"Leaders have to be ready to adapt, to move, to forget yesterday." Tom Peters
Back in the States, Tom is appearing at the annual membership meeting of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association at Mackinac Island. There are three slides presentations:
Michigan Healthcare Final
MI Healthcare Longer Web Version
MI Healthcare plus 209 Irreducibles
Glad to see Arcelor was eaten by Mittal, given the unseemly nature of the process. Glad to see the Arcelor CEO, Guy Dollé, got the boot—good riddance to a racist pig. On the other hand, consistent with TP long-time biases about giant mergers ... what precisely is the point of a $70 billion steel company?
FT reports that Gates + Buffett = Biggest philanthropic enterprise ever (in terms of size as a share of GDP). Gates + Buffett = WOW! (Moreover, BG fleeing Microsoft at the right time—sorry, couldn't resist.)
More "hats off." FT also reports on NYC health commissioner, Dr Thomas Frieden: "How New York Took the Lead in World Action on Health." Frieden made the news for banning smoking in bars, but the FT singles out his equally aggressive efforts on AIDS, obesity and diabetes.
Didn't listen to music (Queen) this morning when I walked. Instead my mind was hard at work on today's gig. Reminder to self: Take a pen and scrap of paper on walks. (I know some of you will be revolted by this. Tough.) (Hyde Park a mess—The Who are coming next week, prep in progress.) (Love Hyde Park. CORNWALL better.)
Tom Peters posted this on 06/27/2006.
Event of the day: London. B2B Portfolio—"exhibition organisers." You can get the slides for downloading here:
B2B Portfolio, Final Version
B2B Portfolio, Long Web Version
2.5 absurdly good days in Cornwall. The incredible town of Portloe. [Photo below.] Hiked about 20-25 miles (about 5, 12, 6 I figure), hiked until 10 p.m., up and down the whole time. About zero fellow hikers. (Only about 1,000 vertical feet—not the Sierras or Maroon Bells.) Pasties. A great little hotel, the Lugger—their fresh fish (John Dory on Sunday night) lived up to its billing. Lovely conversations at the likes of shops the size of a postage stamp—also the local Post Office.
Work totally out of mind, thence very rough "return to civilization"—even though it was but a stretched weekend. No cell phone coverage! No Internet! Great trains! Joy to the world!
I feel completely at home in Britain, having been visiting for 40 years, since 1966, when I came over on a U.S.N.-R.N. midshipman swap—served aboard HMS Tiger, a cruiser. Well, not completely at home—which is great. Am completely comfortable—but also enjoy the cultural differences of a "foreign country"—even if it is "the cousins."
I'm willing to go on and on about my comfort in England, but the simple truth is that I feel at home/among friends in Johannesburg. And in Oman and Saudi. In Siberia, and Romania. There are surely places I'd rather return to than others—but the quality of the friendship is close to equal. And I do mean friendship, not just being "well received."
Never too late to learn! Away for the weekend hiking. Packed very light. Very. Forgot a hairbrush or comb. Dinner at hotel restaurant. No shops. (Understatement.) Solution (guys only?): A clean (emergency) toothbrush! Takes a while, but worked to a level that perhaps could be called "satisfactory."
(Hey, I thought it was pretty clever.)
Tom Peters posted this on 06/27/2006.
Yes "he" did. "He" actually said, "That's a very diverse team." "His" 7-member executive committee has ... two Indians. "His" 14-person Board of Directors has one woman—not an exec.
"He"/"Him" is Patrick Cescau, CEO of Unilever.
(About 85%+ of "his" products are bought by ... WOMEN.)
Could "he" have ... actually ... said: "This is a very diverse team." [My italics.] It would have been an incredible statement without the "very." With the "very" it "very much" suggests a psychiatric session or two might be in order—or at least he should have to say it in front of his wife at a "very" public gathering.
[Source of quote: Financial Times, 24-25 June.]
[See brief PP attached.]
My head is spinning. And I have no idea how it happened, really. Truth be known, I'm a slow reader. (I browse professional stuff fast.) Hence, "read at one sitting" is a foreign concept. But I managed to do it twice in one weekend, both times with books I picked up on the fly last Friday at Hatchards in London.
I often disagree with Financial Times "management guru" (how she hates the term) Lucy Kellaway. The world—perhaps the world of "management gurus" more than most—is awash in fools; still Mme Lucy's level of cynicism borders, for me, on repellant. (Like Scott Adams' Dilbert. Of course he brilliantly satirizes commonplace workplace stupidities—but his view is so dark as to be paralytic.) Hence I picked up LK's business satire, Who Moved My Blackberry, with little enthusiasm (simply thought I should take a look)—but with the foreknowledge of 8 hours on a train in the next 3 days. Actually, I bought it with a subconscious desire not to like it.
My worst expectations were confirmed as I dove in. I love good satire (the sort the Brits specialize in—think Evelyn Waugh); but this was silly satire—and of course good satire is anything but silly. But ...
But I kept "reading on." And then I couldn't stop. Stopping on my Cornwall hikes for a 5 min break, and pulling out the sweat-soaked book. On the pot—the ultimate accolade. And then I was done—and bereft that it was over. I could have delightfully imbibed another 375 pages of the life and tawdry times of Martin Lukes. (Lukes is the hapless protagonist; in fact the book purports to be his autobiographical musings: Who Moved My Blackberry, by Martin Lukes with Lucy Kellaway—as you can see, the satire begins on the cover.) In short, I loved the book. The "satire bit" is lovely—more important, Ms Kellaway exhibits that rarest of literary traits, the ability to create a compelling character, and to make one feel some empathy for a complete cad.
(On the other hand I do wonder just a little bit about LK's colleagues at the FT. Martin Lukes is an Olympic misogynist—where did Kellaway get the inspiration for that?)
On the other hand ...
Perhaps part of the reason I stuck so assiduously with Kellaway was pure, unadulterated relief from my parallel reading experience: A Woman in Berlin, by anonymous. It is unequivocally the most devastating book I have ever read. "Anonymous," whose name is actually known and who died in 2001, provides us, in 300pp, with a moment by moment (almost literally) diary of the life of a German woman-civilian in Berlin from 20 April 1945 to 22 June 1945, as the Russian occupation began with a matchless display of inhumanity. (Well, matchless save Hitler and his thugs.) The book makes Stephen King feel like a humorist. It is horrible. Horrible. Simply horrible. (Okay Lucy K, I guess I better understand the sources of unmitigated cynicism about all things human.) The horror unfolds, second by second, minute by minute. I read the book in, effectively, one sitting—but the sweat rolled off me and the words adhered to me as I read—I'd swear it took me 2 months to read (the time covered in the book) rather than the actual 8 or 9 hours.
I am woefully incapable of accurate description. The following couple of blurbs will have to suffice: "One of the essential books for understanding war and life."—A.S. Byatt. "One of the most extraordinary and moving books I have read."—Antonia Fraser. "... both an important work of social history and a remarkable human document"—the Independent on Sunday. "Among the most chilling indictments of war I have ever read. ... Everybody ought to read it."—Arundhati Roy. "Reading A Woman in Berlin in one afternoon is an unnerving sensory experience: the walls close in, the air thickens ... It leaves a deep scar."—Simon Garfield, the Observer.
I can't say I recommend the book in the ordinary sense of that word. I can say you might consider reading it—but you must have fortitude to do so.
Tom Peters posted this on 06/27/2006.
Two more Special Presentations. The first summarizes my view of the world—and how it contrasts with conventional wisdom (more or less—I admit I caricature the "bad guys" somewhat. [Them v. Us]
Speaking to a Small (SME, actually) Biz group today. The Special Presentation is (more or less) what I've learned—personally—about small business in the last 25 years of struggle. [TP Lessons] (Though as of 30 June I will have scored 98 consecutive profitable quarters—every one since birth. Knock on wood!).
Query to self: How did I live before Google desktop search?
Tom Peters posted this on 06/23/2006.
As usual, great days in Johannesburg. This is about my 10th trip since the end of Apartheid in '94. Lots has changed. No surprise, in '95, my first trip, about 5% of my relatively senior business audience was Black. The number has consistently grown, to, I'd guess, about 60%.
While South Africa is still fraught with problems, the business community has remained vibrant. For instance, among the first 50 of the Africa 500 businesses, South Africa accounts for some 43. And the entrepreneurial class is really beginning to bloom.
One of the most amazing success stories in the new South Africa is a new college, serving thousands of kids mostly from the townships, in downtown Johannesburg called C.I.T.A. The founder, Taddy Belcher, and C.I.T.A. have won every S.A. "best innovator" award there is. I was delighted to be introduced by Taddy at the Global Leaders Africa Summit at which I spoke. Each of the "schools" at C.I.T.A. has a "patron." And Taddy reminded me and the audience that he had created a school a couple of years ago so that I could be its patron. I'm Patron of the School of Miracles—if you don't think that caused tearing up, you are nuts.
Again, Africa still has enormous problems, topped by HIV/AIDS, but there are also signs of emergence. (The Chinese mega-push for raw materials doesn't hurt!) Both my Botswana and S.A. trips were heartening and enlightening—and fun. As usual the "making new friends" bit was the highlight. (I plan to take the Botswana folks who offered to show me some of the amazing parts of the bush and veldt up on their offers.)
Enjoyed a couple of Americans, too. Among others (Rudy Giuliani, Rev Jesse Jackson, Michael Porter) who spoke were Carly Fiorina and the Nike-Starbucks brand-builder-inventor Scott Bedbury. I spent a lot of time with both of them (and Carly's delightful husband Frank). She is an amazing person with enough energy and intelligence to sink an armada of ships; ironically, ever so many of her cherished and controversial strategic initiatives at HP are now paying off Big Time. (I won a rather big smile when I told her that I thought that the Jim Collins Wall Street Journal Op-ed column trashing the then-prospective HP-Compaq merger was "one of the stupidest, ill-informed things that I had ever read"—which I did and do. In fact the HP-Compaq link-up is one of the rare BigCo mergers that I've ever supported. And, BTW, it's mostly working.)
Flew all night last night to London. And will hike all weekend in glorious Cornwall on England's matchless Coastal Path. Then an event here mid-week, back to the U.S.A. for another event, in MI—followed by a full month "on the Farm" in VT. (Coincidentally, my next time out after that is three S.E.Asia speeches in early August where Ms Fiorina and I will amuse and entertain—and perhaps occasionally enlighten—a few roomfuls of folks.)
Gotta go—walk in Hyde Park beckons, followed by my ritual visit to "world's best bookstore"—Hatchards on Picadilly.
No surprise, everybody—EVERYBODY!—here in South Africa is positively blown away by Bill Gates' generosity. He's a one-man American reputational force!
Tom Peters posted this on 06/23/2006.
We got a Comment on my Sarbanes Oxley Post decrying the effect the Legislation is having on innovation-in-America. Here was my response:
"Dee, don't disagree about the SarbOx dampening effect—but shouldn't a little of the blame be diverted from Washington to Skilling, Lay, Ebbers, the Rigases et al.???"
Tom is speaking again to the Global Leaders Africa Summit, today, in an all-day seminar. You can get the slides presentation here: GLAS Full-Day.
Cathy Mosca posted this on 06/22/2006.
Something new! Joseph Finder (short i) writes best-selling novels—thrillers set in the business world (hence his relevance to tompeters.com). He started his career with the non-fiction Red Carpet, turned to fiction in 1991, and never looked back. He now has 7 fiction books out, the last two of which, Paranoia and Company Man, were New York Times bestsellers. His latest is Killer Instinct, and you can read what he has to say about it in his Cool Friend interview. To learn more about Finder and his other books, see his website: www.josephfinder.com.
Cathy Mosca posted this on 06/21/2006.
All of us here at tp.com want to wish all of you a happy first day of summer and a happy longest day of the year (at least all of you in the northern hemisphere). Get out there and soak up that sunlight. (Don't forget the sunscreen.) A change of season also means a new banner image at the site. More flowers, more sky, more bugs. Or are those butterflies flitting around there?
Erik Hansen posted this on 06/21/2006.
Johannesburg, South Africa, is the site of today's event, the Global Leaders Africa Summit. Follow the link to see the line-up, which includes the names of all the speakers Tom's been sharing the stage with lately, and more. You can find complete bios by clicking through on the names. (There are several that were new to me.)
Here is Tom's presentation for downloading:
Global Leaders Africa Summit, final version
The subject of Innovation is occupying Tom a great deal lately, and one result is a slew of PPTs. They're not all about Innovation, but a variety of topics, old and new.
First, there's Innovation Tactics, all new today.
Next, there's Innovation Tactics + Action, where the new PPT is combined with yesterday's offering.
And finally, there are two updates: All You Need to Know and Excellence Opener.
An article in today's adage.com discusses recruiting firm Spencer Stuart's latest survey on the longevity of chief marketing officers. The key result: The average CMO lasts in the job only 23.2 months, down from 23.6 just two years ago. More than 50% of CMOs surveyed had been in the job less than a year.
The causes? The implications? I have my thoughts, which I'll share in the comments. Your thoughts?
Steve Yastrow posted this on 06/20/2006.
The photo above is one Tom took to portray the desert—where only the prickliest survive. He's in Botswana to speak to a group from Mascom Wireless. Here is the main presentation for downloading. More to follow.
Preparing for his Botswana presentation, Tom updated some existing PPTs, put past offerings into new combinations, and fashioned a first-time PPT around a new topic. See the new Tom Peters on Action.
Also available:
Excellence Opener (update)
Excellence Always, Master (update)
Excellence Always, Stitched (new combination)
Irreducibles 209+ / Sales 122 / 60 TIBs (update and new combination)
Confronted during an executive session with Investec in Mauritius. One fellow pointedly asks (Jim Collins and I had both been on the day's program.): "So what's 'for sure'? Anything?"
Frankly, I said, "No." And there's a part of me that believes that. The world is too fluid for certainties.
Then, while walking and thinking today (no Walkman), it occurred that "people matter most" is pretty damn close to a "certainty." (And nowhere near as trite as it sounds at first blush. So many give lip service, so few follow through.) Well, I kept walking ... and more and more stuff bubbled up. Got back to my hotel room, and started pecking away at the keyboard. 173 items and one more walk later, I called it a day-evening. My label for this list is "The Irreducibles"—stuff that I'm pretty sure is pretty sure. Please enjoy the fruits of Sunday's labor in PDF and PPT forms.
Tom Peters posted this on 06/18/2006.
Union Square. San Francisco. Borders. Walk past a biz book titled Sarbanes-Oxley for Dummies. Buy it. Skim it. Learn an enormous amount.
Hooray for the DUMMIES series. Uneven or not, it provides a great service. Sure, I could have "made my own" on the Web. But this served its purpose: Written in plain English. Well organized. Highlights laid out for ... Dummies. Main points digestible in a couple of hours. A decent reference work—a starter's kit as it were.
Am I now a Sarbox/SOX/Sarbanes-Oxley expert? Of course not, but my overall comprehension level has soared.
Good job.
Tom Peters posted this on 06/16/2006.
You see from his post that Tom's in California today. Specifically, Napa Valley (nice), speaking to SPL. SPL provides software that supports strategic management activities—customer care, outages, etc.—for utilities. For the slides, use the links below:
SPL, Final Version
SPL, Long Web Version
Old story. But never an old story. I went to Whole Foods and Starbucks back-to-back yesterday afternoon. No holes: Every (EVERY—perhaps 6?) staff member was pleasant, chatty, informed, etc.
I remain amazed.
Sounds a bit like the Golden Rule—and I guess it is. This is obvious: If I treat EVERY service provider as my CUSTOMER (even when they are having a bad day) ... then I radically increase the odds of getting good-great service from my "customer." This notion is a first-class "Duh," but it struck me anew yesterday. I went into an electronics shop and badly needed help. The only clerk in the store is in no danger of winning the "employee of the month" award. Yet I showered him with love & affection, as it were, and got an unfair share of his time-attention; in the end he offered pretty damn good advice. (Moreover I didn't let the little prick ruin MY day! And he actually wasn't a L.P., he was mostly left holding the bag by his manager—perhaps a B.P.)
Hence my "golden rule" du jour: My service provider is my customer. To get good service give good service to those who service you.
As I said: Duh!
Tom Peters posted this on 06/15/2006.
A GE Energy salesperson reinforced this idea for me. Suppose you are making a complex "systems"/"solutions" sale. To pull it off (get it thoroughly implemented—the basis for repeat business) you need help—LOTS OF—from a host of folks inside GE-wherever. These folks are congenitally overworked—and have a queue of salespersons needing help. Your Goal #1: Get an UNFAIR SHARE (this is the way the GE guy put it) of these insiders' time & energy & attention. The time of the sale is way, way too late. These are Internal Relationships you should have been forming and minding long, long ago.
The "simple" point: By developing a scintillating (extensive, deep) internal network you probably increase your external success dramatically.
(I call all this—inside or out—ROIR. Return On Investment in Relationships.)
Hint/Duh II: It takes a lot of time!
Tom Peters posted this on 06/15/2006.
Morning on the Grey Meadow Farm. 0614.2006. So why am I leaving on another trip?
Tom Peters posted this on 06/14/2006.
KFC/Yum Brands were sued over trans fat yesterday. I am unalterably opposed to regulating the dickens out of the food-fast food industry.
But ...
We literally can't live with trans fat. (Trans fat + high-fructose corn syrup USA = HIV/AIDS Africa?) So what the hell are we supposed to do-going to do?
Just when I thought innovation—or "design thinking"—couldn't get much hotter, I see that BusinessWeek has launched a quarterly magazine within the magazine: Inside Innovation. In this mini-mag, innovation is hailed as "the new currency of competition ... the Holy Grail of 21st century business." But more interesting is Inside Innovation's choice for its top 25 Champions of Innovation (C-suite executives from Chief Innovation Officers to Chief Marketing Officers) who are hell-bent on transforming their companies' cultures in pursuit of design thinking: nearly 70% are women. Is this where two mega-trends in business (innovation and women's leadership) join forces for maximum impact? Has innovation cut a permanent hole in the ceiling?
John O'Leary posted this on 06/13/2006.
My speakers bureau was interested in finding out which industries I'd spoken to most frequently of late. Hence, I put together what follows. It covers the period 1 Jan 2004 through 9 June 2006. Hence, FYI:
Type-Industry
Public seminar ... 55
Information Systems/Information Technology/Telecommunications ... 26
Financial Services ... 25
Consulting/Law/Services ... 21
Retail ... 17
Industrial ... 12
Healthcare ... 9
Universities ... 7
Human Resources ... 6
Public Sector ... 6
Media ... 5
Hospitality ... 3
Location/non-U.S.A.
Europe ... 31
Mexico, South America, Caribbean ... 13
Middle East ... 8
Asia/South Asia ... 5
Africa ... 4
Australia-New Zealand ... 3
Canada ... 2
Home in Vermont—catching up and warming up for the next foray ... Napa Valley, Botswana, South Africa, London, and Mackinac Island MI. Attached you'll find a collection of "Musings: 25 Micro-presentations," and a brief "ExcellenceOpener." As usual, some bits will be more obvious than others.
Tom Peters posted this on 06/12/2006.
It's all about a certain book in a certain place, according to our friends at Coudal Partners who've just posted another batch of this year's Field-Tested Books. Book review and Baedeker all in one. It's just one example of all the wild, wonderful, and wacky stuff put up for our pleasure by the Coudal gang.
Erik Hansen posted this on 06/08/2006.
Our friend and former colleague, Geoff Thatcher, is looking for some quick feedback on a blog he and a co-worker have fast prototyped. Geoff works for Carat, which calls itself an independent media communications network. There is one business unit there that specializes in placing executives from Philips, HP, Amdocs, SAP, and other companies as keynote speakers at events around the world. Apparently, folks there have been talking about creating a website to support that unit for the last couple of years.
Tired of waiting, Geoff and his co-conspirator have set up AboveCLevel.net, and he's anxious to get feedback on the site. If people vote thumbs up, he'll take the info to his leadership team. If it's thumbs down, well, hardly any money spent and no one the wiser. Except you folks who visit. Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners (design firm that took tompeters.com from static website to blog-powered site) is responsible for the clever AboveCLevel name.
Erik Hansen posted this on 06/08/2006.
Tom was trolling the Web recently, followed a link here, a link there, and ended up at Ed Batista's blog. Loved it. And Ed Batista became the next addition to our blogroll. Here are the entries Tom especially liked: Update on Pfeffer and Sutton's Hard Facts and Jon Stewart's commencement address.
Here's my choice: Barnabe Peak. Great photos, and a very effective use of strike-through, which you can see in his Dead Laptop entry, also.
Welcome to the blogroll, Ed.
Cathy Mosca posted this on 06/08/2006.
As you know, Tom's in Mexico City, speaking for his good friends at HSM. Here are the slides presentations for the day:
ExpoManagement/HSM/Mexico D.F.—A.M.
ExpoManagement/HSM/Profuturo/Mexico D.F.—P.M.
It's true all over the world, but nowhere more than in Mexico (Italy?) in my opinion. What we (Americans) call "Mexican food" bears little or no or zip or naught or nada resemblance to the fantastic fare that Mexicans eat on the street or in excellent restaurants. (For a global "street food nut," it doesn't get much better than Mexico—only Thailand can offer a run for the money. And, yes, I am blessed with an iron gut. Knock wood.)
Tom Peters posted this on 06/08/2006.
You can't take the engineer out of the boy. I'm a numbers nut, a careful recorder of minutiae. Hence I can delightedly report that yesterday (0607) was my 365th consecutive day of exercising—I've only hit the one-year mark once before. (Averaging, according to my somewhat accurate pedometer, 5.1 miles per day of speedwalking.) (23 countries from Mauritius to Oman to Russia/Siberia; 19 states but not Hawaii.)
Now that I've finished patting—whacking—myself on the back, I'll make mention of one "little" part of the story. In the last 365 days, about half on the road, perhaps 200 flights, I have not once—NOT ONCE!—set foot on a moving walkway in an airport. I firmly believe that such "little stuff" truly does add up. (I've also, except when physically impossible, refrained from taking trams between terminals; it is in fact possible to avoid them much of the time—e.g., Atlanta, Dallas.*) (*For about a third of the year, my roller bag suffered from seized wheel bearings—adding a little extra drag to the process. I actually decided not to replace it because I thought that extra drag required a few more ergs of energy expenditure.)
I'm late to Carl Hiaasen. But I'm going bananas. Currently I'm reading Skinny Dip. (Erik Hansen informs me, by the way, that a new Alan Furst is available.)
A couple of months ago Consumer Reports named Japanese cars as best in all 10 categories considered. A couple of weeks ago it was reported that for the first time Asian market share exceeded 40%. Yesterday Toyota announced they'd sold their 500,000th Prius.*
Comments?
(*But unlike "Chairman Chicken" Nardelli at Home Depot, Rick Wagoner at GM, usually one of my favorite punching bags, did show up with his Board to face the music—think "Stomp"—at the Annual Meeting.)
Tom Peters posted this on 06/08/2006.
Fred Reichheld is our new Cool Friend. He has made loyalty—and its effect on growth, good profits, and lasting value—the focus of his work. His current book is The Ultimate Question. You can see more at his book website, join the discussion at his blog, or read his Cool Friend interview here.
Cathy Mosca posted this on 06/07/2006.
Important presidential race in progress. Above: Billboard for surprise leading candidate, a leftist-centrist who was the former Mayor of Mexico City. I'm here for a speech tomorrow to 2,000 presented by my old Brazilian pals, HSM. (TP, General Powell, and other of the usual suspects—and, at last, a female "guru"-star, Renée Mauborgne, coauthor of the highly regarded Blue Ocean Strategy.)
Still reeling from my nasty affair in Boca Raton. But also reaping benefits; here's a slightly extended version of yesterday's PowerPoint on when the problem is not the problem. One additional idea: Oh my, how powerful (and, oddly, rare) a simple "I'm sorry" can be—even if the speaker has little ability to fix the problem; at least he-she is attempting to establish empathetic human contact! In my Affaire Boca the front desk manager kept blaming the problem on me! Even if it had been true, and assuming I hadn't shot another guest, that is a stupid tactic!
Tom Peters posted this on 06/07/2006.
Some folks, especially in big organizations, ceaselessly bitch & moan about "organizational politics." "Wipe them out," they petulantly insist; "we must get on with things." A lovely sentiment—but it reveals a frightening lack of comprehension of the human animal. (And even close ancestors, like the apes.)
One cure to "ceaseless politics," it is sometimes said, is a ... Transcendent Cause ... that brings one and all together in service to a greater goal. To which I can only reply, "In your dreams."
Yesterday we celebrated the 62nd anniversary of D-Day. Surely D-Day was the sort of cause and occasion to transcend politics! I repeat, "In Your dreams." To remind myself of the ubiquity of politics-among-humans, I occasionally re-read David Irving's magisterial The War Between the Generals: Inside the Allied High Command. For your reading enjoyment, here, from the back cover of the book, are a few choice words among the chief participants:
"A man of great mediocrity."—General George Patton about General Omar Bradley ...... "A third-rate general. He never did anything or won any battle that any other general could not have won as well or better."—General Omar Bradley about Sir Bernard Montgomery ...... "If you want to end the war in any reasonable time, you will have to remove Ike's hand from the control of the land battle."—Sir Bernard Montgomery about General Dwight Eisenhower ...... "One thing that might help win this war is to get someone to shoot King."—General Dwight Eisenhower about Admiral & Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King ...... "Eisenhower, though supposed to be running the land war, is on the golf links at Rhiems—entirely detached and taking practically no part in running the war."—Sir Alan Brooke, British commander of the armed forces ...... "If the unhelpful British attitude continues, then I shall go home."—General Dwight Eisenhower.
I happen to believe there is a clear message here. Sure we should try to eliminate blatant back-stabbing (though that's precisely what these generals did to one another—even up to the point of complaining back-channel to Roosevelt & Churchill), but for those who would accomplish great ends, mastery (MASTERY!) of politics is an inescapable must.
Jill Ker Conway was an extremely effective leader of Smith College (and the first woman president of Smith). She explained that, despite her passion for the job, the decision to take it was excruciatingly difficult. One primary factor that tipped the scales toward acceptance was that she had greatly enjoyed the political to-and-fro that marked her tenure as Provost at the University of Toronto, where she was when the Smith offer materialized. Knowing that she was walking into a political fray of the first order, she needed to assess her readiness.
(FYI, the politics of Nobel-level science—eyes on the prize and all that—is as down and dirty as it gets. Except, perhaps, for what goes on—around the globe—when the time to choose a new Pope arises. Surely those are sad blows to the "noble sentiment" purists.)
So would-be achievers, hone your political skills! I'm not encouraging you to become a shit, but I am encouraging you to learn not only to live with, but to love the messiness of interactions among your fellow human beings. I, for one, love it—and it hasn't hurt my career to do so. And, self-servingly, I don't think I've become a creep in the process.
Tom Peters posted this on 06/07/2006.
From Mexico City tomorrow night to respite-land, Tinmouth Vermont. Above, Grey Meadow Farm in May (this year); I've also added a few more farm-in-May pics at Flickr. (The Big Deal: The Farm allows me to de-compress in, literally, minutes.)
Perhaps we have some 80+ year-old readers. If so and if they were at Normandy for D-Day, I'd be woefully remiss by not mentioning & honoring the 62nd anniversary of that seminal event.
Tom Peters posted this on 06/06/2006.
I am responding to the comments concerning "stating the obvious" with a very short PowerPoint ("THE PROBLEM IS RARELY THE PROBLEM").
Tom Peters posted this on 06/06/2006.
"Stating the obvious" is how I've spent much of the last quarter century ("people are important"). Fact is, there's little more important than stating the obvious—over and over.
So here I go again:
The problem is rarely the problem. The response to the problem is usually the problem. (Think Watergate and Martha Stewart.)
Ta-da: So work proactively and assiduously on that response—remembering, to state the obvious, that ... perception is all there is!
Genesis: an incredibly crappy ("die rather than go back") experience at the Boca Raton Resort & Club—which doubly annoyed me because I had such a lovely time with newfound colleagues at the Direct Selling Association, and wished (literally) to savor the experience, not have it supplanted by an untoward event. The "event"/problem, as implied above, was far from endangering the earth; but the stunningly & repeatedly rude & inept & disingenuous* (*"disingenuous" = lie/s) response to the problem played havoc with my blood pressure as well as my morale and my view of humankind. (NB: Uncharacteristically, I plan to get even. E.g., starting with this Blogpost.)
Tom Peters posted this on 06/06/2006.
The Wall Street Journal reports that to return to something resembling profitability, the airlines have resorted to the last resort—doing the obvious. Namely: Stop doing dumb things. I.e.: Get rid of flights that lose money.
(The WSJ earlier reported that financial analyst Donald V Potter had examined ROA/return on assets leaders in 240 industries. The chief commonality: Profit/ROA stars "aggressively weeded out customers who generate low returns.")
Tom Peters posted this on 06/06/2006.
IBM now has 43,000 employees in India. (Source: New York Times/June5.)
Hats off to BW. Two great articles in the current, June 12, issue. "The Skilling Trap," by Mark Gimein, is the best 1,000-word analysis of Enron I've read—by far. Michael Mandel's Hank Paulson piece, "Mr Risk Goes to Washington," is short and very sweet—even profound.
"Nothing is as fast as the speed of trust."—Stephen M.R. Covey
(Stephen M.R. is the son of Stephen, and his forthcoming book The Speed of Trust, which I just endorsed, is superb. What a line, eh: "Nothing is as fast as the speed of trust"—a truly original observation, assuming that some prescient Greek didn't get there 3 or 4 thousand years ago.)
Tom Peters posted this on 06/06/2006.
Tom sent us the picture above from the Boca Raton Resort & Club in Florida, where he's speaking at the annual meeting of the Direct Selling Association. You can get the slides for this event here:
Final version
Long Web Version
Human Resources magazine in the UK published a list of the Top 100 Most Influential people in HR (June 2006). In their words: "Here is the most definitive list ever published of HR's biggest movers and shakers, produced from names submitted by readers—and then ranked by the top 100 themselves."
Tom made the list. Maybe because he calls HR "The Rock Stars of the Age of Talent." You can see the whole list and accompanying article here.
The front page of the June 1 Boston Globe had this headline: "Hundreds Gather to Memorialize Galbraith." (That's the late Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith.) The accompanying photo prominently features arch conservative William F. Buckley Jr. I must admit that I wondered whether Mr Buckley was there to "memorialize" Galbraith ... or to make sure he was dead.
How horrid of me. But you know the zeal of us "born agains." I was a staunch Galbraith fan in the sixties—I reluctantly admit that JKG's New Industrial State was to me what Ayn Rand's Fountainhead apparently was to Alan Greenspan. I now think that Galbraith got absolutely everything dead wrong—and was even a dangerous man, especially because he wrote so well. To this point the historian Robert Conquest, called "the greatest living historian" by one of his prominent peers, muses about how one might respond to a Galbraithian tome: "'This is a beautifully printed and finely bound railway timetable'—but, unfortunately, its train times are wrong." (Robert Conquest, The Dragons of Expectation: Reality and Delusion in the Course of History.)
In summary: Galbraith thought entrepreneurship was passé-DOA. (Ironic that on the occasion of his memorial service the combined net worth of Google's two young founders more or less exceeded the value of the Harvard endowment, 370 years in the making.) Galbraith insisted that the U.S. and Soviet industrial systems were rapidly converging; according to him, we had both perfected (more or less his word) "technocratic management," and the elitist technocrat class would noiselessly run giant, built-to-last-forever enterprises ... enabling the common citizenry to invest in and spend enormous sums on "social goods."
What a fool. (And what a fool I was to be fooled—prior to my arrival in young Silicon Valley in 1970. To be perfectly honest, it took me until about '80 to get the entrepreneurial religion—after all, for most of that time I was at McKinsey, home to worshipers of huge enterprise, who believed in the perfectibility of such enterprises.)
Tom Peters posted this on 06/05/2006.
The hardback was published in 2005; the softback this year. I unflinchingly anoint it a "Top 5" biz book for the last couple of years. Namely: Naked in the Boardroom, by entrepreneur and wildly successful BigCo exec Robin Wolaner. It is by far (assuming I know the turf, which I think I pretty much do) the best book on strategy and tactics for women aiming to make it big in business—big biz or entrepreneurial biz. Moreover, I think any male—myself included, at age 63—can learn an enormous amount from this book.
Consider this fast start (pps xi and xii): "While today you enter the workforce believing that you can have any position to which you aspire, you are still told to put on a business face, to make decisions based on analysis instead of personal beliefs and gut instincts, and, especially, to leave your emotions behind when you enter the office. Let's face it: The message is that to succeed, you should be more like men.
"That's wrong. ...
"The lessons I learned in business all point to one broad truth: Success follows when you use what you've got. You will succeed because of, not in spite of, your personal traits. The trick is to make your aptitude and flair work for you in a style that is uniquely yours."
Chapter 1, and what's not to love about it, is titled: "Hey Carly, It's Different Being a Woman." The start: "When Carly Fiorina was named CEO of Hewlett-Packard, her insistence that being female was not part of her success story struck every woman I know as either delusional or a lie."
Ms Wolaner organizes the easy-to-read & anecdote-filled book around a series of "Naked Truths" that appear throughout the book. The First: "NAKED TRUTH # 1: Sometimes it's better to be a female in business, sometimes it's worse, but it's rarely the same."
Then: "NAKED TRUTH # 2: Business is personal."
"NAKED TRUTH # 5: Viva la difference. When being a female is an advantage, use it."
"NAKED TRUTH # 9: Showing honest emotion usually helps you in the workplace."
"NAKED TRUTH # 12: Before worrying overly about your job's lack of challenge—and certainly before complaining about it—concentrate on delivering."
On it goes, through "NAKED TRUTH # 80: The time to arrange credit is when you don't need to borrow."
Callow youth, top dog, besieged entrepreneur, F or M, this book is a keeper!
Tom Peters posted this on 06/05/2006.
Home Depot's board members no-shows for annual meeting—meeting lasts minutes. Wal*Mart's annual meeting includes a live Broadway review—meeting lasts hours.
Asian cars' market share in U.S. exceeds 40% for the first time—fuel-efficient cars lead the way. American response: GM effectively gives fuel away to new Suburban and Hummer buyers.
On Sunday, May 21, 97 new docs graduated from the University of Vermont's College of Medicine—62% were women. On June 2, Tom Mortenson of the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education was quoted as saying: "Women have been making educational progress, and the men are stuck. They haven't just fallen behind women. They have fallen behind changes in the job market."
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation's (Kansas City) annual "Index of Entrepreneurial Activity" finds that immigrants are starting new businesses at a rate that's about 25% higher than native-born Americans.
Tom Peters posted this on 06/05/2006.
The Republicans, led by Karl Rove, are rallying the base with the image of "Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi." Instead of "Contract with America," the tag line goes, she'll offer the USA ... "Contract with San Francisco."
I have a lot of problems with Ms Pelosi—and am distinctly unexcited with the idea of her as speaker—though I'd love to see a woman on the job. (On the other hand, Speaker Hastert, The Sequel, is hardly the sort of thing that stirs one's heart either. )
But that's not my point. My point is much simpler, speaking as a 30-year resident of the SF Bay Area (7 years residence in SF working for McKinsey, 20+ years "on the Peninsula"—Woodside and Palo Alto). And it is: We could, as a nation, do a helluva lot worse than emulating San Francisco and the Bay Area. In fact, I fervently believe we'd have a hard time doing better. Put aside the debate on gay marriage or whatever bugs Mr Rove's base. Think instead: concentration of academic excellence, with a true global peer only in MA. Accumulated-accumulating intellectual property—unmatched anywhere in the world. Venture capital by the trainload, from Angels to IPOs. Start-ups and more startups—and an extraordinary infrastructure to support them. Sustainable (to the extent that's possible today) global leadership in perhaps half the fields of science-enterprise that'll determine U.S. economic life or death over the next quarter century. Bizarrely energetic immigrants by the tens of thousands—with thousands more in the queue. Pure & simple critical mass acting as a talent and money and raw-energy attractant—and forming the backdrop for a robust, rapid Darwinian competitive sorting process. "Business models" galore, undergoing constant refinement, that are, at the moment, impenetrable by our new international competitors. Etc. Etc. And, to be sure, an awful NBA franchise—nobody's perfect.
"Contract with the San Francisco Bay Area"? We should be so lucky!
(Some will argue that SF is not the "Bay Area." Wrong, very wrong. The special potion that makes up the magical Bay Area depends on ingredients, direct and indirect, from SF in a thousand ways. No SF, no Bay Area—and no most potent locale & definer-of-the-future in the world, bar none.)
Tom Peters posted this on 06/05/2006.
Jim McGee, writing in the Future Tense blog over at Corante, put up a post back in February titled "A reading list for aspiring knowledge workers." It seems like quite an interesting list. Just so happens that one of our fairly recent Cool Friends, Patricia Ryan Madson, is on the list for her book Improv Wisdom. Must be a good list.
Erik Hansen posted this on 06/01/2006.
In my web wanderings for the TP Wire Service, I found this photo from Russell Davies highlighted at the MIT Advertising Lab. Having a notes layer is a cool Flickr feature, but the content of the note is what really caught my eye: "You can quibble with the exclamation marks but not with the enthusiasm. Worth reading." Thanks Russell!
Shelley Dolley posted this on 06/01/2006.What we're talking about on the front page.
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