NEW ZEALAND 2007 Ho hum: 2+ weeks in New Zealand … Pfizer Ford Gap Chrysler Yahoo microsoft wal*mart ??? ???
Download ReportTranscript NEW ZEALAND 2007 Ho hum: 2+ weeks in New Zealand … Pfizer Ford Gap Chrysler Yahoo microsoft wal*mart ??? ???
NEW ZEALAND 2007 Ho hum: 2+ weeks in New Zealand … Pfizer Ford Gap Chrysler Yahoo microsoft wal*mart ??? ??? “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” —Charles Darwin LONG Tom Peters’ X25* EXCELLENCE. ALWAYS. Great Lakes Broadcasting Conference Lansing/0314.2007 *In Search of Excellence 1982-2007 Slides at … tompeters.com 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 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 EXCELLENCE. ASPIRATION. “Why in the world did you go to Siberia?” Synonyms Purity Transcendence Virtue Elegance Majesty Antonyms Mediocrity The Peters Principles: Enthusiasm. Emotion. Excellence. Energy. Excitement. Service. Growth. Creativity. Imagination. Vitality. Joy. Surprise. Independence. Spirit. Community. Limitless human potential. Diversity. Profit. Innovation. Design. Quality. Entrepreneurialism. Wow. An emotional, vital, innovative, joyful, creative, entrepreneurial endeavor that elicits maximum concerted human potential in the wholehearted service of others.*** Enterprise* ** (*at its best): **Excellence. Always. ***Employees, Customers, Suppliers, Communities, Owners, Temporary partners EXCELLENCE. INNOVATE. OR. DIE. 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 Why Do I love Freaks? (1) Because when Anything Interesting happens … it was a freak who did it. (Period.) (2) Freaks are fun. (Freaks are also a pain.) (Freaks are never boring.) (3) We need freaks. Especially in freaky times. (Hint: These are freaky times, for you & me & the CIA & the Army & Avon.) (4) A critical mass of freaks-in-our-midst automatically make us-who-are-not-so-freaky at least somewhat more freaky. (Which is a Good Thing in freaky times—see immediately above.) (5) Freaks are the only (ONLY) ones who succeed—as in, make it into the history books. (6) Freaks keep us from falling into ruts. (If we listen to them.) (We seldom listen to them.) (Which is why most organizations are in ruts. Make that chasms.) “Normal” = “o for 800” “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 “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 Diversity We become who we hang out with 2 Whacky WikiWo rldWow Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything —Don Tapscott & Anthony Williams “The Billion-man Research Team: Companies offering work to online communities are reaping the benefits of ‘crowdsourcing.’” —Headline, FT, 0110.07 Wikinomics WikiWorld Weapons of Mass collaboration CrowdSourcing smart mobs Linux Human genomw project InnoCentive YouTube Second Life Wikipedia Myspace 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. “FAIL, FAIL AGAIN. FAIL BETTER.” —Samuel Beckett “Fail . Forward. Fast.” High Tech CEO, Pennsylvania Sam’s Secret #1! “Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.” Phil Daniels, Sydney exec try. Miss. READY. FIRE! No try. No deal. “You miss 100% of the shots you never take.” —Wayne Gretzky EXCELLENCE. 4/40. De-central-iza-tion! “If it feels painful and scary—that’s real delegation” —Caspian Woods, small biz owner “Best practice” = ZERO Standard Deviation Ex-ecu-tion! “Execution is the job of the business leader.” —Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan/ Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done “Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing hows and whats, tenaciously following through, and ensuring accountability.” —Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan/ Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done Goal (“Vision”) = Projects = Milestones = Rapid Review + Truth-telling = accountability “Costco figured out the big, simple things and executed with total fanaticism.” —Charles Munger, Berkshire Hathaway Ac-counta-bil-ity! “GE has set a standard of candor. … There is no puffery. … There isn’t an ounce of denial in the place.” —Kevin Sharer, CEO Amgen, on the “GE mystique” (Fortune) 6:15A.M. DECENTRALIZATION. EXECUTION. ACCOUTABILITY. 6:15A.M. EXCELLENCE. VALUE ADDED. UP THE LADDER. EXCELLENCE. VALUE-ADDED LADDER I. SOLVE IT. Up, Up, Up, Up the Value-added Ladder. The Value-added Ladder/ OPPORTUNITY-SEEKING Gamechanging Solutions Services Goods Raw Materials 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 Up, Up, Up, Up the Value-added Ladder. The Value-added Ladder/ MEMORABLE CONNECTION Spellbinding Experiences Gamechanging Solutions Services Goods Raw Materials EXCELLENCE. DRAMATIC. DIFFERENCE. DOABLE. “The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of companies, employing similar similar people, with educational backgrounds, coming up with similar similar similar similar ideas, producing with similar prices and things, quality.” —Kjell Nordström and Jonas Ridderstråle, Funky Business This is not a “mature category.” This is an “undistinguished category.” “When we did it ‘right’ it was still pretty ordinary.” —Barry Gibbons on “Nightmare No. 1” #1/100 “Best Companies to Work for”/2005 Wegmans 7X. 730A800P. F12A.* *’93-’03/10 yr annual return: CB: 29%; WM: 17%; HD: 16%. Mkt Cap: 48% p.a. Jim’s Group Jim Penman/“Empire Builders”/MT / Jan/Feb 2006/Australia Cirque du Soleil! And the Winner is … 1. Audacity of Vision 2. Innovation/R&D/Design 3. Talent Acquisition & Development 4. Resultant “Experience” 5. Strategic Alliances 6. Operations 7. Financial Management 8. Overall/Sustaining Excellence 9. “Wow!” 10. Lovemark! EXCELLENCE. NO EXCUSES. A store is a store is a store is a WallopWal*Mart16* *Or: Why it’s so ABSURDLY EASY to BEAT a GIANT Company The “Small Guys” Guide: Wallop Wal*Mart16 *Niche-aimed. (Never, ever “all things for all people,” a “miniWal*Mart.) *Never attack the monsters head business and lukewarm customers.) on! (Instead steal niche *“Dramatically Different” (La Difference ... within our community, our industry regionally, etc … is as obvious as the end of one’s nose!) (THIS IS WHERE MOST MIDGETS COME UP SHORT.) *Compete on value/experience/intimacy, not price. (You ain’t gonna beat the behemoths on cost-price in 9.99 out of 10 cases.) *Emotional bond with Clients, ON EMOTION/CONNECTION!!) Vendors. (BEAT THE BIGGIES “This is an essay about what it takes to create and sell something remarkable. It is a plea for originality, passion, guts and daring. You can’t be remarkable by following someone else who’s remarkable. One way to figure out a theory is to look at what’s working in the real world and determine what the successes have in common. But what could the Four Seasons and Motel 6 possibly have in common? Or NeimanMarcus and Wal*Mart? Or Nokia (bringing out new hardware every 30 days or so) and Nintendo (marketing the same Game Boy 14 years in a row)? It’s like trying to drive The thing that all these companies have in common is that they have nothing in common. looking in the rearview mirror. They are outliers. They’re on the fringes. Superfast or superslow. Very exclusive or very cheap. Extremely big or extremely small. The reason it’s so hard to follow the leader is this: The leader is the leader precisely because he did something remarkable. And that remarkable thing is now taken—so it’s no longer remarkable when you decide to do it.” —Seth Godin, Fast Company The “Small Guys” Guide: Wallop Wal*Mart16 *Hands-on, emotional leadership. (“We are a great & cool & intimate & joyful & dramatically different team working to transform our Clients lives via Consistently Incredible Experiences!”) *A community out of it!) star! (“Sell” local-ness per se. Sell the hell *An incredible experience, from the first to last moment—and then in the follow-up! (“These guys are cool! They ‘get’ me! They love me!”) *DESIGN DRIVEN! (“Design” is a premier weapon-inpursuit-of-the sublime for small-ish enterprises, including the professional services.) The “Small Guys” Guide: Wallop Wal*Mart16 *Employer of choice. (A very cool, well-paid place to work/learning and growth experience in at least the short term … marked by notably progressive policies.) (THIS IS EMINENTLY DO-ABLE!!) *Sophisticated use of information technology. (Small-“ish” is no excuse for “small aims”/execution in IS/IT!) *Web-power! (The Web can make very small very big … if the product-service is super-cool and one purposefully masters buzz/viral marketing.) *Innovative! (Must keep renewing and expanding and revising and re-imagining “the promise” to employees, the customer, the community.) The “Small Guys” Guide: Wallop Wal*Mart16 *Brand-Lovemark* (*Kevin Roberts) Maniacs! (“Branding” is not just for big folks with big budgets. And modest size is actually a Big Advantage in becoming a local-regionalniche “lovemark.”) *Focus * on women-as-clients. (Most don’t. How stupid.) Excellence! (A small player … per me … has no right or reason to exist unless they are in Relentless Pursuit of Excellence. One earns the right—one damn day and client experience at a time!—to beat the Big Guys in your chosen niche!) Small Giants: Companies That Choose To Be Great Instead Of Big —by Bo Burlingham 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 Up, Up, Up, Up the Value-added Ladder. 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. “Brands have run out of juice. They’re dead.” —Kevin Roberts/Saatchi & Saatchi Kevin Roberts: Lovemarks! 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. The Value-added Ladder/ ECSTASY Lovemark Dreams Come True Spellbinding Experiences Services Goods Raw Materials 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) “Women are the majority market” —Fara Warner/The Power of the Purse “Women don’t buy They join them.” brands. EVEolution Selling to men: The TRANSACTION Model Selling to Women: The RELATIONAL Model Source: Selling to Men, Selling to Women, Jeffery Tobias Halter 1. Men and women are different. 2. Very different. 3. VERY, VERY DIFFERENT. 4. Women & Men have a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y nothing in common. 5. Women buy lotsa stuff. 6. WOMEN BUY A-L-L THE STUFF. 7. Women’s Market = Opportunity No. 1. 8. Men are (STILL) in charge. 9. MEN ARE … TOTALLY, HOPELESSLY CLUELESS ABOUT WOMEN. 10. Women’s Market = Opportunity No. 1. 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? “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 New (4 of 7) Value-added “Ladder”: Plays to Women’s Inherent Strengths! Lovemark/F Dreams Come True/F Spellbinding Experiences/F Gamechanging Solutions/F Services/F Goods/M Raw Materials/M women BOOMERS GEEZERS Boomers’-Geezers’-Womens’ Trifecta+ *Buy/all *Wealth/all *time left/ lots *Eclipse of males/retire-die !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! “People turning 50 more than half of today have their adult life ahead of them.” —Bill Novelli, 50+: Igniting a Revolution to Reinvent America Average # of cars purchased per household, “lifetime”: 13 Average # of cars bought per household after the “head of household” reaches age 50: 7 Source: Marti Barletta, PrimeTime Women 44-65: “New Customer Majority” * *45% larger than 18-43; 60% larger by 2010 Source: Ageless Marketing, David Wolfe & Robert Snyder “Little Stuff” (plus): The True “Basics” Tom Peters/03.14.2007 Thank You! FLOWER POWER “Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.” —Henry Clay Jim Jeffords oversight! The … The Manager’s Book of Decencies: How Small gestures Build Great Companies. —Steve Harrison, Adecco Servant Leadership —Robert Greenleaf One: The Art and Practice of Conscious Leadership —Lance Secretan, founder of Manpower, Inc. “Leaders ‘SERVE’ people. Period.” —Anon. Servant Leadership/Robert Greenleaf 1. Do those served grow as persons? 2. Do they, while being served, become healthier wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” —Philo of Alexandria THE PROBLEM IS RARELY THE PROBLEM. THE PROBLEM IS RARELY/NEVER THE PROBLEM. THE RESPONSE TO THE PROBLEM INVARIABLY ENDS UP BEING THE REAL PROBLEM.* *RMN, M Stewart, WJC, “Scooter” Libby OFTEN AS NOT/MORE OFTEN THAN NOT THE UNDERLYING PROBLEM IS NOT MUCH OF A PROBLEM. PERCEPTION IS ALL THERE IS. PERIOD.* *From Whole Foods to IBM to the corner deli Relationships THERE ONCE WAS A TIME WHEN A (of all varieties): THREE-MINUTE PHONE CALL WOULD HAVE AVOIDED SETTING OFF THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL THAT RESULTED IN A COMPLETE RUPTURE. “WHY NOT JUST TELL THE TRUTH?” —Raymond Carver POWER WORDS! “I’m sorry.” RESPECT “The [Union senior] officers rode past the Confederates smugly without any sign of recognition except by one. ‘When General Grant reached the line of ragged, filthy, bloody, despairing prisoners strung out on each side of the bridge, he lifted his hat and held it over his head until he passed the last man of that living funeral cortege. He was the only officer in that whole train who recognized us as being on the face of the earth.’*” *quote within a quote from diary of a Confederate soldier “It was much later that I realized Dad’s secret. He gained respect by giving it. He talked and listened to the fourth-grade kids in Spring Valley who shined shoes the same way he talked and listened to a bishop or a He was seriously interested in who you were and what you had to say.” college president. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Respect “The deepest human need is the need to beappreciated.” William James “Don’t belittle!” —OD Consultant “Ph.D. in leadership. Short course: Make a short list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don’t do them to others. Ever. Make another list of things done to you that you loved. Do them to others. Always.” — Dee Hock THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO KNOW (Marcus Buckingham) “No matter what the situation, [the great manager’s] first response is always to think about the individual concerned and how things can be arranged to help that individual experience success.” —Marcus Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know “The key difference between checkers and chess is that in checkers the pieces all move the same way, whereas in chess all the pieces Discover what is unique about each person and capitalize on it.” move differently. … —Marcus Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know “The mediocre manager believes that most things are learnable and therefore that the essence of management is to identify ach person’s weaker areas and eradicate them. The great manager believes the opposite. He believes that the most influential qualities of a person are innate and therefore that the essence of management is to deploy these innate qualities as effectively as possible and so drive performance.” —Marcus Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know Stop Doing It! “The one thing you need to know about sustained individual success: Discover what you don’t like doing and stop doing it.” —Marcus Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know Start Doing It! “A year from now you may wish You had started today.” —Karen Lamb “It’s always showtime.” —David D’Alessandro, Career Warfare SWEET SPOT: SEEKING THE DISCOMFORT ZONE. “Do one thing every day that scares you.” —Eleanor Roosevelt “Every time we come to a comfort zone, we will find a way out.” “No Cloning.” “‘Reinvent the brand’ with each new show.” “A typical day at the office for me begins by asking, ‘What is impossible that I am going to do today?’” —Daniel Lamarre, president, Cirque du Soleil “If if feels painful and scary—that’s real delegation” —Caspian Woods, small biz owner 1 Person! Wendy Kopp, Princeton senior (1989) Teach America (19,000-2,400) 10% Dartmouth, Yale 17,000 to date Principal hirer of college graduates “One of the few jobs that people pass up Goldman Sachs for is Teach America” (Edie Hunt, HR) Source: Fortune, 1127.06 EXCELLENCE. BEDROCK. TALENT. Hire very good people! “We believe companies can increase their market cap 50 percent in 3 years. Steve Macadam at Georgia- changed 20 of his 40 box plant managers to put more talented, higher paid managers in charge. He increased profitability from Pacific … $25 million to $80 million in —Ed Michaels, War for Talent 2 years.” SO YOU’RE A “PEOPLE PERSON”? PROVE IT. “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 PARC’s Bob Taylor: “Connoisseur of Talent” SO YOU’RE A “PEOPLE PERSON”? PROVE IT. A review of Jack and Suzy Welch’s Winning claims there are but two key differentiators that set GE “culture” apart from the herd: First: Separating financial forecasting and performance measurement. Performance measurement based, as it usually is, on budgeting leads to an epidemic of gaming the system. GE’s performance measurement is divorced from budgeting—and instead reflects how you do relative to your past performance and relative to competitors’ performance; i.e., it’s about how you actually do in the context of what happened in the real world, not as compared to a gamed-abstract plan developed last year. Putting HR on a par with finance and marketing. Second: 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. BEDROCK. LEADERSHIP. 9Ps. PURPOSE. PASSION. Potential. Presence. Personal. PERSISTENCE. PEOPLE. Potent. Positive. PURPOSE. PASSION. Potential. Presence. Personal. PERSISTENCE. PEOPLE. Potent. Positive. “People want to be part of something larger than themselves. They want to be part of something they’re really proud of, that they’ll fight for, sacrifice for , trust.” —Howard Schultz, Starbucks (IBD/09.05) “Management has a lot to do with answers. Leadership is a function of questions. And the first question for a ‘Who do we intend to be?’ leader always is: Not ‘What are we going to do?’ but ‘Who do we intend to be?’” —Max De Pree, Herman Miller PURPOSE. PASSION. Potential. Presence. Personal. PERSISTENCE. PEOPLE. Potent. Positive. “Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.” —Samuel Taylor Coleridge “Whenever anything is being accomplished, I have learned, it is being done by a monomaniac with a mission.” —Peter Drucker PURPOSE. PASSION. Potential. Presence. Personal. PERSISTENCE. PEOPLE. Potent. Positive. “In the end, management doesn’t change culture. Management invites the workforce itself to change the culture.” —Lou Gerstner “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. 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. PERSISTENCE. PEOPLE. Potent. Positive. “The First step in a ‘dramatic’ ‘organizational change program’ is obvious— dramatic personal change!” —RG “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi “A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.” —Chinese Proverb PURPOSE. PASSION. Potential. Presence. Personal. PERSISTENCE. PEOPLE. Potent. Positive. “This [adolescent] incident [of getting from point A to point B] is notable not only because it underlines Grant’s fearless horsemanship and his determination, but also it is the first known example of a very important Grant had an extreme, almost phobic dislike of turning back and retracing his steps. peculiarity of his character: If he set out for somewhere, he would get there somehow, whatever the difficulties that lay in his way. This idiosyncrasy would turn out to be one the factors that made him such a formidable general. Grant would always, always press on—turning back was not an option for him.” —Michael Korda, Ulysses Grant 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 “Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” —William Feather, author PURPOSE. PASSION. Potential. Presence. Personal. PERSISTENCE. PEOPLE. Potent. Positive. ‘do’ “Leaders people. Period.” —Anon. PURPOSE. PASSION. Potential. Presence. Personal. PERSISTENCE. PEOPLE. 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! "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.” —GB Shaw, Man and Superman: The Revolutionists' Handbook. PURPOSE. PASSION. Potential. Presence. Personal. PERSISTENCE. PEOPLE. Potent. Positive. “[other] admirals more frightened of losing than anxious to win” On NELSON: 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. PERSISTENCE. PEOPLE. 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) “We make our own traps.” “We construct our own cage.” “We build our own roadblocks.” Source: Douglas Kennedy, State of the Union Geron-imo! EXCELLE ALWAYS