Re-imagine!
Tom Peters/Department of Homeland
Security/BTS/02.27.03
A Baker’s Dozen Merger Messages: Private Sector & DHS/BTS
1. Attitude Rules: Opportunity or Pain in …
2. Unique time for Deep Re-assessment. (WE MUST RE-INVENT THE
ESSENTIAL IDEA OF HOMELAND SECURITY.)
3. THIS SORT OF THING ONLY HAPPENS ONCE EVERY SEVERAL
DECADES! (I.E.: Don’t blow the Main Chance!)
4. Avoid getting totally caught up in (necessary) details. (KEEP YOUR EYE
ON THE B-I-G OPPORTUNITY.)
5. Let’s assume you only hold this job for the next few months. MAKE A
DAMN DIFFERENCE EVERY DAMN DAY.
6. What happens in the next few months is the principal basis by which your
entire professional career will be judged.
7. How well (IMAGINATIVELY!!!) you do this matters to 280,000,000 Americans.
8. Every morning, say quietly to yourself, “It’s a Brand New World.” Forget Age Old Turf
Disputes. (TURF WARFARE IS OSAMA’s-TERRORISM’s NO. 1 OPPORTUNITY.)
9. Inclusiveness matters. Be incredibly careful about Respect & Involvement.
10. Score some Quick Wins. (Rudy’s Rule.) Needed: New Behaviors. Focus
on the Positives. (Bob’s Rule.)
11. BE INSANELY LAVISH IN PRAISE OF SMALL ACTS OF COOPERATION. (Be
publicly brutal to the smallest act of turf warfare.)
12. “GOOD” DECISIONS MADE TODAY BEAT “GREAT” DECISIONS DELAYED FOR
MONTHS. MOMENTUM & MORALE MATTER. DELAY = CANCER.
13. VISIBILITY RULES!
1. A Brawl
with No
Rules.
You must become an ignorant man again
And see the sun again with an ignorant eye
And see it clearly in the idea of it.
--Wallace Stevens/“Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”
The [New] Ge Way
DYB.com
“If you don’t like
change, you’re
going to like
irrelevance even
less.” —General Eric Shinseki, Chief of
Staff, U. S. Army
“The organizations we created have
become tyrants. They have taken
control, holding us fettered, creating
barriers that hinder rather than help
our businesses. The lines that we
drew on our neat organizational
diagrams have turned into walls
that no one can scale or penetrate
or even peer over.” —Frank Lekanne Deprez &
René Tissen, Zero Space: Moving Beyond Organizational Limits.
“Our military structure
today is essentially one
developed and
designed by
Napoleon.”
Admiral Bill Owens, former Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
“In an era when terrorists use satellite
US
gatekeepers stand armed
against them with pencils
and paperwork, and archaic
computer systems that don’t
talk to each other.”
phones and encrypted email,
Boston Globe (09.30.2001)
“IT MAY SOMEDAY BE SAID THAT THE 21ST
CENTURY BEGAN ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. …
“Al-Qaeda represents a new and
profoundly dangerous kind of
organization—one that might be called
a ‘virtual state.’ On September 11 a virtual
state proved that modern societies are
vulnerable as never before.”—Time/09.09.2002
“The deadliest strength of America’s new adversaries
is their very fluidity, Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld believes. Terrorist networks, unburdened by
fixed borders, headquarters or conventional forces, are
free to study the way this nation responds to threats
and adapt themselves to prepare for what Mr. Rumsfeld
is certain will be another attack. …
“ ‘Business as usual won’t do it,’ he said. His
answer is to develop swifter, more lethal ways to
fight. ‘Big institutions aren’t swift on their feet in
adapting but rather ponderous and clumsy and
slow.’ ”—The New York Times/09.04.2002
“We are in a
brawl with no
rules.”
Paul Allaire
From:
To:
Weapon v.
Weapon
Org structure v.
Org structure
“We must not only transform our armed forces
but the Defense Department that serves them—
by encouraging a culture of creativity and
intelligent risktaking. We must promote a more
entrepreneurial approach: one that encourages
people to be proactive, not reactive, and to
behave less like bureaucrats and more like
venture capitalists; one that does not wait for
threats to emerge and be ‘validated,’ but rather
anticipates them before they appear and
develops new capabilities to dissuade them and
deter them.” —Donald Rumsfeld, Foreign Affairs
Forget>“Learn”
“The problem is never how
to get new, innovative
thoughts into your mind,
but how to get the old
ones out.”
Dee Hock
“Don’t rebuild.
Reimagine.”
The New York Times Magazine on the future of
the WTC space in Lower Manhattan/09.08.2002
“Dawn Meyerreicks, CTO of the Defense Intelligence Systems Agency, made
one of the most fateful military calls of the 21st century. After 9/11 … her office
quickly leased all the available transponders covering Central Asia. The
implications should change everything about U.S. military thinking in the
years ahead.
“The U.S. Air Force had kicked off its fight against the Taliban with an
ineffective bombing campaign, and Washington was anguishing over whether
to send in a few Army divisions. Donald Rumsfeld told Gen. Tommy Franks to
give the initiative to 250 Special Forces already on the ground. They used
satellite phones, Predator surveillance drones, and GPS- and laser-based
targeting systems to make the air strikes brutally effective.
“In effect, they ‘Napsterized’ the battlefield by cutting out the middlemen
(much of the military’s command and control) and working directly with the
real players. … The data came in so fast that HQ revised operating procedures
to allow intelligence analysts and attack planners to work directly together.
Their favorite tool, incidentally, was instant messaging over a secure
network.”—Ned Desmond/“Broadband’s New Killer App”/Business 2.0/
OCT2002
Shinseki’s Army
Flat.
Fast.
Agile.
Adaptable.
Light … But Lethal.
Talent/ “I Am An Army Of One.”
Info-intense.
Network-centric.
2. Radicalism
Required.
Forbes100 from 1917 to 1987: 39
members of the Class of ’17 were alive
in ’87; 18 in ’87 F100; 18 F100
“survivors” underperformed the market
by 20%; just 2 (2%), GE & Kodak,
outperformed the market 1917 to 1987.
S&P 500 from 1957 to 1997: 74 members of the Class of ’57 were
alive in ’97; 12 (2.4%) of 500 outperformed the market from 1957
to 1997.
Source: Dick Foster & Sarah Kaplan, Creative Destruction: Why
Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market
“The corporation as we know it,
which is now 120 years old, is
not likely to survive the
next 25 years. Legally and
financially, yes, but not
structurally and economically.”
Peter Drucker, Business 2.0 (08.00)
“Wealth in this new regime flows
directly from innovation, not
optimization. That is, wealth is not
gained by perfecting the known,
but by imperfectly seizing the
unknown.”
Kevin Kelly, New Rules for the New Economy
3. WALLS
MUST
FALL.
“Our military is very good at doing things as they are
supposed to be done, but it is not always good at
changing the way things ought to be done. Highly
professional militaries can be very good at
maintaining the institution’s traditions, mores and
cultures in the face of rapid and important change. …
Equating professionalism with automatically
defending the status quo can be disastrous.
This is the mindset that drives service loyalties
toward narrow parochialism, and congeals
organizations into brittle shells. We end up
ignoring opportunities that could actually offer higher
military effectiveness.” –Bill Owens,
Lifting the Fog of War
“Many flaws remained—flaws not from poor
performance, but from an ingrained command
hierarchy and an outmoded concept of war that
had taken root during World War II and then
during the cold war. Desert Storm was a joint
military operation in name rather than in fact. … The
battlefield was divided among service components. …
The fiefdoms existed not only because of tradition,
service rivalry and the egos of the commanders; they
were also there because of technological limitations.
We did not have the communications capability to do it
differently.” –Bill Owens, Lifting the Fog of War
“Once devised in Riyadh, the tasking order took hours
to get to the Navy’s six aircraft carriers—because the
Navy had failed years earlier to procure the proper
communications gear that would have connected the
Navy with its Air Force counterparts. … To
compensate for the lack of communications capability,
the Navy was forced to fly a daily cargo mission from
the Persian Gulf and Red Sea to Riyadh in order to
pick up a computer printout of the air mission tasking
order, then fly back to the carriers, run photocopy
machines at full tilt, and distribute the documents to
the air wing squadrons that were planning the next
strike.” –Bill Owens, Lifting the Fog of War
“The 1990s was a decade of multiple
revolutions—political, economic, technological—
that changed so thoroughly the way we live that
the past no longer seems a good guide to the
future (in fact the past seems precisely the
wrong guide). So it is in the world of military
affairs. The RMA is our opportunity to use the
new information technology to change the very
nature of the military—in a way that could
reinvigorate American political, diplomatic and
economic leadership in the world for decades to
come.” –Bill Owens, Lifting the Fog of War
4. Connect!
IS/IT to
the Max!
square feet
E.g. …
Jeff Immelt: 75% of “admin, back
room, finance” “digitalized” in
years.
Source: BW (01.28.02)
“Our entire facility is digital. No paper, no film, no
medical records. Nothing. And it’s all integrated—from
the lab to X-ray to records to physician order entry.
Patients don’t have to wait for anything. The
information from the physician’s office is in
registration and vice versa. The referring physician is
immediately sent an email telling him his patient has
shown up. … It’s wireless in-house. We have 800
notebook computers that are wireless. Physicians can
walk around with a computer that’s pre-programmed. If
the physician wants, we’ll go out and wire their house
so they can sit on the couch and connect to the
network. They can review a chart from 100 miles
away.—David Veillette, CEO, Indiana Heart Hospital
(Healthleaders/12.2002)
Streamlined
procurement (esp.
IS/IT)
“It takes six years to
develop a new car. That’s
ridiculous. It only took
four years to win World
War II.” —Ross Perot
“A Big Electronics
Show Is All About
Connections” —headline,
New York Times/ 01.13.2003/
Consumer Electronics Show >
COMDEX
NOKIA
Connecting
People
WebWorld = Everything
Web as a way to run your business’s innards
Web as connector for your entire supply-demand chain
Web as “spider’s web” which re-conceives the industry
Web/B2B as ultimate wake-up call to
“commodity producers”
Web as the scourge of slack, inefficiency, sloth,
bureaucracy, poor customer data
Web as an Encompassing Way of Life
Web = Everything (P.D. to after-sales)
Web forces you to focus on what you do best
Web as entrée, at any size, to World’s Best at Everything
as next door neighbor
“Supply Chain” 2000:
“When Joe Employee at Company X launches his
browser, he’s taken to Company X’s personalized
home page. He can interact with the entire scope of
Company X’s world – customers, other employees,
distributors, suppliers, manufacturers, consultants.
The browser – that is, the portal – resembles a My
Yahoo for Company X and hooks into every network
associated with Company X. The real trick is that Joe
Employee, business partners and customers don’t
have to be in the office. They can log on from a cell
phone, Palm Pilot, pager or home office system.”
Red Herring (09.2000)
5. K.I.S.S.
“Ninety percent of what
we call ‘management’
consists of making it
difficult for people to
get things done.” – P.D.
Fred S.’s “mediocre”
thesis. Herb K.’s
napkin.
There Are Lawyers … and Then There Are
Lawyers: John De Laney/ICM
ANYTHING TRULY
IMPORTANT CAN BE
BOILED DOWN TO
RD
1/3 PAGE.*
(*NO SHIT.)
K.I.S.S.:
Gordon Bell (VAX
500/50.
daddy):
Chas.
Wang (CA): Behind schedule?
Cut least
productive 25%.
Mgt. Team
includes … EVP
(S.O.U.B.)
Executive Vice President, Stomping Out Unnecessary Bullshit
have. Must
hate. / Must
design. Must undesign.
Systems: Must
6. BOYD
Rules!
“If things seem
under control,
you’re just not
going
fast enough.”
Mario Andretti
“Reward excellent
failures. Punish
mediocre
successes.”
Phil Daniels, Sydney exec
“In the modern military, risk is
anathema to rising stars, who
cannot afford any slip-ups on
their records. ‘Zero defects’ and
‘zero tolerance’ are common
bywords.”—Newsweek/09.16.02
The Kotler Doctrine:
1965-1980: R.A.F.
(Ready.Aim.Fire.)
1980-1995: R.F.A.
(Ready.Fire!Aim.)
1995-????: F.F.F.
(Fire!Fire!Fire!)
“Fast Transients”
“Buttonhook turn” (YF16:
“could flick from one maneuver to
another faster than any aircraft”)
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed
the Art of War (Robert Coram)
“If Microsoft is good at anything, it’s
avoiding the trap of worrying about
criticism. Microsoft fails constantly.
They’re eviscerated in public for lousy
products. Yet they persist, through
version after version, until they get
something good enough. Then they
leverage the power they’ve gained in
other markets to enforce their standard.”
Seth Godin, Zooming
USMC COL Mike Wyly: “kept
the enemy off-balance;
they knew Delta
Company [RVN] could
show up anywhere,
anytime”
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed
the Art of War (Robert Coram)
“Maneuverists”
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who
Changed the Art of War (Robert Coram)
“Blitzkrieg is far more than lightning
thrusts that most people think of
when they hear the term; rather it was
all about high operational tempo
and the rapid exploitation of
opportunity.”/ “Arrange the mind of
the enemy.”—T.E. Lawrence/
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a
bee.”—Ali
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed
the Art of War (Robert Coram)
OODA Loop/Boyd Cycle
“Unraveling the competition”/ Quick
Transients/ Quick Tempo (NOT JUST
SPEED!)/ Agility/ “So quick it is
disconcerting” (adversary over-reacts or
under-reacts)/ “Winners used tactics that
caused the enemy to unravel before the
fight” (NEVER HEAD TO HEAD)
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed
the Art of War (Robert Coram)
“Active mutators in placid
times tend to die off. They
are selected against.
Reluctant mutators in
quickly changing times are
also selected against.”
Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan,
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
The Gales of Creative Destruction
+29M = -44M + 73M
+4M = +4M - 0M
Characteristics of the “Also rans”*
“Minimize risk”
“Respect the chain of
command”
“Support the boss”
“Make budget”
*Fortune, article on “Most Admired Global Corporations”
“White-wagon kill”
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed
the Art of War (Robert Coram)
7. Weird
Wins.
The Cracked Ones Let in the Light
“Our business needs a massive
transfusion of talent, and talent, I
believe, is most likely to be found
among non-conformists,
dissenters and rebels.”
David Ogilvy
Innovation Source No. 1*:
PPPs/Personally Pissed-off
People
“Branson started Virgin Atlantic
because flying other airlines was
so dreadful.” —Fortune/05.13.2002
*And there is no No. 2!
“Rumsfeld values
mavericks and tries
to protect and
promote them.” —
Newsweek/ 09.16.02
8 Minutes*
—Dr. Sugata Mira, NIIT/ New Delhi/
1999**
*Ignorance to Surfing
**And then there’s oya yubi sedai, the “thumb generation”
Advice to Corporate Leaders: “Consider the
metaphor of the windmill: You can harness raw
power but you can’t control it. … Hire artists,
clowns, or other disrupters to come in and
challenge your corporate environment. … Hire a
corporate anthropologist to analyze how tolerant
your organization is of deviants and other
innovators. … Once the anthropologist
leaves, hire a shaman to drive out the
evil spirits of conformity. …”
Source: Ryan Matthews & Watts Wacker, Fast Company (03.02)
8. Mike
Knows!
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
“Astonish me!” / S.D.
“Build something great!” /
H.Y.
“Immortal!” / D.O.
BZ: “I am a …
Dispenser of
Enthusiasm!”
“A leader is a
dealer in
hope.”
Napoleon
(+TP’s writing room pics)
“LEADERS NEED TO
BE THE ROCK OF
GIBRALTAR ON
ROLLER BLADES”
No Wiggle Room!
“Incrementalism
is innovation’s
worst enemy.”
Nicholas Negroponte
Just Say No …
“I don’t intend to be
known as the ‘King of
the Tinkerers.’ ”
CEO, large financial services company
(New York, 5-99)
Danger:
S.I.O.
(Strategic
Initiative Overload)
“To
Don’t ”
List
“Find something small
that you can turn
around. If you’re on a 9game losing streak, you
need to start with one
great inning.”—Rudy
“Some people look for
things that went wrong and
I look for
things that went right
and try to build on
them.”
try to fix them.
—Bob Stone/ Mr.Rego/ Lessons from an
Uncivil Servant
REAL Org Change: Demos & Models (“Model
Installations,” “ReGo Labs”)/ Heroes (mostly extant: “burned
to reinvent gov’t”)/ Stories & Storytellers (Props!)/
Chroniclers (Writers, Videographers, Pamphleteers, Etc.)/
Cheerleaders & Recognition (Pos>>Neg, Volume)/
New Language (Hot/Emotional/WOW)/ Seekers
(networking mania)/ Protectors/ Support Groups/
End Runs—“Pull Strategy” (weird alliances, weird
customers, weird suppliers, weird alumnae-JKC)/ Field
“Real People” Focus (3 COs) (long way away)/
Speed (O.O.D.A. Loops—act before the “bad guys” can react)
C.f., Bob Stone, Lessons from an Uncivil Servant
Bill Parcells’ World/
Brand You World!
BLAME NOBODY!
EXPECT NOTHING!
DO SOMETHING!
NY Post (9/99)
“Let’s make a
dent in the
universe.”
Steve Jobs
A Baker’s Dozen Merger Messages: Private Sector & DHS/BTS
1. Attitude Rules: Opportunity or Pain in …
2. Unique time for Deep Re-assessment. (WE MUST RE-INVENT THE
ESSENTIAL IDEA OF HOMELAND SECURITY.)
3. THIS SORT OF THING ONLY HAPPENS ONCE EVERY SEVERAL
DECADES! (I.E.: Don’t blow the Main Chance!)
4. Avoid getting totally caught up in (necessary) details. (KEEP YOUR EYE
ON THE B-I-G OPPORTUNITY.)
5. Let’s assume you only hold this job for the next few months. MAKE A
DAMN DIFFERENCE EVERY DAMN DAY.
6. What happens in the next few months is the principal basis by which your
entire professional career will be judged.
7. How well (IMAGINATIVELY!!!) you do this matters to 280,000,000 Americans.
8. Every morning, say quietly to yourself, “It’s a Brand New World.” Forget Age Old Turf
Disputes. (TURF WARFARE IS OSAMA’s-TERRORISM’s NO. 1 OPPORTUNITY.)
9. Inclusiveness matters. Be incredibly careful about Respect & Involvement.
10. Score some Quick Wins. (Rudy’s Rule.) Needed: New Behaviors. Focus
on the Positives. (Bob’s Rule.)
11. BE INSANELY LAVISH IN PRAISE OF SMALL ACTS OF COOPERATION. (Be
publicly brutal to the smallest act of turf warfare.)
12. “GOOD” DECISIONS MADE TODAY BEAT “GREAT” DECISIONS DELAYED FOR
MONTHS. MOMENTUM & MORALE MATTER. DELAY = CANCER.
13. VISIBILITY RULES!