Transcript “I am often asked … “I am often asked by would-be entrepreneurs seeking escape from life within huge corporate structures, ‘How do I build a.

“I am often asked …
“I am often asked by
would-be entrepreneurs
seeking escape from life
within huge corporate
structures, ‘How do I
build a small firm for
myself?’ The answer
seems obvious …
“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
Excellence.
Always.
Gartner Group/PPM & IT Governance Summit
Tom Peters/San Diego/22 June 2011
(Slides @ tompeters.com)
To appreciate
this presentation [and ensure
that it is not a mess], you need
Microsoft fonts:
NOTE:
“Showcard Gothic,”
“Ravie,” “Chiller”
and “Verdana”
“Breakthrough” 82*
People!
Execution!
Excellence!
*In Search of Excellence
Hard Is Soft
Soft Is Hard
The Pursuit of … Balance
Hard Is Soft (Plans,
Systems, #s)
Soft Is Hard (people,
Culture, customers,*
values, relationships)
* “sales” > “marketing”
“service” > “sales”
What Works.
What Doesn’t.
No.
“Optimization”
“Centralization”
“We’ve got to get this right.”
“Let’s get organized.”
“Perfectly compatible”
“Synergy”
“Benchmarking”
“Best practices”
“Low standard deviation”
“Big”
Yes.
“Satisfice”
“Requisite variety”
“RADICAL decentralization”
“High standard deviation”
“Resilience”
“Focus”/“Niche”/“Mid-size”
“Let’s get DIS-organized.”
Yes.
“Satisfice”
“Requisite variety”
“RADICAL decentralization”
“High standard deviation”
“Resilience”
“Focus”/“Niche”/“Mid-size”
“Let’s get DIS-organized.”
“Mr. Foster and his McKinsey colleagues
collected detailed performance data stretching
back
40 years for 1,000
They found that
U.S. companies.
none
of
the long-term survivors managed to
outperform the market. Worse, the
longer companies had been in the
database, the worse they did.”
—Financial Times
You don’t
get better
by being
bigger. You
Dick Kovacevich:
“Data drawn from the real world
attest to a fact that is beyond
Everything
in existence tends
to deteriorate.”
our control:
—Norberto Odebrecht, Education Through Work
Public Enemy #1: I.C.D.
Immutable Centralist Drift
“Once a system grows sufficiently complex and
centralized, it doesn’t matter how badly our best and
brightest foul things up. Every crisis increases their
authority, because they seem to be the only ones who
But
their fixes tend to make the system
even more complex and centralized,
and more vulnerable to the next
national-security surprise, the
next natural disaster, the next
economic crisis.”
understand the system well enough to fix it.
—Ross Douthat/NYTimes
#4 Japan
#3 USA
#2 China
#1 Germany
MittELstand*
*“agile creatures darting between the
legs of the multinational monsters"
“Be the best.
It’s the only
market that’s
not crowded.”
From: Retail Superstars: Inside the 25 Best
Independent Stores in America, George Whalin
Jungle Jim’s International Market, Fairfield, Ohio: “An
adventure in
‘shoppertainment,’
as Jungle Jim’s
1,600
cheeses and, yes, 1,400 varieties of hot
sauce —not to mention 12,000 wines priced
from $8 to $8,000 a bottle; all this is brought to
you by 4,000 vendors. Customers come from every
call it, begins in the parking lot and goes on to
corner of the globe.”
Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland, Frankenmuth, Michigan,
98,000-square-foot “shop” features the
likes of 6,000 Christmas ornaments, 50,000
trims, and anything else you can name if it pertains to
pop 5,000:
Christmas.
Source: George Whalin, Retail Superstars
“Rose gardeners face a choice every spring. The long-term fate of a rose garden
depends on this decision. If you want to have the largest and most glorious roses of the
neighborhood, you will prune hard. This represents a policy of low tolerance and tight
control. You force the plant to make the maximum use of its available resources, by
Pruning hard is a
dangerous policy in an unpredictable environment. Thus, if
you are in a spot where you know nature may play tricks
on you, you may opt for a policy of high tolerance. You will
never have the biggest roses, but you have a muchenhanced chance of having roses every year. You will
achieve a gradual renewal of the plant. In short, tolerant
pruning achieves two ends: (1) It makes it easier to cope
with unexpected environmental changes. (2) It leads to a
continuous restructuring of the plant. The policy of
tolerance admittedly wastes resources—the extra buds
drain away nutrients from the main stem. But in an
unpredictable environment, this policy of tolerance makes
the rose healthier in the long run.” —Arie De Geus, The Living Company
putting them into the the rose’s ‘core business.’
“The secret of fast
progress is
inefficiency, fast
and furious and
numerous failures.”
—Kevin Kelly
“Never forget
the all-important
… last 98%.”
Conrad Hilton …
Conrad Hilton, at a gala celebrating his
career, was called to the podium and
“What were the
most important
lessons you learned
in your long and
distinguished
career?” His answer …
asked,
“remember
to tuck the
shower curtain
inside the
bathtub.”
is
“Execution
strategy.”
—Fred Malek
“Costco figured out the
big, simple things and
executed with total
fanaticism.”
—Charles Munger, Berkshire Hathaway
“When assessing candidates, the first thing I looked for was
Does she talk
about the thrill of getting things done,
the obstacles overcome, the role her
people played —or does she keep wandering back
energy and enthusiasm for execution.
to strategy or philosophy?”
“I saw that leaders placed too much
emphasis on what some call high-level
strategy, on intellectualizing and
philosophizing, and not enough on
implementation. People would agree on a project or
initiative, and then nothing would come of it.”
Source: Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan/Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
“If I could have chosen not to tackle the IBM culture head-
on, I probably wouldn’t have. My bias coming in was toward
strategy, analysis and measurement. In comparison,
changing the attitude and behaviors of hundreds of
[Yet] I
came to see in my time at IBM
that culture isn’t just one
thousands of people is very, very hard.
—it is
the game.”
aspect of the game
—Lou Gerstner,
Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance
#1.
Period.
XFX = #1*
*Cross-Functional eXcellence
Never
waste a
lunch!*
*The “sacred 220 at bats”
“Personal relationships
are the fertile soil from
which all advancement,
all success, all
achievement in real
life grow.” —Ben Stein
“Allied commands depend on
mutual confidence
and this confidence is
gained, above all
development
of friendships.”
through the
—General D.D. Eisenhower, Armchair General*
*“Perhaps his most outstanding ability [at West Point]
he made friends and earned
the trust of fellow cadets who came from
widely varied backgrounds; it was a quality that would pay
was the ease with which
great dividends during his future coalition command.”
R.O.I.R.* >
R.O.I.
*Return On Investment In Relationships
“XFX
Social
Accelerators.”
1. EVERYONE’s [more or less] JOB #1: Make friends in other functions!
(Purposefully. Consistently. Measurably.)
2. “Do lunch” with people in other functions!! Frequently!! (Minimum
10% to 25% for everyone? Measured.)
3. Ask peers in other functions for references so you can become
conversant in their world. (It’s one helluva sign of ... GIVE-A-DAMNism.)
4. Invite counterparts in other functions to your team meetings.
Religiously. Ask them to present “cool stuff” from “their world” to your
group. (B-I-G deal; useful and respectful.)
5. PROACTIVELY SEEK EXAMPLES OF “TINY” ACTS OF “XFX” TO
ACKNOWLEDGE—PRIVATELY AND PUBLICALLY. (Bosses: ONCE A DAY
… make a short call or visit or send an email of “Thanks” for some sort
of XFX gesture by your folks and some other function’s folks.)
6. Present counterparts in other functions awards for service to your
group. Tiny awards at least weekly; and an “Annual All-Star Supporters
[from other groups] Banquet” modeled after superstar salesperson
banquets.
7. Discuss—A SEPARATE AGENDA ITEM—good and problematic acts of
cross-functional co-operation at every Team Meeting.
“His habit was to let the
locals get primary credit—
unheard of! Sometimes he
disappeared into the
woodwork entirely. He had
the whole __PD working
their butts off for him,
including the [temperamental]
Chief.” —close colleague of senior federal law
enforcement officer
Women’s Negotiating Strengths
*Ability to put themselves in their
counterparties’ shoes
*Comprehensive, attentive and detailed
communication style
*Empathy that facilitates trust-building
*Curious and attentive listening
*Less competitive attitude
*Strong sense of fairness and ability to persuade
*Proactive risk manager
*Collaborative decision-making
Source: Horacio Falcao, cover story, World Business, “Say It Like a Woman:
Why the 21st-century negotiator will need the female touch”
“AS LEADERS,
WOMEN
RULE*:
New Studies find that
female managers outshine their male
counterparts in almost every measure”
TITLE/ Special Report/ BusinessWeek
*Projected to be
80% middle managers by approx 2020
Loser:
“He’s such a
suck-up!”
Winner:
“He’s such a
suck-down.”
“I got to know his
secretaries. They
[Icahn’s]
are always the keepers of
everything.”
—Dick Parsons, then CEO Time Warner,
on dealing with an Icahn threat to his company
“Parsons is not a visionary. He
is, instead, a master in the art
of relationship.”
—Bloomberg Businessweek (03.11)
“I believe that it is more
important for a leader to be
trained in psychiatry than
cybernetics. The head of a big
company recently said to me, ‘I
am no longer a Chairman. I have
had to become a psychiatric
nurse.’ Today’s executive is
under pressure unknown to the
last generation.” —David Ogilvy
“Don’t ever use that word
‘synergy.’ It’s a
hideous
word. The only thing that works
is natural law. Given enough
time, natural relationships will
develop between our
businesses.” —Barry Diller, responding to a
student question, address at the Harvard Business School
(from Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
#1.
Period.
“The doctor
interrupts
after …*
*Source: Jerome Groopman, How Doctors Think
18 seconds
[An obsession with] Listening is ... the ultimate mark
of
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
is
is
is
is
...
...
...
...
the heart and soul of Engagement.
the heart and soul of Kindness.
the heart and soul of Thoughtfulness.
the basis for true Collaboration.
the basis for true Partnership.
a Team Sport.
a Developable Individual Skill.* (*Though women
are far better at it than men.)
the basis for Community.
the bedrock of Joint Ventures that work.
the bedrock of Joint Ventures that grow.
the core of effective Cross-functional
Communication* (*Which is in turn Attribute #1 of
organizational effectiveness.)
[cont.]
Respect
.
Could It Be This Simple?
In-effective leaders …
TALK.
Effective leaders …
LISTEN.
Inspiration: Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter,
Liz Wiseman [Some “hard” evidence that effective leaders, in terms of % of
elapsed meeting time, talk less than half as much as less effective leaders.]
"When I was in medical school, I
spent hundreds of hours looking
into a microscope—a skill I never
needed to know or ever use. Yet
I didn't have a single class that
taught me communication or
teamwork skills—something I
need every day I walk into the
hospital.” —Peter Pronovost, Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals
Is there a full-bore
training course in
100%
"Listening" for
of employees, CEO
to temps? If not, There
[damn well] ought to be.
#7: K = R = P
“Courtesies of a small and
trivial character are the
ones which strike
deepest in the grateful
and appreciating heart.”
—Henry Clay,
American Statesman (1777-1852)
"Let's not forget that small
emotions are the great
captains of our lives."—Van Gogh
“When dealing with people,
remember you are not dealing
with creatures of logic, but
with creatures of emotion,
creatures bristling with
prejudice and motivated by
pride and vanity.” —Dale Carnegie
K = R = P*
*Kindness =
Repeat Business = Profit
139,380 former
patients from 225 hospitals:
Press Ganey Assoc:
none
of THE top 15 factors
determining Patient Satisfaction
referred to patient’s health outcome.
Instead: directly related to Staff
Interaction; directly correlated with
Employee Satisfaction
Source: Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
“I regard apologizing as the
most magical, healing,
restorative gesture human
beings can make. It is the
centerpiece of my work with
executives who want to get
better.” —Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You
Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become
Even More Successful.
With a new and forthcoming policy on
apologies … Toro, the lawn mower folks,
reduced the average cost of settling a
$115,000 in 1991 to
$35,000 in 2008 … and the
claim from
company hasn’t been
to trial in the last
15 years!
Relationships
(of all varieties):
THERE
ONCE WAS A TIME WHEN A
THREE-MINUTE
PHONE CALL WOULD
HAVE AVOIDED SETTING OFF THE
DOWNWARD SPIRAL THAT RESULTED
IN A COMPLETE RUPTURE.*
*divorce, loss of a BILLION $$$ aircraft sale, etc., etc.
Why Must I …
“You have to
treat your
employees like
customers.”
—Herb Kelleher,
upon being asked his “secret to success”
Source: Joe Nocera, NYT, “Parting Words of an Airline Pioneer,”
on the occasion of Herb Kelleher’s retirement after 37 years at Southwest
Airlines (SWA’s pilots union took out a full-page ad in USA Today
thanking HK for all he had done) ; across the way in Dallas, American
Airlines’ pilots were picketing AA’s Annual Meeting)
Brand =
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
Oath of Office: Managers/Servant Leaders
Our goal is to serve our customers brilliantly and profitably over
the long haul.
Serving our customers brilliantly and profitably over the long
haul is a product of brilliantly serving, over the long haul, the
people who serve the customer.
Hence, our job as leaders—the alpha and the omega and
everything in between—is abetting the sustained growth and
success and engagement and enthusiasm and commitment to
Excellence of those, one at a time, who directly or indirectly
serve the ultimate customer.
We—leaders of every stripe—are in the “Human Growth and
Development and Success and Aspiration to Excellence
business.”
“We” [leaders] only grow when “they” [each and every one of our colleagues] are
growing.
“We” [leaders] only succeed when “they” [each and every one of our colleagues]
are succeeding.
“We” [leaders] only energetically march toward Excellence when
“they” [each and every one of our colleagues] are energetically marching
toward Excellence.
Period.
“The leaders of Great Groups …
love talent … and know
where to find it. They … revel
in … the talent of
others.”
—Warren Bennis & Patricia Ward Biederman, Organizing Genius
“Connoisseur
of Talent”
PARC’s Bob Taylor:
From
sweaters to
people!
Les Wexner:
The Memories That Matter
The people you developed who went on to
stellar accomplishments inside or outside
the company.
The (no more than) two or three people you developed who went on to
create stellar institutions of their own.
The longshots (people with “a certain something”) you bet on who
surprised themselves—and your peers.
The people of all stripes who 2/5/10/20 years
later say “You made a difference in my life,”
“Your belief in me changed everything.”
The sort of/character of people you hired in general. (And the bad
apples you chucked out despite some stellar traits.)
A handful of projects (a half dozen at most) you doggedly pursued that
still make you smile and which fundamentally changed the way
things are done inside or outside the company/industry.
The supercharged camaraderie of a handful of Great Teams aiming to
“change the world.”
Hang Time!
“You will become
like the five people
you associate with
the most—this can
be either a blessing
or a curse.”
—Billy Cox
We
are What We
Eat/We Are the
company
we keep
The “Hang Out Axiom I”:
Measure/Manage: Portfolio “Strangeness”/Quality
Staff
Consultants
Vendors
Out-sourcing Partners (#, Quality, Diversity)
Innovation Alliance Partners
Customers
Competitors (who we “benchmark” against)
Strategic Initiatives
Product Portfolio (Line extension v. Leap)
IS/IT Projects
HQ Location
Lunch Mates
Language
Board
Etc.
The “We are what we eat”/
“We are who we hang out with”
Axiom: At its core, every (!!!)
relationship-partnership decision
(employee, vendor, customer, etc,
etc) is a strategic decision about:
“Innovate,
‘Yes’ or ‘No’ ”
“Diverse groups of problem solvers—groups
of people with diverse tools—consistently
outperformed groups of the best and the
brightest. If I formed two groups, one
random (and therefore diverse) and one
consisting of the best individual performers,
the first group almost always did better. …
Diversity trumped
ability.”
—Scott Page, The Difference:
How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups,
Firms, Schools, and Societies
Once a month on, say, a Friday, invite
somebody intriguing, in any field,
to have lunch with your gang.
“Freak
Fridays”
Call it:
“Companies have
defined so much ‘best
practice’ that they are
now more or less
identical.”
—Jesper Kunde, Unique Now ... or Never
“The short road
to ruin is to
emulate the
methods of your
adversary.”
— Winston Churchill
WTTMSW.
READY.
FIRE!
AIM.
H. Ross Perot (vs “Aim! Aim! Aim!” /EDS vs GM/1985)
“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
*C.f. INTUIT (Months to week w/customers)
“Burt Rutan wasn’t a fighter jock; he was an engineer who
had been asked to figure out why the F-4 Phantom was flying
pilots into the ground in Vietnam. While his fellow engineers
attacked such tasks with calculators, Rutan insisted on
considering the problem in the air. A near-fatal flight not
only led to a critical F-4 modification, it also confirmed for
Rutan a notion he had held ever since he had built model
The way to make a
better aircraft wasn’t to sit
around perfecting a design, it was
to get something up in the air and
see what happens, then try to fix
whatever goes wrong.”
airplanes as a child.
—Eric Abrahamson & David Freedman, Chapter 8, “Messy Leadership,”
from A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder
“Experiment
fearlessly”
Tactic #1
Source: BusinessWeek, “Type A Organization Strategies: How to Hit a Moving Target”—
“relentless trial
and error”
*C * Source: Wall Street Journal, cornerstone of effective approach to “rebalancing” company
portfolios in the face of changing and uncertain global economic conditions (11.08.10)
Culture of Prototyping
“Effective prototyping may
the most
valuable core
competence an
be
innovative organization can
hope to have.” —Michael Schrage
“Fail.
Forward.
Fast.”
High Tech CEO, Pennsylvania
1/45
Whoever
Tries
The
Most
Stuff
Wins
K.I.S.S.
(Damn It!)
“Design is everything.
Everything is design.”
The Power of Design: A Force for Transforming
Everything, Richard Farson
Charles Handy: “One bank is currently claiming to …
‘leverage its global footprint
to provide effective financial
solutions for its customers by
providing a gateway to
diverse markets.’”
“I assume that it is just
saying that it is there to …
“I assume that it is just saying that it
‘help its
customers
wherever they
are’.”
is there to …
—Charles Handy
90K in U.S.A. ICUs on any given day;
178 discrete steps/day/patient in ICU.
50%
ICU stays result
in “serious complication”
Source: Atul Gawande, “The Checklist” (New Yorker, 1210.07)
**Dr. Peter Pronovost, Johns Hopkins
**
Checklist
/dealing with
line infections
**1/3rd lines, at least one procedural error
when he started checklist program
**Nurses/permission-requirement to stop
procedure if doc, other not following checklist
(BIG DEAL)
**In 1 year, ICU’s 10-day line-infection rate:
11% to …
0%
Source: Atul Gawande, “The Checklist” (New Yorker, 1210.07)
Appropriate systems’ standards:
Beauty.
Grace.
Clarity.
Simplicity.
Architect Rem Koolhaas on his drive for
“Often
my job is to
undo things.”
clarity-simplicity:
Source: New Yorker
"I've never seen a job
done by a team of five
hundred that couldn't
be done better by a
team of fifty.” —Gordon Bell
“The art of war does not
require complicated
maneuvers; the simplest are
the best and common sense is
fundamental. From which one
might wonder how it is
it
is because they try to
be clever.”
generals make blunders;
—Napoleon