In Case You Missed These

Here are a few stories of note from the TP Wire Service today:

What Not To Do

RadioShack lays off employees via e-mail
This is an incredibly shameful way to treat your employees.

What To Do

The lunatic fringe at Texas Instruments
Fortune has a piece in its current issue (not yet posted at their website) about how the folks at Texas Instruments are innovating. They're doing exactly what Tom's been talking about for years, allowing weird people to do weird projects (see Chapter 23 of Re-imagine!).

What Would You Do?

Slo-Mo Home Depot
... if you saw people shopping in slow motion or frozen in place at your local Home Depot? In the Manhattan Home Depot, 225 people did just that.

Nice!

The extraordinary founder & chairman of India's powerhouse Infosys, Narayana Murthy, is "retiring." He is assuming the title of "Chief Mentor."

Nice!

(Mr Murthy is one of the most extraordinary human beings I've had the privilege of meeting. He is an industrial visionary and company builder par excellence, to be sure; but it's his fundamental decency, lack of pomp, and approachability that leave the biggest mark. Moreover, his unwavering commitment to his country's future has been remarkable. If I were to give an excellence in Enterprise/Excellence in Life award, he'd be the winner or a surefire finalist.)

So, I'm Messy. What of it ...

Over the course of time, several site visitors have asked for a peek at my office. While idling away my time yesterday afternoon I picked up my camera. Above and below you'll see the result; a few more are up at flickr.

So, I'm messy. What of it?

Sure, It's Just a Slogan ...

It'll certainly never compete with "Just Do It!" or even HP's "Invent." But I do take a shine to Northface's "Never Stop Exploring."

(Moreover, the quality and design of their stuff is phenomenally good and consistent, to my mind.)

Pursuit of Luck

Tom's 1994 book was called Pursuit of WOW!, but before that he had a small piece in Liberation Management called "Pursuit of Luck." It came to our attention as the result of an email from one of our readers (thank you!), and it's now posted here as a PDF. In the end, Tom invites you to write down your own list of opposites to his ideas. Try it.

Being There Is the Heart of the Matter

I guess it won't surprise you ... but I can't keep my mouth shut. Hey, it's been good for my net worth.

The other day a close friend was really upset about a professional thing. I was at a loss as to how to be helpful. When he finished his tale, I for once shut my mouth. All the way. No advice. No request for more details. Or clarifications. I was in fact at a loss for words, but that's almost beside the point.

I simply sat with him, both of us in total silence, for what felt like an eternity, but was probably no more than 10 minutes. He slowly got up, and simply said, "Thanks for being here."

I guess we all know this, even me, the noisy one: There are times—not so infrequent—where just being there—and silent—is the best gift of understanding and support you can provide.

I'm not doing family counseling here—because I believe this is a strong tonic, as peer or boss, in the workplace.

Smile

Is there anything more powerful than a genuine smile? (Help me here—there are better words than "genuine.") In any setting? Is there any gift more appreciated than a smile?

"I Apologize"

Pride goeth before the fall—I just made that up. Okay, I didn't, but here's my corollary: "If in doubt ... apologize."

"I'm sorry" goes a long, long way and defuses many a volatile situation, and helps avoid many a severed personal or business relationship.

I was recently in an equivocal situation. There was a screw-up of some significance. I was "party" to the problem, but I do truly think I'm but 10% of the reason for the mess. But why the hell let something fester? I decided to take the heat; I not only apologized, but penned (yes, "penned") a note of apology which I FedExed to the aggrieved party.

I did feel awful for the mess, no matter whose doing it was—so the whole thing was genuine. And I'd add: It "worked." That is, a breach that could have widened or deepened was not only avoided, but the aftermath was a more positive relationship than before.

Whose fault was it? Truly? Truly: It doesn't matter a wit. It's seldom clear whose fault it is—except to your ego. As I said before: Pride goeth before the fall. ("Pride maketh the fall"—not too pretty, but that one is mine.)

Boat Guy

I'm a "boat guy" through and through. I'm putting up my best dozen boat pictures from my Sweden-Norway trip at flickr.

Sorry!

Manuscripts pour into my studio like a little Niagara. I probably endorse less than 5% of what descends. I recently got two books I pretty much thought I'd green light. Neither editor's cover letter had a direct email.

I passed.

Anything Changed? Not Clear!

I had a long phone conversation with a woman friend-renowned organizational change consultant. The topic of life on the road, near and dear to both of us (I head for Australia on Friday), arose, and we meandered from here to there.

At one point the chat turned to women traveling-working solo in ... 2006.

Silly, naïve me. I assumed (hey it's an area of my so-called expertise) that the phenomenon of "hitting on" or worse, though hardly dead, had been trimmed significantly in, say, the last 10 or so years—at least in the office context.

Whoops!

There were no tears or tantrums, but she regaled me non-stop and sometimes with details that I could have lived without ("sorry, but to get this you need more than the 'overview'," I think she said) with tale after tale of incredibly aggressive male behavior ("hitting on" and then some and some more) that routinely occurs on the job and off when she's on the road. In fact, she implied, but did not say, that the absence of immodest "hitting on" is more or less unusual.

There is perhaps no point to this Post other than underscoring my naïveté. But at least it also underscores one of my constant themes: Life for women, including professional life for powerful women, is a far cry from life for men.

Implications? All yours ...

Depends on What the Meaning of "Is" Is:

Or, Why I Don't Watch the Evening News. Or, the Speech Is the Thing.

Katie Couric is quoted as follows in BusinessWeek's "What Makes a Winner: The Competition Issue" (08.21-28.06): "Television is one of the most competitive arenas anywhere. I think the only way to thrive and survive in that atmosphere is to have the love of competition in your blood."

(For the record: As an avowed, vociferous champion of women in leadership roles, I'm delighted that Ms Couric has become the first solo woman anchor on network evening news.)

That quote helps me realize why I don't watch evening news. If your ultimate goal is to "compete," presumably for ratings supremacy, in my opinion you are/one is doomed to mediocrity.

Start here: I am an obnoxiously intense competitor, and have been for a half century, with no let up in sight. Among other things, today I regularly Google myself against the "competition" in "speaking world"—weekly vs Jack Welch and Rudy Giuliani. (Mostly keepin' the lead, though RG will nail me as the presidential election campaign approaches—but then he won't be on the circuit.) I want badly to "win" in comparative speakers' ratings at big conferences—and I'm in despair for days when that doesn't happen. I track book sales; etc; etc.

But ...

But the fact of the matter is that the only person I truly compete against is myself. Is it the best damned speech I could give? Did I push "them" hard enough, too hard? Did I connect in a way that makes a difference in a few attendees' lives? Is there enough genuinely new material in the speech? Did I take risks with new-provocative material? (Risks that might clobber those evaluations after the fact. OH LORD, I SHUDDER AS I RECALL TWO RECENT EXAMPLES—I survived 'em both, and one led directly to a Big corporate change.) Was the entire two hours or whatever spent, without a second's letup, living on or near or past the edge? Were they scared-aroused? Was I scared? Was I literally sick with mental & physical exhaustion when I staggered off the stage? Can I sincerely continue to claim, even if only to myself, that I am perpetually re-imaging the entire world of management thinking & business practice (yikes)? Etc.

When Rather "competed" against Brokaw and Jennings for ratings, the competition per se was the thing—and the product for all three, while competent, was and long has been same-same. Take a true risk, and perhaps watch ratings wobble for 6 months? What a joke!

In late 2003, Dorling Kindersley and I published Re-imagine! Did I want good sales? Damn right! But if "good sales" had been the principal goal I would have penned the "big book" that other publishers wanted. I went to DK because of one and only one thing (surely not the advance!): I wanted to re-imagine the business book! (And they were game.) Did I track sales? Of course. (We—publisher and I—were moderately happy.) But I mostly loved the Amazon reviews: Nothing in the middle! People loved the book, and indeed its attempt to change the genre. Or hated it. (NB: As a speaker, I far prefer 1s or 10s in my evaluations to a bucket of 7s.)

Renée Mauborgne and Chan Kim, authors of Blue Ocean Strategy, tell us: "To grow, companies need to break out of a vicious cycle of competitive benchmarking and imitation." "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." (As usual, Churchill more or less got there first: "The short road to ruin is to emulate the methods of your adversary.")

Here's the sort of thing I dearly wish Ms Couric had said: "Ratings are the least of it. Evening TV news is stale, in the tank, even laughable. It doesn't need a 'cool' or 'refreshing' 'female' anchor. It needs to be blown up and re-thought from the ground up. If the program I anchor looks or smells or feels anything at all like evening news of the Cronkite-Rather era I will have failed miserably and horribly abused a golden opportunity, even if I do edge out the guys at the other networks."

Kim and Mauborgne dote on Cirque du Soleil. (Me too.) Our Montreal pals re-imagined the whole idea of "circus"—and took an insane risk in the process. And they indeed turned their and our world upside down—in fact they unequivocally invented a new planet within the larger solar system of entertainment. That's the idea!

In On Becoming a Leader, Warren Bennis makes this intriguing claim, based on his muscular research: "No leader sets out to be a leader per se, but rather to express him- or herself freely and fully. That is leaders have no interest in proving themselves, but an abiding interest in expressing themselves."

I burst at the seams, at 63.8, as I anticipate the opening of the 2006 "fall season" in Adelaide 10 days from now. I want to "express myself"—to bore in deeper to the souls & hearts & minds of my participants, to make my renovated message of Excellence resonate and act as a clarion call to "risky" action in halls and boardrooms across the/all lands.

Will I read the evaluations from Adelaide? Of course! Will I still Google Welch & Rudy & me? Of course! But the-speech-is-the-thing! My "competition," my hypercompetitive-need: Will it have been the best & most provocative & original & troubling & exciting speech I have ever even attempted to give? If not, as 'tis said, it will be a long plane trip back from Australia!

Please, please Ms Couric—don't "compete" with those other predictable saps. Stun us with the audacity of your effort to help us understand anew and cope with the bizarre world in which we are trying to somehow make our way.

Tiger Time. (And More Katie.)

Once again Tiger Woods is demonstrating a level of Excellence seldom seen in sports or elsewhere.

Is his flavor of Excellence about preparation and perfection? Of course, just as is the case for Lance Armstrong—or Cirque du Soleil. But that's but the half of it—and perhaps the less important half. The "excellence" that flows from the prep and perfection is a necessary but nowhere nearly sufficient condition for my flavor of Excellence. Mr Woods is in fact playing golf as it has not been played before. Still eighteen holes? Of course. But his variety of Mastery is unprecedented. The same, in an earlier era, could have been said of Robert Trent Jones.

I have argued, in re corporations, that Excellence is not merely stand-way-out performance but the ability—à la Wal*Mart today and IBM in the '60s and '70s—to Set the Agenda. Wal*Mart and old IBM re-invented the game to the point of unfamiliarity. Surpassed? IBM was and Wal*Mart surely will be. But for a decade or more they did-are "keeping other CEOs awake at night" worrying about where they will turn next.

Katie Couric redux: Please, please Ms Couric—don't compete with those other predictable saps. Stun us with the audacity of your effort to help us understand anew and cope with the bizarre world in which we are trying to somehow make our way.

Scratch the Intro History Courses!

(And the Strategic Plan?)

I love history. I love reading history. I love visiting history. I love watching documentaries. If life were a tad longer, I'd seriously consider going to school to get an advanced history degree. (Hmmm ... maybe I will.)

I love history so much that I want to can 98% of history courses as they are taught in high school—maybe even a bunch of the entry-level collegiate stuff, too.

Introductory "history class" today may not continue to spread the rumor about G Washington and that dreadful cherry tree, but it is invariably presented, in early years, as a linear affair with a clearly discernable narrative-plot. (As we Americans know all too well today, Middle Eastern history is not exactly linear!)

I was sooooo lucky. Mr Chapin taught me and my mates history in the 10th grade (age 15 give or take). He audaciously assigned a controversial, adult history text: Charles Beard's remarkable An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. Mr. Beard explained in excruciating detail, to huzzahs and hoots from his peers, the relationship of clause after clause of our Sacred Document to the narrow self-interests of the landowning tribe who met in Philadelphia to put together a useful governing doctrine to keep the squabbling states from self-destructing.

Of course Adams and Jefferson and others strived mightily to introduce a wholly new philosophy of human governance. Thank God, both sides succeeded, and the text has proven to be an extraordinary, durable mix of the Sacred and the Profane.

My point is that the process and the participants and the motivations were non-linear in the extreme. Justice Roberts and Justice Stevens and President Bush and Speaker Hastert are still busy sorting it out 219 years later.

Yes, I am an avid reader of history, but I strictly limit myself to texts that explore the mess and the human conflict that undergird each & every important event. Recent reading/re-reading: The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger—Marc Levinson. Tube: The Invention of Television—David Fisher & Marshall Fisher. Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World—Jill Jonnes. The Soul of a New Machine—Tracy Kidder. The Blitzkrieg Myth—John Mosier.

Closer to my intellectual home, linear approaches to business and business strategy of the Mike Porter flavor are, in my considered opinion, dangerous snares and delusions. They suggest the possibility of control of events in what is in fact a very murky world. (Think Iraq, eh?) As guru to gurus Henry Mintzberg said in his magisterial The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning: Strategies work brilliantly when you don't need them—when tomorrow is a more or less a linear extension of today and yesterday (GM vs Ford vs Chrysler in the 60s and 70s come to mind); they are virtually-utterly useless in times of dis-continuous change.

I just can't resist. As I was re-reading Henry recently, I came across this lovely snippet, actually a quote from the #1 strategic planning guru of the 60s, Russell Ackoff: "Recently I asked three corporate executives what decisions they had made in the last year that would not have been made were it not for their corporate plans. All had difficulty identifying one such decision. Since all of the plans are marked 'secret' or 'confidential,' I asked them how their competitors might benefit from possession of their plans. Each answered with embarrassment that their competitors would not benefit."

Your turn ...

(This Post is dedicated to Southwest's incomparable Herb Kelleher: "We have a 'strategic plan.' It's called 'doing things.'")

NB

As I wrote all this, I realized how much I live for this Blog! (NB: Today's Posts required well over 10 drafts. You know, the Tiger Woods thing.)

Ben & Jerry

I really don't want to be run out of the State of Vermont.

Your comments [in reaction to this blog] have been fabulous and stunningly thoughtful, and I will respond as the days go by. One person said he was surprised that I'd consider not speaking to B & J. I had to respond ... before I head down the driveway at my VT farm. Namely:

No! No! No!

I was simply trying to make the generic point about slippery slopes—and plastic definitions. If one is an avowed, vociferous champion for the "War on Childhood Obesity," could one in good faith speak to B & J about making the process of "marketing-megacalories-to-kids" more "excellent"?

At one level I have and will consider the nature of every institution I speak to, if for no other reason that time is in short supply and there is (praise be) an "oversupply" of opportunities. As to my examples of B & J, lawyers, and those whose service level pisses me off—the specifics were for illustrative purposes only!

(NB: I happen to be a fan of lawyers. Societies based on the Rule of Law tend to do a little better than others over time.)

Incidentally, I have had B & J problems—before they sold out to Unilever. E.g., the Holier-than Thou B & J founders bragged that no one was paid more than six (?) times as much as anybody else. "No one," that is, except Ben and Jerry and a few others who owned the company. (I don't care what their W-2s proclaimed.) Then there was the new CEO hunt based on applications submitted on ice cream container lids. How cool! Well, it didn't produce viable candidates, so B & J went to a headhunter, and after they had their man they had him fill out an ice cream lid. If you were looking for the one thing I most hate, and you said "hypocrisy"—you'd be spot on. (NB: As best I can determine, the Lid Tale is not Urban Legend.) (NB2: This case of hypocrisy would not have led me to turn down a speaking gig.)(NB3: I have not in fact, pre or post buyout, talked to B & J. "Why not?" you ask. Um ... they haven't invited me.)

Keep those comments coming!

(NB4: Why this discussion redux? Because I took a vacation pause and Susan happened to ask an "innocent" question that wasn't! It was, oddly, in reflection upon a novel she'd just finished. I think such Fundamental Noodling is imperative. I have a Catholic priest pal with a huge urban parish. I occasionally act as his de facto confessor—an apt role for a moderately lapsed Presbyterian. He often ... yes "often" ... at age 55+ ... as he puts it, "question my beliefs, and go through long troubled periods of wavering faith." He argues—and I wholeheartedly agree!—that you should never trust a religious leader who doesn't question his/her faith from time to somewhat frequent time. Among other things it leads him to greater empathy—and hence effectiveness as counselor—with the troubled among his parishioners. TP: So, too, "management gurus"!)

Help Me Here!

Your turn to do the work!

While we were on vacation in Norway & Sweden, one evening's conversation took a serious turn. Susan questioned the propriety of a particular speech I was giving this Fall. It led to a sweeping & intense & lengthy family discussion of what it is I do and whether there are certain groups I should not talk to.

It subsequently led me to do a little writing to figure out what I thought about what she was arguing.* I will share it with you soon enough. But as I prepared to Post it today, I thought it would be useful to hold off and get your thoughts and biases on this all-important (to me) issue.

(*Back to my Principal Professional Bias in Life—and the topic of several pre-vacation Posts. Detailed planning vs Action First/Think-Do vs Do-Think. When confronted with an imponderable issue like this, I rarely or never "think about it," but always & immediately start writing—I figure the writing per se will be my path to action-clarity. CK Chesterton: "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" Reporter: "Mr Drucker, why are you still giving speeches at 90?" PD: "How else can I figure out what I'm thinking?")

The discussion included the sublime and the ridiculous. I say I'm a Health-Wellness-Obesity-Hospital quality nut, and I'm increasingly talking with religious zeal to participants in that industry. So must I refuse to talk to cigarette companies and fast-food outfits? (I've spoken to Philip Morris, KFC, Boston Pizza, and Dunkin' Donuts, among others, in the last couple of years.) (And obviously I'd turn down in a flash Ben & Jerry's, the so-called do-gooders who clog arteries for a living.)

My wife's biases leaned toward her deeply held views on War & Peace. Do I talk to weapons' contractors, the Military, nations run de facto or de jure by dictators, nations that support terrorists (I reminded her of U.S. citizens' sub rosa support for the IRA in the past—that didn't go over well)? Nations that, in the distant past, gleefully burned down the White House?

Oil companies came under scrutiny as well. I tossed in financial services companies just for the hell of it—usurious practices, etc. Companies with crappy environmental records? Companies that put you on hold for long periods when you try to do business with them? Companies, like Dell, with questionable commitment to customer service? Companies with very low quantities of Women in senior roles? Church leadership groups, because extreme religious beliefs are responsible for most human conflict over the Ages? Congress? Recreation-industry groups because I think time off is a Mortal Sin? Law firms because, you know, "First thing, let's kill ..."? The Tom Peters Company, because it serves some of the categories listed above?

Obviously, before the evening was over it was clear that retirement was the only option. I jest, of course, because the question is in fact a damn good one. And I'd like your serious input. It is true that if you apply incredibly tight definitions of holier-than-thou morality you end up on the beach and without influence. But it's also true that too plastic a definition of morality is also intolerable—unless you've got the insane belief that you are here to right all the world's wrongs and can turn the tide at will.

My glib rebuttal in this family mini-drama was that (1) I am always a goodwill ambassador for the United States; (2) the World is a nasty place; (3) I am an avowed Capitalist Pig and believe that light regulations (don't ban fast food) and hearty economic growth is the best way, or at least the best we can do, to help Humanity forward a bit;** (4) my core message is about Human Liberation and Human Potential; (5) etc; (6) etc.

(**E.g.: I just read an excellent piece on the insane death total due to rampant malaria that claims, with a ton of supporting evidence, that malaria eradication happens almost automatically as per capita income increases.)

So you tell me: Declaim to all comers? Follow a restrictive path in extreme cases? (What's extreme, please? Be specific!) Retire?

(As you can tell, summer "vacation" in the Peters-Sargent family is not just a day/s at the beach.)

(I've obviously been flippant upon occasion in this Post, but that's because Susan put me on the defensive—and the issue is indeed so serious.)

The Family Tree

That's Erik ... with a "k." Our Erik [Hansen] is as Norwegian as they come! In fact, as far as I can tell, he is a direct descendant of Kong Bele—King Bele the Bellicose—whose burial mound was less than 100 yards from my hotel in Norway. We're still not revealing the full-body shot of modern Erik, so this will have to do for now. Below, the Norwegian flag aboard the boat we chartered to roam the fjords for stepson Ben's 21st birthday.

All Business

The excuse for our family vacation was Max and Ben's participation in SSWC06, the Single Speed World Championship bike race—in Stockholm this year. Max took a brilliant 10th among 200+ participants, including some pros. Ben, in his first race of this sort, netted a top-half finish among the group who actually finished the grueling course. Above are the two stalwarts minutes before the start.

Sell in What Language?

New U.S. Census Bureau stats: Nationally, 1 in 5 Americans speaks a language other than English in the home. In California, it's 2 in 5, and for 2/3 of those California homes the other language is not Spanish.

Women's Businesses Spend $$$

The spending power of businesses owned by women continues to grow. According to estimates by the Center for Women's Business Research, "Annual expenditures by American women-owned businesses in just four areas—information technology, telecommunications, human resource services and shipping—amount to $103 billion." That is just in four key areas—imagine how the rest of that pie might look.

Companies today are continuing to recognize the buying power and influence of women. A recent article published in the Chicago Tribune on August 9th (free registration required) recounts how one businesswoman moved her banking to Wells Fargo because they had seminars and sessions focusing on helping women's businesses succeed. In other words, they added value! Other companies, such as American Express, annually invite women business owners to apply to "Make Mine a $Million Business," a program that selects 20 women business owners and helps them to develop and increase their annual revenue to a million dollars. (Filing deadline for fall 2006 is Sept. 29th.)

Women pay attention to these services, and they embrace and support those businesses that develop great working relationships with them. What's your piece of the pie?

Celebrity Scents

The Onion's satirical description of Derek Jeter's new fragrance line: "An oxymoron you can smell."

(The Onion must have a thing for Jeter these days. A headline in the same issue: "Expert: Derek Jeter probably didn't need to jump to throw that guy out.")

The New American Dream?

The cost of health care continues to spiral out of control. I cringe when I get the annual envelope telling me how much my insurance will be for the upcoming year. I am a healthy individual, yet my insurance payments have escalated each year for as long as I can remember. I received an insert with my premium notice this year advising me to take advantage of the free health screenings that are available. Hmmm, was that a nice way to tell not to go to the doctor?

A recent survey, as reported in the August 15th Wall Street Journal noted that only about 58% of small businesses are offering health insurance and many are looking to drop coverage in the upcoming year.

Once we all dreamed of owning our homes, now many of us dream of affordable health care.

Fare Hunting

A friend has sent along a link to a Wired article that points to a couple of websites that purport to find low airplane fares. Flyspy finds cheap fares on Northwest flights originating in Minneapolis. Farecast now searches flights from 55 American cities and also claims to predict if prices will increase or decrease in the future. In that way the site helps you answer that often lingering question: "Do I buy now or do I buy later?"

Cool Friend: Seth Godin

Seth Godin is one of the charter members of our Cool Friends cabal. He's been prolific in the six years since we last interviewed him, publishing at least as many books in as many years. He's also become the "original squid" at Squidoo. Our second Cool Friends interview with Seth covers what he's up to with Squidoo, Kewpie Dolls, neologisms, and, especially, his new book Small Is the New Big. Read the Cool Friends interview with Seth here.

If that doesn't sate you, you can speak to Seth yourself. He's setting up a call-in Q&A session for September 8th. Check out the details here. Go ahead, ask him anything.

Media Sightings, of a Different Sort

Over at YouTube, someone named Chartreuse has grabbed three and half minutes from Tom's Re-imagine! video and posted it. It's a segment about how cable network TNT got rid of professional wrestling and re-branded itself as all drama all the time. Tom introduces the piece.

In a vaguely related vein, someone named Roxanne gets someone to videotape her as she walks along a Hawaiian beach and calls it Beach Walks with Rox. In episode #11 she references one of Tom's posts about competition. I'm not quite sure what I think about all of this but clearly there's something going on here. The beach, sound of the waves washing over the sand, palm trees. It's kind of mesmerizing. And she's up to episode #173, so she's not kidding around.

Just an Idea

Just received an email from a pal warning about new carry-on restrictions. Led to a thought:

Friends: "Continental and United must limit their carryon to a handful of "essentials" placed in a baggie before boarding (read: wallet, credit cards, glasses without cases, clearly-labeled prescription medication), no laptops, no iPods, no purses, everything else must be checked. ..."

DEAREST __________: SORRY-ANGRY ABOUT TERRORISTS. BUT MAYBE IT WOULD DO US ALL GOOD: SIT QUIETLY. CONTEMPLATE. I READ ONCE ABOUT A JAPANESE CEO WHO DEVOTED HIS LOOOOOONG FLIGHTS TO WRITING HAIKU. Hmmmmmm!

(Posting for Tom—EH)

Last Word From Me ... For Now

Our debate/my position is in no way, as someone suggested, a Jim Collins tirade. It is my Raison d'etre ... which predates Collins by more than 20 years. Forty(!) years if you go back to my Navy Seabees days in Vietnam. I had two commanding officers. Boss #1: "Shut up and build! Get into the field. Now. Stay there until you're done!" #2: "Produce great reports on the stuff we never built. Be careful, men."—I exaggerate, but not much. (Not so incidentally: no surprise, given leeway and room for initiative we were far more careful under Commanding Officer #1.)

Attached as a Special Presentation is a major update of my Grant-Nelson-et al. PPT. These were all men who had a direction in which they were heading to be sure—but always believed vigorous action came first; and that the action per se reshaped the plan, often dramatically, more than the "vice-versa" (plan-shapes-action).

Off to Norway, without much carry-on, in two hours.

[I think this is really the last post before Tom leaves.—EH]

Good Debate

Tom was hoping to continue the debate that started in the comments under "Built to Last. Built for Impact." But he's off to Norway/Sweden sans computer and so asked me to put some of those remarks into their own post. So here we go:

Brett: So Tom why didn't you stop writing after "In Search of Excellence"? Why are you still involved in business when you could have long retired? Because we all want to last long ... it's a trite premise of human nature and a company is a human organisation.

Tom: Actually, wrong. I have never had a plan, and that is no lie. I just go from speech to speech and Post to Post and book to book—with no thought about "impact." Your question is interesting, because the idea has never crossed my mind. (E.g., after every book I write I vow never to write another. Then something new pisses me off—and away I go.)

Years ago I named my power boat (sold long ago) "Cromwell." It was because of a Cromwell quote I love/loved: "No one rises so high as he who knows not where he is going." (Or something close to that.) For example, I get fanatic about design or women's stuff for a few years. It's not because it fits a framework—it's because some inadvertent remark/s gets me going. You must believe me about this—as you know, I am blunt and personal and truthful to the best of my ability in these Posts.

Brett: And thank God you do get fanatically about various subjects or the rest of us would be the poorer without it.

But I still don't think that diminishes the fact that we all believe we can last long producing at an "impact" level. Those pilots didn't go up with the goal of having an "impact" and then dying, they went up to have an impact AND with a great desire to live but they accepted the risk of death. If they all had lived perhaps we can hypothesize that war could have been shorter? Having a goal of lasting long is not a bad goal in any aspect of human endeavour as long as you couple that with the goal of, to use your phrase, "having an impact".

Tom: I do not care about longevity for longevity's sake. Period. Amen. I would like to be around awhile—ASSUMING I AM IN GOOD HEALTH PHYSICALLY & MENTALLY—so that I can enjoy my family and farm. But for today (AND THAT IS ALL THERE IS) I will throw in my lot with Bernardo Bertolucci, who I quoted in a post a couple of days ago: "My only goal is to have no goals. The goal, every time, is that film, that very moment." It, to me, is not a "good quote"—I agree operationally.

(PS This is a good debate.)

Arun: The thing is—I agree. But I also think that my definition of impact is very different from that of someone else. I define impact as "Value added per unit time"

If one added value to an organisation, society, herself or whatever at one point in time, and didn't do any more, the value added by that person per unit time falls. The others in the organisation see her as not having much impact.

So you need to keep working harder, re-imagining the world, finding ways & means and influencing people to execute on your imagination.

That's how you have impact. (long lasting impact :-)

On the flip side, you keep raising the bar for yourself, and your work life balance starts getting skewed. You then owe it to yourself to pull back perhaps?

Tom: Arun, I agree. 100% in fact. But my rejoinder, Zennish as it may sound, is that longevity is a nearly inadvertent effect of "living in the moment," or Bertolucci's focus on "this film." Too many only see today's project as a stepping stone to tomorrow's promotion—that to me is a guaranteed path to non-impact. I heard General Powell say that the "big two" are (1) "taking care of your troops" and (2) "applying yourself 100% to today's task, not tomorrow's probable opportunities." (I've put Powell's stuff in quotes—though actually it's from memory—but damn close.)

Plus, my own words notwithstanding, how do you "live for impact"? Impact on what? Warren Bennis says leaders don't set out to be leaders—it's that they have something they "must say" and thence must lead to say it. That fits me to a T. I JUST GOT SOMETHING/S I GOTTA SAY!! But, per Cromwell, the message shapes itself—it's not the product of a Grand Design/strategic plan. Southwest Airlines' Herb Kelleher: "We have a 'strategic plan,' it's called 'doing things.'"

Arun: Your rejoinder isn't just Zennish, the idea is the central theme of a 3500 year old ancient religious/social/execution oriented Hindu text called the Bhagwad Gita.

The Lord Krishna tells the soldier Arjuna: "Do what you're expected to do—your duty. Do not worry about the rewards, for I will reward you for it."

This is basically you're theme of "work on the job at hand and don't think of it as a means to a reward/promotion/money"

I think if you put your heart mind soul and passion into something, you'll automatically learn something new about it. Like the character Jonathan Livingston Seagull in the eponymous book by Richard Bach, you elevate your own abilities to new levels and gain fresh insights.

These insights give you something to say, which others agree to (eventually) and they in turn execute on it.

Everyone who's part of this then has a shared impact on the world.

But one key thing I've learnt is this—you need to keep learning—not just from books, but from any and every person you meet or interact with. But I guess that's where Passion plays a role in getting that motivation to put in that kind of effort.

Built To Last. Built For Impact.

RAF Spitfire pilots in WWII during the Battle of Britain. Life expectancy: perhaps 10 sorties.* Impact: "Never in the field of human conflict have so many, owed so much, to so few ..."

I rest my case.
(For now.)

(*One Google reference claims the life expectancy was 45 minutes of flight time.)

(Tom insists he is not old enough to have taken the picture of the Spitfire himself.—Erik)

Another Myth Bites the Dust

A lot of our test frenzy has been fueled by test scores from Asia. To begin with, the deal has always been phony. Almost all Americans take the test—and most go to some sort of college. In Asia typically only the elite take the test. Hence our average is bound to be lower; our top kids test the same as theirs.

And if that was not enough, the cost to Asian kids is enormous. E.g., a 7(!)-year-old in Hong Kong committing suicide over test scores. A Japanese mother strangling to death a neighbor's 2-year-old who beat out her daughter for a pre-school slot. Moreover, research shows that given the nutty nature of the Asians' prep for the tests, the post-test retention of stuff is about zilch (lowest in the world). Thai teacher: "Students can't really read or write. All they know how to do is tick a box next to a multiple-choice question."

Perhaps the above explains at least a little of the answer to the question of why we keep producing entrepreneurs and Nobel Prize winners; we don't manage to suppress quite as much natural creativity-curiosity as our Asian friends—though our All Kids Left Behind act is trying to fix that.

(Source for a lot of this is a fascinating new book, The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids, by Alexandra Robbins.)

Touchdown!

Hats way off to Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney. Most owners treat players like chattel. Yet Rooney says he won't try to change Ben Roethlisberger's contract to add a "no motorcycle riding" clause. He apparently assumes that Big Ben will respond to his horrendous accident like an adult—and presumably behave in a prudent fashion. This little sports news item really made an impact on me.

Touchdown, Dan Rooney.* (*Probably no surprise—the Rooneys have long been exemplary owners.)

SSWC06/Stockholm

This Post will be my last for two weeks. Susan & I & Max & Ben are off for Norway-Sweden tomorrow. After 3 or 4 days of hiking-biking around the fjords of Norway we travel to Stockholm for SSWC06. "What?" you ask. Single Speed World Championship 2006. Yes, a day long single speed bike race over very, very nasty terrain. Both Max and Ben are avid bikers, living in Colorado. "Avid"? Try: Fanatic! Maniacal!

"Single Speed" is exactly what it sounds like. Mountain bikes are re-engineered to reduce them to one speed for this madcap race. They will indeed be among an exclusive set of maniacs. The prior year's champion chooses the location. Max was in last year's race, outside of Harrisburg, PA; he did well, though he was not a top finisher. He figures he has a chance to be among the elite of the elite this year. Ben is pretty close. Both are equally skilled (What else would you expect me to say?); but Max logs more miles than Ben.

It is a true championship—but it also has a great fun component—compared, say, to the "intense" Tour de France!! If you want to check it out, go to http://www.sswc06.com.

Susan's Rule for this trip is The Last Word: "No computer, Tom. No. None. Nada. Zip." So, away I/we go!

(Rowing yesterday. Finally got a half-decent pic of the Great Blue Heron I pass every day.)

Whoops!

I scared him away.

Boys Will Be Boys!

I am a great champion of Women as you all know. But as a "boy" (Yes, damn it, I still am!), and as the step-father of boys, I do indeed get a kick out of boys. Hence enjoy the photo from Bangkok above. School kids in uniform on the way home—note the two boys at the end of the line.

P-L-E-A-S-E

Got my cholesterol test results back today. "Bad" cholesterol nicely under 100. Good for Tom. And: Thank You LIPITOR.

I want my Lipitor. Will I be able to keep it? It, too, is now under attack. Of course I don't want anyone to have nasty side effects. But if a jillion of us are taking it, there will doubtless be a few problems, given the different wiring each of us brings to the party. Lipitor is saving (not too strong a word) tens of thousands of us. I am willing to face the odds of a one-in-a-jillion chance of harm in return for a, what, 50 percent chance of doing (lots of) good.

P-L-E-A-S-E don't take my Lipitor away!

Zero Sum, More or Less

Great Comment from Mike on the "built to last" Post.

Mike: "Why does it have to be a zero-sum game, Tom? Why can't a corporation (or other institution) be built to last AND impact? Why does it have to be about going out in a blaze of glory? Look at Japanese companies, for instance. The truly successful ones (Toyota, Honda, etc.) are planning decades ahead. DECADES. Kaizen (continuous incremental improvement) and kaikaku (revolutionary change) are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one often leads to another."

viagra in usa online TP: Are we sure Honda et al are really planning decades ahead? I once heard Canon had a 500-year plan. Are Honda and Toyota really making Great Cars? Better than Detroit, to be sure. But in my view there has not been fundamental innovation in the auto industry in 50 years. I'm unimpressed by all of them.

Kaizen, in my opinion, is not enough. Japan taught us Kaizen—and promptly went into a decade-long recession; Japan's principal deficiency is "disruptive" innovation and "crazy" entrepreneurs in my opinion. (Where is their Gates, Ellison, Dell, Venter, Walton, etc.—hundreds of thousands of et ceteras!)

Kaizen? See the current issue of BusinessWeek. I am thrilled to have the Silicon Valley Bratpack inventing Web 2.0 at the speed of light. I want tomorrow's companies—an unfair share thereof. Just got off the phone with the former Mayor of Austin. He's running for the Texas Senate with a bumper sticker that reads: "Keep Austin Weird." (Won his mayoral re-election with 84 percent of the vote as a Democrat in Texas.) He's a Richard Florida fan—and fixated on developing tomorrow's talent and companies.

P.S.: It's a longer debate but I mostly think incremental change and revolutionary change are not possible in one kit. I am a Nicholas Negroponte (the MIT innovation guru) devotee: "Incrementalism is innovation's worst enemy."

Re "zero sum": I think zero-sum is more or less axiomatic. I/it/they may sustain, but that is a byproduct of Living Totally in the Moment. (Zen-like, yes.) I love this quote from Oscar-winning Director Bernardo Bertolucci: "My only goal is to have no goals. The goal, every time, is that film, that very moment." That's me! I only care—no kidding—about this Post. It is the Sum Total of my life. If things keep building, great; if not, great. GM? I want them to be Totally Focused on Great Cars. Fat chance!

Mike: "GM—I don't have any stake in GM, but why do the only choices for GM (or pick your favorite stumbling corporation) have to be extinction or mediocrity? Why can't there be a third alternative of re-achieving greatness?"

TP: We must agree to disagree. As a sometimes betting man, the odds of that doubtless superb "third alternative" at GM are effectively Zero.

Mike: "You truly have no interest in any legacy? You don't want your impact to remain after you are gone? If your impact lasts only a heartbeat, was it really worth it? Was the impact real? What if Ford, Edison, Eisenhower, Bacon, Newton, Marshall, Billy Durant, Eli Whitney, and a host of others had thought that way? If there is no LASTING IMPACT we have to keep reinventing the wheel all the time."

TP: You read me wrong. I desperately want to have Impact. In my Post I contrasted "built to last" vs "built to have impact." I want impact, but longevity beyond what I've already been granted is of minor interest. King had IMPACT; what he didn't have was LONGEVITY.

Sometime back I said I'd finally created a definition of Excellence I was happy with. Namely: Sets the Agenda. Ford and GM and DEC and others "set the agenda" for several years—gave fellow CEOs nightmares (the other half of my Excellence definition). And then the receded into history—though there will be a chapter devoted to them—and the world is a different place because they were here.

TP: Mike ... Great Post! (As you can see, it made a dent in my Universe. This is a point I dearly care about.) (I'm packing, in a rush—the above is sketchy, but the best I can do.

Blogroll Additions

We've had a flurry of additions to our blogroll, and I thought I'd take a moment to announce them:

* MarketingProfs:DailyFix takes blog entries from around the Web, mixes them with original content, and puts everything people are saying about marketing in one place. The result is an excellent resource. They've re-blogged a few of Tom's posts.
* Trump University is also re-publishing Tom's stuff. What better avenue could there be for us to get a wide audience for his writing. We'd recommend you take a look. Donald Trump's blog.
* Rethink Pink. The website promoting this annual Marketing-to-Women symposium has a blog. The subject is so important to Tom, how could we not?
* Strategic Name Development is the website of a naming consultancy. The factors that go into choosing a name for a business are complex, worthy of a blog, and a cool addition to the topics on our blogroll.
* Expreference. An American business owner in China blogs about his work, the culture, and his day-to-day life experience. Fascinating. Lots of photos and videos. A valuable, intimate look at China.
* Steve Farber, Cool Friend, speaker, writer, inspirationalist. His latest book is The Radical Edge.
* Bob Sutton, Cool Friend, author of Weird Ideas That Work.
* Richard Cauley is a contributor to our comments. He's inspired a PowerPoint slide by Tom, and he has a blog called patent warrior. Take a look.

I'm sorry if I missed anybody. As I said, there've been quite a few additions recently. With RSS, the blogroll becomes less important than it was, even in the short (tho' not short in Internet time) two years since we started this blog. But our blogroll represents our recommendations for you to sample, and if you see anything you like you can subscribe to their RSS feeds. It's long and messy. We like it like that! Maybe one day it will extend all the way down the front page.

The Case of the Two-cent Candy

Years ago, I wrote about a retail store in the Palo Alto environs, a good one, that had a box of two-cent candies at the checkout. I said I remembered the gesture of the two-cent candy as a symbol of all that is Excellent at that store. Dozens of people who have attended seminars of mine have come up to remind me, as many as 15 years later, of the two-cent story—that apparently had a sizeable impact on how they did business, metaphorically and in fact, from retailers to bankers to plumbing supply house owners.

Well, the two-cent candy has struck again—in the most unlikely of places.

Singapore's "brand" for years, and ever so successfully, has more or less been "the place that works." Its monumental operational efficiency in all it does has been a matchless attractant to businesses of all sorts. Faced with challenges from all about, Singapore has decided—with determination as usual—to "re-brand" as an exciting/"with it" place as well as one that works. (I was part of an early re-branding conference, a couple of years ago, that also featured the likes of Anita Roddick and Deepak Chopra and Infosys's Narayana Murthy.)

Singapore's fabled operating efficiency starts, as indeed it should, at ports of entry—notably the airport. Clearing Immigration, retrieving baggage and speeding downtown are unmatched anywhere in the world.

And ...

Immigration in Thailand, three days before my Singapore visit last week, was a royal pain. Needless to say, entering Russia some months ago was a royal royal pain. To be sure, and especially after 9/11, Immigration in U.S. airports has not been something you'd mistake for Disneyland.

Singapore, circa August 2006. Immigration:

The entry form was a marvel of simplicity.
The lines were short, very short, with more than adequate staffing.
The processing was simple and unobtrusive. (I was photographed, as we in the U.S. do with/to "foreigners," in Bangkok.)

And:

The Immigration Officer could have easily gotten work at Starbucks; she was all smiles and courtesy.

And:

Yes!
There was a little candy plate at each Immigration portal!!!

The message in a dozen ways:

"WELCOME TO SINGAPORE, TOM! WE ARE DELIGHTED YOU ARE HERE!"

Wow!
Wow!
Wow!

100 Ways to Succeed #75:

Your 2-Cents' Worth

Now!
Today!

What is your (personal, department, project, restaurant, law firm) "2-Cent Candy"???

Note: THIS IS IMPORTANT!
Operative word: TODAY.

MLK/Longevity

As I do upon occasion, I speed walked yesterday listening to several of Martin Luther King's most prominent speeches. I do so for reasons spiritual as well as, frankly, professional. No declamations, including Churchill's, are so moving. (I listen to a lot of speeches.) In a professional vein, I have no idea who comes in second to Dr King as a public orator, but whoever that might be is a distant second. I could easily expend 5,000 words on the details of his speaking Excellence—from the emotion to the brevity to the excruciatingly slow build to the storytelling to the matchless use of alliteration to the urgent call to action to the shaming of those who would sit on the sidelines and not act. One of King's most moving speeches was in Memphis, right before he was assassinated. He anticipated that tragic event. I stopped and listened to a brief section three or four times, scribbling as I did. Here's at least a close approximation:

[Moving recitation of the last decade's events in the Civil Rights Movement, such as Selma.] "And I got into Memphis last night, and some say the threats are all around. Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me, because I've been to the mountain top. Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will, and He's allowed me to go up the mountain. And I've looked over. And I have seen the Promised Land. And I don't mind. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. I am not worried. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

I get chills all over again even as I write this, but if I dare trivialize it, I want to make another point. "Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now. ... I may not get there with you. ..."

I simply don't buy "built to last" in any way, shape or form—and this passage reinforced that abiding belief. "Built to Impact" is/has been/will be my Rallying Cry. Dr King changed the world—and died at 39.

To trivialize perhaps: Netscape changed the world ... and died at about age 6. I am desperately trying to change the world in some teeny tiny way, I have but a few years to go, and I have purposefully not created any "institution" to attempt to move my case forward when I'm gone—the world will take care of that (or not) without me. I frankly don't give two hoots about longevity—other than spending time with my family. I've done what I can do as well and as hard as I can do it up to and including last Friday in Singapore. And that's that. Period. (I don't want my professional life to be a run-on sentence.)

Kjell Nordström and Jonas Ridderstråle bluntly make this point in Funky Business: "But what if [former head of strategic planning at Royal Dutch Shell] Arie De Geus is wrong in suggesting, in The Living Company, that firms should aspire to live forever? Greatness is fleeting and, for corporations, it will become ever more fleeting. The ultimate aim of a business organization, an artist, an athlete, or a stockbroker may be to explode in a dramatic frenzy of value creation during a short space of time, rather than to live forever."

(NB: GM's shining hour—and shine it did!—lasted from about 1950 to 1975. Hooray, thanks a ton, and I won't really miss you if you go kaput.)

"Built to Impact"—TP
"Explode in a Dramatic Frenzy of Value Creation"—KN & JR
"I may not get there with you [but] mine eyes have seen the glory ..."—MLK

Now consider this from Simone de Beauvoir: "Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself. If all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying." (Think about a surviving GM?) I scrounged this marvelous [Marvelous = Abets my Life's Argument] quote from a marvelous book I picked up in the airport in Bangkok. It's Robert Tomasko's BIGGER Isn't Always Better.

Tomasko makes a reasoned, data-rich argument that echoes Simone Beauvoir. He does not, for instance, dismiss big mergers out of hand, but provides a strict definition of the few that work. This wee saving remnant uses the merger to help the enterprise perhaps "explode in a new frenzy of value creation," to paraphrase Nordström and Ridderstråle. (Immelt's unabashed aim at GE.) Tomasko, however, devotes the lion's share of the book to strategies and tactics for keeping energy and excitement going and growing in a corporation—this rarely or never encompasses growth-for-growth's sake or bigger-ness for bigger's sake. (Think Bo Burlingham's Small Giants, much praised in this Blog.) Typical chapter titles are: "Growth Is About Moving Forward" and "Are You a Fixer or a Grower?"

"Built to Impact"—TP
"Explode in a Dramatic Frenzy of Value Creation"—KN & JR
"I may not get there with you [but] mine eyes have seen the glory ..."—MLK
"If all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying."—SB

My case rests.
(For now.)

100 Ways to Succeed #76:

"Dramatic Frenzy"

Perhaps "dramatic frenzy of value creation" sounds abstract.
(Or unattainable.)

No!
(No!)

So: How can you alter (a) your current project, (b) your CV ... to approach the idea of "dramatic frenzy of value creation"?

I contend that this is a v-e-r-y PRACTICAL idea. Among the Most Important Practical Ideas/Tasks you could possibly undertake. viagra in india pfizer

If you disagree ... you are wrong.
Sorry.
(Think outsourcing.) ("'Disintermediation' is overrated. Those who fear disintermediation [outsourcing] should in fact be afraid of irrelevance—disintermediation is just another way of saying that you've become irrelevant to your customers."—John Battelle/Point/Advertising Age/07.05) (Relevance = Dramatic Frenzy of Value Creation.—TP What else?) the real viagra for sale

A Small Point?

(1) Above, I used the word "Blog."
(2) I regularly and automatically receive, as all of us PC users presumably do, my Microsoft updates.
(3) When I wrote "Blog" I got the Red Line. ("Bog" and "Blob" were among suggested alternatives.)
(4) Does the continued failure to recognize "Blog" have anything to do with MS's continuing problems becoming "Web-centric," something the ancient Ray Ozzie once again says is a priority?

(Yes, I can imagine a hundred reasons why updates might not include my Word dictionary—but, still ...)

XAlways

As I'm sure you are aware ... EXCELLENCE. ALWAYS. ... has become my mantra. (Welcome back ... Excellence!) And the "XAlways" PowerPoint has become my Base Presentation from which all presentations are more or less drawn. Attached you will find the latest XAlways Master Presentation—it was completely reorganized during my endless trip home from Singapore last Friday-Saturday.

I'd love for you to steal it ... lock, stock, and barrel. At least give it a look. One hell of a lot of effort has gone into this in the last 6 months—it is the successor to my old faithful Re-imagine Master. Of course there is a lot of duplication, but there is also (1) a lot of new stuff, (2) the resurrection of Excellence as raison-d'etre, and (3) the fact of a stunning response to the new material in speech form.

NB: Podcasting. Erik is continually on my case to Podcast. And, of course, he is right. For one example, many of the slides in XAlways in and of themselves would be raw meat for a short oral recitation. Frankly, I'm still stuck on "no." You see, I talk for a living—mostly. And the "oral bit" is all important. It is also by its nature rambly and the logic is less than tight—even if the delivery is at times powerful. Simply put, I use this Blog as an opportunity to succinctly and in an orderly fashion think about the stuff that matters to me. Also, damn it, I'm bloody well all talked out when I return from a speech. So, I may Podcast—but don't hold your breath.

Something New from Raj Setty

Cool Friend Raj Setty has a new WOW! Project. You can see the button linking to his new website, suggestica.com, in the right-hand column. It features suggestions by well-known business thinkers, Tom among them, for books to read, culled from the pages of each one's most recent books. Go there and get some suggestions!

Seconds!

Above are the mashed potatoes that go with the fried chicken—I guess they fill that little hole in the picture below. While I think of obesity and the USA in the same breath, an M.D. in my Singapore audience told me, as I recall, that youth obesity there has soared from 10% to 40% in the last decade. Pandemic, anyone?

(Dan Quayle Award to TP. Thank God for spellcheck! Above, the LRL/Little Red Line appeared under "potatoes," which I initially spelled "potatos.")

Ouch!

Amidst my 34-hour trip home from Singapore on Friday-Saturday I came across this charmer in the International Herald. On Ford, GM, and Chrysler: "Ford, GM and Chrysler do not just make cars expensively ... they make bad cars expensively." An Investec analyst called the Big Three's design as "awful," And added, "Outside the U.S. and Canada, nobody buys a U.S. Car or design."

I'd love to passionately disagree, but ...

Ye Gads! Holy S*&%!

I'm spending more and more time on healthcare issues, as many know. At or near the top of the list is hospital errors. Much of the fix requires driving "garden variety" quality improvement systems through our acute-care hospitals and clinics. One blanches—I did yesterday—to read a news bulletin reporting that there are about 1.5 million miscues per year in the administration of drugs; that's apparently one per day per patient. Then, if you dare, add in the number attendant to doctors' office visits. And yet so many players continue to balk at widespread use of tools and techniques that could make a profound difference.

But those statistics didn't come close to upsetting my applecart as much as the _______ (disgusting? tragic?) picture above. Our HHS secretary tells us that obesity, especially childhood obesity, is a bigger problem than terrorism. What you see above looks pretty much to me like a clogged artery (but what do I know?). Instead, it's a close-up, taken with my garden-variety Sony, of a tiny section of a KFC photo-poster on the window of a shop near me here in Singapore. What can I say (sorry) other than: Holy shit!

next day no prescription viagra I am, I suppose, not surprised—but I am wholly disgusted.

Slides: GuerillaAdvantage

We have a new special presentation. It makes one wonder what Tom's been thinking about lately when its title is GuerillaAdvantage. You can see for yourself by downloading it here. He planned to use it in Singapore, and it will be the subject of an upcoming post.

[About the picture above, Tom says this: "As usual Singapore is busting out all over. The sky is more or less blocked by the ubiquitous construction Sky Cranes. They amount de facto to the National Bird." I'm thoroughly enjoying these glimpses of cities all over the world that Tom's been sending us. I hope you are, too.]

Event: Singapore

August 4, Singapore, is the last in the three-city Southeast Asia tour Tom has been on, thanks to Global Leaders. The subject has been leadership, so that is the title of one of the presentations that you can download here:
XAlways, Singapore
Leadership50, Singapore

Is "Passion" Optional?

Can we afford to leave the (expensive & resource consuming) "passion" out of Tom's
"systems + passion = excellence"? It has logical appeal and God knows enough people make a living out of it ... but time and again, as we strive to transform our businesses, managers seem to get cold feet about spending money on the "soft stuff."

Is it a conditioned management "reflex" born out of a bygone age, or machismo, or ignorance or ...? OR is there really no truth in the assertion that in order to achieve excellence, you must get people to want to strive for a common aspiration?

What is the evidence? Which organisations can we point to and say they achieved excellence because they created a cause ... not a business?

Please help me out here! Can we get this beyond a faith thing?

Women at the Top

Recently there was an article on the DiversityInc website (registration required) that indicated "women occupied only 16.4 percent of corporate officer positions in Fortune 500 companies in 2005," according to a survey by the nonprofit group Catalyst. My first thought was that it is sad that corporations really don't know what they are missing. Then I read the last line of the article and knew that women still roar!

For those companies that have figured out that having women at the top is a good thing, the Catalyst survey said, "companies with the highest percentages of women corporate officers have an average 35.1 percent higher return on equity and 34 percent higher total return to shareholders than those with the lowest percentages of women corporate officers." I would say that's taking it to the bank!

Rock and Roll

I had the opportunity to catch a true rock & roll legend when he played a local coffeehouse recently: Roger McGuinn, the multi-talented founder of the Byrds—the band that virtually invented "folk-rock" in the 60s with hit songs like Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man," and Pete Seeger's "Turn, Turn, Turn." McGuinn is currently on a mission to promote and preserve many of the great American and British folk songs by featuring his recordings of them on his "Folk Den," where you can download them for free.

But McGuinn's performance got me thinking how successfully the Byrds BRANDED themselves in their glory days of pop superstardom (before McGuinn took the band in a country rock direction). Few of the top bands over the years have created such a radically unique sound AND look. The Byrds' signature was McGuinn's "jingle-jangle" electric 12-string guitar sound and their ethereal harmonies, but they ALSO had that "8 Miles High" cosmic-cool image (highlighted by McGuinn's granny glasses). Their Brand Promise? "We will [fill in the blank] your mind!" (I can still smell the incense.) Too many modern bands create their brand exclusively through their music. But the design-savvy Byrds had the mysterious stage presence, trippy album covers, and psychedelic logo working for them, too. Check out their "Fifth Dimension" album jacket.

So are there lessons here if you want your brand to be a star? How about (1) distinguish the brand on as many "dimensions" (and sensory levels) as possible, and of course (2) "think design." Maybe we can all learn something from McGuinn and the Byrds.

Event: Kuala Lumpur

Tom is still half a day ahead of my time zone, now in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia. Once again he's sharing a stage with Carly Fiorina to talk about leadership at an event presented by Global Leaders. The slides for the 2nd of August are available for downloading here:
XAlways, Kuala Lumpur
Leadership50, Kuala Lumpur

(Re photo above: Wherever you go in KL, the Petronas Towers are not far away.—TP)

Another View

KL & the Colonel—why am I not surprised?

Another One Bites the Dust

The technology tsunami is still in full force. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports in an article on July 31st that radio transmitters are revolutionizing how the water company reads your meter.

I can still recall when the meter man (yes, at the time there were only men) would knock on the door shouting, "Meter Man!" before using a key to let himself in. Later, the water companies positioned the meters outside your house, so then all they had to do was tramp across your lawn!

As one meter man put it in the article, he has worked for the water company for 16 years reading meters, but now he drives a van as a "field service representative." (Side Note: What he misses most is the exercise—I guess the job was pretty routine.) What he used to do is now done by low-frequency radio transmitters that can read in one hour what it used to take 20 people a day to do!

What the Greater Cincinnati Water Works did, and I applaud them, is to migrate people into new skills long before the conversion to the new technology was complete.

The other big thing that this meter man misses is the contact with people (especially the senior citizens), which raises the question, how do we stay socially connected in this highly technical era?