Transcript Tom Peters’ X25* EXCELLENCE. ALWAYS. Bestseller/Goteborg/29 May 2007 *In Search of Excellence 1982-2007 Tom Peters’ G30* EXCELLENCE. ALWAYS. Bestseller/Goteborg/29 May 2007 * Research for In Search of Excellence 1977-2007

Tom Peters’ X25*
EXCELLENCE.
ALWAYS.
Bestseller/Goteborg/29 May 2007
*In Search of Excellence 1982-2007
Tom Peters’ G30*
EXCELLENCE.
ALWAYS.
Bestseller/Goteborg/29 May 2007
* Research for In Search of Excellence
1977-2007 (Stop #1: Goteborg)
Slides* at …
tompeters.com
*Also LONG
Conrad Hilton, at a gala celebrating his life,
on “the most important lesson you’ve
learned in you long and distinguished
career”:
“remember
to tuck the
shower curtain
inside
the bathtub”
The Story
what’s with the “excellence bit”?.
Big = Pitiful.
Innovate. Or. Die.
Up, Up, Up the “Value Added Chain.”
“New” Markets (Women, Boomers)
Talent = Brand.
“21st Century Leadership. (Ha.)
Trained by “Messists.” Hobbies are history
& statistics.* Professional
life, center of, Silicon
Valley, 1970-2000.
Bias/es:
The older I
get, the less boring the
“basics” become.
Axiom2007:
*Fooled By Randomness
Hire Great People
(Resilient, Passionate)
Try a Lot of Stuff
(S.A.V./R.F.A.)
Enjoy It While It Lasts
EXCELLENCE????
“I am often asked by would-be entrepreneurs
seeking escape from life within huge corporate
structures, ‘How do I build a small firm for
Buy
a very large one
and just wait.”
myself?’ The answer seems obvious:
—Paul Ormerod, Why Most Things Fail:
Evolution, Extinction and Economics
Mission impossible?
$36B/’98
minus
$675M/‘07
Daimler.
And Dumb.
Both Start
with “d.”
“Marriage
in heaven”
—Daimler-
Benz and Chrysler exchange vows, circa 1998
(Jürgen Schrempp)
“the divorce on
earth”
—Daimler exec, circa 2007, on
probable Cerberus private equity purchase of
Chrysler from Daimler
DaimlerChrysler/’98-’07:
Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh and … Duh
Manifold Synergies/No
Severe Scale limits/Yes
Culture clashes/Yes
Rushmorean ego issues/Yes
Customer acceptance /No
The last
word:
There is
no “last
word.”
“It is not the
strongest of the
species that survives,
nor the most
intelligent, but the
one most responsive
to change.”
—Charles Darwin
BIAS.
BUILT.
TO.
LAST.
NOT.
TP#1*:
Netscape!
*Where would you rather have worked for those 5 years, Netscape
or IBM-HP-Microsoft-Oracle? (Where, 25 years from now, would you
rather to be able to tell someone—e.g., grandchild—that you worked?)
Built to Last
vs
Built to
Change/Rock
the World
EXCELLENCE.
CIRCA 1982.
Excellence1982: The Bedrock “Eight Basics”
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
A Bias for Action
Close to the Customer
Autonomy and Entrepreneurship
Productivity Through People
Hands On, Value-Driven
Stick to the Knitting
Simple Form, Lean Staff
Simultaneous Loose-Tight
Properties”
ExIn*: 1982-2002/Forbes.com
$85,000
EI: $10,000 yields $140,050
DJIA: $10,000 yields
*Forbes/Excellence Index /Basket of 32 publicly traded stocks
EXCELLENCE.
ASPIRATION.
2006.
Why in the
World did you
go to Siberia?
Enthusiasm.
Emotion. Excellence. Energy.
Excitement. Service. Growth.
Creativity. Imagination. Vitality.
Joy. Surprise. Independence.
Spirit. Community. Limitless
human potential. Diversity.
Profit. Innovation. Design.
Quality. Entrepreneurialism.
The Peters Principles:
Wow!
Hard Is Soft
Soft Is Hard
EXCELLENCE.
ASPIRATION.
UNIVERSAL.
Jim’s
Group
Basement
Systems
Inc.
EXCELLENCE.
INNOVATE.
OR.
DIE.
What makes
God laugh?
People
making
plans!
The Mess
Is The
Message!
Period!
EXCELLENCE.
INNOVATE.
OR.
DIE.
You don’t
get better
by being
bigger. You
get worse.”
Dick Kovacevich:
“When asked to name just one big
merger that had lived up to
expectations, Leon Cooperman,
former cochairman of Goldman Sachs’
Investment Policy Committee,
I’m sure there are
success stories out
there, but at this
moment I draw a blank.”
answered:
—Mark Sirower, The Synergy Trap
InnoTac64
We become
who we hang
out with 1
Measure “Strangeness”/Portfolio Quality
Staff
Consultants
Vendors
Out-sourcing Partners (#, Quality)
Innovation Alliance Partners
Customers
Competitors (who we “benchmark” against)
Strategic Initiatives
Product Portfolio (LineEx v. Leap)
IS/IT Projects
HQ Location
Lunch Mates
Language
Board
The “Hang Out Axiom”: At
its core, every (!!!)
relationship-partnership
decision (employee,
vendor, customer, etc)
is a strategic decision
about:
“Innovate,
‘Yes’ or ‘No’ ”
“The
Bottleneck Is at
the Top of the Bottle”
“Where are you likely to find people with the least diversity of
experience, the largest investment in the past, and the greatest
reverence for industry dogma:
At the top!”
— Gary Hamel/Harvard Business Review
Try it. Try it. Try it
ry it. Try it. Screw
up. Try it. Try it. Try
t. Try it. Try it. Try
t. Try it. Screw it up
t. Try it. Try it. try
“We have a
‘strategic plan.’
It’s called doing
things.”
— Herb Kelleher
“This is so simple it sounds stupid, but it is amazing
how few oil people really understand that
you only find
oil if you drill
wells.
You may think you’re finding it
when you’re drawing maps and
studying logs, but you have to drill.”
Source: The Hunters, by John Masters, Canadian O & G wildcatter
“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.” —Bloomberg by Bloomberg
Screw.
things.
Sam’s
Secret
#1!
No try.
No deal.
“You miss
100% of
the shots you
never take.”
—Wayne Gretzky
“Intelligent people
can always come up
with intelligent
reasons to do
nothing.”
—Scott Simon
personal
“Work
on me
first.”
—Kerry Patterson,
Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler/Crucial Conversations
EXCELLENCE.
DECENTRALIZATION.
EXECUTION.
ACCOUTABILITY.
6:15A.M.
“But it’s
only
2am!”
“Where are you going? … But it’s
only 2am. … You see, you can live
your life at 120 miles an hour, and
that’s pretty impressive. But it’s
not good enough. Unless you live
at 150 miles an hour, the world
will pass you by,” HRH Prince Alwaleed*
*1 day: 573 people met separately, 200 phone calls, 100 text messages, etc
Source: “Prince Alwaleed, Inside the private world of the Middle East’s
most powerful investor” cover story, The Business, 0519.07
DECENTRALIZATION.
EXECUTION.
ACCOUTABILITY.
2a.m.
Up,
Up,
Up,
Up
the Value-added Ladder.
EXCELLENCE.
VALUE-ADDED LADDER I.
SOLVE IT.
Huge: Customer
Satisfaction
versus
Customer
Success
The Value-added Ladder/ OPPORTUNITY-SEEKING
Customer Success/
Gamechanging
Solutions
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
EXCELLENCE.
SOLVE IT.
NO OPTION.
PSF. (PSF++)
“ ‘Disintermediation’ is overrated. Those who fear
disintermediation-outsourcing should in fact be
afraid of irrelevance; ‘outsourcing’ is just another
you’ve
become irrelevant to
your customers.”
way of saying that …
—John Battelle/Point/Advertising Age/07.05
“Deutsche Bank Moves Half of Its
Back-office Jobs to India”/
(500
of 900
Research)
headline/FT/0327
“[Former Fed Vice-chairman Alan] Blinder …
remains an implacable opponent of tariffs and
trade barriers. But now he is saying loudly that a
new industrial revolution—communication
technology that allows services to be delivered
40
million American
jobs
from afar—will put as many as
at risk of being shipped out of the
country in the next decade or two.”* —Wall Street
Journal /0328
“only the tip
of a very big iceberg.”
*Blinder: 40 million =
Department Head
to …
Managing
Partner,
IS
Inc.
[HR, R&D, etc.]
EXCELLENCE.
VALUE-ADDED LADDER II.
EXPERIENCE IT.
“Experiences
are as distinct
from services as
services are from
goods.”
—Joe Pine & Jim Gilmore, The
Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a
Stage
Experience: “Rebel Lifestyle!”
“What we sell is the
ability for a 43year-old accountant
to dress in black
leather, ride through
small towns and have
people be afraid
of him.”
Harley exec, quoted in Results-Based Leadership
The Value-added Ladder/ MEMORABLE CONNECTION
Spellbinding
Experiences
Gamechanging Solutions
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
Beyond the “Transaction”/ “Satisfaction” Mentality
“Good hotel”/ “Happy guest”/
“Exceeded Expectations”
vs.
“Great Vacation”/
“Great Conference”/
“Operation Personal
Renewal”
EXCELLENCE.
VALUE-ADDED LADDER III.
DREAM IT.
Furniture vs. Dreams
“We do not sell ‘furniture’ at Domain.
We sell dreams. This
is accomplished by addressing the
half-formed needs in our customers’
heads. By uncovering these needs,
we, in essence, fill in the blanks. We
convert ‘needs’ into ‘dreams.’
Sales are the inevitable
result.”
— Judy George, Domain Home Fashions
The Value-added Ladder/ EMOTION
Dreams Come True
Spellbinding Experiences
Gamechanging Solutions
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
EXCELLENCE.
VALUE-ADDED LADDER III.
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE.
The Value-added Ladder/ ECSTASY
Lovemark
Dreams Come True
Spellbinding Experiences
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
Tattoo Brand: What %
of users would tattoo the
brand name on their body?
Top 10 “Tattoo Brands”*
Harley .… 18.9%
Disney .... 14.8
Coke …. 7.7
Google .... 6.6
Pepsi .... 6.1
Rolex …. 5.6
Nike …. 4.6
Adidas …. 3.1
Absolut …. 2.6
Nintendo …. 1.5
*BRANDsense: Build Powerful Brands through Touch,
Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound, Martin Lindstrom
Up,
Up,
Up,
Up
the Value-added Ladder.
“NEW”
MARKETS.
women.
BOOMERS.
GEEZERS.
women
BOOMERS
“Forget China,
India and the
Internet: Economic
Growth Is Driven
by
Women.”
—Headline,
Economist, April 15, 2006, Leader, page 14
Women’s Trifecta+
*Buy
*Wealth
*Lead
+ECLIPSE
OF MALES
(Old/Retire; Young/Poorly educated)
Not Just America …
“Boys Falling
Seven Years
Behind Girls
at GCSE Level”
—headline, Weekly Telegraph, UK, 10.25.06
“Women are
the majority
market”
—Fara Warner/The Power of the Purse
?????????
Home Furnishings … 94%
Vacations … 92% (Adventure Travel … 70%/ $55B travel equipment)
Houses … 91%
D.I.Y. (major “home projects”) … 80%
Consumer Electronics … 51% (66% home computers)
Cars … 68% (90%)
All consumer purchases … 83%
Bank Account … 89%
Household investment decisions … 67%
Small business loans/biz starts … 70%
Health Care … 80%
“She
knows more about the
[Audi] than the salesman who greets
her at the door. But how is she
treated? As if she has a low IQ , is
slightly hard of hearing , and really
has no right to be buying a luxury
car; and if she brought a male friend
with her, odds are 10:1 that the
clueless salesperson spent most of his
time speaking to him .” —Selling to Men, Selling
to Women, Jeffery Tobias Halter
most significant
variable in every
“The
sales situation is the
gender
of the buyer, and
more importantly, how the
salesperson communicates
to the buyer’s gender.”
—Jeffery Tobias Halter, Selling to Men, Selling to Women
Selling to men:
The
TRANSACTION Model
Selling to Women:
The
RELATIONAL Model
Source: Selling to Men, Selling to Women, Jeffery Tobias Halter
10 UNASSAILABLE REASONS WOMEN RULE
Women make [all] the financial decisions.
Women control [all] the wealth.
Women [substantially] outlive men.
Women start most of the new businesses.
Women’s work force participation rates have
soared worldwide.
Women are closing in on “same pay for same
job.”
Women are penetrating senior ranks rapidly
[even if the pace is slow for the corner
office per se].
Women’s leadership strengths are exceptionally well
aligned with new organizational effectiveness &
value-added imperatives.
Women are better salespersons than men.
Women buy [almost] everything—commercial
as well as consumer goods.
So what exactly is … the point of men?
COROLLARY.
EXCELLENCE.
WOMEN.
RULE.
“AS LEADERS,
WOMEN
RULE:
New Studies find that
female managers outshine their male
counterparts in almost every measure”
TITLE/ Special Report/ BusinessWeek
Women’s Strengths Match New
Economy Imperatives: Link [rather than rank]
workers; favor interactive-collaborative leadership
style [empowerment beats top-down decision
making]; sustain fruitful collaborations; comfortable
with sharing information; see redistribution of power
as victory, not surrender; favor multi-dimensional
feedback; value technical & interpersonal skills,
individual & group contributions equally; readily
accept ambiguity; honor intuition as well as
pure “rationality”; inherently flexible; appreciate
cultural diversity. —Judy B. Rosener,
America’s Competitive Secret: Women Managers
women
BOOMERS
GEEZERS
20
$14,000,000,000,000$25,000,000,000,000
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“People turning 50
more
than half of
today have
their adult life
ahead of them.”
—Bill Novelli,
50+: Igniting a Revolution to Reinvent America
We are the Aussies & Kiwis & Americans &
Canadians. We are the Western Europeans &
Japanese. We are the fastest growing, the
biggest, the wealthiest, the boldest, the
most (yes) ambitious, the most experimental
& exploratory, the most different, the
most indulgent, the most difficult &
demanding, the most service & experience
obsessed, the most vigorous, (the least
vigorous,) the most health conscious, the
most female, the most profoundly
important commercial market in the
history of the world—and we will be the
Center of your universe for the next
twenty-five years. We have arrived!
Boomers’-Geezers’-Women’s Trifecta+
*Buy/all
*Wealth/all
*time left/ lots
*Eclipse of males/retire-die
44-65:
“New
Customer
Majority” *
*45% larger than 18-43; 60% larger by 2010
Source: Ageless Marketing, David Wolfe & Robert Snyder
EXCELLENCE.
BEDROCK.
TALENT.
Hire very
good
people!
“We believe companies can increase their market cap
50 percent in 3 years. Steve Macadam at Georgia-
Pacific …
changed
20 of his
40 box plant managers
to put more talented,
higher paid managers in
charge. He increased profitability from
$25
million to
$80
million in
—Ed Michaels, War for Talent
2
years.”
INVITE THEM TO
JOIN US IN A
JOURNEY TO
EXCELLENCE!
“In the end, management
doesn’t change culture.
Management
invites
the workforce itself to
change the culture.”
—Lou Gerstner
EMPHASIZE
THE “SOFT
SKILLS.”
SO YOU’RE A
“PEOPLE
PERSON”?
PROVE IT.
PUT HR AT THE
HEAD OF THE HEAD
TABLE. BEST
PEOPLE. NOBLEST
MISSION.
SO YOU’RE A
“PEOPLE
PERSON”?
PROVE IT.
< CAPEX
> People!
LIVE FOR
TALENT!
Our Mission
To develop and manage talent;
to apply that talent,
throughout the world,
for the benefit of clients;
to do so in partnership;
to do so with profit.
WPP
Brand =
Talent.
EXCELLENCE.
AWOL: THE
SCHOOLS
FIASCO.
“My wife and I went to a [kindergarten] parent-teacher conference
and were informed that our budding refrigerator artist, Christopher,
would be receiving a grade of Unsatisfactory in art. We were
shocked. How could any child—let alone our child—receive a poor
His teacher
informed us that he had
refused to color within the
lines, which was a state
requirement for
demonstrating ‘grade-level
motor skills.’ ”
grade in art at such a young age?
—Jordan Ayan, AHA!
Ye gads: “Thomas Stanley has not only found
no correlation between success in school and
an ability to accumulate wealth, he’s actually
found a negative correlation. ‘It seems that
school-related evaluations are poor
predictors of economic success,’ Stanley
concluded. What did predict success was a
willingness to take risks. Yet the successfailure standards of most schools penalized
risk takers. Most educational systems reward
those who play it safe. As a result, those who
do well in school find it hard to take risks
later on.”
—Richard Farson & Ralph Keyes,
Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins
15 “Leading” Biz Schools
Design/Core: 0
Design/Elective: 1
Creativity/Core: 0
Creativity/Elective: 4
Innovation/Core: 0
Innovation/Elective: 6
Source: DMI/Summer 2002/Research by Thomas Lockwood
EXCELLENCE.
BEDROCK.
LEADERSHIP.
“12 Ps.”
Tom Peters/04.18.2007
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Peculiar.
Potent.
Positive.
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Peculiar.
Potent.
Positive.
“A leader is
a dealer in
hope.”
—Napoleon
(+TP’s writing room pics)
Leader Job One
Paint
Portraits of
Excellence!
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Peculiar.
Potent.
Positive.
“Nothing is so
contagious as
enthusiasm.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Peculiar.
Potent.
Positive.
“The role of the Director is to create a
space where the actors and
become more
than they’ve ever been
before, more than
they’ve dreamed of
being.”
actresses can
—Robert Altman, Oscar acceptance speech
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Potent.
Positive.
MBWA*
*5,000 miles for a 5-minute face-to
-face meeting (courtesy superagent Mark McCormick)
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Peculiar.
Potent.
Positive.
“You must
be
the change you
wish to see in the
world.”
Gandhi
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Peculiar.
Potent.
Positive.
F(Anger/Passion)
>>>> f(Pushback
from Threatened
Fat-cats &
Bureau-crats)
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Peculiar.
Potent.
Positive.
“You can’t be a serious
innovator unless and until
you are ready, willing and
able to seriously play.
‘Serious play’ is not an
oxymoron; it is the essence
of innovation.”
—Michael Schrage, Serious Play
Try it. Try it. Try it
ry it. Try it. Screw
up. Try it. Try it. Try
t. Try it. Try it. Try
t. Try it. Screw it up
t. Try it. Try it. try
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Peculiar.
Potent.
Positive.
Relentless: “One of
my superstitions had always been
when I started to go anywhere or
not to
turn back , or stop,
to do anything,
until the thing intended was
accomplished.” —Grant
“incredible
power of
endurance”
—political
colleague, on Nicolas Sarkozy, repeatedly written off by the public and
the celestial powers of French politics (FT, 0515.07)
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Peculiar.
Potent.
Positive.
‘do’
“Leaders
people.
Period.”
—Anon.
“Leaders
‘SERVE’
people.
Period.”
—Anon.
Cause
Space
(worthy of commitment)
(room for/encouragement
for initiative)
Decency
(respect, humane)
“Sorry, I’ve got to go—the
HR people get on me if I
don’t go do my ‘shake handschat up’ duty”
—president, large
division of large company in the _______
industry
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Peculiar.
Potent.
Positive.
“Normal” =
“o for 800”
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Peculiar.
Potent.
Positive.
Kevin Roberts’ Credo
1. Ready. Fire! Aim.
2. If it ain’t broke ... Break it!
3. Hire crazies.
4. Ask dumb questions.
5. Pursue failure.
6. Lead, follow ... or get out of the way!
7. Spread confusion.
8. Ditch your office.
9. Read odd stuff.
10.
Avoid moderation!
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Peculiar.
Potent.
Positive.
The greatest danger
for most of us
is not that our aim is
too high
and we miss it,
but that it is
too low
and we reach it.
Michelangelo
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
pissed off.
Playful.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Peculiar.
Potent.
Positive.
“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.”
Source: Anon. (Posted @ tompeters.com by
K.Sriram, November 27, 2006 1:17 AM)
"Life is not a journey to the
grave with the intention of
arriving safely in one pretty
and well preserved piece, but
to skid across the line
broadside, thoroughly used
up, worn out, leaking oil,
shouting ‘GERONIMO!’ ”
—Bill McKenna, professional motorcycle racer
(Cycle magazine 02.1982)
Geron-imo!