Discover Network, Acquirer Advisory Council, 14 September 2011
Discover Network Long Version, 14 September 2011

Check your calendar.
Right now.

What have been your EXPLICIT "helping" activities today?

Use the word!

Sure you're pissed off that the folks who will be the BENEFICIARIES (!!) of your Magnificent Work "just don't get it."

Hint: Calling them the likes of "irresponsible murderers" won't help!

Rule: Don't trashtalk prospective users of your programs—even in the most private of private conversations with your most trusted friends and allies!!

In preparation for a short speech at a Nature Conservancy fund raiser, I re-read Bill Birchard's Nature's Keepers: The Remarkable Story of How The Nature Conservancy Became the Largest Environmental Organization in the World. When former president John Sawhill was at TNC's helm, at one point he appointed a key task force to do a ground-up look at the organization's strategy. More specifically, per Sawhill's charge: "What areas should the Conservancy focus on and more important—what activities should we stop doing?"

In general, for you or me or our organization, consciously-systematically-strategically working on "stop doings" is of the utmost importance—and often overlooked. We might stop doing some distracting thing, or lower a priority—but that's not the same as a personal or organizational look at entire areas to excise from our agenda. (And then planning in exacting detail how to withdraw.)

So, I suggest:

In the next 90 days, work with your leadership team on a "Stop Doing Strategic Review." As I said above, once decisions have been made a careful execution plan must be developed.

(Along the way, do the same thing for yourself—with the eventual help of a "stop counselor.")

See above. The promotion decision should be dominated by the candidates' detailed track record at people development. The candidates' assertions should be carefully checked with the people the candidates claim to have developed.

"Rigidities" is not just the problem of Giants. Rigidity is a disease in 3-person accountancies and 11-table restaurants only one year old.

Stop what you are doing.
Right now.

Call your best customer.
Ask: How are we doing compared to a year ago? Six months ago? Are we making your life more complicated? Are we more bureaucratic in any way, shape, or form? Are we slowing down? Do we ever say, "I'd like to do that for you, but ..."? Etc.

Call your best vendor.
Repeat the above.

Visit your newest employee.
Ask: Have you run across procedures since you got here that you think are silly or over-complicated? If so, have you passed your concerns along? If you haven't, why not—do we make it intimidating to surface such concerns? If you have passed such concerns along, have you been praised for doing so? Has anything happened?

At every Exec Group meeting, set aside a 15-minute block to discuss a "dumbest thing we've done lately" item—insist that members bring a case along for discussion.

There's nothing special about my suggestions here—they are not necessarily meant to be followed, but merely to get you thinking about some anti-rigidity rituals you might invent.

Consider the 3 (or 2 or 5) meetings you've been to today. Consider the 3 project milestones just buttoned up—or the 3 on the near horizon:

Has the word "EXCELLENCE" per se been used as a basis for evaluating your actions? Could you personally call the outcome of each meeting or the nature of the milestone/s achieved or approaching "Excellent"?

Key idea: The "Excellence Standard" is not about Grand Outcomes. In Zen terms, all we have is today. If the day's work cannot be assessed as Excellent, then the oceanic overall goal of Excellence has not been advanced. Period.

That is, the "Excellence Watch" must be a daily affair—or you simply are not serious about the overall Standard of Excellence.

I've argued for the likes of "Black Belts in Strategic Listening" and a values "plank" labeled "Thoughtful in All We Do"—as the "Heart of Strategy." Now I'm on my high horse again: Strategic Enterprise-wide Negotiating Culture belongs on this list—and damn near the top.

Years ago: I'd gotten home late from a long & harrowing trip. At breakfast the next morning, I declared to my ex-wife that I felt "fresh as a daisy"—no ulterior motive, I did! As I said it, I dropped my coffee cup on the floor.

Her (appropriate!) response: "Petal fell off."

Likewise, apparently brimming with energy, in days past, I'd arrive in London from San Francisco, go to my hotel and change, and get on with my day's work—certain, redux, that I was "fresh as a daisy."

Arriving at around 6 a.m. from a mere Boston-LondonHeathrow trip, these days I usually take the day off:

Nap.
Then wander around London.
Working dinner is a possibility.

Message:

Fresh matters!
A lot!!!!!!
(And not just in the OR or cockpit.)
(And age makes some difference—but, I believe, not a lot of difference.)

(I still feel "fresh as a daisy"—thanks, Mom Peters, for the Energizer Bunny genes. But now I'm "sage enough" to admit that I ain't!)

So:

Don't do delusion!
Do fresh!

Does life suck sometimes?
Absolutely.

Nonetheless you and only you own your attitude. "Realistically," things may stink to high heaven. Still, the day is yours to Embrace with Vigor and Good Cheer—or not.

Your call.
100%.
Period.

Remember, if you will, the annoying-persistent TPR/Tom Peters Rant:

EXCELLENCE. Always.
If not EXCELLENCE, what?
If not EXCELLENCE now, when?

Is your product or service offering (see above post) ...

Special?
So special it takes your and your customers' breath away?

Live the super-amazing-incredible-WOW-only ones who do what we do flavor of Special.
(Or die—professionally—trying.)

Start the Quest for SPECIAL today.
Why not?

As leader-Servant Leader, devote your career to developing 100% of the people in your charge. You will know that you are succeeding when you can see that they are, or are journeying toward, being:

Committed.
Engaged.
Growing.
Learning.
Fearless (unfailingly encouraged to try new things).
Respected.
Trusted.
Appreciated.
Independent-minded.
Team focused.
Focused themselves, even when fresh caught, on the growth of others
Passionate about their work, their mates, and their customers.
Informed.
Open (fanatic about sharing).
Caring.
Committed to EXCELLENCE in everything they do.

People first.
EXCELLENCE. Always.

"Trying one's best" and "Caring" are better than not trying one's best and/or not caring.
I guess.

Reluctant as I am to use such strong and absolutist language, there is only One Acceptable Standard: Getting done what is necessary to get done.

Proceed accordingly.
And evaluate those in your charge accordingly.

Tom's Six-step Program:

**Pursue a "non-negotiable" aspiration for growth and greatness that stretches us to the breaking point and perhaps beyond: ... an emotional, vital, innovative, joyful, creative, entrepreneurial endeavor that elicits maximum concerted human potential in the wholehearted service of others—e.g., Employees, Customers, Suppliers, Communities, Owners, Temporary partners.
**Listen like maniacs. Consciously pursue Excellence in Strategic Listening. 100% "Listening Blackbelts." Listening per se is at the Heart of Competitive Advantage.
**Ask and ask and ask again and again and again: "What do you think?" Engage everyone as Rockstar Participant in a Bold Adventure in Personal and Organizational Growth and Excellence.
**Celebrate failure. Yes, damn it, CELEBRATE. Try and fail and adjust and try and fail and adjust, then try and fail and adjust. Repeat. Forever. At the speed of light. To paraphrase my friend Richard Farson: "Whoever makes the most mistakes wins."
**Total and unwavering focus on creating "100% life success sagas" among our staff and customers and vendors and other members of our extended family.
**Excellence. Always. If not Excellence, what? If not Excellence now, when?

[Above: Crabapples arriving!]

You'd think that "getting well" was the heart of the matter when it comes to evaluating a hospital stay.

Right?

Wrong!

In one giant survey, Press Ganey Associates queried 139,380 former patients at 225 hospitals on "patient satisfaction." After the data were collected, they teased out the 15 most powerful determinants of said Patient Satisfaction.

Are you ready?

None.
N-O-N-E.
Zero.
Z-E-R-O
Zilch.
Zip.
Nada.

Not a single one of the Top 15 sources of patient satisfaction had to do with the patient's health outcome. All 15, in effect, were related to the quality of the patient's interactions with hospital staff—and employee satisfaction among staff members.

The study is reported in Putting Patients First, by Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, and Patrick Charmel. The authors are leaders at Griffin Hospital in Derby CT. Year after year it ranks near the top (Top 10 on several occasions) of Fortune magazine's Best Companies to Work For list—one of the rare, and often the only, health care institution to do so. (It also tops the charts on damn near every other measure you can name from patient safety to financial viability. The so-called Planetree Alliance, run out of Griffin, is the epicenter of the "patient-centric care" movement.)

The authors use the Press Ganey data as the jumping-off point for discussing the process and tenets that guide their work with staff and patients at Griffin:

"There is a misconception that supportive interactions require more staff or more time and are therefore more costly. Although labor costs are a substantial part of any hospital budget, the interactions themselves add nothing to the budget.

"Kindness is free.

"Listening to patients or answering their questions costs nothing. It could be argued that negative interactions—alienating patients, being unresponsive to their needs, or limiting their sense of control—can be very costly. ... Angry, frustrated, or frightened patients may be combative, withdrawn, and less cooperative—requiring far more time than it would have taken to interact with them initially in a positive way."

The Big Lessons here—and they are BIG—are several:

(1) Process "beats" outcome in evaluating an "experience"—even one as apparently "outcome sensitive" as a hospital stay. The positive quality of staff interactions were more memorable than whether or not the health problem was fixed.
(2) Happy staff, happy customers. Want to "put the customer first"? Put the staff "more first"!
(3) Quality is free—and then some. We learned (well, most of us learned) when the "quality movement" dominated our consciousness that not only was quality free—but doing the quality thing right actually reduced costs, often dramatically.

And, to repeat (and what could be more worth repeating?) ...

(4) Kindness is free!!!

Kindness is free!
Thoughtfulness in all we do!
Put customers first by putting staff "more first"!
Watch your cash balance-market share soar!

Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence People) once famously said, perhaps all you need to know to get ahead, in 29 words: "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."

Mr Carnegie's observation-commandment came to mind when a good friend asked me to contribute to a compilation of "best advice I ever got" stories he was putting together. I thought for a long time about his "simple" request. And here's where I ended up:

Could attending a funeral count as "best piece of advice" I ever got? For me, yes.

My Grandfather Owen Snow (my Mom's side) ran a little country store in Wicomico Church, Virginia, in a part of the state called the "Northern Neck." As you might expect, we grandkids loved hanging out in the store—there were still barrels of this and that back in the late '40s and even the '50s. Sometimes Grampa Owen would let us measure something out—and he would turn tyrant if we ever shorted someone by even a fraction of an ounce. He'd always pile a little something extra into a can of 10-penny nails, or whatever. One also noticed, to the extent that a kid could, that he always took his time with people, listened to their stories, and treated them with the utmost respect.

I was in the Navy in Port Hueneme, California, when Grampa Owen passed away. We were days from a deployment to Danang, Vietnam, but my commanding officer didn't hesitate for a second in giving me four days' leave, even though I was the so-called Embarkation Officer—there's a lesson for another day in that, too. Anyway, I made it to Wicomico Church in plenty of time for the service. Did I tell you it was a truly pipsqueak town, with, I'd guess, a population of 400 or 500, though my memory is cloudy? The roads were still pretty primitive, and it'd been dry for a while. Around 8 a.m., the service was at 10, the dust started to stir. In short order, it was a veritable dust storm. The upshot of all this is that over 1,000 people showed up. I talked to several of them, whom I didn't know. It seemed as if Grampa Owen had lent each and every one a helping hand at one time or another—good advice, a call to someone somewhere who might help them out, an extended period of credit, a few bucks out of his pocket, whatever, and whatever.

The "lesson" that funeral taught me was the power of decency and thoughtfulness. It wasn't that my Mom and Dad hadn't done a lot of that, but this was the Ultimate Technicolor Illustration. In the most unassuming way, Grandpa Owen had "been there" for an entire community and beyond—and a great dust storm of people, some, who'd moved, from 100 miles away, had come to say one last thanks. If there isn't a crystal-clear message, and, de facto, advice in that, I don't know where you'd find it.

To make the obvious more obvious, if necessary: How do you (me!) stack up on The Great "Being There" Exam? It's a "life question"—and a "business-career success question" with few, if any, peers.

I'm here because of Excellence.
That is, back in 1982 I co-wrote a book called In Search of Excellence.
A lot of people were kind enough to buy it.
And I've been "talking Excellence" for the subsequent 27 years.

(NB: Never write the word "Excellence" without capitalizing the "E." This I command—not that I have the power to do so.)

I love "Excellence"—and not just because it paid for the farm I bought in Vermont in 1984.

I love EXCELLENCE—truth is, I think you should capitalize all the letters—because Excellence is soooooo Cool. (Cap "C.")

It's so cool.
It's so heartening.
It's so soaring & inspiring.
It's so worth getting out of bed for.
(Even in the winter in Vermont.)
It's so healthy.
It's so helpful to others.
(The striving more than the arriving.)
It's so good for your morale—even on the shittiest of days.
(Especially on the shittiest of days.)

Book tour driver Bill Young says:

"Strive for excellence. Ignore success."

TP: Amen. (Love it!)

Anon.* says:

"Excellence can be obtained if you:

... care more than others think is wise;
... risk more than others think is safe;
... dream more than others think is practical;
... expect more than others think is possible."

(*Posted by K. Sriram @ tompeters.com.)

TP: Amen. (Love it!)

Asked how long it took to achieve Excellence, IBM's legendary boss Tom Watson is said to have answered more or less as follows: "A minute. You 'achieve' Excellence* by promising yourself right now that you'll never again knowingly do anything that's not Excellent—regardless of any pressure to do otherwise by any boss or situation."

(*I don't really know whether or not Watson insisted on the Cap "E"—from what I know, I wouldn't be surprised. I do know he loved the word.)

TP: Amen. (Love it!)

Regardless of the location (China, Lithuania, Miami) or industry (health care, fast food), I title all of my presentations:

Excellence. Always.
If Not Excellence, What?
If Not Excellence Now, When?

I hate the word "motivation"—surely I've told you that before.
I hate it because the idea of me "motivating" you is so outrageous—and arrogant.
To state the obvious, only you can motivate you.
What I can do (as boss or even "guru") is to Paint Portraits of Excellence.
And then we can imagine ourselves in those portraits—in Pursuit of Excellence.
"Pursuit": Excellence is not a "goal"—it's the way we live (remember Mr Watson of IBM).

Excellence. Always.
If Not Excellence, What?
If Not Excellence Now, When?

Excellence In (Today's) Tough Times.
Now.
More Than Ever.

Excellence is always worth its weight in gold.
If possible, Excellence is worth even more than its weight in gold in tough times.

In tough times, the pressure is such that there is often a temptation to cut corners.
Think "Excellence."
Don't cut the corner/s.

In tough times, your morale is often shot, and it's hard to get out of bed.
Think Excellence.
Set the alarm a half-hour earlier than usual.

In tough times, it's really tough to be a boss.
Think Excellence.
It is tough to be a boss in tough times—but tough times are the Ultimate Test for you and your team—EXCELLENCE is a more worthy aspiration than ever before.

Excellence. Always.
If Not Excellence, What?
If Not Excellence Now, When?

[Above, the Farm, with Spring finally arriving. Below, close-up of the sort of brambles that stand between me and Excellence!]

In an important [as far as I was concerned] keynote conference speech honoring the work of Peter Drucker, I let my imagination soar, and out popped, among other things,

Organizations should be ...

... no less than Cathedrals in which the full and awesome power of the Imagination and Spirit and native Entrepreneurial flair of diverse individuals is unleashed in passionate pursuit of ... Excellence.

"Cathedral/s" is a Big Word. In fact, I don't mean it in a religious way—except in that I see all organizations as driven by an unstinting commitment to members' growth.

A classroom in a primary school should ... obviously ... be such a Cathedral. But so, too, an accounting or training department. Organizations must effectively serve their external customers to survive, let alone thrive. But my line-of-logic is, at least to me, crystal clear and admits no alternatives: The odds of the external customer being served effectively is a direct function of such service being provided by those [employees] who are engaged in a vigorous Quest for Growth and Excellence.

I don't ask you to "buy my act." I do ask you to think about it—and the consequences (enormous!) thereof.

Is, in fact, your unit of any size ...

"... no less than a Cathedral in which the full and awesome power of the Imagination and Spirit and native Entrepreneurial flair of diverse individuals is unleashed in passionate pursuit of ... Excellence"?

And if it is not, or if that is not the am, then tell me what the alternative is. Please.

Cathedral.
Imagination.
Spirit.
Entrepreneurial flair.
Diverse.
Passion.
Excellence.

Or???????