: Exactitude (sweat the details). Speed. Flexibility. Simplicity. Character. Moral Force. Pretty good list, eh? FYI, two Napoleonic quotes I fancied. Simplicity: "The art of war does not require complicated maneuvers; the simplest are the best, and common sense is fundamental. From which one might wonder how it is generals make blunders; it is because they try to be clever." (Jack Welch would agree. I'm not so sure about the Harvard Business School.) Character: "A military leader must possess as much character as intellect. Men who have a great deal of intelligence and little character are the least suited. ... It is preferable to have much character and little intellect." (Jeff Skilling at Enron?)

A START. I want to do a list on the "twenty dumbest business practices." I'll give you my 11 starting propositions, scribbled out so far: Men as CEOs of consumer goods companies! CFOs promoted to CEO. Mergers of Decrepit Monsters! Strategic plans in excess of three pages. Big offices for bosses. Focus groups. Hiring lots of MBAs. HR boss not a member of the Board of Directors. CIO not a member of the Board of Directors. Corporate staffs in excess of 50 people. Anything other than Unbridled Enthusiasm at the top of the hiring or promoting criteria list for any + every job. More later.

ALL THERE IS. Damn it! I keep forgetting this! Leaving it out of presentations! Namely, a PP slide that simply reads : You = Your Calendar. THIS IS MY #1 BELIEF ABOUT MANAGEMENT. Or: "You can't bullshit your calendar." Or: "Your calendar knows ... do you?" All we have is our time. The way we distribute it is our "strategic plan," our "vision," our "values." Period. So how'd you spend your precious time today? Tell me, and I'll tell you what you actually care about—it's simple and unerring.

Cool Friend: Balter

From an article in the May 2004 Fast Company, "What's the Buzz?"

Companies have long recognized that word of mouth is one of the most potent weapons in a marketer's arsenal. The trick has been to harness that power in a disciplined, strategic way. ... BzzAgent LLC, aims to do just that.

Our new Cool Friend, Dave Balter, is the founder of BzzAgent. He talks to tompeters.com about his book, Grapevine: The New Art of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, coauthored with John Butman. Did you know there are differences among word-of-mouth, buzz marketing, and viral marketing? And, don't ever confuse any of them with shill marketing.

You can read Balter's Cool Friend interview here. Or take a look at the BzzAgent blog here.

New Economy Tidbit Number ...

The date was June, 13, 2004, and the headline read, "Short on Priests, U.S. Catholics Outsource Prayer to Indian Clergy." Yup, I thought I'd seen it all! Goes to show you ...

December 9, 2005: "Ogre to Slay? Outsource It to Chinese" (New York Times, page 1—news section). The "factory" is in Fuzhou, China. The workers are youngsters logging 12-hour shifts. Their clientele? Fellow youngsters from "Seoul to San Francisco," as the Times put it. The "work"? The Chinese youngsters are playing the early levels of video games for their affluent "clients," who want to avoid the pain and time associated with those annoying first few levels.

One more: "Developing Nations Lure Retirees, Raising Idea of 'Outsourcing' Boomers' Golden Years"—Wall Street Journal, November 14

Next????????????

Another New Economy Tidbit

Not your father's world: "One customer service engineer at Agilent hasn't even laid eyes on his boss in three years"—BusinessWeek, December 12

Bird Flu Tip Number ...

Senator Frist says a pandemic could cost the U.S. economy upwards of a half-trillion $$$$. The White House on Saturday war-gamed a pandemic.

On a more practical level, Grattan Woodson, in The Bird Flu Preparedness Planner, explains that "preventing dehydration in flu victims will save more lives than all the other treatments combined." The magic is a solution of 4 cups of clean water mixed with 3 tablespoons of sugar or honey and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

The Meaning of "Incentive"?

Big mergers seldom work. The evidence is overwhelming. Period. So why do we see so damn many of them? One reason, chronicled in the 12 December BusinessWeek, is captured by this article title: "FAT MERGER PAYOUTS FOR CEOs: Whose Interest Is Being Served?"

James Kilts peddles Gillette to P&G. And pockets $165,000,000 for offloading this big, well-run company—i.e., no earthly reason to sell, save King Kilts' Self-interest. Bruce Hammonds dumps MNBA, takes home $102,000,000. A.D. Cordell sells Georgia-Pacific and grabs $92,000,000. Toys 'R' Us goes down and the CEO, John Eyler, gets $63,000,000 for his sell & bail act. David Dorman delivers the coup de grace to AT&T ... and feathers his nest to the tune of $55,000,000.

One can at least mount a plausible argument to support CEO pay levels, but this ...

Brand Thought For The Day

Don't think of your brand as being about the relationship your company (or product) has with the marketplace.

Instead, think of your brand in terms of the relationship your company (or product) has with individual customers.

For most of us, this is a much more useful perspective.

Tom Day, London, May 2006

We want all tompeters.com regulars to have early notification of our next full-day London Tom Peters conference on 17 May 2006. This is a unique event in the Tom Peters Company's UK calendar. We know a large gathering of Tom aficionados will show up and make the day a "Masterclass" in every sense of the word. Tom's topic will be "Finding Inspiration," and there can be no better guide than Tom to lead us on that particular quest! You can access full event details on www.benchmarkpeters.com or contact us at team@tompeters.co.uk for some special early bird deals.

Brand Cacophony: Guitar Center

Ok, I may be 46, but this post does not prove I am guilty of Ted Nugent's "If it's too loud, you're too old" comment. I have played music at all volumes for 34 years, used to be a recording engineer, currently have a recording studio in my basement, and play in a band that includes two 17-year olds (my son and nephew) and a 20-year old. So I can credibly make this point without being accused of being too old to "get it."

Guitar Center is a chain with 151 stores. Although I prefer the local "boutique" I've shopped at since age 15, there are numerous occasions where it makes sense to shop at Guitar Center. I bought a guitar amplifier there about 6 months ago, and it was difficult to audition the amp since the store had a radio station blaring so loud over their mega-sound system, with ceiling speakers all over the store. But, I managed, and bought the amp, because I really wanted it.

Recently I was in Guitar Center, trying out this very cool effect called a "looper" that lets you make instant digital recording loops of your playing and layer phrases on top of each other in real time. However, unlike with a basic guitar amp, I really had to be able to hear this piece of equipment, which was once again difficult with the uber-loud radio getting in the way. I mentioned to one of the store managers that it was hard to hear the looper with all the noise, and he looked at me like I was crazy. (Even though we practically had to shout over the radio to hear each other.) I asked him if it was hard to sell guitars when it's so hard to hear them, and he curtly said, "no, we do it all day long."

So, what does this tell me about Guitar Center? In addition to the obvious (it's hard to shop there), it signals to me that they are more interested in superficial rock and roll "culture" than helping real rock and rollers make music. There are 200 guitars hanging on the wall (most of them out of tune) and you can't really hear the subtleties of any of them. The cacophony in their store does a lot to spoil their brand for me. Am I reading too much into the noise? I don't think so.

What's really funny is that my son says he heard a radio ad for Sam Ash, a major Guitar Center competitor, coming out of the Guitar Center sound system one day. Serves them right.

Think I bought the looper?

Slogan from the Godless Commies ...

This banner, in Chinese, hangs in each room of the Hua Xin Li Dress Co., Ltd., amidst the Rongcheng Industry Zone, 100 miles from Beijing:

"THE CUSTOMER IS GOD AND THE MARKET DECIDES EVERYTHING"

(I think GM ought to order a few of these—we know the price would be right—for its Detroit HQ.)

Deja Vu All Over Again

Been reading a lot of bedrock stuff, such as Jim O'Toole's brilliant Creating the Good Life: Applying Aristotle's Wisdom to Find Meaning and Happiness, which challenges the reader to pursue a disciplined, virtuous life of continuous growth—until one's last breath. My mind kept wandering back to 1982 and the publication of In Search of Excellence. As solid as I hope (and think) our research and analytic framework were, I am also convinced that no small part of our success was derivative of the word "excellence" per se. Alas, it wasn't and isn't a word used often in business or organizational life in general. And yet I believe it is a universal aspiration. It is in fact a beautiful word with beautiful implications.

And "all that" took me back to the contents of the book. We begin with a robust theoretical exploration of individual, organizational and business excellence. But the heart of the book, in most readers' eyes, was our chapters on the "eight basics" of enterprise excellence. You'll find them displayed below:

Excellence1982: The Bedrock "Eight Basics"

1. A Bias for Action
   
2. Close to the Customer
   
3. Autonomy and Entrepreneurship
   
4. Productivity Through People
   
5. Hands On, Value-Driven
   
6. Stick to the Knitting
   
7. Simple Form, Lean Staff
   
8. Simultaneous Loose-Tight Properties
   

I have promised myself—and it is one promise I vow never to break—that there will never but never be an In Search of Excellence, Revised. Moreover, as I look at the list above I think it's held up pretty damn well. (As did the financial performance of the companies selected.) On the other hand, a lot has changed, and several of the "new practices," circa 1982, have become "conventional wisdom," circa 2005 (e.g., listening to customers). That conclusion and my general restlessness led me to casually start scribbling some "stuff" down. What might my "basics" of "excellence" be today? I winnowed a list of about 100 candidates to a baker's dozen. The "final" list is indeed longer than, and not so succinct as, 1982's—doubtless drawbacks. Yet it is my best effort to display what I think is most essential to surviving/thriving with excellence, circa crazy 2005. It follows:

Excellence2005: The Bedrock Baker's Dozen

1. A Bias For Action Is Job One! (Construct a discipline/Culture of EXECUTION!)
   
2. DECENTRALIZATION! ACCOUNTABILITY! (Tom's "Top Two," 1965-2005.)
   
3. Fail. Forward. Fast. ("Reward Excellent Failures, Punish Mediocre Successes.")
   
4. "Metabolic Management" Matters! (Hustle! Adapt! EAT CHANGE! Win the "O.O.D.A. Loop" War—Confuse Your Competitors!)
   
5. INNOVATE or Die. ("Game-changers" or Bust! Lead the Customer! Just Shout "No" to Imitation!)
   
6. A Damn Good Product. (Pursue "Dramatic Difference.")
   
7. A Damn Cool Product. (Design Rules!)
   
8. Ride the Value Added Curve to the Sky! Sell "GamechangerSolutions"; Provide "Scintillating Experiences"; Become a "Dream Merchant"; Strive to Be a "Lovemark.")
   
9. Relentlessly Pursue the "Big Two" Markets. (WOMEN Buy Everything. Boomers & Geezers Have All the Money!)
   
10. Best "Talent"/Roster Wins! (HR Rules! Everyone a Leader! Women Lead Best! "Weird" Matters Most! A Workplace to Brag About! Educate for Creativity!)
    
11. Wanted/Demanded: Radical Technology Strategies! ("Incrementalism" Is for Wimps!)
    
12. Hard Is Soft! Soft Is Hard! (People! Passion! Enthusiasm! Wow! INTEGRITY! TRUST! Good Citizen.)
    
13. Accept No Less Than EXCELLENCE! (Excellence, Pursuit thereof, Is the Only Thing That Vaults Everyone Out of Bed in the Morning.)
    

All yours—and you'll also find a three-slide version posted as a new Special Presentation.

The View From Home

After reading my colleague John O'Leary's blog about his Shanghai experience, I was struck by the contrasts to what I see from my viewpoint here in the rust belt of the great American Midwest. John saw bright lights and energy! I drove past an empty factory with a sole security light protecting an empty parking lot. Ford announced another restructuring plan—closing ten facilities and eliminating thirty thousand jobs. Add that to the previously announced plans at GM to close nine facilities and eliminate another thirty thousand jobs and you can almost feel the life breath leaving these once proud companies. It is dark and cold here in Michigan this morning. No lights, no energy ...

I will leave it to my more well-read friends to argue the macroeconomic reasons for the sorry state of our auto industry, and offer instead some cut the crap observations:

[read more]

Cool Friend: Jackson

Our new Cool Friend is Eric Jackson, the author of The PayPal Wars: Battles with eBay, the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of the Planet. Tom said that when he read the book he had to stay up all night.

My pick for best quote from the interview, because, first, the transition to charging for things that used to be free is a hurdle many websites must face, and, second, because communication is a tool to fix a great many problems:

When we had to change our website and our business radically, especially when we had to start charging fees for what had been a free service, the ability to get that message out there and be straight with customers was key for us. I shudder to think what would have happened to PayPal if we hadn't had that communication strategy.

You can read the complete interview here. Jackson has since left PayPal, and you can see what he's up to now at his website worldaheadpublishing.com.

Warren Bennis: Leadership Addendum

Warren Bennis is arguably (inarguably, I'd vow) the #1 leadership guru/student in the world. I sent him my recent leadership Blogpost (12.03) before it appeared here. Immediately below is his response. (Note that Warren, I believe, was at one point the youngest U.S. infantry officer in the European theater—World War II.)

"Tom: Loved your blog. Just so!

"Two things: 'To be of use' is a memorable line from a nearby neighbor of yours, John Irving, in Cider House Rules. When the 'doc' asks the young man what he wants to do with his life—the question, after all, right?—he pauses 2 or 3 beats and says, 'To be of use.' My line, too. At least for awhile and years to come.

"The other is a little 'hurt'—not really. When you talked of 'boot camps' and mentioned three, you didn't mention the Benning School for Boys, the Infantry School, where they produced the four-month wonders, those 'shavetails,' who did make a difference in WWII. It was the best education I've ever received: including Antioch, MIT, and the rest of them."

TP: Warren, so noted!

Damn Good Reading!

Time and again in recent years I've laid out my $12.95 in airports to get a copy of Booz Allen Hamilton's magazine strategy + business. The article titles are unfailingly good, the articles themselves are unfailingly stiff and underwhelming.

Until now.

Art Kleiner, a brilliant writer and organization-change expert, is the new editor at strategy + business ... and the current issue is a winner. Titles are ordinary, content is solid gold. To wit:

"Money Isn't Everything" is a provocative, research-based article that demonstrates ... good God ... that there is absolutely no correlation between R&D spending levels and business performance as measured by common indicators. It ain't quite that simple ... but this article is sure to get you thinking. (The whole idea, eh?)

"The Realist's Guide to Moral Purpose" is a terrific article on the tight relationship between high moral purpose and business excellence.

"Ricardo Semler Won't Take Control" is a study of the wholly original Brazilian business genius.

"Best Business Books 2005" is a priceless tour of ... the best B.Books of the year—I am in almost unanimous agreement.

Nice job, Art K. (And BAH!)

Dice 1, Experts 0

You must read ...

New Yorker. December 5 issue. Page 98. Louis Menand, "Everybody's an Expert: Putting Practitioners to the Test." The article is a lengthy review of the book Expert Political Judgement: How Good Is It? by psychologist and Berkeley Professor Philip Tetlock. The apolitical treatise is based on 20 years' research on the predictive skill of experts.

In short, and doing neither the book nor the review justice, the "experts" are less likely to be correct than predictions based on coin tossing! Menand: "Tetlock has found that specialists are no more reliable than non-specialists in predicting what is going to happen in the region they study. Knowing a little may make someone a more reliable forecaster, but Tetlock found that knowing a lot can actually make a person less reliable." Tetlock: "We reach the point of diminishing marginal predictive returns for knowledge disconcertingly quickly." The devil is in the details—and the subsequent details make this piece a must read.

(FYI, I have long felt that the #1 thing Bob Waterman and I had going for us when we studied "excellent companies" was a certain naïveté or freshness. And I admit to wondering over the years whether my "enhanced knowledge" has actually hurt. I suspect that I'm at my best when I'm "half naïve"—e.g., on the topic of women and markets a couple of years ago; design, a couple of years before that.)

Going Deep

You must read ...

The New York Times Magazine, December 4, "Coach Leach Goes Deep, Very Deep." By Michael Lewis (author of Liar's Poker, Moneyball, etc.).

You simply don't beat NEBRASKA 70-10. And a lightly regarded QB doesn't pass for 643 yards against Kansas State—before being pulled early in the 4th quarter. And you sure as hell don't do all this in Division 1-A with a coach who topped out as a bench-rider during his junior year in high school in Cody, WY.

But, oh yes, it is possible, Virginia. If the guy is Mike Leach ... head coach at Texas Tech.

In their brilliant Blue Ocean Strategy, INSEAD authors Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne present their basic thesis in simple terms: "Value innovation is about making the competition irrelevant by creating uncontested market space. We argue that beating the competition within the confines of the existing industry is not the way to create profitable growth."

That's precisely what Mike Leach has done—and what you need to do is read every damn word in the article .... which may be the best article on business strategy I've ever read. Especially biz strategy for the 00s.

Michael Lewis begins: "By changing the geometry of the game, and pushing the limits of space and time on the gridiron, Mike Leach is taking Texas Tech to some far out places." Call it a new sort of "passing game." True, but useless. Texas Tech would like to throw on every down. And they more or less do. Offensive linemen are spread far apart. Anybody who legally can goes down the field to try and catch a pass. Defenders are confused. They run around like the proverbial headless chicken—and tire out almost as quickly as the dead-but-doesn't-know-it chicken.

COL John Boyd revolutionized warfare, and has been called the most innovative military strategist since Sun Tzu. Boyd's ideas, which are behind the now mostly implemented RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs), are sometimes summarized as "maneuver warfare." The basic idea is called "the Boyd Cycle," or the O.O.D.A. Loop (Observe Orient Decide Act) approach. Consider these snippets from my Boyd presentation, mostly drawn from Robert Coram's Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War: "Blitzkrieg is far more than lightning thrusts that most people think of when they hear the term; rather it was all about high operational tempo and the rapid exploitation of opportunity." "Re-arrange the mind of the enemy" —T.E. Lawrence. "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" —Ali. "Unraveling the competition"/ Quick Transients/Quick Tempo (NOT JUST SPEED!)/ Agility/ "So quick it is disconcerting" (adversary over-reacts or under-reacts)/ "Winners used tactics that caused the enemy to unravel before the fight" (NEVER HEAD TO HEAD). "This stuff has got to be implicit. If it is explicit, you can't do it fast enough." USMC COL Mike Wyly: "kept the enemy off-balance; they knew Delta Company could show up anywhere, anytime."

Every single Boyd-ism is an essential part of Mike Leach's strategy—and the reason he and his low-premium recruits (he has to recruit against the likes of Texas) can whup Nebraska 70-10. (More: TT is losing to Kansas State, 13-10, near the half ... and wins 59-20. T.C.U., coming off a 44-0 win against SMU, leads TT 21-0 near the half, but Texas Tech "pulls it out" ... 70-35. You get the drift.)

Boyd was less than beloved by his superiors. Leach, practicing "blue ocean strategy," is close to a pariah among his peers—he "disorients" them, to use a Boyd-ism. Sticking with military analogies, my favorite assessment of Lord Nelson also comes to mind: "Other admirals were more frightened of losing than anxious to win"—and once again it epitomizes Leach's approach to football.

As I said ... please read every word! This is an article that, if you can't learn from it, to be blunt ... you've got a problem. (To my mind.)

(Bonus: Michael Lewis is a magnificent writer.)

Wish I Hadn't Read This Today

"When I climb Mount Rainier, I face less risk of death than I'll face on the operating table."—Don Berwick, M.D. Newsweek/12.12.2005/"Six Keys to Safer Hospitals: A Set of Simple Precautions Could Prevent 100,000 Needless Deaths Every Year"

Yikes, I've got to spend an outpatient day in the hospital next week—think I'll wear Kevlar.

(To my mind, Don Berwick is the Mother Theresa of health safety.)

Shanghai Breezes

On my first visit to Shanghai this week—to give a talk at a business conference—I'm getting a close-hand snapshot of the "China Miracle." Shanghai invites comparisons to New York City, though the Chinese metropolis has twice the population, more brazen pedestrians and bicyclists, friendlier hotels, nastier panhandlers, and the most dazzling nighttime display of city lights I've ever witnessed. (It reminds me of my first bug-eyed visit to Times Square as a kid.)

From reading the Shanghai Daily, I can see that the government wants to assure us that accountability (once notably missing) is now the order of the day. The country's environmental chief was sacked due to a toxic spill that has polluted the water supply in Northeastern China—and soon in Russia. (The government has vowed to "seriously punish those responsible.") A civil servant was sentenced to death for embezzling funds in a public works project. (I wish officials involved in the "Big Dig" project in my hometown of Boston would read this.) And the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration is even cracking down on misleading drug ads.

Meanwhile the farmers have their own issues ... The cotton-pickers are complaining about unfair U.S. trading practices. While they work up to 11 hours a day manually seeding and harvesting, their U.S. counterparts using mechanized mass planting are subsidized by Uncle Sam. I suppose what constitutes "unfair trade" depends on which side of the lake you live on.

Overall, capitalism seems to be alive and kicking in the "People's Republic." Anyone surprised?

Slides, Slides

Tom's talking in Jacksonville tonight to SunTrust Banks. Using his Leadership50 presentation as a springboard, he produced two versions, long and short, for the SunTrust folks. Leading him to do a revision of Leadership50. Then he went on to revise his Transformational Change PPT. All the changes are reflected in the Working Master of Dec 4th. Result: 5 new slides files are posted. You can download your choice(s):

SunTrust Leadership50, Jacksonville, FL

SunTrust Long, which is the same as

Leadership50 Revised

Transformational Change updated 6 Dec 2005

Working Master updated 4 Dec 2005

An Odd Couple

A pair of books I liked, oddly paired:

Jeff Thull, The Prime Solution: Close the Value Gap, Increase Margins, and Win the Complex Sale.

I've vigorously championed "solution selling," recently influenced by the amazing transformation story at IBM (where IBM Global Services alone has become a $50 billion business), and similar unfolding tales from UPS, Deere, and others. Now Jeff Thull offers a superb book that takes this essential idea and translates it into practical sales advice. The problem, and a big one: to sell—and implement—a "solution sale" means a willingness on the part of the selling organization to muck about (exactly the right term) in the Client organization. Per Thull: "The business of selling is not just about matching viable solutions to the customers that require them. It's equally about managing the change process the customer will need to go through to implement the solution and achieve the value promised by the solution."

To frame his argument, Thull offers a useful typology, the three "eras" of sales:

Era #1/Obvious Value: "Our 'it' works, is delivered on time" (Seller's task: "Close")

Era #2/Augmented Value: "How our 'it' can add value—a 'useful it' " (Seller's task: "Solve")

Era #3/Complex Value Networks: "How our 'system' can change you and deliver 'business advantage'" (Seller's task: "Implement culture-strategic change")

All this rang especially true to me courtesy my McKinsey experience. Old McKinsey, my McKinsey, circa 1980, sold "augmented value," per Thull's model. We dug in deep and offered a tailored solution ... for the Client to implement. Part of my project that resulted in In Search of Excellence suggested that the work wasn't done until the Culture Change in the Client organization was done (the "dreaded, missing, last 95 percent," as one of my caustic McKinsey friends, Allan Kennedy, put it). In fact, in the years following Search, McKinsey radically shifted gears to emphasize implementation-culture change ("sustained impact," in McKinsey-ese). I now "sell" in my work the meta-idea that survivors in the Age of Outsourcing will-must transform themselves/their group into a full-fledged Professional Service Firm—the hallmark of which will be a "dramatically different point of view" implemented through "hands-on attention to culture change in the Client organization." This holds, I'd add, for a one-person accountancy serving local businesses as well as for McKinsey (and for that matter, IBM).

All this fed my interest in Mr Thull's book ... which I heartily commend to your attention.

The second part of this odd coupling: Dave Smith's To Be of Use: The Seven Seeds of Meaningful Work.

I simply loved this book by the unsung half of the founding partners of Smith & Hawken. (Paul Hawken has gotten a lot more ink over the years.) It more or less begins with this wondrous poem by Marge Piercy:

to be of use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shadows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. ...

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again. ...

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. ...

The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Chapter titles are pretty much a compact review, or at least provide a flavor: "Faith: True Belief"; "Hope: Soul School"; "Justice: Action Heroes"; "Temperance: The Briarpatch Way"; "Prudence: Reclaiming the Soul of Business"; "Courage: Creative Action Heroes"; "Love: Useful You."

A handful of others that are new to me:

Creative Company: How St. Luke's Became "the Ad Agency to End All Ad Agencies." Recommendation: The late, great Jay Chiat called it "the book I wish I had written."

Frank McCourt's new Teacher Man. How could you not appreciate a teacher who perceives that the most creative work his kids do is forging excuse notes—so he gives a creative writing assignment on writing excuse notes? The "teach to test" zealots, of course, will vigorously shake their sorry little heads.

Now for something light: MacArthur Fellow Mike Davis' The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu.

Leadership!

"Everybody" ... "They" ... talk ceaselessly about the need for more effective leaders. The bedrock is obviously first-class leadership training. So we applaud "with-it" B.Schools when they add a leadership elective, or provide an opportunity (note that I did not say "require") students to take an "interpersonal dynamics" course covering the annoying "people stuff."

True. True. True. Nothing but nothing is more important than leadership. And B.Schools ... AND CORPORATIONS ... do a lousy-crappy-pathetic job in teaching it ... even if they do "bother" to try.

BusinessWeek, in its 11.28 cover tribute to Peter Drucker, called him ... "THE MAN WHO INVENTED MANAGEMENT." Maybe he "invented" management—highly unlikely, since British trading companies among others have been doing it brilliantly for about half a millennium—but he sure as heck didn't "invent" leadership. (Nor say much about it, for that matter.)

However, be of cheer. There is good news. Yup, even before Peter Drucker (or Jack Welch) there were/are indeed places that "got it"/"get it." And have gotten it for, well, centuries. Don't go to Cambridge, MA. Or Palo Alto, CA. Instead try these three: Consider, for starters, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Founded in 1741. Produced leaders-managers-policy makers for half of earth's nations—including "CEOs" for both sides in many a major conflict. Then there's the USMA/West Point. Since we got started a little later than the Brits, its pedigree goes back merely to 1802. (Washington wanted it, but Congress resisted; Jefferson finally commissioned it.) This W.P.I.School (Warrior Production Institute) has also trained "CEOs" for much of the world. Since the navies of the world historically did their leadership training as shipboard OJT, the USNA/Annapolis dates back only 'til 1845; and though Britain ruled the waves for centuries, it only began dry-land leadership training, at Britannia Royal Naval College/Dartmouth, in 1905.

Leadership "boot camp"? Again, skip Cambridge, MA. Palo Alto, CA. Try the real thing, U.S. Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island (that's not "Paradise Island"). In a marvelous forthcoming book I recently reviewed, Leading From the Front, authors and former Marine Corps officers Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch declare, "The Marine Corps believes that all Marines must learn to lead. In order to survive the chaos and uncertainty of war, a Marine is taught how to be decisive, how to take care of others, and how to take responsibility for her actions." Hmmmm, I don't recall those topics being on the formal, or informal, agenda at Stanford's Graduate School of Business during my time. Instead of being "distracted" by the "soft" "people stuff," I was ever so busy taking advanced accounting from a renowned Dean who subsequently went on to "lead" the Audit Committee for Enron's Board of Directors. viagra and paypal uk no prescription

Can leadership be "taught"? Oh yes. But as the USMA, USNA, Sandhurst, and Parris Island demonstrate, not as a sideline. Effective leadership in the private sector or the military is an occupation, a preoccupation, a trade, a craft, an obsession ... and must be studied and practiced accordingly. For God's sake, it takes six long years to train a halfway decent graduate engineer in formulaic technical skills. Why should we expect to "pick up" leadership skills "on the side" at a B.School or corporate "university"? Fat damned chance.

For Shame!

The old Silicon Valley boy (me) is delighted to have a newly purchased house in Boston and be a part-time Massachusetts resident. Mass, oft joked about as hyper-liberal and high tax, joins fellow hyper-liberal California atop most world league tables that matter in the emergent Global Economy ... income, high-tech start-ups, start-up financing, tertiary+ education, various talent-attraction measures such as diversity, etc; if it's on the leading edge and it happened in business, the odds are amazingly high that it happened (or at least started) in MA or CA. Cradle of the American Revolution and home to the most influential abolitionist leaders as well, MA's patriotism score is tops, too (much of our peerless arsenal, from WWII to today, was developed in MA as well)—even if the wounded Patriots football team, circa 2005, doesn't look set for a three-peat. (FYI: Mass's divorce rate is also in the lead—lowest in the nation.)

But that self-congratulatory ramble is mere prelude to saying how utterly disgusted and personally embarrassed I am, even as a part-timer, that Congressman William Delahunt (Dem, MA) is in the process of accepting discount heating oil from the utterly disgusting, contemptible president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. Good Lord, has Delahunt no shame? Sure, I'm a lucky one with a few pennies in the bank, but I'd rather freeze as Washington's army did in Baahstan in 1776, than warm myself with Chavez's filthy oil.

Stats

I just read somewhere that CEO pay in the U.S. of A. is now 400+ times that of the average company employee, up from a meager 40X as recently as 1980. But that may pale by comparison with yesterday's A-Rod stats, courtesy USA Today. Mr Rodriguez pulls in: $16,492.58 per inning; $37,145.65 per at bat; and $276,699.03 per Yankee win. Wow!

I append no moral or economic commentary to all this, just offer it for your amusement-edification.

About Time!

viagra uk without prescription

Docs with crappy bedside manner are getting whacked, big time, according to the November 30 New York Times. About time, I say.

More and more group-practice compensation plans are docking docs—or rewarding them—based on patient satisfaction measures. For instance: Rochester Independent Practice Association ... 20% of docs' pay (3,000 docs) is based on patient satisfaction measures. Tufts Health Plan ... 3K to 4K docs lost all or part of their bonuses last year because of low C.Sat. #s. California Medical Association ... a $30,000,000 pot will be divvied up among 35K docs based on C.Sat. scores—the consequences could run $5,000 per doc.

Typical statements patients respond to: "Is easy to talk with"; "Is very familiar with my medical history"; "Takes time to answer my questions"; "Listens carefully to me"; "Is someone I feel I can trust."

Bravo!

(NB: This ties in nicely with my recent rant on the applicability of "business" thinking to the world of non-profits.)

Just One Question!

More on the always-fresh topic of customers ...

Fred Reichheld is the God-Guru of Customer Loyalty. He pretty well took the anecdote-laden field and put (VERY) hard numbers to a previously (VERY) soft topic.

Now he gives us another, related home run observation backed by, as usual, a ton of unimpeachable data: There is one question/measure (just one!) in the "happy/pissed off customer" universe that correlates ... perfectly (BIG WORD) ... with subsequent revenue growth. Namely: "How likely are you to recommend [company] to a friend or colleague?"

Reichheld calls this the "net promoter score." For instance, in wretched airline world, you guessed it, the golden oldies cluster tightly at the bottom ... and Southwest is off-the-charts positive.

Nice!
Brilliant!
Wow!

Source: POINT (Advertising Age)/November 2005

Could It Be So Simple? Tom Peters: "Yes."

You can accuse me of being wrong. Fine. But you can no longer accuse me of being superficial. I've been at this (alone among the "gurus") for almost a decade now. M-F differences ... and their enormous impact on products, services, experiences, marketing, profits, organizational harmony (or dis-harmony), leadership, motivation, etc.

While reading (re-reading, actually) Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say, by Warren Farrell, I came across a single sentence, just a phrase actually, that "said it all." To wit: "survival [for men] was more dependent on combat than compassion."

Wow! "One sentence explains all"—damn near, I'd say.

In another book (reviewing a stack of about 15, don't remember which), I came across (re-crossed) some related findings. By the second day (!!) of life, baby girls are staring (keeping a steady gaze) at ... people; baby boys are staring at ... things/patterns. The hyper-young women, that is, are preparing for communal community management; the hyper-young men are readying their spatial skills for competitive spear tossing on the hunt.

And thus it has ever been!
And thus it will ever be!

Women "do" relationships.
Men "do" things.

No wonder we (Ms, Fs) often don't get along very well.
No wonder she talks, he doesn't.
No wonder her incessant talk pisses him off; and his incessant silence pisses her off.
No wonder one "motivates" a woman differently than a man. (He wants things—trophies for the highest numeric score and acing out his closest pal; she wants relationships—group success.)
No wonder women want different products/experiences than men.
No wonder men can't (CANNOT!!) design products or services or experiences or distribution strategies or marketing campaigns that women "get."
No wonder male-dominated Senior Management Teams & Boards do a consistently pathetic job at taking advantage of the "SWMO" ... Stupendous Women's Market Opportunity.

Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

It's Obvious! Not!

Perversely, it's sometimes (very, very) obvious. Unless: (1) You are very close to the action. (2) You are very smart-clever.

I had a long-ish talk with a petroleum company executive in California. He's very experienced! Very savvy! Brilliant!

And: He was perfectly able to explain the appropriateness of oil-company profits last quarter. ($9 BILLION at ExxonMobil alone, recall.)

And he was irate (understatement) at my highly intellectual rejoinder, "It sucks. It's an insult, an outrage to 98% of your adult fellow Americans—including me. We go to Iraq over oil, we suffer an ungodly deadly hurricane ... and you get a humongous bonus for being in the right place at the right time. At least be contrite, for God's sake."

(End of conversation.)

We are not likely to conserve our way out of slavery to the Middle East. I do not favor a windfall profits tax. I want, in fact, sky-high energy prices to spur hydrocarbon discovery, refinery construction, conservation, and alternative energy-source development.

But I want my friend ... at this moment in time ... simply ... to feel my/our pain. Not to give me an intellectually brilliant argument along the lines of, "Some years are good, some years are bad." ("Screw you!")

In 1973-74 I worked on drug control issues in, yes, the Nixon White House. My office, #424 Old Executive Office Building, was about 75 yards from the fabled West Wing and, moreover, I had a coveted pass to the Senior White House Mess. (I got to sit near the likes of Chuck Colson ... before he went to jail.) All of America knew RMN was about to be ridden out of town on a rail ... or on a Big Jet Plane. That is, all of America knew it except, it seemed, a few hundred of us "best and brightest" who lived in the immediate vicinity (measured in yards) of Mr I-Am-Not-A-Crook.

My cohorts and I didn't know Nixon had a half-life measured in hours. Mr Oil didn't know we-the-people were unimpressed by a Gaggle of Old White Guys on Capitol Hill telling us $9,000,000,000+ in profits was no more than fair pay for 90 days' work.

There is legal "inside information" of incredible value. No doubt of it. But there is also inside insularity that does incredible harm to enterprises. And, perversely in my experience, the higher up they are and the smarter they are (smart = excellent at intellectually stunning rationalizations), the more likely they are to be dangerously out of touch with everyman.

Beware. If it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck ...

TP #4 in Thinkers 50 Ranking

Tom comes in at #4 in the latest Thinkers 50 ranking. Produced by the folks at Suntop Media in conjunction with the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), it is the definitive bi-annual guide to which thinkers and ideas are in. Read the full story in today's London Times.

Who Woulda Thunk?

"The Good Goliath," an Op-ed column loudly applauding Wal*Mart appeared in the ... New York Times! By John Tierney, 11.29. Consider: Wal*Mart is arguably the #1 lubricant for the welfare-to-work revolution, offering 1st jobs to many, many, many under-skilled workers. (W*M has 5 to 10 applicants per job.) Wal*Mart pays less than Costco, but the average W*M shopper has an income of $35,000 vs $74,000 (!) at Costco—thence, to sell higher-end stuff, Tierney argues, one needs higher skilled workers. Wal*Mart saves the average regular shopper $800 a year on groceries alone. Tierney says he obviously "gets it" that union critics and local merchants have big problems with the giant, but concludes, "Why would anyone who claims to be fighting for social justice be so determined to take money out of the pockets of the poor?" canadian pharmacies viagra

(As a long time/continuing fan of Wal*Mart, though not a mindless defender, I was delighted to see this piece, especially in the gray lady.)

What the U.S. Does Right (Besides Wal*Mart)

The precarious state of America's economic future, courtesy China, seems to rank only behind, and perhaps not behind, terrorism on people's frights list. China is a clear economic "game-changer," no doubt about it. And God knows, I've beaten on American schools and corporations alike for their sluggish response to the need for revolutionary change.

But I did spend 30 years in Silicon Valley, home to the IS/IT mega-revolution. And I now have a home in Boston, home to (along with California et al.) the life sciences revolution. Announcement: We're doing pretty damned okay, and losing scant ground on the truly new, game-changer industries. For example, the Boston Globe on November 28 had an Op-ed piece on nanotechnology. It's already a multi-billion industry, and the quoted projection for 2014 is the emergence of a $2,600,000,000,000 ($2.6 TRILLION) industry. And the leader, by a country mile: the U.S.A.

Will China, Korea and others challenge us here? Of course! We'll doubtless give ground (hey, we're virtually it right now), but (1) the total pie will keep growing and (2) by 2014 there will doubtless (sure as shit) be new nanotech-like mega-industries on the drawing boards, and I'd not bet a farthing against the U.S. as lead pony.

Many lament (correctly, in the main) our declining share of engineering graduates and science majors. True enough, but I contend there is (still, for the foreseeable future) a Magic American Potion of: Lotsa smart, motivated people + New immigrant blood (never discount this) + Incredible research universities (and Gov't R&D infrastructure) + A generic/genetic entrepreneurial "instinct" to die for (including an almost unique American desire to make-a-ton before 40) + Wide and deep financial entrepreneurship (VCs, Angels, etc, etc) to die for + A deep-seated competitive (genetic again) urge to be/stay #1 + A generic capitalist "spirit" 300 years in the making and nurturing + Genetic openness (called "freedom" and "democracy" in the U.S.A. and the West in general) + Etc. (Or some such.)

Do I think China can be "stopped"? Of course not, save for the "democracy-openness problem" (major). Do I think Kmart and GM can be resurrected? Never. Do I expect as many Googles-Amgens in the future as in the past? Much as I'm fearful of going way out on a limb, I will anyway: Count on it!

(The argument above is a good accompaniment to the KURZWEIL Cool Friend interview. While Mr K may be wrong in the particulars, there's little doubt that a parade of Extreme Makeovers is our lot. Those ready to lead/pounce upon such Makeovers will stay atop the heap. An open, entrepreneurial society with a propensity for risktaking, and an infrastructure to support it, are as well positioned as possible. Frankly, I think the raw quantity of engineering degrees produced is pretty close to irrelevant.)