Brand You Road Trip

Tom has been saying "Be distinct ... or extinct" for ten years now, and he wrote the seminal book about personal brand distinction, The Brand You50. In an era where the war for talent is more competitive than ever, personal branding is becoming increasingly essential. From establishing your own personal strengths to aligning your values to those of your organization, becoming a Brand You is key.

To address this need, the tompeters!company is bringing a series of Brand You workshops to the public. Following a successful Boston session, the next destination is Denver, CO, on August 1. Partnering with Arapahoe Community College, the tompeters!company will provide a customized, one-day session, in which people from diverse organizations will explore the power of their brands, how to augment them, and how to put them to use.

For more information on the Denver event, click here, or for registration, click here. For those of you who can't make it to Denver, we'll be doing a workshop in Dallas in early October. For information on this Dallas event, other possible stops on the Brand You Road Trip, or the Brand You program in general, e-mail me at nickadams@tompeters.com.

Recommendation

I cannot recommend strongly enough Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article "The General's Report: How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties." (June 25, 2007)

(This also provides another opportunity to push-as-hard-as-is-humanly-possible Philip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.)

In Summary ...

I've been working on various forms of my Master Presentation, pretty much fulltime, for the last couple of weeks. A Post yesterday started a rather vigorous discussion about success "rules" that withstand the test of time. Virtually nothing—you, me, the corporation, the nation—withstands the test of time. And one of the principal reasons is hardening of the philosophical arteries—increasingly rigid interpretations of yesterday's "success" rules.

So I outright reject success "rules" or "eternal" principles. Nonetheless (whoops, here it comes), you gotta do something. What follows is as far as I will go. My first list has three items:

Cause (worthy of commitment)
Space (room for/encouragement for initiative-adventures)
Decency (respect, grace, integrity, humanity)

That is, find something useful that turns folks on, give them a lot of room to try their own interpretations thereof—and offer them the respect they deserve for participating in the game with commitment and determination.

I actually like my second list better, consisting of some four items:

Hire Great People (Resilient, Passionate)
Try a Lot of Stuff (S.A.V.-Screw Around Vigorously/R.F.A.—Ready. Fire. Aim.)
All "Wow" All the Time (Shoot for the moon—in every circumstance)
Enjoy It While It Lasts (And it ain't gonna last forever, so you might as well keep swinging)

I find I have a kindred spirit in Mayor Mike. The current (06.25.07) BusinessWeek extracts business lessons from Bloomberg's tenure at City Hall in New York. The article is first-rate, but this Blooombergism elicited a loud "Yeeeeeeeeeeessssss" from me:

"In business, you reward people for taking risks. When it doesn't work out, you promote them because they were willing to try new things. If people come back and tell me they skied all day and never fell down, I tell them to try a different mountain."

This perfectly complements a quote I've used in my presentations lifted from MB's book, Bloomberg by Bloomberg:

"We made mistakes, of course. Most of them were omissions we didn't think of when we initially wrote the software. We fixed them by doing it over and over, again and again. We do the same today. While our competitors are still sucking their thumbs trying to make the design perfect, we're already on prototype version #5. By the time our rivals are ready with wires and screws, we are on version #10. It gets back to planning versus acting: We act from day one; others plan how to plan—for months."

Amen. And: Amen.

For your amusement, I've included three—count 'em—versions of a presentation simply called, with tongue in cheek, "The 'Rules.'" There's a VERY short version, a SHORT version and a "standard" (longer) version.

Just keep throwin' that spaghetti against the wall, folks ...

Tom Topic #1

It's all about tryin' stuff. It's all about experimentation. It's all about getting' on with getting' on. Which means it's all about ...

Markets. (Lots a folks tryin' lots of stuff.)
Decentralization. (Lots of folks tryin' lots of stuff.)
Freedom. (Detroit 1900, Silicon Valley 2000, America 1783-???, new China 1979-???, etc = Lots of folks tryin' lots of stuff.)

Hence one of my labors of love (= reading project) this summer is freedom per se. Amazingly (to me), the idea of liberty as we conjure it today is only a quarter millennium old. My tomes under current study:

Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History.
Michael Barone, Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America's Founding Fathers.

Here's the way I see the life of individuals (top list), and organized entities (bottom list):

Go on offense.
Give everybody a shot.
Decentralize.
Try a bunch of stuff.
Make it up as you go along.
Get some stuff wrong.
Laugh a lot.
Get some stuff right.
Become a "success."

Extract "lessons learned" or "best practices."
Thicken the Book of Rules.
Become evermore serious.
Enforce the rules to increasingly tight tolerances.
Go on defense.
Install walls.
Protect-at-all-costs today's franchise.
Centralize.
Calcify.
Install taller walls.
Write more rules.
Become irrelevant and-or die.

This master process is my life's work. And my personal joy. (And horror.)

Happy summer.
Try some stuff.

Remember Eleanor Roosevelt:

"Do one thing every day that scares you."

(Ciao, I'm heading out to the woods for my daily dose of brushcutting—a "widow maker" branch broke loose on me yesterday, which I suppose passes the E Roosevelt "scare-the-shit-out-of-myself" test.)

The Patient Experience

I am sure many of us have been in the hospital or other health care facility and experienced less than satisfactory care. Quality of care isn't just about how the doctor or nurse performs their duties, but everyone you come in contact with. As Mike Neiss said in an earlier blog, we would call these encounters "touchpoints." I can recall being in the hospital and the janitor was mumbling and stumbling around my room early one morning. He seemed to be indifferent to the fact that I was there. Or perhaps it was the technician who came in to draw blood (never a fun activity), who scored zero in bedside manners. There are tons of stories out there, I'm sure.

But recently at the Cleveland Clinic, they have decided to give the total patient experience a high priority. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the clinic has hired a person to be their Chief Experience Officer, and her job is to ensure that the patient receives a great experience throughout the process of the hospital stay. The process starts long before a patient arrives in the hospital, unless it is an emergency, so this new CEO has her hands full. But what a wonderful challenge to take on!

What suggestions would you offer this new CEO (or, as Tom calls it, cXo) for improving the patient experience?

Oh Deere, Built to Last (and Love)

As many-most of you well know, I'm no fan (understatement) of "built to last." I do not see longevity as an achievement of note. (Yup, I'm an Orioles fan, but Cal Ripken's "iron man" record is pale by comparison with, say, Ted Williams' "last .400 hitter" achievement, Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, or Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA.) My mantra is clear: "Built to rock the world" rules! Google may well be on the scrapheap just a dozen years from now—but it has surely "rocked the world" in a way that will indeed be remembered in biz history headlines 50 or 150 years from now. To be sure, if you "keep on rockin' the world," I'm delighted if you last—think, at the moment, Apple. But longevity for longevity's sake??

But, perversely, this Post is about "built to last" in a traditional and admiring way. We're burying about a mile of power line on our VT farm. Though the pros (electricians, excavators) are in charge, our 1985 John Deere 2350 with 245 bucket loader time and again has been indispensable—and at age 22 it's as perky as ever. Sure there's been a replacement part or two along the way, but the solidity and durability of the machine rolls on like the Mississippi.

And its superb design—Deere's longtime hallmark, so unexpected in "farm machinery"—makes it a work of art as well as a piece of work.

Hats waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off to John Deere!

Design, speaking of which, may be "in" right now and correctly so (and I do, I admit, crow for having "gotten there" 20 years ago), but it ain't easy, especially the "usability" part. I have bought two coffeemakers of late, a Cuisinart and a Krups, and the design in both cases stinks up the kitchen—in particular, the Krups pot pours poorly and the water-loading process in the Cuisinart is a bad joke. Reminds me to "stick with Braun." Also reminds me of the difficulty of getting so-called little things right, such as pouring effectiveness of a pot or, God knows, the quality and durability and usability of zippers!

(More "hoorays" re design and durability—I'm doing a lot of brutal brush clearing at the moment, and I am in love with my work-hiking boots, bought for our New Zealand trek 4 months ago. They come from Jack Wolfskin, a German company, I believe—at any rate I bought them in and hauled them home from Frankfurt.)

[Photo credit Luc Gallopin.—CM]

Built to Be Eclipsed

Partially the "built to last" bit (and my deep philosophical problems therewith) is on my mind because I'm immersed in a biography of Joseph Schumpeter. (Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction, by Thomas McCraw.) For decades Schumpeter played, to his chagrin while alive, second fiddle to JM Keynes. In a penetrating review of the book, the noted economist Robert Solow convincingly argues that the first violinist now has rather clearly turned out to have been Schumpeter.

In short, Schumpeter, in a long life devoted to one idea, squarely and contentiously placed the entrepreneur way ahead of the pack when it comes to the engine of economic growth: "Without innovation, no entrepreneurs; without entrepreneurial achievement, no capitalist returns and no capitalist propulsion. The atmosphere of industrial revolutions—of 'progress'—is the only one in which capitalism can survive." (Note the plural of revolution—i.e., "revolutions.")

This was radical stuff in 1911, when Schumpeter's Theory of Economic Development arrived—and remains so today. We can work like hell to get the money supply "right" and to salvage the Mercks and GMs, but make no mistake that our future depends on the occasional but consistent provision of Googles and Genentechs and a string of future Googles or Genentechs bubbling in Palo Alto or Cambridge or another of those precious couple of dozen zipcodes which drive our future economic—and thence political—power.

Schumpeter also believed in "my world" (and Peter Drucker's!!!)—which also set him way apart from economists past and present alike. As Solow says, "He was explicit that, while technological innovation was in the long run the most important function of the entrepreneur, organizational innovation in governance, finance and management was comparable in significance." Thus the advantage that accrued to, say, Dell's supply chain organizational-management approach (abetted, indeed, by new technology) is as decisive to progress (at the moment—which is the point!) as is Amgen's latest FDA-approved compound.

All hail the entrepreneur, in search of what Schumpeter in economist-ese calls "temporary monopoly profits," and the revolutions-creative destruction said entrepreneur repeatedly leaves in his wake ... until that moment when he in turn is relegated to the scrapheap.

The king is dead.
God save the king.

Speaking of Capitalism ...

I've enjoyed The Clean Tech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity, by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder. It is a marvelous tour d'horizon of the many experiments underway and funded in areas such as energy efficiency and pollution reduction. The "content" is enlightening, but the "context" even more so. That is, "intractable" problems effectively are embraced and ameliorated—often in surprisingly short order—only when the Giant called "market forces" is awakened. The economic tipping point has arguably been reached—and the likes of the Silicon Valley V.C.s are moving in for the "cleantech" kill-killing. Will there be a burst bubble that wipes out the bank accounts of thousands? Of course! And like Web 2.0 today, it inevitably will be followed by more experimentation of new flavors—and doubtless more burst bubbles. But the race is on, and progress, I confidently predict, will be astonishing in the next 5, 10, 20 years.

(All hail Joseph Schumpeter redux.)

Headline of the Month

"High Intelligence Can Hurt A Person's Ability To Lead"—Wall Street Journal (0619.07)

The underlying discussion comes from the wonderful (I'm a regular reader) Blog of U.S. judge Richard Posner and Nobel Laureate Gary Becker. Among other things, Posner writes, the super-smart don't know "when to defer to the superior knowledge of more experienced but less mentally agile subordinates." I'm well disposed to this as I have observed it time and again—especially in my McKinsey days.

Here are a couple of related quotes from my Master slide deck:

"Intelligent people can always come up with intelligent reasons to do nothing."—Scott Simon

"Andrew Higgins, who built landing craft in WWII, refused to hire graduates of engineering schools. He believed that they only teach you what you can't do in engineering school. He started off with 20 employees, and by the middle of the war had 30,000 working for him. He turned out 20,000 landing craft. D.D. Eisenhower told me, 'Andrew Higgins won the war for us. He did it without engineers.'"—Historian Stephen Ambrose/Fast Company

A New Brand Touchpoint?

When we work with clients on branding issues here at tompeters!company, we emphasize the importance of contacts between any member of an organization and the customer. We refer to them as "touchpoints." Since an organization's brand lives in the client's or customer's mind, the experience they have with members of the organization goes a long way in determining whether they ultimately buy the product or service again. In a world full of choices, the brand acts as a sorting device. Lately, I have noticed a new force in determining whether a buyer is attracted to the brand. A lot of the conversation among my friends lately is discussion of an organization's labor practices and executive compensation. The topic comes up often. For instance, many of my friends have abandoned the Circuit City store after their decision to fire all their sales associates and offer them the chance to reapply for their jobs at a lower wage. And here in Michigan, people frequently talk about Ford, as that company continues to ask for concessions from labor while compensating Mr. Mulally at astronomical levels ($28 million in the first four months of 2007) and provide Mark Fields expense money so he can commute from Florida to Dearborn weekly. Amazingly, he used to fly Ford corporate jets each week, and his flying commercially is seen as a concession! What a sacrifice!

I am not suggesting that sales will plummet for the companies in the above examples, but I do see the impression companies make with their treatment of employees as a new force in the brand wars. So tp.com bloggers, let me know. Is this a touchpoint for you? Do you consider or are you swayed by an organization's business practices when you make a brand choice? Have you ever chosen a different source or product because you don't like how a company acts in areas unrelated to the transaction itself? Any examples?

Solstice

If you happen to reside in the northern hemisphere, we hope that you're celebrating the longest day of the year. Tom is enjoying the solstice on his farm in Vermont. He's probably battling brambles, boating, or basking in the sun. I've been stealing away from the computer to admire the new peony blooms. Erik has most likely been out on his bike. Cathy, as I mentioned earlier, is soaking up baby love. Feel free to let us know what you do to enjoy the solstice. After all, this is what technology is for: freeing us up to savor life.

It Takes a (Rather Large) Village ...

An attendee of one of our Brand You Workshops, Steve Wood, shared his wife Cullen's project with us. It's called Cullen's abc's. She's a preschool teacher in California and in her spare time she records what she calls "idea videos" on YouTube. Cullen gives simple information of interest to preschoolers in a clear and friendly way. It's a great use of current technology to share her passion for teaching with the world. What we find fascinating is that, according to Steve, a Chinese news agency has published an article about the videos.

What kind of inspiration does this spark for you? Does it make you want to create your own "idea videos" for something you're passionate about? Does it make you want to find the same type of videos done by preschool teachers in, say, Russia for your children to watch? Let us know.

Twins!

For those of you familiar with our community here at tompeters.com, we have a bit of exciting news. Cathy Mosca became a grandmother on Monday. She welcomed not just one, but two babies into her family. We couldn't be happier for her or the twins (they hit the jackpot in the grandmother lotto!). Congratulations from all of us to the whole family!

Cool Friend: Seth Godin

We consider it much more than charming that Seth Godin has joined us a third time for a Cool Friends interview. His keen eye for "noticing things and giving them a name" keeps us tuned into his blog, his books, and his projects. His latest book, The Dip: The Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) is the subject of the current interview. Here's an excerpt:

Q: What is "the dip?"

SG: It's the hard spot; the place where most people quit. It's organic chemistry on your way to being a doctor. Lots of people announce that they're pre-med. Their grandmother gets excited and they have fun until they take organic chemistry.

Q: You say that there's a simple way to tell if you should quit.

SG: There are some things that are a dip and other things that are a dead end. Once you understand that quitting is a choice, that quitting in the dip is the worst moment to quit, you'll quit a lot less because you'll fall in love with mastery. You'll fall in love with becoming the best in the world by investing enough resources to get out the other end. Figure out how many resources you have and pick a dip that matches them. It's foolish for a startup to say, "We're going to make a better search engine than Google," because the dip's too big.

The dip is your friend, because if the dip isn't there, you're on a dead end. There is no dip for a longshoreman. There is a dip for making a profit by selling your product at Wal*Mart. Once you get through that dip, on the other end is success.

Q: Val Willis recently posted here about projects that are doomed to failure. People don't have the patience anymore to work on something when they realize it's dead in the water.

SG: Cycles are shorter. People twenty years ago said, "This may be doomed, but it's going to be ten years before they figure it out. I'll be fine." But now people realize that it could happen in sixty days. The opportunity cost of sticking around at the wrong place is too high. If you're working on a dead end, you're wasting your personal brand and your resources.

The Infinite Power of Positive Thinking and Acting

"Think positive" is a/the watchword of almost every "improving performance" seminar or self-help book. Thinking right (positive) is dead on, but far easier said than done—obviously.

Nonetheless, I wish to hell my U.S.A. could find a way to get back into the positive mental orbit. Suddenly (9/11/01), we are all about borders and barriers. Don't I believe there's a serious terror threat? Well, actually, that's my point.

I think there is a severe terrorist threat—and that there will be for as far into the future as I or my 20-something boys can see. (And there will doubtless be nasty events in the process.) The disruptive power of one person, or a small band, is matchless, and will only get worse. Forever and ever, Amen—and regardless of the size of our Army or the CIA or Homeland Security.

And, I think, perhaps arrogantly, that the single most important step toward ameliorating (not eradicating—impossible, even unthinkable) the terrorist threat (small bands, not nations with well-defined positions on maps) is for the United States to continue to be the matchless, energetic, open, self-improving Beacon of Hope it has been for two-and-a-quarter centuries. (Maybe we can even brighten the wattage of that Beacon.) I'm reading a marvelous and thoughtful book, Inventing Human Rights. In effect, there was not even the idea of human rights until the 1700s. And—clearly!—the American and French revolutions were the seminal landmarks in the one giant step for mankind toward human liberty. Then the U.S., unlike France, blessed with an infinite horizon, what we now call the continental United States, took the next giant step and effectively invented Positive Thinking. "Strike out on your own! Move West (the Appalachians first)! Re-define yourself." Re-imaginings and Re-definition and Exploration and Entrepreneurship and Brand You (sorry, couldn't help myself—but Ben Franklin would have applauded) were and are the underpinnings of America's great, successful, productive society—along with our steady flow of immigrant-malcontents setting out on ridiculously dangerous voyages of re-definition and self discovery. (Immigrant = In Search of Re-definition. Right?)

My conclusion then, as an apparently strong voice in the unabashedly Positivist Reagan Revolution, is that the power of positive thinking must be retained or regained at all costs. (My White House friends of that era tell me that In Search of Excellence was a seminal clarion call, perceived as such, for American businesses to stop hiding behind our growing protectionist walls and emulation of Japanese management—and come out swinging in our own style, which we subsequently did). Which to me means that we must deal with, and to some extent learn to live with, the near-infinite in length threat of havoc, never to be fully eradicated, caused by somebody at any given time pissed off about something—and return posthaste to our more careful to be sure, historic positivist selves. Of course we must be "tough with terrorists," but the idea that bombs and fortified borders and cowering behind said borders are the solution is insane. Positivist, open, daring, freedom-obsessed America is still the world's best hope.

I say all this because I have been troubled of late, very troubled, by the strident words of several of our 2008 presidential candidates from both parties. Their message: Build walls and hide now and forevermore.

And I say that all this from me is the antithesis of a political statement. American-style Positivism is my life's work at home and abroad. Cubicle slaves and bedraggled corporations—in Turkey or Romania or Siberia or in Kansas City or Miami or Boston—rise up and cast off your self-imposed shackles. Join the Global Economy (you have no choice, for God's sake), re-imagine and re-invent yourselves or your company. Understand that pioneering is the back to the future requisite. It is indeed—again—your great grandfather's world of self-reliance.

To hide is the ultimate victory for Osama and other terrorists. If we build walls, bomb, and slash the flow of immigrants, we may survive for awhile, even decades—but we will cease to be America and to be the globe's Beacon of Liberty and the Infinite Possibilities of Re-imaginings.

(Why the hell do you think I called my last book Re-imagine—it was a 300-page Technicolor rant that said ... rise up and regain your great grandfathers' sense of infinite possibilities and accountability. My Grandfather Peters came to our Beacon of Hope, Baltimore variety, in about 1870 and proceeded, from nothing, to become a wildly successful contractor and philanthropist—until he was wiped out, never to recover, by the Great Depression. He was gone before I arrived, but I never stop thinking of him, his victories, and his losses; perhaps he was my Quintessential American Beacon, when, at age 22, helped along by the Navy, I migrated to California and proceeded to stay there for the next 35 years—making my way, as a noisy participant, through the birthing and coming of age of the Silicon Valley colossus; in the process I avoided my father's tiresome professional life as a Cubicle Slave in the Tall Towers of the Eastern Seaboard.)

Four deafening cheers for the power of positive thinking—and acting! May we re-discover it posthaste!

FYI

I enjoyed myself beyond measure, but I had one helluva first six months of 2007. With brutal abandon, I simply piled up too damn many frequent flyer miles. I will mostly be on my beloved Vermont farm for the next five or so weeks—pursuing as nasty a manual labor schedule as my physical self can take. (And loafing—i.e., reading.) Work "of the head" will be minimal, unless I talk myself into one of several pending writing projects, which I hope I don't.

The upshot is that my Posts will be sporadic—and the posting of PowerPoint presentations nil. (NB: I've spent the first three very intense "days off" learning Microsoft Office 2007—which has #%$^ all in common with the '97–'03 version; I successfully side-stepped Vista, only to be fully ensnared by its cousin. Hint: I am in a very bad mood.)

Dis-compelling Customer Experiences

viagra cheap australia After all the customer service training that has proliferated, you would think that service levels would now be off the chart. Sadly, that is not the case. A recent article from Stores magazine relates survey results showing that associate attitudes are poor, salespeople are rude, and product knowledge is in short supply. I loved this particular quote from the article: "An underlying theme of many shopper comments is the disconnect between the image projected by the brand in various forms of advertising and the experience they have when they visit the store."

What is it that retailers and associates aren't getting? It is all about the experience that is created, whether someone is shopping online or in the store. People want to spend their money where associates care and are knowledgeable and where they are greeted with a warm welcome. Retailers are losing ground on the most basic elements of customer experience. In the end, those retailers who reverse this trend will be the most successful.

What have your experiences been like when shopping? On a scale of 1 -10, with 1 being dismal and 10 being "off the charts," where do you stand these days?

Recommending Re-imagine!

Apparently there's more to YouTube than exploding soda and lip-synching. We've discovered a couple of guys who enjoyed Re-imagine! so much, they decided to share their opinions with the world. Here's a recommendation from Rick Hicks and here's one from Allister Fugill. We'd love to see more of these. So grab your video camera and tell us what you think. What's your favorite book by Tom? Favorite slide? Punchline? If you don't have a camera on hand, feel free to just let us know in the comments. buy viagra in sydney

When I'm 64!

Okay, it's actually 63. That is, the 63rd birthday of the Allies' start of the bloody process of liberating France. Alas, I'd forgotten until, while on my run in Georgetown on the ancient C&O Canal Towpath (a 70 or 80 mile trek in full), I saw French, American, and British flags on a tiny shop front. The owner, with curlers in her hair, almost shouted "Thank you, America" as I passed with a Navy hat on. (Haven't gotten anything but grief-vitriol overseas as an American of late*—so it came as a shock.) Anyway, she is very, very French, and has had her shop for about 15 years; she topped things off with an invitation to stop by in the afternoon for champagne.

Hats off to our Normandy vets, now all in their 80s, from the U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, etc.—brave members of a true "coalition of the willing."

*In the past, overseas, I've observed dismay at the resident of 1600 PA Ave. But this time it's inclusive—we are all getting grief.

Told You So!

"Told you so" is really stupid, a sign of senility and petulance; so I retract. But I will nonetheless quote from page 307 of my 1997 book, The Circle of Innovation. I was riffing on the problems associated with ISO 9000 certification, and unearthed the perfect quote to match my sentiments, courtesy Richard Buetow, then director of corporate quality for business systems at Motorola:

"With ISO 9000 you can still have terrible processes and products. You can certify a manufacturer that makes life jackets from concrete, as long as those jackets are made according to the documented procedures and the company provides next of kin with instructions on how to complain about defects. That's absurd."

What's particularly interesting about that, in addition to the amusing-but-deadly-serious content, is that the speaker is a Motorolan. Long before Welch at GE, Motorola was the poster child for wholesale adoption of Six Sigma quality processes. And, though the process worked wonders on quality in the short term, it apparently starved innovation, an under-tended priority for historically innovative Motorola—until the RAZR signified a return to corporate roots.

Searching Circle of Innovation for that vaguely remembered quote was in response to the June 11 BusinessWeek cover story, "3M's Innovation Crisis: How Six Sigma Almost Smothered Its Idea Culture." When Jim McNerney lost out to Jeff Immelt in the race to replace the retiring Welch, he immediately landed the CEO job at 3M. (He's subsequently moved on to Boeing.) As GE-ers tend to do almost mechanically, he instantly implanted GE's powerful systems—powerful in GE's odd culture, a point never to be forgotten. Six Sigma led the way, was of enormous value—and in the process more or less closed the lid on entrepreneurial behavior. Six Sigma = Tight Controls and rigid copying of "benchmark" entities within the firm.

The story is not unique—Motorola is a case in point, as mentioned. So was Florida Power & Light, which became, about 20 years ago, the first American company to win Japan's tip-top quality award, ironically the Deming Award. (After W. Edwards Deming, the Yank who brought quality fanaticism to Japan, having been dismissed as a nutter at home.) Upshot: FP&L de-installed most of its vaunted quality systems just a couple of years later because, apparently, they were choking the firm to death.

That was then, and the Welch Era is more or less now. Repeat: McNerney's fellow "loser," my pal Bob Nardelli, took the helm at Home Depot, discovered Gordian knots galore—and immediately (!!!) installed GE systems with the zeal that is his trademark, though not with Six Sigma in the pole position. You couldn't go two minutes at HD without hearing the word "metric." Again, the discipline was necessary and brought needed order to the monster firm. Nardelli is gone now, struggling to make do with his roughly $210 million "get out of town now" pay packet. And the reason in part was those damn systems, which strangled the previously energetic firm and whacked morale and retail customer service along the way.

Then there's Immelt's GE itself. Jeff inherited a 20 year operational excellence obsession from Welch, with Six Sigma at or near its heart. But what about the firm's vaunted Edisonian spirit of innovation? More or less M.I.A. (I was on Welch's shit list for a while, along with Michael Porter, for a quote in the Wall Street Journal asking, "What happened to Edison?" ) Immelt, like 3M's post-McNerny team, is trying to preserve the best of Six Sigma, etc., but clearly betting his legacy, and even his short-term hold on his job, on Big Bet Organic Innovation.

So from FP&L to Motorola to GE, 3M, and Home Depot we see the value of "system madness"—but also the devastation of an innovation "culture," à la 3M, that seems to accompany it. I, for one, have staked my own legacy on decentralization and innovation—and railed against ISO 9000, Six Sigma, Benchmarking, and Best Practices for 20 plus years. (Of course "learning" is essential—but rigid application of Best Practices in the spirit of "my way or the highway" is disastrous. So, too, benchmarking taken too far—as it usually is.)

"Balance" is as always the answer—and the real theme of the BW cover story. But an injunction to "do both" doesn't cut it for me—it's a first class cop-out as I see it. So, I am no fan of balance. And, in short, as I look at the pitiful (understatement!) performance of Giant Companies (think, of late, of our giant pharmaceutical firms), I say "Vote for—with purposeful imbalance—innovation and an ingrained entrepreneurial spirit."

In Search of Excellence, Thoughts On, 25-year Perspective

[TP note: What follows, in shorthand-outline form was written by me to prep for an interview on a new book about the "halo effect"—which, as so many since 1982, takes aim at In Search of Excellence—which, of course, is immensely flattering 25 years later, when the book and I, by all rights, ought to be on the shelf gathering dust. Why did I take it so seriously? Simple, because it's interesting to think about "all this."]

*Book was impetus for: viagra alternatives uk

    Excellence "Industry"
    Anti-Excellence "Industry"
    Multi-billion $$ "Management guru" INDUSTRY

get viagra overnight *Don't take yourself too seriously!!!!! (Read Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled By Randomness—my bible.)
*MANAGEMENT IS NOT NOT NOT A "SCIENCE" (!!!!)
*TP to audiences: "If you followed In Search to a T you were obviously an idiot and deserved your sorry fate; it's simply meant to be 'helpful,' no more and no less. It's entirely up to you and your judgment as to how far to go, if anywhere." (Any idea/s taken to its/their extreme will get you in trouble—e.g., religious ones.)
*TP: "'Halo effect?' I WISH IT WERE TRUE!" (I.e, that "everyday" service industries treated their employees like Wegmans does.)
*Conjectures lead to refutations. (Duh.) (Popper, philosopher of science, Conjectures and Refutations) (Success stories vs failure stories; Freud/broken personalities vs. Maslow/healthy personalities)

*FYI, or, rather, for what it's worth, perhaps not much):

    Excellence Index: 1982-2002/Forbes.com
    [20th anniversary of Search]

    DJIA: $10,000 yields $85,500
    EI: $10,000 yields $140,050

    (Forbes/Excellence Index/Basket of 32 publicly traded stocks from In Search of Excellence)

    (Ever so many management book authors feel it's necessary to begin with "Most of the companies in In Search of Excellence failed." This is hardly "proof" that such an assertion is wrong, just "a little counter-evidence.")

* The "stuff" can't hurt (e.g., women, design, customers, people, MBWA, X-functional co-operation, soft is hard [numbers "soft," people-customer-execution orientation/obsession "hard"], EXCELLENCE per se as aspiration, action beats talk, screw-ups normal & necessary, flowers, "thank you," Enthusiasm, hire enthusiasts) "Tom, it [YPO seminar in '83] was a blinding flash of the obvious"—Manny Garcia, Burger King's #1 franchisee at the time)
(McKinsey "7-S model" [strategy, structure, staff, etc.] 8 "basics" of Search)

*Not RULES, but a little motivation/some "stuff" to get you (seminar attendee) going
*TP, 2007: "My principal goal is to remind you of stuff you already know, but which often gets lost in the course of taxing everyday affairs."

*CONTEXT! CONTEXT! CONTEXT! (1982's "Strategy obsession" vs our emphasis on Execution-"Organization"-"Organizational effectiveness")

*Didn't purport to be "Hard research." (Instead, "exploratory research"; i.e., taking a first look at an interesting notion)

buy brand viagra without prescription *FYI:

Comment @ tompeters.com/June 2, 2007: "As an attendee of the CO-OP Financial Services Conference, I had the opportunity to see Tom's presentation on 6/1/07. For me, the man and the message were both truly inspiring. Tom helped remind me of why I decided to accept the CEO position at my credit union nearly seven years ago. His presentation also served as a much needed slap in the face by showing me how much I have unintentionally strayed from the original vision I was given. I have allowed the influences of generally well intended external forces to move me, and therefore my credit union, off track. As a result, we have become entirely too wrapped up with trying to be 'one of the big guys,' way too risk averse, afraid to fail and slow to act as a result of 'paralysis by analysis.' It's time to change all of that! Thanks very much and God bless!" (Posted by Wally Murray at June 3, 2007, 9:16 AM)

NOT MEANT TO IMPLY A "TYPICAL COMMENT," SIMPLY TO SUGGEST WHAT "THEY" CAN GET OUT OF "IT." (Will he follow up? God alone knows. And, sorry, not my problem—I live to stir things up; hey, one can only do so much, especially at 64 [64 = me, Harrison Ford, Paul McCartney—a little left in us old boys?])

[CM note: The article we link above is an excerpt from Knowledge@Wharton.]

Steve! You Da Man!

I love STEVE FARBER's Blog, on our Blogroll. It's called Extreme Leadership—and nobody does this better. "GTY" is a terrific—no, wonderful—idea. (No translation from me, you'll have to go there.)

FYI1: Steve is a terrific writer, an original thinker-writer, a masterful trainer—and a boffo public speechifier for groups of 6 or 6,000.

FYI2: Steve is a longtime colleague—but sometimes I forget how much I think of him and his work.

Event

Tom spoke this morning in Anaheim to the International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association. He followed former Dallas Cowboy star Emmitt Smith to the podium and preceded former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Tom said: "Having watched Mr Smith torment my beloved San Francisco 49ers on several occasions, it was nonetheless a great treat to meet him. As I said to him, even when I'm rooting like a maniac for the other guys, it's always pure pleasure to observe Excellence of the sort he personifies. And it was a helluva speech!"

Following a demanding two weeks on the road in Mauritius, Sweden, Colorado, and California (about 25,000 miles, he guesses), Tom's heading to Vermont to enjoy over a month on his farm. There's a new addition to the family, Aussie puppy Lulu, the fourth canine member of the clan. Also on the animal front, he tells us that his other priority is "keeping the damn woodchucks out of Susan's fabulous garden." He heads out to Nairobi in mid-July.

For your convenience, links to the PPTs for IDDBA are below:
IDDBA, Event Version, Anaheim, CA
IDDBA, Long Version, Anaheim

Notes from the Road

I spoke to CO-OP Network today. They run the most extensive, co-operative ATM (EFT, deposit sharing) network serving credit unions. It is a true co-op, as the participating credit unions own them. I have a warm spot for then—the D.C. based Navy Federal Credit Union was my first "bank." They face enormous challenges—as every aspect of financial services becomes more and more competitive.

While it is great to be on the road (out of the U.S.), it's also great to be home. One can push and prod far more effectively in one's own culture.

I'm staying at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs; if there's more attentive service most anywhere, I'd be surprised. I'm off to Carbondale, CO, by car to visit my oldest stepson, Max. One more to go—Sunday in Anaheim—and my 6-week hiatus begins. This current trip, in 10 days: VT-Boston-London-Johannesburg-Mauritius-Dubai-
Frankfurt-Göteborg-Stockholm-London-Denver-Colorado Springs (so far).

[For the PPTs, you can use the links below.—CM]
CO-OP Network, Colorado Springs, CO
CO-OP Network, Long Version

It Was 40 Years Ago Today

generic viagra with echeck

Yes, today marks the 40th anniversary of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"—which forever altered the landscape of popular music. On June 1, 1967, the Beatles released what most music critics still hail as the greatest rock & roll album of all time. Why the greatest? Short answer: It was the most innovative. But how so? It wasn't the Beatles' most original collection of songs. In fact, I'd argue that their previous album, "Revolver," contained compositions that were more creatively crafted. But, of course, there's more than one way to be innovative, and the Beatles always found several. The group presented the songs on Sgt. Pepper as a unified package, the repertoire of a fictional band they created. The album had an overarching theme and distinct identity, musically and lyrically—with smooth segues between songs that reminded us that the whole was more important than the sum of its parts—a first in pop music. Some would say it created a new business model: the preeminence of the 33 1/3 RPM album. (Sales of albums would eventually replace sales of singles as the barometer of pop music success—a better indicator of depth of audience appeal. This, in turn, led to the success of FM radio, which by favoring album tracks catered to a less fickle and more sophisticated pop music audience.) Sonically, Sgt. Pepper cut new ground as well, with an unprecedented degree of multilayered vocal and instrumental tracking—as well as circus-like sound effects and crowd noises that fully exploited the new stereophonic technology. And Sgt. Pepper revolutionized album design and packaging with its first-of-a-kind, laminated 3-D album cover, gateway sleeve, and printed lyrics on the back cover.

Yet, this explosion of creativity was applied to a set of songs which (except for "A Day in the Life") John Lennon felt was unremarkable product at the time! Is there an innovation lesson for us here, 40 years later?