Tom Peters’
EXCELLENCE.
ALWAYS.
NEW MASTER/Part #1/
16 June 2008/1007
To appreciate
this presentation [and ensure
that it is not a mess], you need
Microsoft fonts:
NOTE:
“Showcard Gothic,”
“Ravie,” “Chiller”
and “Verdana”
5 Parts
P1/Generic
P2/Leadership
P3/Talent
P4/“The Equations”
P5/Implementation
Part I
“We Have …
Thank
you,
Starbucks!
Sports: You
beat
yourself!
Internal
organizational
excellence* ** =
Deepest “Blue
Ocean”
*A “Blue ocean” is by definition
very profitable … and will be
quickly copied. “sustainable
blue” (Internal
organizational excellence) is
far more difficult to copy.
**Internal
organizational
excellence =
“Brand inside”
B(I) > B(O)
Thank
you Herb
“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 the
Annual Meeting)
Thank
you Ben,
Norm, Ike and
Delaware
Give
good
tea!
“Allied commands depend
on mutual confidence
[and this confidence]
is gained, above all
through the development
of friendships.”
—General D.D. Eisenhower,
Armchair General* (05.08)
*“Perhaps his most outstanding ability [at West Point] was
the ease with which he made friends and earned the trust
of fellow cadets who came from widely varied backgrounds;
it was a quality that would pay great dividends during his
future coalition command
“eighty percent
of success is
showing up.”
—Woody Allen
Thank
you Rich!
“Mapping your
competitive
position”*
or …
*Rich D’Aveni/HBR
The “Have
you …” 50*
*See Appendix One
1. Have you in the
last 10 days …
visited a customer?
2. Have you called a
customer … TODAY?
*
*
*
Thank
you
Dr. Groopman
Thank
you Dick &
Dan
Dick (Build!)
Dan (Report on
what not built—
tangible v.
palpable)
Thank
you “Great
One” (and
Phil)
“You miss
100% of
the shots you
never take.”
—Wayne Gretzky
“Reward
excellent failures.
Punish mediocre
successes.”
Phil Daniels, Sydney exec
Thank
you Walter
itics politics politi
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???????
“Success doesn’t depend on the number of
people you know; it depends on the number
of people you know in
high places!”
or
“Success doesn’t depend on the number of
people you know; it depends on the number
of people you know in
low
places!”
All success is a
Matter of
implementation.
All implementation is
a matter of politics.
Thank
you
Heather
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
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?
Big bank CEO, summarizing to his top-management team his
“Tom’s made a great
point; he let us know that our customer base
will be different and more diverse in the future.”
notes from TP’s presentation:
“With all due respect, that’s not what Tom
said. Though I am an unabashed supporter of
‘diversity’ in general, what I said was
Tom:
‘She
is your customer—and
has been for a long time and will be forever.’
And ‘she’ is notably AWOL in this [meeting] room
full of senior ‘leaders.’ ”
Thank
you Sheik
Mohammad
Single
greatest act
of pure
imagination
Thank
you Steve
“You know a
design is good
when you want
to lick it.”
—Steve Jobs
Source: Design: Intelligence Made Visible,
Stephen Bayley & Terence Conran
Thank
you Kevin,
Eleanor (and
Steve)
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!
“Do one thing
every day
that scares
you.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Stay Hungry.
Stay Foolish.
Steve Jobs
Thank
you Bob
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”
“Breakthrough” 82*
People!
Customers!
Action!
Values!
*In Search of Excellence
Thank
you Siberia
…in May!
Why in the
World did you
go to Siberia?
An
emotional, vital, innovative,
joyful, creative,
entrepreneurial endeavor
that elicits maximum
Enterprise* ** (*at its best):
concerted human
potential in the
wholehearted service of
others.**
**Employees, Customers, Suppliers, Communities, Owners, Temporary partners
Thank
you Mssrs.
Easterly, Yunus
and Wheeler!
"Trust the
development
experts—all
seven billion of
them.”
—headline, Financial Times,
0529.08, to an article by development guru William Easterly,
commenting negatively on the World Bank Growth
Commission’s recent report that concludes, in effect,
“trust the World Bank experts”
“The four most important
words in any
organization
‘What do
you think?’ ”
are …
Source: courtesy Dave Wheeler,
posted at tompeters.com, source of
original unknown (0609.08)
“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
“Forbes100” from 1917 to 1987
: 39
members of
the Class of ’17 were alive in ’87; 18 in ’87
F100; 18 F100 “survivors” significantly
underperformed the market;
just
2 (2%), GE & Kodak,
outperformed the market from
1917 to 1987.
S&P 500 from 1957 to 1997:
’97;
74 members of the Class of ’57 were alive in
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
GE
Decentralization to the point of failure to pursue
synergies
Accountability (extreme, merciless, all levels)
Profitability
Metric madness (not portable—the Nardelli case
Six-sigma religion (limits innovation? 3M, Boeing?)
Execution (Bossidy)
Truth-telling
Decentralized staff except for financial integrity, risk,
management, management development
Operational excellence
Centralized major initiatives with teeth, but not to the
detriment of decentralization, accountability (e.g., via
best practices
Management development (Deep)
Succession effectiveness (Jones, Welch, Immelt)
(universal)
Up or out
Targeted acquisitions
“Mr. Foster and his McKinsey
colleagues collected detailed
performance data stretching back 40
years for 1,000 U.S. companies. They
found that
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
$10,000,000/Day
Mission impossible?
$36B/’98
minus
$675M/‘07
$10,000,000/Day
“Citigroup merger a mistake ”
“sad story”
“The stockholders have not
benefited. The employees
certainly have not benefited and
I don’t think the customers
have benefited because our
franchises are weaker than
they have been.”
Source: Financial Times, 0404.2008 (All quotes
courtesy John Reed, who crafted the CitiTravelers merger in 1998 in a $166B deal)
“Despite a decade of
banking mergers, there is no
evidence that big banks are
any more efficient or
profitable than their smaller
rivals.” —Financial Times, 0329, on
possible Barclays-ABN Amro merger (“When it
comes to asking the stock market whether
bigger banks are better, the current answer is a
resounding ‘no.” —Citigroup analysis, 2006)
“Not a single company that
qualified as having made a
sustained transformation
ignited its leap with a big
acquisition or merger. Moreover,
comparison companies—those that failed to make a
leap or, if they did, failed to sustain it—often tried to
make themselves great with a
big acquisition or merger. They failed to grasp the
simple truth that while you can buy
your way to growth, you cannot buy your way to
greatness.” —Jim Collins/Time/2004
“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
You don’t
get better
by being
bigger. You
Dick Kovacevich:
There’s “A”
and then
there’s “A.”
Winning the Merger Game
Is
Possible
--Lots of deals
--Little deals
--Friendly deals
—Stay close to core competence
—Strategy is easy to understand
Source: “The Mega-merger Mouse Trap”/Wall Street Journal/02.17.2004 /
David Harding & Sam Rovit, Bain & Co./re Comcast-Disney
Spinoffs
systematically
perform better than IPOs … track
record, profits … “freed from
the confines of the parent
… more entrepreneurial,
more nimble”
—Jerry Knight/ Washington Post/ 08.05
#1.1
The last
word:
There is
no “last
word.”
Flat as a Pancake (Or Worse)
Wal*Mart … Dell … Intel
… Yahoo … Home Depot
… Microsoft … GE
“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
Built to last?
Built to last?
“But what if [former head of strategic planner
at Royal Dutch Shell] Arie de Geus is wrong in
suggesting, in The Living Company, that firms
should aspire to live forever? Greatness is
fleeting and, for corporations, it will become
ever more fleeting. The ultimate aim of a
business organization, an artist, an athlete or a
explode in a
dramatic frenzy of value
creation during a short
space of time, rather than to live
stockbroker may be to
forever.” —Kjell Nordström and Jonas Ridderstråle,
Funky Business
Built to Last
vs
Built to
Change/Rock
the World
“It is not the
strongest of the
species that survives,
nor the most
intelligent, but the
one most responsive
to change.”
—Charles Darwin
“A pattern emphasized in the case
studies in this book is the degree to
which powerful competitors not
only resist innovative threats,
but actually resist all efforts to
understand them, preferring to
further their positions in older
products. This results in a surge of
productivity and performance that
may take the old technology to
unheard of heights. But in most cases
this is a sign of impending death.”
—Jim Utterback, Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation
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
C.E.O.
to
C.D.O.
Chief
Destruction
Officer
#1.1.1
Q4/2006
+500,000
Source: Barron’s 0922.07
Q4/2006
+500,000 = ?
Source: Barron’s 0922.07
Q4/2006
+500,000 =
+7,700,000
-7,200,000
Source: Barron’s 0922.07
#1.2
L(+21) = L(-21)
Leadership(21A.D.) =
Leadership(21B.C.)
“… Time and
space are
annihilated by
steam.
… Oh, this constant locomotion, my
body & everything in motion. Steamboats, Cars, & hotels all
crammed & crowded full the whole population seems in motion &
in fact as I pass along with Lightening speed & cast my eye on
the distant objects, they all seem in a whirl nothing appearing
permanent even the trees are waltzing, the mind too goes with
all this, it speculates, theorizes, & measures all things by
locomotive speed, where will it end.” —Asa Whitney, first to formally propose
transcontinental railroad to Congress, diary entry, 1844, from David Hayward Bain, Empire Express: Building the
First Transcontinental Railroad
“[The railways]
turned the known
universe upside
down.
They made a greater and more immediate
impact than any other innovation before or since. … The
shock was both sudden and universal … With the railways
came the development of modern capitalism, of modern
nations, the creation of new regions from the American
Midwest, from Lake Victoria to the pampas in Argentina.”
—Nicholas Faith, The World the Railways Made
The First Internet?
Songlines/
Bruce Chatwin
#2
#1 Exporter?
#4 Japan
#3 USA
#2 China
#1 Germany
Reason?
Daimler?
BASF?
Siemens?
Reason!!!
Mittelstand
Or …
Goldmann
Produktions
(11/50%/$5M/”dip and coat,” expensive pigments
vs “through coloring,” fades Bekro Chemie)
Bavaria: Mittelstand within Mittelstand
“Place to start over” post-WWII
13 million
6th in EU if stand-alone (CA #5)
4% unemployment
Munich government pro-business
30 universities (3 of 3 leading in R&D, with BadenWuerttemberg)
50% German patents (with Baden-Wuerttemberg)
SMEs & Big Cos
“Hot” finance communities
“lion’s share” of German startups
Media startups (SF: tech + media)
Source: CNBC European Business, November 2007
City-states: Global Mittelstand?
Athens
Venice
Florence
Rome
Antwerp
Amsterdam
London
New York
Singapore
Hong Kong
Singapore
Silicon Valley (California)
Dubai (et al)
#2.1
Focus: “A recent study by [Stanford]
Business School faculty shows that
producers whose offerings or
expertise are more clearly
associated with one or two product
categories have better sales
than those whose goods or
professional identity span multiple
categories. More focused producers throw off
subtle hints that they know their stuff, which is
not lost on customers. In short, says professor
Michael Hannan, ‘The jack of all trades is the
master of none governs consumer choices of
whose goodies to buy.’ ” —Stanford Business, 0208
“No Need for Economies
of Scale: Illinois Tool Revs
Up Innovation by Keeping
Its 655 Units Separate
and Focused”
Source: Headline, BW, 1031.05 (“commodity” producer;
R&D = 1%; Top 100 patent recipient—66th in ’04) ($12B rev
in ’04; CEO David Speer: focus, lean, customer intimacy,
entrepreneurial, employee participation)
“All Strategy Is Local:
True competitive advantages
are harder to find and maintain
than people realize. The
Focus:
odds are best in
tightly drawn markets,
not big, sprawling
ones”
—Title/ Bruce Greenwald & Judd Kahn/HBR09.05
#2.2
Jim’s
Group
Jim’s Mowing Canada
Jim’s Mowing UK
Jim’s Antennas
Jim’s Bookkeeping
Jim’s Building Maintenance
Jim’s Carpet Cleaning
Jim’s Car Cleaning
Jim’s Computer Services
Jim’s Dog Wash
Jim’s Driving School
Jim’s Fencing
Jim’s Floors
Jim’s Painting
Jim’s Paving
Jim’s Pergolas [gazebos]
Jim’s Pool Care
Jim’s Pressure Cleaning
Jim’s Roofing
Jim’s Security Doors
Jim’s Trees
Jim’s Window Cleaning
Jim’s Windscreens
Note: Download, free, Jim Penman’s book:
What Will They Franchise Next? The Story of Jim’s Group
Jim’s Group: Jim Penman.*
1984: Jim’s Mowing. 2006: Jim’s Group.
2,600 franchisees (Australia, NZ, UK).
Cleaning. Dog washing. Handyman.
Fencing. Paving. Pool care. Etc.
“People first.” Private. Small staff. Franchisees
can leave at will. 0-1 complaint per year is
norm; cut bad ones quickly.
*Ph.D. cross-cultural anthropology; mowing on the side
Source: MT/Management Today (Australia), Jan-Feb 2006
Basement
Systems
Inc.
*Basement Systems Inc.
*Larry Janesky
*Dry Basement Science
(115,000!)
*1990: $0; 2003: $13M;
2007:
$62,000,000
etc.
PRSX/ Paragon
Railcar
Salvage*
*Salvaged railcars into bridges, etc.
The Red
Carpet
Store
Joel Resnick/Flemington NJ
(referenced in Fame Junkies)
#3
“gurugate”: The
Gurus’ fixation with
“the wrong stuff”*
*Not “they,” but “us.”
Over-rated:
Big companies!
Public companies!
“Cool” industries!
Stability (“Built to last”)!
Famous CEOs!
Over-rated:
Big companies!
Public companies!
“Cool” industries!
Stability (“Built to last”)!
Famous CEOs!
You don’t
get better by
being bigger.
You get
worse.”
Dick Kovacevich:
#4 Japan
#2T china
#2t USA
#1 Germany
Over-rated:
Big companies!
Public companies!
“Cool” industries!
Stability (“Built to last”)!
Famous CEOs!
Family Businesses
Two-thirds of total #s
of companies
One-half of biggest companies
>One-half GDP
>One-half employment
6% more profitable
7% better ROA
Higher income growth
Higher revenue growth
Source: John Davis, HBS
Over-rated:
Big companies!
Public companies!
“Cool” industries!
Stability (“Built to last”)!
Famous CEOs!
Jim’s
Group
Over-rated:
Big companies!
Public companies!
“Cool” industries!
Stability (“Built to last”)!
Famous CEOs!
“Natural selection is death. ...
Without huge amounts of
death, organisms do not
change over time. ... Death
is the mother of structure. ...
It took four billion years of
death ... to invent the human
mind ...” — The Cobra Event
Over-rated:
Big companies!
Public companies!
“Cool” industries!
Stability (“Built to last”)!
Famous CEOs!
Mission impossible?
$36B/’98
minus
$675M/‘07
*Lived in same town all adult life
*First generation that’s wealthy/
no parental support
*“Don’t look like millionaires, don’t
dress like millionaires, don’t eat like
millionaires, don’t act like millionaires”
*“Many of the types of businesses [they] are in could be
classified as ‘dull-normal.’ [They] are welding contractors,
auctioneers, scrap-metal dealers, lessors of portable toilets,
dry cleaners, re-builders of diesel engines, paving
contractors …”
Source: The Millionaire Next Door, Thomas Stanley & William Danko
Over-rated:
Big companies!
Public companies!
“Cool” industries!
Stability (“Built to last”)!
Famous CEOs!
The “Fabulous Five”:
*SMEs!
*Private companies!
*“Dull” industries!
*Productive churn:
Built to Rock the
World!
*Laudable CEOs!
#4
The
black
swan
1982 (-) =
200
Years (+)
1982/Default Latin
America =
years
200
[Total historical earnings]
The Black Swan: The Impact of the
Highly Improbable, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Career =
1 or 2
black swans
Black Swan: This is
how you earn
your pay!* **
*See: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly
Improbable, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
**WSC: “When the seas are calm all ships alike show
mastership in sailing.”
Resilience!
Hiring: CEO, 100%
Training
Structure
Systems (e.g. IS/IT)
“Culture”
“Character is more crucial now
than ever, because in times of
great uncertainty past
performance is no indicator of
future performance. Experience
falls away and all you’re left
with is character.” —David Rothkopf,
founder of a firm that helps chief executives manage
risks
Attributes of resilient people:
Inner calm (Buddhist?)
High self-knowledge (“comfortable in own skin”)
Breadth of experience—drove a cab, worked construction, ran Alaska tours …
as well as more traditional stuff
Sense of, “Ah, my moment” (Giuliani)
Lover of modestly controlled chaos (bored amidst calm—FDR)
Reach out effortlessly
Reach out effortlessly to a wide variety of people
Bizarrely energetic
Known for integrity, in the sense of “straight shooter”
Hires resilient people per se in key positions! (All senior leadership roles?)
Maintains sense of humor
Empathy (“I feel your pain”)
“Cruelty” (Must make tough decisions instantaneously, without looking back; not
“confident,” but overwhelming sense of urgency to press ahead)
Decisive but not rigid
Strong individual, equally strong team player
Knows herself, himself
Understands the chain of command—and evades it as necessary
Comfortable being challenged by thinkers, but a strong “doer” bias overall
A person of Hope (religious or “religious-like”?)
Not necessarily: ex-college QB, comeback rep (Why: All within the rules, with in
the context of that which has been practiced)
Better: Ocean sailboat racer; ER doc; public health doc; astronaut; combat
experience as NCO; hostage negotiator; survived in hopeless circumstances
through guile and grit; seeks “independent duty”
Tests: lights go out during interview, followed by fire alarm, etc; focus on per se in
reference checks
Attributes of resilient organizations:
Hire resilient folks at all levels and in all functions—explicit about
so doing
Promote resilience—explicit about so doing
Decentralization!!!!!!!!! (organization structure, physical configuration,
systems)
Shadow “emergency organization”
Redundancy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Culture of (1) self-starting, (2) caring and respect, (3) Execution is
Priority #1, (4) Accountability-responsibility—100% of folks
Culture of Resilience (as explicit “plank” of values set)
Talk it up!!
MBWA—e.g., great communication all the time about everything
Transparency (all in the know, none in the dark)
Financial padding
Excellent equipment
Training >>>>> Equipment
Ability to get by for quite a while without IS-IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Test in uncomfortable situations
Promote an unusually high share of mavericks
Diversity per se!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Exec: But you can’t
let this run your life
on a day-to-day
basis.
TP: Are you sure?
#4.1
“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
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life
and the Markets, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We
know? Philip Tetlock
The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates
Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies, Scott Page
The Wisdom of Crowds,
James Surowiecki
Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to
Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould
Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases,
Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky
Daniel
A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives,
Cordelia Fine
“This book
is about luck disguised and perceived as non-luck (that is, skills) and more
generally randomness disguised and perceived as non-randomness. It manifests
itself in the shape of the lucky fool, defined as a person who benefited from a
disproportionate share of luck but attributed his success to some other,
generally precise reason.”
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and the Markets, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“A fox, the thinker who
knows many little things, draws from an eclectic array of disciplines, and is better
able to improvise in response to changing events, is more successful in
predicting the future than the hedgehog, who knows one big thing, toils devotedly
within one tradition, and imposes formulaic solutions on ill defined problems.”
Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We know? Philip Tetlock
The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies , Scott Page
“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.”
The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki
Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould
Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky
“Your brain has some shifty
habits that leave the truth distorted and disguised. Your brain is vainglorious. It’s
emotional and immoral. It deludes you. It is pigheaded, secretive and weak willed.
Oh, and it’s also a bigot.”
A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives , Cordelia Fine
#4.2
Ha: “By impressive examples and incontrovertible
argument [Norman] Angel [in his book, The Great Illusion] showed that
given the present financial and economic interdependence
of nations, the victor [in a war] would suffer equally with the
vanquished; therefore war had become unprofitable;
therefore no one would be so foolish as to start one.”
[NB: Tuchman reports that Angel’s book was published in 1910, four
years before the Great War, translated into numerous languages, and
studied by the highest level statesmen from the UK and all of Europe to
Japan, with almost uniform nods of agreement.]
“New economic factors clearly prove the inanity of
aggressive wars. … Because of the interlacing of nations,
war becomes every day more difficult and improbable.”
Source: Lectures in 1910 by Viscount Esher, chairman of the UK’s “War
Commission” and senior advisor on foreign policy and the military;
he believed that the Angel doctrine was as accepted in Germany as
in the UK.
Master source: The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman, 1962
Economic Growth Insulates Against International Violence?
“The hundred years after 1900 were a
time of unparalleled progress. In real
terms, it has been estimated [that]
average per capita global domestic
product increased by little more than
50 percent between 1500 and 1870.
Between 1870 and 1998, however, it
increased by a factor of more than six
and a half.” —Niall Ferguson, The War of the World
General David Petraeus’ “White lines along the road”:
“Secure and serve the population.
Live among the people.
Promote reconciliation.
Move mounted, work dismounted;
situational awareness can only be
achieved by operating face-to-face,
not separated by ballistic glass.
Walk.*”
—David Petraeus, Men’s Journal (06.08)
* “I love that last one for its simplicity.” —DP
3K/5M
5,000 miles for
a 5-minute
face-to
-face meeting
“A body can
pretend to care,
but they can’t
pretend to be
there.”
— Texas Bix Bender
“I call 60 CEOs
to
wish them happy
New Year. …”
[in
the first week of the year]
—Hank Paulson, former CEO, Goldman Sachs
Source: Fortune, “Secrets of Greatness,” 0320.05
MBWA, Grameen Style!
“Conventional banks ask their clients to come
to their office. It’s a terrifying place for the poor
and illiterate. … The entire Grameen Bank
system runs on the principle that people
should not come to the bank, the bank
should go to the people. … If any staff
member is seen in the office, it should be taken
as a violation of the rules of the Grameen Bank.
… It is essential that [those setting up a new
village Branch] have no office and no place to
stay. The reason is to make us as different as
possible from government officials.”
Source: Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor
You = Your
calendar*
*Calendars
never lie
“It’s always
showtime.”
—David D’Alessandro, Career Warfare
“An actor in his youth, [Pope]
John Paul was a master of
grand gestures.” —USA Today
“It is necessary for the
President to be the nation’s
number one actor.” —FDR
Leader Job 1
Paint
Portraits of
Excellence!
#5.1.1
“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
“I used to have a rule for myself that at any point in
time I wanted to have in mind — as it so happens,
also in writing, on a little card I carried around with
me — the three big things I was trying to get done.
Three.
Not two.
Not four.
Not five.
Not ten.
Three.”
— Richard Haass, The Power to Persuade
“Dennis, you need a …
‘To-don’t ’
List !”
“Really Important
Roger’s
Rule of
Stuff”:
Three!
The “Have
you …” 50
“Mapping your
competitive
position”*
or …
*Rich D’Aveni/HBR
While waiting last week [early December 2007] in the Albany
airport to board a Southwest Airlines flight to Reagan, I
happened across the latest Harvard Business Review, on the
cover of which was a yellow sticker. The sticker had on it the
words “Mapping your competitive position.” It referred to a
feature article by my friend Rich D’Aveni. His work is uniformly
good—and I have said as much publicly on several occasions
dating back 15 years. I’m sure this article is good, too—though
I didn’t read it. In fact it triggered a furious negative “Tom
reaction” as my wife calls it. Of course I believe you should
But instead of
obsessing on competitive position and other
abstractions, as the B-schools and
consultants would always have us do, I
instead wondered about some “practical
stuff” which I believe is more important to
the short- and long-term health of the
enterprise, tiny or enormous.
worry about your “competitive position.”
“Unfortunately many
leaders of major
companies believe their
job is to create the
strategy, organization
and organization
processes—remaining
aloof from the people
doing the work.” —George
Kohlrieser, Hostage at the Table (GK is, among other things, a
hostage negotiator with a 95% success rate)
1. Have you in the last 10 days … visited a
customer?
2. Have you called a customer … TODAY?
3. Have you in the last 60-90 days … had a seminar in which several folks from the
customer’s operation (different levels, different functions, different divisions) interacted,
via facilitator, with various of your folks?
4. Have you thanked a front-line employee for a
small act of helpfulness … in the last three days?
5. Have you thanked a front-line employee for a small act of helpfulness … in the
last three hours?
6. Have you thanked a frontline employee for carrying around a great attitude … today?
7. Have you in the last week recognized—publicly—one of your folks for a small act of
cross-functional co-operation?
8. Have you in the last week recognized—publicly—one of “their” folks (another function)
for a small act of cross-functional co-operation?
9. Have you invited in the last month a leader of another function to your weekly team
priorities meeting?
10. Have you personally in the last week-month called-visited an internal or external
customer to sort out, inquire, or apologize for some little or big thing that went awry? (No
reason for doing so? If true—in your mind—then you’re more out of touch than I dared
imagine.)
1. Have you in the
last 10 days … visited
a customer?
2. Have you called a
customer … TODAY?
11. Have you in the last two days had a chat with someone (a couple of levels down?) about specific deadlines
concerning a project’s next steps?
12. Have you in the last two days had a chat with someone (a couple of levels down?) about specific deadlines
concerning a project’s next steps … and what specifically you can do to remove a hurdle? (“Ninety percent of
what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get things done.”—Peter “His eminence”
Drucker.)
13. Have you celebrated in the last week a “small” (or large!) milestone reached? (I.e., are you a milestone
fanatic?)
14. Have you in the last week or month revised some estimate in the “wrong” direction and apologized for making
a lousy estimate? (Somehow you must publicly reward the telling of difficult truths.)
15. Have you installed in your tenure a very
comprehensive customer satisfaction scheme for all
internal customers? (With major consequences for hitting or missing the mark.)
16. Have you in the last six months had a week-long, visible, very intensive visit-“tour” of external customers?
17. Have you in the last 60 days called an abrupt halt to a meeting and “ordered” everyone to get out of the office,
and “into the field” and in the next eight hours, after asking those involved, fixed (f-i-x-e-d!) a nagging “small”
problem through practical action?
18. Have you in the last week had a rather thorough discussion of a “cool design thing” someone has come
across—away from your industry or function—at a Web site, in a product or its packaging?
19. Have you in the last two weeks had an informal meeting—at least an hour long—with a frontline employee to
discuss things we do right, things we do wrong, what it would take to meet your mid- to long-term aspirations?
20. Have you had in the last 60 days had a general meeting to discuss “things we do wrong” … that we can fix in
the next fourteen days?
UniCredit Group/
UniCredito Italiano* **
—3rd party measurement
—Customer-initiated
measurement
—Primary $$$$ incentives
—“Factories”
—Primary Corporate Initiative
—Etc
*#13
**TP/#1
The director of staff services
at the giant financial services
firm, UniCredit Group,
installed the most thorough
internal customer satisfaction
measures scheme I have
seen—with exceptional
rewards for those who make
the grade with their internal
customers.
21. Have you had in the last year a one-day, intense offsite with each (?) of your
internal customers—followed by a big celebration of “things gone right”?
22. Have you in the last week pushed someone to do some family thing that you fear
might be overwhelmed by deadline pressure?
23. Have you learned the names of the children of everyone who reports to you? (If
not, you have six months to fix it.)
24. Have you taken in the last month an interesting-weird outsider to lunch?
25. Have you in the last month invited an interesting-weird outsider to sit in on an
important meeting?
26. Have you in the last three days discussed something interesting, beyond your
industry, that you ran across in a meeting, reading, etc?
27. Have you in the last 24 hours injected into a meeting “I ran across this
interesting idea in [strange place]”?
28. Have you in the last two weeks asked someone to report on something, anything
that constitutes an act of brilliant service rendered in a “trivial” situation—
restaurant, car wash, etc? (And then discussed the relevance to your work.)
29. Have you in the last 30 days examined in detail (hour
by hour) your calendar to evaluate the degree “time
actually spent” mirrors your “espoused priorities”?
(And repeated this exercise with everyone on team.)
30. Have you in the last two months had a presentation to the group by a “weird”
outsider?
31. Have you in the last two months had a presentation to the group by a customer,
internal customer, vendor featuring “working folks” 3 or 4 levels down in the vendor
organization?
32. Have you in the last two months had a presentation to the group of a cool,
beyond-our-industry ideas by two of your folks?
33. Have you at every meeting today (and forever more) re-directed the conversation
to the practicalities of implementation concerning some issue before the group?
34. Have you at every meeting today (and forever more) had an end-of-meeting
discussion on “action items to be dealt with in the next 4, 48 hours? (And then made
this list public—and followed up in 48 hours.) And made sure everyone has at least
one such item.)
35. Have you had a discussion in the last six months about what it would take to get
recognition in local-national poll of “best places to work”?
36. Have you in the last month approved a cool-different training course for one
of your folks?
Have you in the last month taught a front-line
training course?
37.
38. Have you in the last week discussed the idea of Excellence? (What it means, how
to get there.)
39. Have you in the last week discussed the idea of “Wow”? (What it means, how
to inject it into an ongoing “routine” project.)
40. Have you in the last 45 days assessed some major process in terms of the
details of the “experience,” as well as results, it provides to its external or internal
customers?
41. Have you in the last month had one of your folks attend a meeting you were supposed to go
to which gives them unusual exposure to senior folks?
42. Have you in the last 60 (30?) days sat with a trusted friend or “coach” to discuss your
“management style”—and its long- and short-term impact on the group?
43. Have you in the last three days considered a professional
relationship that was a little rocky and made a call to the person
involved to discuss issues and smooth the waters? (Taking the
“blame,” fully deserved or not, for letting the thing-issue fester.)
44. Have you in the last … two hours … stopped by someone’s (two-levels “down") officeworkspace for 5 minutes to ask “What do you think?” about an issue that arose at a more or
less just completed meeting? (And then stuck around for 10 or so minutes to listen—and
visibly taken notes.)
45. Have you … in the last day … looked around you to assess whether the diversity pretty
accurately maps the diversity of the market being served? (And …)
46. Have you in the last day at some meeting gone out of your way to make sure that a normally
reticent person was engaged in a conversation—and then thanked him or her, perhaps
privately, for their contribution?
47. Have you during your tenure instituted very public (visible) presentations of performance?
48. Have you in the last four months had a session specifically aimed at checking on the
“corporate culture” and the degree we are true to it—with all presentations by relatively junior
folks, including front-line folks? (And with a determined effort to keep the conversation
restricted to “real world” “small” cases—not theory.)
49. Have you in the last six months talked about the Internal Brand Promise?
50. Have you in the last year had a full-day off site to talk about individual (and group)
aspirations?
ell sell sell sell
ell sell sell sell
ell sell sell sell
ell sell sell sell
ell sell sell sell
Presentation Skills
**Repetition I (Practice-Give a lot of speeches!)
**Repetition II (Keep selling: Button-hole anyone-everyone,
groups of 5, groups of 500)
**Stories I (Stories, stories, stories …)
**Stories II (Human scale—that people can identify with and
get inside)
**Stories III (Emotional)
**Stories IV (Heroic—can be “small heroism,” but stories
of “ordinary” folks bucking conventional wisdom)
**Stories V (Actionable-doable-basis for their “small wins”)
**Homework (“Content,” audience, hook to the moment)
**Passion (You must care!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And it must show!)
**Enthusiasm!
**Energy!
**Joy! (Obviously love the subject matter, transmit your joy
to others)
**Intensity! (“Nothing in my life matters more than being here
with you”)
**Integrity
**Credibility!
Presentation Skills
**Self-effacement I (own up to your limitations: “We are fellow
explorers”—I don’t have all the answers; I’m here to talk about
our journey together.”)
**Self-effacement II (I stand on the shoulders of giants—this is
no solo egotrip)
**Purpose (Determined to move the mountain—and imply
you’ll keep punching until that happens)
**Limits (Don’t try to get too much done—confusion of purpose
or expected path is unsatisfactory)
**Humor (If “tough love” message, must make ’em laugh if
they are to accept)
**Commitment (Demonstrated)
**Empathy (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
**Eye-contact (“I’m here for you and you alone, Dick, Jane, Jose.”)
**“Listening” (Read body language … “or else”)
**Need I (“I must connect”)
**Need II (“I must sell-convince”)
**Curiosity (Obvious fascination with the topic)
Listen.
Talk.
“Everyone
lives by
selling
something.”
.
– Robert Louis Stevenson
The Commerce Bank Model
“cost cutting
is a death
spiral.”
Source: Fans! Not customers. How Commerce Bank
Created a Super-growth Business in a No-growth Industry,
Vernon Hill & Bob Andelman
“Our whole
story is
growing
revenue.”
—Vernon Hill (Top-line driven; standard
is bottom-line driven by cost cutting)
C
*Chief
O*
Revenue
Officer
Conrad Hilton, at a gala
celebrating his life,
was asked, “What was the
most important lesson
you’ve learned in you long
and distinguished career?”
His immediate answer …
“remember
to tuck the
shower curtain
inside the
bathtub.”
#8.1
3h = LTS*
*Long-term success
Howard
Hilton
Herb
Conrad Hilton, at a gala celebrating his life,
was asked, “What was the most important lesson you’ve learned
in you long and distinguished career?”
His immediate answer:
“remember
to tuck the
shower curtain
inside the
bathtub”
“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 the
Annual Meeting)
3H: Howard, Hilton, Herb
**Stay in touch!
**Sweat the
details!
**It’s the people,
stupid!
The “6h
Manifesto”
= ANTKLTS*
*All you need to know for long-term success
Howard
Hilton
Herb
Henry
HRH
Herb
Starbucks boss Howard
Schultz visits 25 shops
a week.
Conrad Hilton, at a gala celebrating his life,
was asked, “What was the most important lesson you’ve learned
in you long and distinguished career?”
His immediate answer:
“remember
to tuck the
shower curtain
inside the
bathtub”
Conrad Hilton shares his
foremost key to success.
“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 the
Annual Meeting)
Herb Kelleher (Southwest
Airlines) says this is his
only success “secret.”
Relationships!
Relationships!
Relationships!
Relationships!
Relationships!
Relationships!
Relationships!
Tom Peters, writing
under the nom de plume
of “Henry,” reveals his
singular recipe for
success.
Single
greatest act
of pure
imagination
HRH Sheik Mohammad
has turned a flyspeck—
Dubai—in to a
breathtaking display
of the impossible
made possible.
“We have a
‘strategic plan.’
It’s called doing
things.”
— Herb Kelleher
More from SWA’s
Mr Kelleher, action
fanatic.
ry it. Try it. Screw
t up. Try it. Try it
Try it. Try it. Try it
ry it. Screw it up
Try it. Try it. try i
ry it. Screw it up
Ditto from “Henry.”
6H: Howard, Hilton, Herb, Henry, HRH, Herb
**Stay in touch!
**Sweat the details!
**It’s the people, stupid!
**“Best relationships wins”!
**Let your imagination
go berserk!
**Do It!
2-cent
candy
<TGW
vs.
>TGR
Master of “TGR” Cont.
Granite Rock Co.
(Cross it out if you think we did it poorly)
“one idea.”
1966-2008.
What makes
God laugh?
People
making
plans!
“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
“Experiment
fearlessly”
Source: BW0821.06, Type A Organization Strategies/
“How to Hit a Moving Target”—Tactic #1
"I think it is very important
for you to do two things:
act on your temporary
conviction as if it was a
real conviction; and when
you realize that you are
wrong, correct course very
quickly.” —Andy Grove
“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
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
“Natural selection is death. ...
Without huge amounts of
death, organisms do not
change over time. ... Death
is the mother of structure. ...
It took four billion years of
death ... to invent the human
mind ...” — The Cobra Event
“FAIL, FAIL
AGAIN. FAIL
BETTER.”
—Samuel Beckett
“The secret of fast
progress is
inefficiency, fast
and furious and
numerous failures.”
—Kevin Kelly
“Reward
excellent failures.
Punish mediocre
successes.”
Phil Daniels, Sydney exec
“Learn not to
be careful.”
—Photographer Diane Arbus
to her students (Careful = The sidelines, from
Harriet Rubin in The Princessa)
“If people tell me
they skied all day
and never fell
down, I tell them to
try a different
mountain.”
—Michael Bloomberg (BW/0625.07)
READY.
FIRE!
“We are in a
brawl with no rules.”
Paul Allaire/Xerox:
TP:
“There’s
[literally]
only one
Screw
Around Vigorously!
possible answer …
“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
Try.
Try.
Try.
Try.
try.
Try.
Try.
Try.
Try.
try.
Try.
Try.
Try.
Try.
try.
Try.
Try.
Try.
Try.
try.
Try.
Try.
Try.
Try.
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”
ry it. Try it. Screw
t up. Try it. Try it
Try it. Try it. Try it
ry it. Screw it up
Try it. Try it. try i
ry it. Screw it up
Joe J. Jones
1942 – 2008
HE WOULDA DONE SOME
REALLY COOL STUFF
BUT …
HIS BOSS WOULDN’T
HIM!
LET
“A year from now
you may wish
You had
started today.”
—Karen Lamb
“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
Speed/ Tempo/
o.o.d.a. loops/
“Metabolic
Management”
Messin’ with their
minds: He who has
the quickest
“O.O.D.A. Loops”*
wins!
*Observe. Orient. Decide. Act. /Col. John Boyd
The
“Havlicek
Principle”
John Havlicek, Boston Celtics,
“He was out
on the court ALL THE TIME [still
among the top all-time in minutes played] and he
KEPT MOVING, on offense and
defense, ALL THE TIME. This
meant he was effective even
against bigger or faster
opponents—he harried and
worried them to death on both
ends of the court.”
Basketball Hall of Fame:
Source: Tim Walker/tompeters.com
“Blitzkrieg is far more than lightning thrusts that most people think
high
of when they hear the term; rather it was all about
operational tempo and the rapid
exploitation
of opportunity.” —Robert Coram, Boyd
“Re-arrange the mind of
the enemy”
“Float like a butterfly,
sting like a bee”
—T.E. Lawrence
—Ali
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed
the Art of War (Robert Coram)
“If things seem
under control,
you’re just not
going fast
enough.”
—Mario Andretti
De-central-iza-tion!
“‘Decentralization’
is not a piece of
paper. It’s not me.
It’s either in your
heart, or not.”
—Brian Joffe/BIDvest
“If if feels
painful and
scary—that’s
real delegation”
—Caspian Woods, small biz owner
The True Logic* of Decentralization:
6 divisions = 6 “tries”
6 divisions = 6 DIFFERENT leaders =
6 INDEPENDENT “tries” = Max
probability of “win”
6 divisions = 6 very DIFFERENT
leaders = 6 very INDEPENDENT
“tries” = Max probability of “far
out”/”3-sigma” “win”
*“Driver”: Law of Large #s
“Parallel
Universe” …
China!!!!!!!
ry it. Try it. Screw
t up. Try it. Try it
Try it. Try it. Try it
ry it. Screw it up
Try it. Try it. try i
ry it. Screw it up
“Best practice” =
ZERO Standard
Deviation
Enemy
#1
I.C.D.
Inherent/Inevitable/
Immutable Centralist Drift
Note 1:
Note 2: Jim Burke’s 1-word vocabulary: “No.”
Decentralization
vs Centralization
= “That’s All
There Is” (from childrearing
101 to the Federalist Papers to Org.2007)
The Earls & Dukes vs King
John (The Magna Carta)
The Continental Congress
vs the Constitution
Jefferson vs Adams
Sloan vs Ford
GE vs All comers
HP vs HP
Peters vs Hammer
Mintzberg vs Porter
1913:
1960:
1980:
2000:
2007:
32%
26%
22%
27%
26%
1913:
1960:
1980:
2000:
2007:
32%*
26%
22%
27%
26%
Source: “The Future of American Power,”
Fareed Zakaria, Foreign Affairs, vol 87, no. 3
*U.S. share of world output
Ex-ecu-tion!
“Execution is
strategy.”
—Fred Malek
“Get the strategy
right, the rest will
take care of itself.”
MP:
“Get the people and
execution right,
the strategy will
take care of itself.”
TP:
“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
(1) sum of Projects =
Goal (“Vision”)
(2) sum of Milestones =
project
(3) rapid Review +
Truth-telling =
accountability
“Costco figured out
the big, simple things
and executed with
total fanaticism.”
—Charles Munger, Berkshire Hathaway
Dick (Build!)
Dan (Report on
what not built—
tangible v.
palpable)
“almost inhuman
disinterestedness in
… strategy” —Josiah Bunting
on
U.S. Grant (from Ulysses S. Grant)
U. S. Grant
*No interest in grand strategy.
*Do the thing until it is done.
*Do not over complicate.
*Do the next thing.
*Pleasure in perseverance per se.
*Not ask for help or advice.
*Not complain of difficulties or ask for
more time or resources
McClellan: delay; plead for more forces
Grant: “When do I start? What I want
is to advance.”
Source: Josiah Bunting, Ulysses S. Grant
Drucker, Strategy, Leadership
Classic Drucker (from the HBR),
221 pages: “strategy,” 3 p
(infotech); “leadership,” 0.
The Practice of Management,
404 p: “strategy,” 0;
“leadership,” 3 p.
Management, 568 p: “strategy,”
8 p (all on systems, none on
content), “leadership,” 12 p.
Excellence in
Execution =
Deepest “Blue
Ocean”
Ac-counta-bil-ity!
“Mr Zetsche, head of
Chrysler from 2000 to
2005, denied he should
take any responsibility for
the U.S. carmaker’s
troubles …”
—Financial Times /05.29.07
“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)
30%
MH: 80%
CF:
(no salesfolk)
(salesfolk)
“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)
SECDEF Bob Gates:
Walter Reed, Army
Sec’y; Nucs, USAF
Sec’y & COS
“Pay It Back
If You Didn’t
Earn It” —headline, New
York Times, 0616.08, on 300 “clawback”
provisions for execs, often when earnings restatements occur
Response to “most important
contribution”: “I focused this
discipline on People and Power;
on Values, Structure, and
Constitution; and above all,
on responsibilities—that is,
focused the Discipline of
Management on management as
a truly liberal art.” (18 January 1999)
6:15A.M.
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.
#11.1
Excellence: The SE22:
ORIGINS OF SUSTAINABLE
ENTREPRENEURSHIP*
*Maybe
SE22/Origins of Sustainable Entrepreneurship
1. Genetically disposed to Innovations that upset apple carts (3M, Apple,
FedEx, Virgin, BMW, Sony, Nike, Schwab, Starbucks, Oracle, Sun,
Fox, Stanford University, MIT)
2. Perpetually determined to outdo oneself, even to
the detriment of today’s $$$ winners (Apple, Cirque du Soleil, Nokia, FedEx)
3. Treat History as the Enemy (GE)
4. Love the Great Leap/Enjoy the Hunt (Apple, Oracle, Intel, Nokia, Sony)
5. Use “Strategic Thrust Overlays” to Attack Monster Problems (Sysco,
GSK, GE, Microsoft)
6. Establish a “Be on the COOL Team” Ethos. (Most PSFs, Microsoft)
7. Encourage Vigorous Dissent/Genetically “Noisy” (Intel, Apple,
Microsoft, CitiGroup, PepsiCo)
8.
“Culturally” as well as
organizationally Decentralized
(GE, J&J, Omnicom)
9. Multi-entrepreneurship/Many Independent-minded Stars (GE, PepsiCo)
HP’s Big “Duh”!
Decentralize ($90B)
Undo “Matrix”
Accountability
Source: “HP Says Goodbye To Drama”/
BW/09.05/re Mark Hurd’s first 5 months
DePuySpine/J&J*
70/3
game-changers!
*Still decentralized after all these years!
TP “Lessons Learned”
Innovation = DisDis
(Disciplined Disorganization)
Luck is a very good thing.* **
(*More “lessons” later: E.g., If you hire a bunch of disciplined weirdos and
try a lot of weird stuff, the odds of getting lucky go up remarkably) (**Career
success depends on convincing others that you knew what the hell you
were doing all along. Good news: Say it long enough and you will believe it.
Great news: Keep saying it and you, too, can become a “guru.”)
SE22/Origins of Sustainable Entrepreneurship
10. Keep decentralizing—tireless in pursuit of wiping out
Centralizing Tendencies (J&J, Virgin)
11. Scour the world for Ingenious Alliance Partners—
especially exciting start-ups (Pfizer)
12. Acquire for Innovation, not Market Share (Cisco, GE)
13. Don’t overdo “pursuit of synergy” (GE, J&J, Time Warner)
14. Execution/Action Bias: Just do it … don’t obsess on
how it “fits the business model.” (3M, J & J)
15. Find and Encourage and Promote Strong-willed/
Hyper-smart/Independent people (GE, PepsiCo, Microsoft)
16. Support Internal Entrepreneurs (3M, Microsoft)
17. Ferret out Talent anywhere/“No limits” approach to
retaining top talent (Virgin, GE, PepsiCo)
SE22/Origins of Sustainable Entrepreneurship
18. Unmistakable Results & Accountability focus from
the get-go to the grave (GE, New York Yankees, PepsiCo)
19. Up
or Out (GE, McKinsey, big consultancies and law
firms and ad agencies and movie studios in general)
20. Competitive to a fault! (GE, New York Yankees, News
Corp/Fox, PepsiCo)
21. “Bi-polar” Top Team, with “Unglued” Innovator #1,
powerful Control Freak #2 (Oracle, Virgin) (Watch out when
#2 is missing: Enron)
22. Masters of Loose-Tight/Hard-nosed about a very few
Core Values, Open-minded about everything else
(Virgin)
“HOW THE COAST GUARD
GETS IT RIGHT”
—Headline, Time, 10.31.2005
*Autonomy
*Flexibility
*“Perhaps the most important
distinction of the Coast
Guard is that it trusts itself”
Inno64:
Innovation
Strategies
& Tactics
Parallel universe /Exec Ed v res MBA
End run regnant powers/JKC
Find done deals-practicing mavericks/Stone-ReGo
Bell curves2016 in 2006
Non-industry benchmarking
Everything = Portfolio
V.C.s all!
Hot language/Wow-Astonish me-Insanely
great-immortal-Make something great
Lead customers/PW-Embraer
Lead suppliers /Top decile R&D
Weird alliances
Mottos/Paul Arden (“Whatever You Think
Think the Opposite”)
Hire freaks/Enough weird people?
Weird Boards!!!
CEO track record of Innovation (nobody
starts at 45! Or 35!)
System/GE-Immelt
“Strategic thrust overlay”
Calendar
Big Delta easier than Small
MBWA with freaks-weirdos/JKC
MBWA/Boonies’ labs
V.C.-formal/Intel
Acquire weird
Children’s crusade
Old farts crusade
Go Global at any size
Stop listening to customers
Talent!/Unusual sources-Hire innovators-V.C.s
Eschew giant mergers
Remember: scale economies max out early
Assisted suicide! (“Built to last” = Chimerasnare-delusion)
Burn your press clippings
“Forgetting” “strategy”
Fire all strategic planners
Tempo!
Final product bears little relation to starting
notion
Design! Design! Design! (“culture,” not
program)
All innovation: Pissed-off people
Gut feel rules!
Focus groups suck
Weird focus groups okay
Be-Do philosophy
Celebrations
Culture-little as well as big Inno (“everyonean-innovator”)
Life = Wow Projects
Acknowledge messiness-pursue serendipity
(Blitzkrieg-Containers-Science-Jim
Utterback)
R.F.A.
Culture of execution
4/40: decentralization, execution,
accountability, 615AM
EVP (S.O.U.B.)/Systems-process “un-design”
Diversity for diversity’s sake
Women-Women-Women/customers (they
“are the market,” not a “segment”)-leaders
Boomers-Geezers (“all the money”)
CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) “culture”/topline obsessed
CIO (Chief INNOVATION Officer)
Laughter
Facility-space configuration
Experiments-prototypes
“Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre
successes.”
Bizarrely high incentives (& penalties)
We are what we eat/We are who we hang out
with (E.g.: Staff-Consultants-Vendors-Out-sourcing
Partners/#, Quality-Innovation Alliance PartnersCustomers-Competitors/who we “benchmark” against
-Strategic Initiatives -Product Portfolio/LineEx v. LeapIS/IT Projects-HQ Location-Lunch Mates-LanguageBoard)
What “We” Know “For Sure” About Innovation
Big mergers [by & large] don’t work
Scale is over-rated
Strategic planning is the last refuge of scoundrels
Focus groups are counter-productive
“Built to last” is a chimera (stupid)
Success kills
“Forgetting” is impossible
Re-imagine is a charming idea
“Orderly innovation process” is an oxymoronic phrase
(= Believed only by morons with ox-like brains)
“Tipping points” are easy to identify …
long after they will do you any good
“Facts” aren’t
All information making it to the top is filtered
to the point of danger and hilarity
“Success stories” are the illusions of egomaniacs (and “gurus”)
If you believe the memoirs of CEOs you should be institutionalized
“Herd behavior” (XYZ is “hot”) is ubiquitous
… and amusing
“Top teams” are “Dittoheads”
CEOs have little effect on performance
“Expert” prediction is rarely better than rolling the dice
New Old
Basics
Lessons Learned 42/
1966-2008
Lessons Learned 42/1966-2008
**Decentralization
**Accountability
**Wild-ass imagination
**Human development
**XFX (Cross-functional Excellence)
**Untapped Markets
**Value-added fanaticism
**Base Principles I
**Base Principles II
**Base Principles III
**Leadership
Decentralization
USA: Constitution, 50 states, immigrant nation (>50% Silicon Valley),
independent-minded (students “no respect teachers”), entrepreneurial,
Energizer Bunny (Zakaria—1960/26%, 1980/22%, 2000/27%, 2007/26%),
pragmatic (Rommel), relatively unregulated market economy
Research via wildly competitive universities
William Easterly, economic development (“trust the development experts
—all seven billion of them”)
J&J/DePuy (Decentralization as decentralization was meant to be)
More “statistically independent tries” (if “independent” holds)
Focus! (Focus pays.)
“Economies of scale” run out (much) earlier than we think
Focus: on the “lowest operating unit”: retail store-district; union and 250person distribution center, call center; parish
Spread ideas via “go see this-these demos” (infection through “best practices”
rather than central edict); innovation by prototyping anywhere and
everywhere (e.g., “the 1% rule”); innovation by “parallel universe”
(mgt ed new via autonomous exec ed “division”—main body conservativerecalcitrant; Jill Ker Conway @ Smith—new money sources for new people and
new programs)
“You own the damn place; no bullshit excuses” (i.e., Major Consequences
—up & down)
“No such thing as ‘Scalability’”
Limits to “synergy”
Power of “no” (Jim Burke Rule—e.g., no centralization following screw-up,
in 9 of 10 cases, even after major boo-boo)
“‘Decentralization’ is not a piece of paper. It’s not me. It’s either in your heart,
or not.”—Brian Joffe/BIDvest
Accountability
“30%-80% rule”—own your budget (Mark Hurd-HP)
Make a promise keep a promise (GE, Milliken)
Optimism but honesty
No: “Kill the messenger”
Transparency
Starts at the top!!!!!!!! (Bob Gates and Walter Reed-USAF)
Fragile???
Clear expectations at the time of hiring
Self-responsibility
Decency-culture of respect
Wild-ass imagination
“Dubai rule”
Hang out with freaks as a matter of course (lead customers, small-but-hot
vendors, odd backgrounds, etc, etc—more or less measured)
Wee “cool” acquisitions (hold on to founders at all costs—Disney and Pixar and
Jobs on Board; Cisco)
Measure division-level bosses on “crazy-assed experiments” (plus Wexner Rule—
no screw-ups is Black Mark); and Daniels Rule—”Reward excellent failures,
punish mediocre successes” (!!!)
Failure tolerated-encouraged (“He who makes the most mistakes wins”)
5-year Blockbuster Initiatives with major consequences (Demo-driven)
Diversity for creativity (bottom to top)
Decentralization with teeth
Accountability (“Dreamers with deadlines”)
World-class research universities
Government support for R&D (computers, Internet, biotech)
Human development
“Cathedral model” (“This is what we do”)
WPP Mission
HR (GE model); Chief Human Development Officer (post-cop world)
“You will be measured on Human Development Effectiveness” (e.g., how many
folks go on to be promoted at least two levels, or are headhunted)
Resilience—XP/eXtreme Preparation (Black Swan world)
“Character”
MBQ (Management By Quest)
Project structure—PM leadership early
Commitment to decency—premium on thoughtfulness
Squint test (diversity, top team “looks like” customer base)
Go for the “people people” (emphasize intangibles!!)
“Putting the customer second”
Goal: “greatest places to work” recognition
Servant leadership
XFX (Cross-functional Excellence)
Constant reinforcement with major rewards, punishments (Puckett, Robinson)
Mundane tactics > Edict (% lunches)
MBWA-demo-”best practices” > Edict
“The way we do things around here” (focus on operating unit)
Manage conflict with decentralization—artistry
Reward “what the hell does he do all day” sorts
Customer-centric Departments (PSF model; prove your worth, serve your
customers or else, principle engines of value added)
“Partnerships Model” (PSF and internal customers—measure satisfaction;
union boss and facility boss; vendor-customer teams; sales and client teams
“Friends in low places”
Power Nudges (e.g., facilities management)
Transparency!
Everything on the Web
Untapped Markets
Big Two!!!!!! (Strategic-level enterprise-organizing principle)
She is your customer! (So she’d better be your boss!)
Old Farts Rule! And will rule for the next quarter century! (Welcome to
Boomer-Geezer Time!)
Value-added Fanaticism
TGR > TGW (experience) (emphasis on “little touches”—“the case of the 2-cent
candy”)
Customer Success >>>> Customer Satisfaction
Schlumberger-IBM-UPS (“We are bold integrated services provision”) (HP-EDS)
PSF structure
Design driven nation (Korea!), “we are design” (Apple)
Ladder (Raw materials-Goods-Services-Solutions-Experience-Dreams come
true-Lovemark)
Base Principles I
“Try It”
Base Principles II
“Try It”
Decentralization
MBWA
Excellence
Servant leadership
Base Principles III
“Try It”
Decentralization
O.O.D.A. (tempo, “metabolic management”, speed-of-light prototyping)
MBWA/“Walk” (25 Rule, 60-call Rule, 3K5M Rule, Texas Bix Bender Rule)
Excellence (“I’ll know it when I see it”; no non-excellence—Watson
Rule; > OpX)
Women as key leadership-senior leadership source, masters of implementation
(Yunus), primary market
Decency-respect-transparency
K.I.S.S. (Pronovost Model—check list; Bossidy Model—sum of projects equals
promise, etc; “Beautiful Systems)
We are all in Sales around here!
Cool is cool (design primacy)
We thrive on ambiguity
Execution > Strategy (“Execution is strategy”) (Drucker)
Execution > “Great leaders” (“Execution is leadership”) (Drucker)
Servant leadership—”Cathedral Model”
You could do worse than In Search of Excellence (People. Customers.
Action. Entrepreneurial spirit. Values. Focus. K.I.S.S.)
Leadership
+21L = -21L
MBWA
Excellence
Servant leaders
X =XFX*
*Excellence = Cross-functional Excellence
The “XF-50”: 50 Ways to
Enhance CrossFunctional
Effectiveness and
Deliver Speed, “Service
Excellence” and “Valueadded Customer
‘Solutions’”
Never
waste a
lunch!*
????
% XF
lunches*
*Measure!
1. It’s
our organization to make work—or not. It’s not “them,” the
outside world that’s the problem. The enemy is us. Period.
2. Friction-free! Dump 90% of “middle managers”—most are advertent or inadvertent “power
freaks.” We are all—every one of us—in the Friction Removal Business, one moment at a time,
now and forevermore.
3. No “stovepipes”! “Stove-piping,” “Silo-ing” is an Automatic Firing Offense. Period. No
appeals. (Within the limits of civility, somewhat “public” firings are not out of the question—that
is, make one and all aware why the axe fell.)
4. Everything on the Web. This helps. A lot. (“Everything” = Big word.)
5. Open access. All available to all. Transparency, beyond a level that’s “sensible,” is a de facto
imperative in a Burn-the-Silos strategy.
Project managers rule!! Project managers running XF (crossfunctional) projects are the Elite of the organization, and seen as
such and treated as such. (The likes of construction companies
have practiced this more or less forever.)
6.
7. “Value-added Proposition” = Application of integrated resources. (From the entire supplychain.) To deliver on our emergent business raison d’etre, and compete with the likes of our
Chinese and Indian brethren, we must co-operate with anybody and everybody “24/7.” IBM, UPS
and many, many others are selling far more than a product or service that works—the new “it” is
pure and simple a product of XF co-operation; “the product is the co-operation” is not much of a
stretch.
GSK: 7 “CEDDs” …
Centers of
Excellence for
Drug Discovery
Promote “FRSs” (Friction
Reduction Specialists—nobody
can figure out what they “do’”
but when they’re around things
mysteriously get done
(Women? Not clear)
FRSs kin to HROs, IROs (Hurdle
Removal Officers, Impedance
Reduction Officers)
“Clinical
microsystem,” linked
microsystems,
patient-centric “care
teams” —Paul Batalden/DHMC
Source: “What System?” Dartmouth Medicine, Summer 2006
“Clinical microsystem,”
linked microsystems,
patient-centric “care
teams” —Paul Batalden/DHMC
Source: “What System?” Dartmouth Medicine, Summer 2006;
also: Quality By Design: A Clinical Microsystems Approach by
Eugene C. Nelson, Paul B. Batalden, and Marjorie M. Godfrey
“Clinical microsystem,” linked microsystems,
patient-centric “care teams” —Paul Batalden/DHMC
Source: “What System?” Dartmouth Medicine, Summer
2006
Quality By Design: A Clinical Microsystems Approach by
Eugene C. Nelson, Paul B. Batalden, and Marjorie M.
Godfrey
K.i.s.s.
*Keep It Simple, Stupid
Case: The
“simple”
Checklist!
90K in U.S.A. ICUs on any
given day; 178 steps/day
in ICU.
50%
stays result
in “serious complication”
Source: Atul Gawande, “The Checklist” (New Yorker, 1210.07)
**Peter Pronovost, Johns Hopkins,
2001
**Checklist, line infections
**1/3rd at least one error when he started
**Nurses/permission to stop procedure
if doc, other not following checklist
**In 1 year, 10-day line-infection rate:
11% to …
0%
Source: Atul Gawande, “The Checklist” (New Yorker, 1210.07)
**Docs, nurses make own
checklists on whatever
process-procedure they choose
**Within weeks, average stay in
ICU down
50%
Source: Atul Gawande, “The Checklist” (New Yorker, 1210.07)
**Replicate in Inner City Detroit
(resource strapped—$$$, staff cut 1/3rd, poorest patients in USA)
**Nurses QB the process
**Project manager for overall process implementation
**Exec involvement (help with “little things”—it’s all “little things”)
**Blue Cross/insurers, small bonuses for participating
66%
**6 months,
decrease in infection rate; USA:
bottom 25% in hospital rankings to …
top 10%
Source: Atul Gawande, “The Checklist” (New Yorker, 1210.07)
“[Pronovost] is focused on work that is not normally
considered a significant contribution in academic
medicine. As a result, few others are venturing to extend
Yet his work has
already saved more lives
than that of any
laboratory scientist in
the last decade.”
his achievements.
—Atul Gawande,
“The Checklist” (New Yorker, 1210.07)
“Beware of the
tyranny of making
Small Changes to Small
Things. Rather, make
Big
Changes to
Things.”
Big
—Roger Enrico, former Chairman, PepsiCo
“Beware of the tyranny of making
Small
Things.
Small
Changes to
Rather, make Big
Big Things …
using Small, Almost
Invisible
Straightforward
Levers with Big
Systemic Impact.”
Changes to
—TP
#14.1
Sprint/Overland Park KS:
Slow elevators, distant
parking lots with
infrequent buses, “food
court” as “poorly” placed
as possible, etc.
Source: New York Times
“Bump into factor”: Extra-size
portions, eat more. Higher
% shelf space snacks, more
obesity. More liquor stores,
more crime. High vs low fat:
Japanese who emigrate to
U.S. suffer 3X increase in
heart disease.
Source: Tom Farley & Deborah Cohen, Prescription for a Healthy Nation
“Everything matters”
-80%
Source: Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass
Sunstein, etching of fly in the urinal
reduces “spillage” by 80%, Schiphol Airport
#14.2
Lisbon/New Biz:
Weeks
to …
Minutes
(!!!!)
450/8
First Steps: “Beauty Contest”!
1. Select one form/document:
invoice, airbill, sick leave policy,
customer returns claim form.
2. Rate the selected doc on a scale of
1 to 10 [1 = Bureaucratica
Obscuranta/Sucks; 10 = Work of
Art] on four dimensions:
Beauty. Grace.
Clarity. Simplicity.
3. Re-invent!
4. Repeat, with a new selection,
every 15 working days.
Beauty
Grace
Clarity
Simplicity
“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.’”
—Charles Handy
“I assume that it is just
saying that it is there to
‘help its customers
wherever they are’.”
—Charles Handy
“Seek honest, minimalist management.
Look for companies run by a team that
explains things clearly and briefly. …
You can tell a lot about the firm by
reading an annual report or two. If
management can’t explain the
business in plain English, move
on to another firm. If you see
phrases like ‘creating knowledge-based
value in emerging markets’ … someone
is trying to pull the wool over your eyes,
you lazy Fool. Run.” —Seth Jayson, “Stocks for the
Lazy Investor,” The Motley Fool
“How to flush
$500,000 down
the toilet in one
easy lesson!!”
TP:
< CAPEX
> People!
#15.1
Brand =
Talent.
IBP = Remarkable challenge,
rapid professional growth,
respect, satisfaction, fun,
stunning opportunity,
exceptional reward, amazing
peer group, full membership in
Club Adventure, maximized
future employability
Source: Ed Michaels, The War for Talent; TP
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
#15.2
B(I) > B(O)
#15.3
Organizations exist to serve. Period.
Leaders live to serve. Period.
Passionate servant leaders, determined to create a
legacy of earthshaking transformation in their domain
create/must necessarily create organizations which
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 jointly
are …
perceived soaring purpose and personal and community
and client service Excellence.
… 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.
#15.4
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.”
#15.5
PUT HR AT THE
HEAD OF THE HEAD
TABLE. BEST
PEOPLE. NOBLEST
MISSION.
#15.6
“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
Organizing Genius / Warren Bennis
and Patricia Ward Biederman
“Groups become great only when
everyone in them, leaders and
members alike, is free to do his or
her absolute best.”
“The best thing a leader can do for a
Great Group is to allow its
members to discover their
greatness.”
Leaders’ “Mt Everest Test”
“free to do his or her
absolute best” …
“allow its members to
discover their
greatness.”
#15.7
“[The CIA Director] never gave orders. He
‘floated ideas,’ he found gold dust in the
opinions of his subordinates, he made what
he called suggestions. Sometimes these
suggestions baffled, sometimes they took the
breath away. In [the Director’s] mind,
nothing was impossible. He was loved for
After all, to be told you
were capable of doing the
impossible was the rarest
kind of flattery.”
this.
Source: Christopher’s Ghosts, Charles McCarry
Dick-Ben-Blake
**Took me seriously
**Made me full member of an older team
**Believed I could do excellent work without
much supervision—and conveyed that
belief
**Calmed me down upon occasion
**Shared gossip with me that I shouldn’t
have heard
**Took me to meetings I would not normally
attend—let me present
**Taught me “the ropes”
** “We’re here to serve the battalions and
the sailors”—focus on the Big Task
**Get The Damn Job Done!
**Good work >> Good paperwork
**MBWA
“I wasn’t bowled over by [David Boies]
intelligence … What impressed me was
that when he asked a question, he waited
He not only
listened, he made me feel
like I was the only person
in the room.”
for an answer.
—Lawyer Kevin _____, on his first,
inadvertent meeting with David Boies, from Marshall Goldsmith,
“The One Skill That Separates,” Fast Company
#15.8
The Dream
Manager
—Matthew Kelly
???
% of people
with …
… Dreams
The Dream Manager
—Matthew Kelly
“An organization can only become the-best-version-ofitself to the extent that the people who drive that
organization are striving to become better-versions-ofthemselves.” “A company’s purpose is to become thebest-version-of-itself. The question is: What is an
employee’s purpose? Most would say, ‘to help the
company achieve its purpose’—but they would be wrong.
That is certainly part of the employee’s role, but an
employee’s primary purpose is to become the-bestversion-of-himself or –herself. … When a company
forgets that it exists to serve customers, it quickly goes
Our employees are our
first customers, and our most
important customers.”
out of business.
“… but Tom, how do we find out
what it is that people really want?”
Exec:
Tom (after a long pause and a lot of thought
—and I’m not kidding):
“… but Tom, how do we find out
what it is that people really want?”
Exec:
Tom (after a long pause and a lot of thought—and I’m
“Ask
‘em.”
not kidding):
“The four most important
words in any
organization
‘What do
you think?’ ”
are …
Source: courtesy Dave Wheeler,
posted at tompeters.com, source of
original unknown (0609.08)
#15.9
EMPHASIZE
THE “SOFT
SKILLS.”
“A man
without a
smiling face
must not open
a shop.”
—Chinese Proverb
“[Ronald
Reagan] radiated an
almost
transcendent
happiness.”
Half-full Cups:
—Lou Cannon
“Success or Failure”/Try Instead “Optimism or
Failure”/From Martin Seligman’s Learned
Optimism: “I believe the traditional wisdom is
incomplete. A composer can have all the talent of a
Mozart and a passionate desire to succeed, but if he
believes he cannot compose music, he will come to
nothing. He will not try hard enough. He will give up too
soon when the elusive right melody takes too long to
materialize. Success requires persistence, the ability to
not give up in the face of failure. I believe that …
OPTIMISTIC EXPLANATORY STYLE … is the
key to persistence. … The optimistic-explanatory-style
theory of success says that in order to choose people
for success in a challenging job, you need to select for
(1) Aptitude. (2)
Motivation. (3) Optimism. All three determine
three characteristics:
success.”
#15.10
#15.10.1
But …
**“School” on evaluating and
developing people
**Major (demonstrated) (formal)
time commitment to evaluation
(GK: 100 days/yr for 25 people—2 per year,
one collecting data, one offsite)
**Evaluation of your skills as
evaluator (and developer)
**Checklists are fine
**Prose evaluations by both
parties good (schools: tests vs
“demonstrations”)
#15.11
Hostmanship: The
Art of Making
People Feel
Welcome
—Jan Gunnarsson and Olle Blohm
“The path to a hostmanship culture paradoxically does not go
through the guest. In fact it wouldn’t be totally wrong to say
that the guest has nothing to do with it. True hostmanship
leaders focus on their employees. What drives them is finding
the right people and getting them to love their work and see it
The guest comes into the picture
only when you are ready to ask, ‘Would you
prefer to stay at a hotel where the staff love
their work or where management has made
customers its highest priority?’”
as a passion. …
“We went through the hotel and made a ‘consideration
renovation.’ Instead of redoing bathrooms, dining rooms and
guest rooms, we gave employees new uniforms, bought
flowers and fruit and changed colors. Our focus was totally on
They were the ones we wanted to make
happy. We wanted them to wake up every
morning excited about a new day at work.”
the staff.
Source: Jan Gunnarsson and Olle Blohm,
Hostmanship: The Art of Making People Feel Welcome
The Customer Comes
Second: Put Your
People First and
Watch ’Em Kick Butt
—Hal Rosenbluth and Diane McFerrin Peters (no relation—be delighted if she was)
“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 the
Annual Meeting)
#15.12
2/year =
legacy.
#15.13
#1 cause of
Dis-satisfaction?
Employee retention & satisfaction:
Overwhelmingly,
based on their
immediate manager!
Source: Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman, First, Break All
the Rules:
What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
The “Big Three”
st
1
Marriage
Parenthood
Line Supervisor*
*Accomplishment through others
#15.14
‘do’
“Leaders
people.
Period.”
—Anon.
“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”
(from Warren Bennis & Patricia Ward Biederman, Organizing Genius)
#15.15
“Leaders
‘SERVE’
people.
Period.”
—inspired by Robert Greenleaf
“I have always
believed that the
purpose of the
corporation is to be a
blessing to the
employees.” *
—Boyd Clarke
*TP: An “organization” is, in fact and after all
is said and done, a/the “house” in which
most of us “live” most of the time.
Organizations exist
to serve. Period.
Leaders live to
serve. Period.
“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)
“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
“We are a
‘Life Success’
Company.”
Dave Liniger, founder, RE/MAX
#15.16
“Every child is
born an artist.
The trick is to
remain an
artist.” —Picasso
Muhammad Yunus:
“All human beings
are entrepreneurs. When we
were in the caves we were all selfemployed . . . finding our food, feeding
ourselves. That’s where human history
began . . . As civilization came we
suppressed it. We became labor
because they stamped us, ‘You are
labor.’ We forgot that we are
entrepreneurs.”
Source: Muhammad Yunus/2006 Nobel Peace prize winner,
father of micro-lending /The News Hour—PBS/1122.2006
Investment in Higher Ed:
U.S.: 2.6% GDP* ** ***
Europe: 1.2%
Japan: 1.1%
*8 of top 10 universities; 68% of top 50;
10 of top 10 in information sciences
**Etc: 76% of world biotech revenues
***Minister of education, Singapore: “We both have
meritocracies. Yours is a talent meritocracy, ours is an exam
meritocracy.”
Source: “The Future of American Power,” Fareed Zakaria, Foreign Affairs, vol 87, no. 3
Globalization1.0: Countries globalizing (1492-1800)
Globalization2.0: Companies globalizing (18002000)
Globalization3.0
:
(2000+)
Individuals
collaborating
& competing globally
Source: Tom Friedman/The World Is Flat
EXCELLENCE.
INDIVIDUAL.
BRAND YOU.
“One of the defining
characteristics [of the
change] is that it will be less
driven by countries or
corporations and more driven
by real people. It will unleash
unprecedented creativity, advancement of
knowledge, and economic development. But
at the same time, it will tend to undermine
safety net systems and penalize the
unskilled.” —Clyde Prestowitz, Three Billion New Capitalists
1. Can someone overseas do
it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it
faster?
3. Is what you’re selling in
demand in an age of
abundance?
Source: Dan Pink
“If there is nothing
very special about
your work, no matter
how hard you apply yourself
you won’t get noticed, and
that increasingly means you
won’t get paid much either.”
—Michael Goldhaber, Wired
Distinct
…
… or
Extinct
BRAND YOU.
NO OPTION.
“You are the
storyteller of your
own life, and you can
create your own
legend or not.”
—Isabel Allende
“The general, speaking
with what felt was
authority, always insisted
that, if you bring off
adequate preservation
of your personal myth,
nothing much else in life
matters.” —Anthony Powell
“Carpenters bend
wood; fletchers
bend arrows; wise
men fashion
themselves.” — Buddha
The Rule of Positioning
“If you can’t describe
your position in
eight words or less,
you don’t have
a position.”
— Jay Levinson and
Seth Godin, Get What You Deserve!
“Nobody gives
you power.
You just
take it.”
—Roseanne
Muhammad Yunus:
“All human beings
are entrepreneurs. When we
were in the caves we were all selfemployed . . . finding our food, feeding
ourselves. That’s where human history
began . . . As civilization came we
suppressed it. We became labor
because they stamped us, ‘You are
labor.’ We forgot that we are
entrepreneurs.”
Source: Muhammad Yunus/The News Hour—PBS/1122.2006
The
electrician
knows!
Core Mechanism:
“Game-changing Solutions”
PSF
(Professional Service Firm “model”/The Organizing Principle)
+
Brand You
(“Distinct” or “Extinct”/The Talent)
+
Wow! Projects
(“Different” vs “Better”/The Work)
New Work SurvivalKit.2008
1. MASTERY! (Best/Absurdly Good at Something!)
2. “Manage” to Legacy (All Work = “Memorable”/“Braggable” WOW Projects!)
3. A “USP”/UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION 4. Rolodex Obsession
(From vertical/hierarchy/“suck up” loyalty to
horizontal/“colleague”/“mate” loyalty)
5. ENTREPRENEURIAL INSTINCT (A sleepless … Eye for Opportunity!
6.CEO/LEADER/BUSINESSPERSON/CLOSER (CEO, Me Inc. 24/7!)
7. Master of Improv (Play a dozen parts simultaneously, from
Chief Strategist to Chief Toilet Scrubber)
8. Sense of Humor (A willingness to Screw Up & Move On)
9. Comfortable with Your Skin (Bring “interesting you” to work!)
10. Intense Appetite for Technology (E.g.: How Cool-Active is your
Web site? Do you Blog?)
11. EMBRACE “MARKETING” (Your own CSO/Chief Storytelling Officer)
12. PASSION FOR RENEWAL (Your own CLO/Chief Learning Officer)
13. EXECUTION EXCELLENCE! (Show up on time! Leave last!)
Thriving in 24/7 (Sally Helgesen)
*START AT THE CORE.
Nimbleness only
possible if we “locate our inner voice,” take regular
inventory of where we are.
*LEARN TO ZIGZAG.
Think “gigs.” Think lifelong
learning. Forget “old loyalty.” Work on optimism.
*CREATE OUR OWN WORK.
Articulate your
value. Integrate your passions. I.D. your market. Run your
own business.
*WEAVE A STRONG WEB OF
INCLUSION. Build your own support network.
the art of “looking people up.”
Master
ACTING:
Think of a person as a
“troupe of
actors.” (“Many truths
about oneself” which must
all be understood if one is to
know oneself.)
Source: A..C. Grayling, The Meaning of Things: Applying Philosophy to Life
Personal “Brand Equity” Evaluation
– My current Project is challenging me …
– New things I’ve learned in the last 90 days include …
– I am known for [2 to 3 things]; next year at this time I’ll
also be known for [1 more thing].
– My public “recognition program”
consists of …
– Additions to my Rolodex in the last 90 days include …
– My resume is discernibly
different from last year’s
at this time …
R.D.A.
Rate: 15%?, 25%?
Therefore: Formal “Investment
Strategy”/
R.I.P.*
*Renewal Investment Plan
R.D.A.*
Rate: 15%? 25%?
Therefore: Formal “Investment
Strategy”/ R.I.P.**
*Rapidly Depreciating Asset (You!)
**Renewal Investment Plan
“The only thing you
have power over is to
get good at what you
do. That’s all there
is; there ain’t no
more!”
—Sally Field
Richard Sennett:
“Craftsmanship,”
“a sustaining life
narrative”
Source: Stefan Stern on Management, FT, 0710.07
“Worthy” Ambition vs. “Mere”
Ambition per MILTON
“The difference is well illustrated by the
contrast between the person who says
he ‘wishes to be a writer’ and the
person who says he ‘wishes to write.’
The former desires to be pointed out at
cocktail parties, the latter is prepared
for the long, solitary hours at as desk;
the former desires a status, the latter a
process; the former desires to be, the
latter to do.” —A..C. Grayling, The Meaning of Things:
Applying Philosophy to Life [C.f. JOHN BOYD on “be-do.”]
“Happiness” & “Leisure” per ARISTOTLE
HAPPINESS: Eudaimonia … well-doing, living
flourishingly. Megalopsychos … “great-souled,”
“magnanimous.” More: respect and concern for
others; duty to improve oneself; using one’s gifts
to the fullest extent possible; fully aware; making
one’s own choices.
LEISURE: pursue excellence; reflect; deepen
understanding; opportunity to work for higher
ends. [“Rest” vs. “leisure.”]
Source: A.C. Grayling, The Meaning of Things: Applying Philosophy to Life
“My ancestors were printers
in Amsterdam from 1510 or
so until 1750, and
during
that entire time they
didn’t have to learn
anything new.”
—Peter
Drucker, Business 2.0
“Knowledge becomes
obsolete incredibly fast.
The continuing
professional
education of adults is
the No. 1 industry in
the next 30 years …
mostly
on line.”
—Peter Drucker, Business 2.0
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
“It’s always
showtime.”
—David D’Alessandro, Career Warfare
“To Be
somebody or to
Do something”
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (Robert Coram)
“When was the last
time you asked,
‘What do I want to
be?’ ”
—Sara Ann Friedman, Work Matters
“All of our artistic and religious traditions
take equally great pains to inform us that
we must never mistake a
good career for good
work. Life is a creative, intimate,
unpredictable conversation if it is nothing
else—and our life and our work are both
the result of the way we hold that
passionate conversation.” —David Whyte, Crossing
the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity
A “position” is not an
“accomplishment.” —TP
BLAME NOBODY.
EXPECT NOTHING.
DO SOMETHING.
Source: Locker room sign posted by
football coach Bill Parcells
“This is the true joy of Life, the
being used for a purpose
recognized by yourself as a
mighty one … the being a force of
Nature instead of a feverish,
selfish little clod of ailments and
grievances complaining that the
world will not devote itself to
making you happy.” —GB Shaw/
Man and Superman
“How Would You
Play Today If You
Knew You Could
Not Play
Tomorrow”
Source: Slogan for Loyola’s lacrosse season, from
coach Diane Geppi-Aikens (Lucky Every Day: The
Wisdom of Diane Geppi-Aikens, by Chip Silverman)
“Make each day a
Masterpiece!”
—JW
“Tell me, what is
it you plan to do
with your one
wild and
precious life?”
—Mary Oliver
“Do one thing
every day
that scares
you.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Joe J. Jones
1942 – 2006
HE WOULDA DONE SOME
REALLY COOL STUFF
BUT …
HIS BOSS WOULDN’T
HIM!
LET
We are the
company
we keep
We become
who we hang
out with
The “Hang Out Axiom”: At
its core, every (!!!)
relationship-partnership
decision (employee,
vendor, customer, etc)
is a strategic decision
about:
“Innovate,
‘Yes’ or ‘No’ ”
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
“Future-defining
customers may account for
only 2% to 3% of your total,
CUSTOMERS:
but they represent a
crucial window on the
future.”
Adrian Slywotzky, Mercer Consultants
Axiom: Never use a vendor
who is not in the top
quartile (decile?) in
their industry on R&D
spending!*
*Inspired by Hummingbird
“The best swordsman
in the world doesn’t need to
fear the second best swordsman
in the world; no, the person for him to be
COMPETITORS:
afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has
never had a sword in his hand before; he
doesn’t do the thing he ought to do, and so the
expert isn’t prepared for him; he does the thing
he ought not to do and often it catches the
expert out and ends him on the spot.”
—Mark Twain
“How do dominant companies
lose their position? Two-
thirds of the time,
they pick the wrong
competitor to worry
about.”
—Don Listwin, CEO,
Openwave Systems/WSJ
Kodak …. Fuji
GM …. Ford
Ford …. GM
IBM …. Siemens, Fujitsu
Sears …. Kmart
Xerox …. Kodak, IBM
Benchmarking, Perils of …
“The best swordsman in the world doesn’t
need to fear the second best swordsman
in the world; no, the person for him to be
afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who
has never had a sword in his hand before;
he doesn’t do the thing he ought to do,
and so the expert isn’t prepared for him;
he does the thing he ought not to do and
often it catches the expert out and ends
him on the spot.” —Mark Twain
“Don’t
benchmark,
futuremark!”
Impetus: “The future is already here; it’s just
not evenly distributed” —William Gibson
“Normal” =
“o for 800”
“Our most beloved products
were developed by hunch,
guesswork and fanaticism,
by creators who were
eccentric - or even stark
raving mad.” —Jack Mingo,
How the Cadillac Got Its Fins
“Freak
Fridays”
—once a month
invite somebody interesting, in any field, to have lunch
with your gang
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.)
“We are crazy. We should do
something when people say it is
If people say
something is ‘good’, it
means someone else
is already doing it.”
‘crazy.’
—Hajime Mitarai, Canon
Elliott Masie, on desirable
“I want a
‘sandbox partner,’ someone
who will openly say, ‘This
is not the last word; we
don’t know exactly where
we’re going.”
eLearning vendors:
Playmate!*
Playpen!
Prototype!
*Can be Client, supplier … as well as Insider
Where to look for “Playmates”:
F.F.F.F.
(Find a Fellow Freak Faraway)
Keep
Austin
Weird
We hang with who we hang out with
We become
who we hang
out with
“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
#17.2
The “Fury
factor.”
A fury that
the future was always
being hijacked by people
with smaller ideas —by his
“What drove Trippe?
first partners who did not want to expand airmail
routes; by nations that protected flag carriers with
subsidies; by the elitists who regarded flight, like
luxury liners, as a privilege that could only be
enjoyed by the few; by the cartel operators who
rigged prices. The democratization he effected was
as real as Henry Ford’s.” —Harold Evans on Juan Trippe, the
PanAm boss who brought the B747 to life (WSJ/02.24.2005)
Innovation
“Tool”/“Source” # 1:
Pissed Off
Person/
People
TP’s motivation: “I am
shocked out of my wits at
the grotesque stupidity of
the way things are right
now—and that we tolerate
the continuation of this
stupidity when what needs
to be done is as obvious as
the end of your nose. It is
the sustaining stupidity per
se that most pisses me off.”
“Dreaming,” necessary,
or not?
TP, personal: “dream” =
concrete, practical
imaginings about the
opposite of things that
piss me off (TP “advantages”: low
boiling point, long memory)
“I’ve
been thinking …”
Michael Porter:
“I’m mad as
hell, and I’m not
going to take it
anymore”
TP:
Get mad. Do
something
about it. Now.
“No leader sets out to be a
leader per se, but rather
to express him- or
herself freely and fully.
That is leaders have no
interest in proving
themselves, but an abiding
interest in expressing
themselves.” —Warren Bennis,
On Becoming a Leader
F(Anger/Passion)
>>>> f(Pushback
from Threatened
Fat-cats &
Bureau-crats)
Pissed Off*
*Innovation is Initiated by Irritation.
Re-imagining Results from Rage.
#17.2.1
The Three Most Important Letters …
WHY?
Single
greatest act
of pure
imagination
No Wiggle Room!
“Incrementalism
is innovation’s
worst enemy.”
—Nicholas Negroponte
3M’s Innovation
Crisis: How Six Sigma
Almost Smothered
Its Idea Culture
Source: Title/Cover Story, BW, 0611.07 (“What’s remarkable is
how fast a culture can be torn apart,” 3M lead scientist; “In
an innovation economy, [6 Sigma] is no longer a cure all”/BW)
#18.1
** “Where’s the Dubai”
in your strategy, or
project portfolio?
**Strategy doc should be
exciting — excite a
spouse or teenager, or a
meeting of frontline folks
Hard Is Soft
Soft Is Hard
Hard Is Soft (#s)
Soft Is Hard (people)
Hard Is Soft (Plans, #s)
Soft Is Hard (people,
customers, values,
relationships))
“The 7-S Model”
Strategy
Structure
Systems
Style
Skills
Staff
Super-ordinate goal
“The 7-S Model”
“Hard Ss”
(Strategy, Structure, Systems)
“Soft SS”
(Style, Skills, Staff, Super-ordinate goal)
“The 7-S Model”
Strategy
Structure
Systems
Style (Corporate “Culture,” “The way
we do things around here”)
Skills (“Distinctive Competence/s)
Staff (People-Talent)
Super-ordinate goal (Vision,
Core Values)
“Get the strategy
right, the rest will
take care of itself.”
MP:
“Get the people and
execution right,
the strategy will
take care of itself.”
TP:
“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 thousands of people is
[Yet] I came to see in
my time at IBM that culture
isn’t just one aspect of the
very, very hard.
game —it is the
game.”
—Lou Gerstner,
Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance
“The terms ‘hard facts,’
and ‘the soft stuff’ used
in business imply that
data are somehow real
and strong while
emotions are weak and
less important.”
—George Kohlrieser, Hostage at the Table
Drucker, Strategy, Leadership
Classic Drucker (from the HBR),
221 pages: “strategy,” 3 p
(infotech); “leadership,” 0.
The Practice of Management,
404 p: “strategy,” 0;
“leadership,” 3 p.
Management, 568 p: “strategy,”
8 p (all on systems, none on
content), “leadership,” 12 p.
Hard Is Soft
Soft Is Hard
“What I learned from my years
as a hostage negotiator is that
we do not have to feel
powerless—and that
bonding
is the antidote to
the hostage situation.” —George
Kohlrieser, Hostage at the Table
#19.1.1
Hard Is Soft
Soft Is Hard
bedrock
behaviors
Home Run
Being there! * ** *** ****
*No more, no less
**“A body can pretend to care, but they can’t
pretend to be there.” — Texas Bix Bender
*** GEN Melvin Zais on COs and inspections
****Silence is golden! [Utter silence is golden-er.]
Period!
Shake hands
Smile
Eye contact
Period+!
Shake hands
Smile
Eye contact
Thank you
Flowers
Open pose
ROIR
Period+!
Shake hands
Smile
Eye contact
Thank you
Flowers
Open pose
ROIR
Hard Is Soft
Soft Is Hard
R.O.I.R.
Return On
Investment In
Relationships
“The capacity to develop close and
enduring relationships is the mark of
a leader. Unfortunately, many leaders
of major companies believe their job
is to create the strategy, organization
structure and organizational
processes—then they just delegate
the work to be done, remaining aloof
from the people doing
the work.” —Bill George, Authentic Leadership
“Allied commands depend
on mutual confidence
[and this confidence]
is gained, above all
through the development
of friendships.”
—General D.D. Eisenhower,
Armchair General* (05.08)
*“Perhaps his most outstanding ability [at West Point] was
the ease with which he made friends and earned the trust
of fellow cadets who came from widely varied backgrounds;
it was a quality that would pay great dividends during his
future coalition command
Hard Is Soft
Soft Is Hard
Q/Systems Salesperson: “I make the
sale, and then the company screws up
the engineering or delivery or one of a
dozen things. Any suggestions?
“Spend less
time with your
customers!”
A/TP:
C(I)>C(E)
???????
“Success doesn’t depend on the number of
people you know; it depends on the number
of people you know in
high places!”
or
“Success doesn’t depend on the number of
people you know; it depends on the number
of people you know in
low
places!”
Loser:
“He’s such a
suck-up!”
Winner:
“He’s such a
suck-down.”
#19.4
“Buy in”“Ownership”Authorial bragging
rights-“Born again”
Champion = One
Line of Code!
“The four most important
words in any
organization
‘What do
you think?’ ”
are …
Source: courtesy Dave Wheeler,
posted at tompeters.com, source of
original unknown (0609.08)
#19.5
“TAKE THIS QUICK QUIZ: Who manages more things
at once? Who puts more effort into their
appearance? Who usually takes care of the
details? Who finds it easier to meet new
people? Who asks more questions in a
conversation? Who is a better listener? Who
has more interest in communication skills?
Who is more inclined to get involved? Who
encourages harmony and agreement? Who has
better intuition? Who works with a longer ‘to
do’ list? Who enjoys a recap to the day’s
events? Who is better at keeping in touch
with others?”
Source: Selling Is a Woman’s Game: 15 Powerful Reasons Why
Women Can Outsell Men, Nicki Joy & Susan Kane-Benson
#19.6
Hard Is Soft
Soft Is Hard
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.
THE PROBLEM IS
RARELY/NEVER THE
PROBLEM. THE
RESPONSE TO THE
PROBLEM INVARIABLY
ENDS UP BEING THE
REAL PROBLEM.
#19.7
Hard Is Soft
Soft Is Hard
“I screwed
up.”*
*The virtuous “circle of blame
#19.8
Hard Is Soft
Soft Is Hard
“Courtesies of a small and
trivial character are the
ones which strike
deepest in the grateful
and appreciating heart.”
—Henry Clay
“Good relationships
aren’t about ‘clear
communications’—
they’re about small
moments
of attachment and
intimacy.” —John Gottman, “Making
Relationships Work,” John Gottman (Harvard Business
Review, 12.07)
The Manager’s Book
of Decencies: How
Small /gestures
Build Great
Companies.
—Steve Harrison, Adecco
“Be kind, for
everyone you meet
is fighting a great
battle.”
—Philo of Alexandria
“There is always an
easy solution to
every human
problem—neat,
plausible, and …
wrong.”
—H.L. Mencken:
#19.9
itics politics politi
itics politics politi
itics politics politi
itics politics politi
itics politics politi
itics politics politi
love it or
leave it!
#19.10
Source: How Doctors Think, Jerome Groopman
Success
Through
Listening
Intently
Listening Is An Act of Love: A Celebration of American
Life from the StoryCorps Project, Dave Isay*
“Our stories—the stories of everyday
people—are as interesting and important
as the celebrity stories we are bombarded with …
“If we take the time to listen, we’ll find wisdom, wonder
and poetry in the lives and stories of the people all
around us …
“We all want to know our lives have mattered …
“Listening is an act of love.”
Guiding principles:
Listening may or may not be an “act of
love” or way to “tap into people’s dreams,”
but it sure as hell is (1) an uncommon act
of courtesy and recognition of worth from
which (2) you will invariably learn amazing
stuff if you can just keep your damn mouth
shut and ears open with an expression of
interest on your face and (3) it will buildmaintain relationships beyond your wildest
dreams. (4) So: shut up. Practice
attentiveness (no kidding) on waiters,
cab drivers, folks in line at the grocery
store, etc.
“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.” —Dale Carnegie
#19.11
Respect.
“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
Amen!
“What creates trust, in
the end, is the leader’s
manifest respect for
the followers.” — Jim O’Toole,
Leading Change
“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’s not people who
aren’t credit-worthy.
It’s banks that aren’t
people worthy.”
Muhammad Yunus
“The deepest
human need is
the need to be
appreciated.”
William James
“If you don’t
listen,
you don’t sell
anything.”
—Carolyn Marland/Managing Director/Guardian Group
#19.12
FLOWER
FLOWER
POWER
POWER
#19.13
Questions: What do others think of you? [Are you sure?] What
do you think of you? [Are you sure?] What is your impact on
others? [Are you sure?] What is your impact on others? [Are
you sure?] What is your impact on others? [Are you sure?]
What are the “little things” you (perhaps unconsciously) do that
cause people to shrivel—or blossom? [Are you sure?] What do
you want? [Are you sure?] Are you aware of your changing
moods? [Are you sure?] How fragile is your ego? [Are you sure?]
Do you have a true confidant? [Are you sure?] Do you perform brief
or not-so-brief self-assessments? Do you talk too much? [Are you
sure?] Do you know how to listen? [Are you sure?] Do you
listen? [Are you sure?] What is your style of “hashing things
out”? Are you perceived as (a) arrogant, (b) abrasive (c) attentive,
(d) genuinely interested in people, (e) etc? [Are you sure?] Are
you flexible? Have you changed your mind about anything important
in a while? Are you comfortable-uncomfortable with folks on the
front line? Do you think you’re “in touch with the pulse of
things around here”? [Are You Sure?] Are you too
emotional/intuitive? Are you too unemotional/rational? Do you
spend much time with people who are new to you? [Do you think
questions like this are “so much BS”?]
Cause
Space
(worthy of commitment)
(room for/encouragement
for initiative)
Decency
(respect, humane)
Cause
Space
(worthy of commitment)
(room for/encouragement
for initiative-adventures)
Decency
(respect, grace,
integrity, humane)
service
(worthy of our clients’ & extended
family’s continuing custom)
excellence
(period)
Cause
Space
Decency
service
excellence
servant leadership
Cause
Space
Decency
service
(worthy of commitment)
(room for/encouragement for initiative-adventures)
(respect, grace, integrity, humane)
(worthy of our clients’ & extended
family’s continuing custom)
excellence
servant leadership
(period)
Attending to
the “Last 98%”:
The New
Management “Science,”
or …
“Hard Is Soft,
Soft Is Hard”
Tom Peters/12.03.2008
S = f( ___ )
Success Is a
Function of …
S = ƒ(#&DR; -2L, -3L, 4L; I&E)
Number and depth of relationships 2, 3, and 4 levels down,
inside and outside the organization
S = ƒ(SD>SU)
Sucking down is more important than sucking up—the idea is to have
the entire organization working for you.
S = ƒ(#non-FF, #non-FL)
Number of friends, number of lunches with people not in my function
S = ƒ(#FF)
Number of friends in the finance function-organization
S = ƒ(OF)
Oddball friends
S = ƒ(PDL)
Purposeful, deep listening—this is very hard
S = ƒ(#EODD3MC)
Number of end-of-the-day difficult (you’d rather avoid) “3-minute calls” that
soothe raw feelings, mend fences, etc.
S = ƒ(UFP, UFK, OAPS)
Unsolicited favors performed, UFs involving co-workers’ kids, overt acts
politeness-solicitude toward co-workers’ spouses, parents, etc.
S = ƒ(#TN)
Number of thank you notes sent
S = ƒ(#C, PTS/“OLC”, SAPA)
# of consultations, perception of being taken serious (Responsible for “one line of
code,” small act of public appreciation
S = ƒ(SU)
Showing up (Woody Allen, Delaware’s ridiculous influence on the
U.S. Constitution)
S = ƒ(1D)
Seeking the assignment of writing first drafts, minutes, etc (1787)
S = ƒ(#SEAs)
Number of solid relationships with Executive Assistants
S = ƒ(%UL/w-m)
% useful lunches per week, month
S = ƒ(FG, FOC-BOF, CMO)
Favors given, favors owed collectively, balance of favors,
conscious management thereof
S = ƒ(CPRM, TS)
Conscious-planned Relationship management, time spent thereon
S = ƒ(TN/d, FG/m, AA/d)
Thank you notes per Day, flowers given per Month, Acts of Appreciation per Day
S = ƒ(PT100%A“T”S, E“NMF”–TTT)
Proactive, timely, 100% apologies for “tiny” screw-ups, even if not my fault
(it always takes two to tango)
S = ƒ(AMR, NBS-SG)
Acceptance of mutual responsibilities for all affairs, no blameshifting, scape-goating
S = ƒ(APLSLFCT)
Awareness, perception of little snubs—and lightening fast
correction thereof
S = ƒ(G)
Grace
S = ƒ(GA)
Grace toward adversary
S = ƒ(GW)
Grace toward the wounded in bureaucratic firefights
S = ƒ(PD)
Purposeful decency
S = ƒ(TSPD, TSP-L1)
Time spent on promotion decisions, especially for 1st level managers
S = ƒ(%“SS”, H-PD)
% soft stuff involved in Hiring, Promotion decisions
S = ƒ(TWA, P, NP)
Time wandering around, purposeful, non-planned
S = ƒ(SBS)
Slack built into Schedule
S= ƒ(TSHR)
Time spent … Hurdle Removing
S = ƒ(%TM“TSS,” PM“TSS,”
D“TD”“TSS”)
% of time, measured, on This Soft Stuff, purposeful management of this Soft
Stuff, daily “to do” concerning “this Soft Stuff”
S = ƒ(MB“TSS”MR)
Purposeful management of this Soft Stuff by people reporting to me
S = ƒ(EC, MMO)
Emotional connection, mgt & maintenance of
S = ƒ(IMDOP)
Investment in Mastery of detailed organization processes
S = ƒ(H-TS)
Time spent on Hiring
S = f(%TM“TSS,”
PM“TSS,”
D“TD”“TSS”)
% of time, measured, on This Soft Stuff,
purposeful management of this Soft Stuff, daily
“to do” concerning “this Soft Stuff”
Notes from William Easterly’s:
The White Man’s
Burden: Why the
West’s Effort to Aid
the Rest Have Done
So Much Ill and so
Little Good
$2.3 trillion
“The West spent …
on foreign aid over the last five decades and
still has not managed to get twelve-cent
medicines to children to prevent half of all
malaria deaths. The West spent $2.3 trillion
and still not managed to get three dollars to
each new mother to prevent five million child
But I and many other
like-minded people keep
trying, not to abandon aid to
the poor, but to make sure it
reaches them.”
deaths. …
Easterly, maligned by many, is the arch-enemy
of the
Big Plan
[his capital letters, not mine]
sent from afar; and the vociferous fan of
practical activities of those he calls
“Searchers”
… who learn the
ins and outs of the culture, politics and local
conditions “on the ground” in order to use local
levers and local players, and get those 12cent medicines to community members.
Read on, “Planners” vs “Searchers” …
“In foreign aid, Planners announce good intentions but don’t motivate
anyone to carry them out; Searchers find things that work and
get some reward. Planners raise expectations but take no
responsibility for meeting them; Searchers accept
responsibility for their actions; Planners determine what to
supply; Searchers find out what is in demand. Planners apply
global blueprints; Searchers adapt to local conditions.
Planners at the top lack knowledge of the bottom; Searchers find
out what the reality is at the bottom. Planners never hear
whether the planned recipients got what they needed; Searchers
find out if the customer is satisfied. … A Planner thinks he
already knows the answers; he thinks of poverty as a technical
engineering problem that his answers will solve. A Searcher
admits he doesn’t know the answers in advance; he
believes that poverty is a complicated tangle of political,
social, historical, institutional, and technological factors;
he hopes to find answers to individual problems only by
trial and error experimentation. A planner believes outsiders
know enough to impose solutions; a Searcher believes only
insiders have enough knowledge to find solutions, and
that most solutions must be homegrown. …”
Derived from the above and more, I have
extracted a series of “lessons” from the
Easterly book. These implementation lessons
are, in fact, universal:
Lesson (#1 of sooooooo many): Show up!
(On the ground, where the action—and
possible implementation—is.)
Lesson: Invest in ceaseless study of
conditions “on the ground”—social and
political and historical and systemic.
Lesson: Listen
to the “locals.”
Lesson: Hear
the “locals.”
"Trust the development
experts—all seven billion
of them.”
—headline, for an article by development
guru William Easterly, Financial Times, 0529.08,
"The report of the World Bank Growth Commission, led
by Nobel laureate Michael Spence [former dean of the
Stanford biz school—tp], was published last week. After two
years of work by the commission of 21 world leaders,
an 11-member working group, 300 academic experts,
12 workshops, 13 consultations, and a budget of $4
million, the experts' answer to the question of how to
attain high growth was roughly: we do not know, but
trust experts to figure it out." —William Easterly,
Financial Times, 0529.08
Lesson: Talk to the “locals.”
Lesson: Listen to the “locals.”
Lesson: Hear the “locals.”
Lesson: Listen to the “locals.”
Lesson: Hear the “locals.”
Lesson: Listen to the “locals.”
Lesson: Hear the “locals.”
Lesson: Listen to the “locals.”
Lesson: Hear to the “locals.”
Lesson: Listen to the “locals.”
Lesson: Hear to the “locals.”
Lesson: Respect the “locals.”
Lesson: Empathize with the “locals.”
Lesson: Try to blend in, adopting local customs, showing
deference were necessary—almost everywhere;
and never interrupt the “big man” in front of his
folk, even, or especially, if you think he is 180
degrees off.
Lesson: Seek out the local leaders’ second cousins, etc,
to gain indirect assess over their uncle twice
removed! (Etc & etc.)
Lesson: Have a truly crappy office, and other
un-trappings!
Lesson: Remember, you do not in fact have the answers
despite your PhD with, naturally, honors, from the
University of Chicago—where you were mentored
by not one, but two, Nobel Laureates in economics.
Lesson: Regardless of the enormity of the problem,
proceed by trial (manageable in size) and error,
error, error. (Failure motto: “Do it right the first
time!” Success motto: “Do it right the 37th time!”
And hustle through those 37 tries—see the
next slide.)
Have a
truly crappy
office, and
other
un-trappings!
Lesson:
Lesson: The process of political-community
engagement must also be approached as
a trial and error learning process.
Lesson: Always alter the experiment to accommodate
local needs—the act of apparent local modification
per se is critical, as every community leader, in
order for them to accept “ownership” and
demonstrate to their constituents that they are in
charge, must feel as if they have directly and
measurably influenced the experiment. [See the next four slides.]
Lesson: Growth (the experimental and expansionemulation process) must be organic, and proceed
at a measured pace—nudged, not hurried.
Lesson: Speed kills! (To a point.) By and large, the
messiness and “inefficiency” of the local political
process must be honored.
“Buy in”“Ownership”Authorial bragging
rights-“Born again”
Champion = One
Line of Code!
Nothing is
“scalable”!*
Nothing is “scalable”!*
*Every replication must
exude the perception of
uniqueness—even if it
means a half-step
backwards. (“It wouldn’t
have worked if we hadn’t done
it our way.”)
Speed kills!
Lesson: Short-circuiting political
process kills!
Lesson: Premature rollout kills!
Lesson: Too much publicity-visibility
kills!
Lesson: Too much money kills!
Lesson: Too much technology kills!
Lesson:
Lesson: Outsiders, to be effective, must have genuine
appreciation of and affection for the locals with whom
and for whom they are working!
Lesson: Condescension kills most—said “locals” know
unimaginably more about life than well-intentioned
“do gooders,” young or even, alas, not so young.
Lesson: Progress … MUST … be consistent with “local
politics on the ground” in order to raise the odds
of sustainability.
Lesson: You will never-ever “fix” “everything at once”
or by the time you “finish”—in our Constitutional
Convention in 1787, George Washington only got
about 60% of what he wanted!
Lesson: Never forget the atmospherics, such as numerous
celebrations for tiny milestones reached, showering praise
on the local leader and your local cohorts, while you
assiduously stand at the back of the crowd—etc.
Lesson: The experiment has failed until the systems and political
rewards, often small, are in place, with Beta tests completed,
to up the odds of repetition.
Lesson: Most of your on-the-ground staff must consist of
respected locals—the de facto or de jure Chairman or CEO
must be a local; you must be virtually invisible.
Lesson: Spend enormous “pointless” social time with the local
political leaders—in Gulf War I, Norm Schwarzkopf spent his
evenings, nearly all of them, drinking tea until 2AM or 3AM
with the Saudi crown prince; he called it his greatest
contribution!
Lesson: Keep your “start up” plan simple and short and
filled with question marks in order to allow others
to have the last word. (I once did the final draft of a
proposal, making it as flawless as could be. I gave it to my boss,
pre Microsoft Word, and he proceeded to cut it up and tape the pieces
back together, and conspicuously cross out several paragraphs of my
obviously and labored over brilliant prose that he had agreed to. “Tom,”
he said as I recall, “we want the rest of the committee [of important, or at
least self-important folks] to feel as though they are participating and
that you and I are a naïve—not confront them with a beautiful plan that
shouts ‘Don’t you dare alter a word.’”)
Lesson: For projects involving children or health or education or
community development or sustainable small-business
growth (most projects), women are by far the most reliable
and most central and most indirectly powerful local
players in even the most chauvinist settings—their
characteristic process of “implementation by indirection”
means “life or death” to sustainable project success;
moreover, the expanding concentric circles of women’s
traditional networking processes is by far the best way to
“scale up”/expand a program. (Men should not even try
to understand what is taking place. Among other things,
this networking indirection-largely invisible process will
seemingly “take forever” by most men’s “action now,
skip steps” S.O.P.—and then, from out of the blue,
following an eternity of rambling discussions-on-top-oframbling-discussions, you will wake up one fine morning
and discover that the thing is done that everything has
fallen in place “overnight” and that ownership is nearly
universal. Concomitant imperative; most of your (as an
outsider) staff should be women, alas, most likely not
visibly “in charge.”
For projects involving children or
health or education or community
development or sustainable
small-business growth (most
women
projects),
are by
far the most reliable and most
central and most indirectly
powerful local players even in the
most chauvinist settings.
For projects involving
children or health or education or
community development or
sustainable small-business growth
Lesson:
(most projects),
women
are by far the most reliable and
most central and most indirectly
powerful local players even in the
most chauvinist settings.
Social Change, after William Easterly
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Bottom up
Pursue 100% participation
MBWA
Use the local infrastructure
Women must play a/the lead role—as leaders,
perhaps indirectly, and as investment targets
Accept “second best” solutions—optimal outcomes
are self-defeating
Use $$$ and technology with caution
Replication must always be localized
Try it! Try it!/4F
Colonel/British Army/
2 Tours/Iraq/0428.08/
Issues:
**Hardware first
**Failure to use existing human
infrastructure
**Failure to master local politics
**Unwillingness to accept “2nd best”
solutions
**Wedded to centrally prescribed
solutions-programs
**Misguided training
“We behaved as if we were
guests in their house. We
treated them not as a
defeated people, but as
allies. Our success became
their success.” —“How One Soldier
Brought Democracy to Iraq: The Mayor of Ar Rutbah”
(MAJ James Gavrilis/USA Special Forces)
#22.1
Commentary on David O. Stewart’s
The Summer of
1787: The Men
Who Invented
the Constitution
Tom Peters/0409.08
*** Show up!!!!!!!!!!!!
*** Keep showing up!!
*** Control the process through indirect
actions, like doing first drafts, writing
Minutes.
*** Remember the social graces—your
emotional “presentation of self” is more
important than even “all important”!!!
*** Hang in! Tenacity-relentlessness rules!
(Wear the bastards down. No kidding,
this is a matchless “success tool.”)
*** There’s no such thing as a “dull meeting.”
(No kidding!) Every get together is an
opportunity to press your agenda, directly
or indirectly, to perform a small favor with
the expectation of “return on investment”
at some point in the future.
*** Bite your tongue and listen, listen, listen—even to
bores. Nothing wins support like effective listening;
it’s the greatest gift you can give anyone!! (This is
triply important when you are desperate to correct
something someone has to say, even an “enemy” of
your cause—attentive listening is a peerless “win
’em over” “strategic” “tool.”)
*** “Sub-committees rule! It’s the little chances to
become Master of Something and perform-influence
in a small group setting that lead to the
accumulation of power and the ability to control the
flow in an area important to you.
*** Continually “illustrate” your ability to perform well
at almost any task and build a towering reputation
for reliability.
*** Cool off! No passion, no success! Too much abrasiveness
in pursuit of a cause that inflames you kills opportunity to
succeed like nothing else. (Folks love to put an abrasive
person in his place, even if they agree with him.)
*** Take a punch and keep on trucking. Losses are common—
live with ’em, take ’em with good grace, and then
persevere through out-persevering the other guy/s.
(*** Speaking of “punch,” out-drinking the other guy sure
worked in the summer of 1787. Reach your own
conclusions here …)
*** Grow up, accept life. Life, effectiveness is indeed about
horse trading as often as not—and at times consorting
with one’s enemies. (“The enemy of my enemy is my
friend.” Keep your passion, stay above the waterline on
issues of deep principal—but accept, and embrace, the
messy-as-hell “real world”!
*** Remember the black flies! “Little”
distractions can change the whole game.
*** Be ready with “Plan B.” Repeat: Nothing
in the real world follows the script.
*** Nobody, even George Washington, gets
more than about 60% of what they want!
*** Keep your word. A reputation for integrity
is priceless.
*** Don’t bite off more than you can chew,
even when “can’t miss” opportunities to
further your cause arise—overloading and
thence compromising effectiveness is a
big black eye.
*** Do something! “Small wins,” accumulated
regularly, build momentum!
*** Work assiduously on your public
presentation skills!
Regardless of the
topic—mundane or grand—
it is attending to the same
“mundane” “human” “timeless”
“basics” that shape the outcome
and determine the degree of
implementation. The Master
of GTD* is the true Master of
the Universe.
Lesson of Lessons:
*GTD/Getting Things Done
Don’t forget
the “it”!
“It suddenly
occurred to me …
“It suddenly occurred
to me that in the space
of two or three hours
never
he
talked
about cars.” —Les Wexner
Franchise Lost!
TP:
“How many of you
really
[600]
crave a
new Chevy?”
NYC/IIR/061205
“Not long ago, I heard one
studio chief utter the
unthinkable: ‘What would
happen if I made a movie I
actually looked forward
to seeing?’ ”
—Peter Bart, Editor in Chief,
Variety; former Paramount exec, “Hollywood’s Model Doesn’t
Produce Art, or Much Profit” (NYT/0721.06)
A pox on
“micromarketing”
Who buys “it” I:
Sunset for men!
“Forget China,
India and the
Internet: Economic
Growth Is Driven
by
Women.”
—Headline,
Economist, April 15, 2006, Leader, page 14
“Women are
the majority
market”
—Fara Warner/The Power of the Purse
“Goldman Sachs in Tokyo has
developed an index of 115
companies poised to benefit from
women’s increased purchasing
power; over the past decade the
value of shares in Goldman’s
basket has risen by 96%, against
the Tokyo stockmarket’s rise
of 13%.” —Economist, April 15
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
The Perfect Answer
Jill and Jack buy
slacks in black…
“One thing is certain: Women’s rise to power, which is
linked to the increase in wealth per capita, is happening
in all domains and at all levels of society. Women are no
longer content to provide efficient labor or to be
consumers with rising budgets and more autonomy to
spend. … This is just the beginning. The phenomenon
will only grow as girls prove to be more successful than
For a number of
observers, we have already
entered the age of
‘womenomics,’ the economy as
thought out and practiced
by a woman.” —Aude Zieseniss de Thuin, Financial
boys in the school system.
Times, 10.03.2006
Big bank CEO, summarizing to his top-management team his
“Tom’s made a great
point; he let us know that our customer base
will be different and more diverse in the future.”
notes from TP’s presentation:
“With all due respect, that’s not what Tom
said. Though I am an unabashed supporter of
‘diversity’ in general, what I said was
Tom:
‘She
is your customer—and
has been for a long time and will be forever.’
And ‘she’ is notably AWOL in this [meeting] room
full of senior ‘leaders.’ ”
Getting Started
Read in (start with Fara Warner,
The Power of the Purse /cases!!)
Convene a 2-day “Private conferenceretreat” for your top 5 managers and
female Board members, on both
marketing to women and women’s
leadership (two days, intense, senior women, midlevel women, designers/F/M), Creative ad folks, Internet
marketers, academics incl. neuroscientists and
psychologists, business owners, turn-around marketers
from Nike, Marti Barletta, Paco Underhill, Alan and
Barbara Pease, Judy Rosener, etc.)
#24.1
“AS LEADERS,
WOMEN
RULE:
New Studies find that
female managers outshine their male
counterparts in almost every measure”
TITLE/ Special Report/ BusinessWeek
It’s gotta be
a majority …
Period??!!*
Start:
3 0f 14
18 months later:
10 of 18
(“deep dip”!)
*AIM/September 2007
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
(more
or less)
(circa 0331.2007)
effectiveness
imperatives.
Women are better salespersons than men.
Women buy [almost] everything—commercial
as well as consumer goods.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
So what exactly is the point of men?
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
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?
#24.1.1
For projects involving children or
health or education or community
development or sustainable
small-business growth (most
women
projects),
are by
far the most reliable and most
central and most indirectly
powerful local players even in the
most chauvinist settings.
#24.1.2
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/May 2006, World Business, “Say It
Like a Woman: Why the 21st-century negotiator will need the female touch”
“[Women] see power
in terms of
influence,
not rank.” —Fortune
“Guys want to put everybody in
their hierarchical place. Like,
should I have more respect for
you, or are you somebody that’s
south of me?” —Paul Biondi, Mercer Consultants
[from It’s Not Business, It’s Personal, Ronna Lichtenberg]
Bob Reich’s women
“No
worries.”*
students:
*Men: “Can’t do it. _____ outranks me.”
Mrs Coach K
“There is always an
easy solution to
every human
problem—neat,
plausible, and …
wrong.”
—H.L. Mencken:
#24.2
Who buys “it” II:
Sunrise for
old folks!
2000-2010 Stats
18-44: -1%
55+: +21%
(55-64:
+47%)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“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 twentyfive years. We have arrived!
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
we will be the
Center of your universe
for the next twenty-five
years. We have arrived!
world—and
“Sixty Is
the New
Thirty”
—Cover/AARP
“EIGHTY IS
THE NEW
FIFTY”
—Headline, Newsweek, 0616.08
Caroline Flint, Housing Minister, UK: “lifetime
homes,” all “wheelchair friendly” by
2013, 16 features including ground floor
toilet, wide stairways take stair-lift,
gently sloping approach to front door,
low window sills, walls easy adaptation,
doors and hallways wide enough for
wheelchair; applies to all public housing
by 2011, 2010 standards for private
sector if not prior voluntary compliance
Source: Guardian 0225.08
EXCELLENCE.
SOUL.
DESIGN.
All Equal Except …
“At Sony we assume that all products of
our competitors have basically the same
technology, price, performance and
Design is the only
thing that
differentiates one
product from another
in the marketplace.”
features.
—Norio Ohga
“Design is
treated like
a religion at
BMW.”
—Fortune
“We don’t have a good language to talk
about this kind of thing. In most people’s
vocabularies, design means veneer. …
But to me, nothing could be further from
Design is
the fundamental
soul of a man-made
creation.”
the meaning of design.
—Steve Jobs
“With its carefully conceived mix of colors and textures,
Starbucks
aromas and music,
is more
indicative of our era than the iMac. It is to the Age of
Aesthetics what McDonald’s was to the Age of
Convenience or Ford was to the Age of Mass
Production—the touchstone success story, the exemplar
‘Every
Starbucks store is carefully designed
to enhance the quality of everything
the customers see, touch, hear, smell
or taste,’ writes CEO Howard Schultz.”
of … the aesthetic imperative. …
-—Virginia Postrel, The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic
Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture and Consciousness
“Having spent a century or more focused on other
goals—solving manufacturing problems, lowering costs,
making goods and services widely available, increasing
convenience, saving energy—we are increasingly
engaged in making our world special. More people in
more aspects of life are drawing pleasure and meaning
from the way their persons, places and things look and
Whenever we have the
chance, we’re adding
sensory, emotional
appeal to ordinary
function.” — Virginia Postrel, The Substance
feel.
of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking
Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness
Hypothesis:
DESIGN is
the principal
difference
between love
and hate!*
*Not “like” and “dislike”
O*
C
*Chief
Design
Officer
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
“Steve Jobs gives almost as much
thought to the cardboard boxes
his gadgets come in as the
products themselves. This is not
for reasons of taste or elegance—
though that’s part of it. To Jobs,
the act of pulling a product from
its box is an important part of the
user experience, and like
everything else he does, it’s very
carefully thought out.” —Leander Kahney,
Inside Steve’s Brain
Better By Design
The Design49
Tom
Peters/Auckland/30March2005
Better By Design: Tom’s Design49
1. There are only 2 rules.
2. Rule #1: You can’t beat Wal*Mart on price or China on cost.
3. Rule #2: See Rule #1.
4. Econ Survival = Innovate and Sprint Up the Value-added
Chain … OR DIE!
5. DESIGN (WRIT LARGE) (“DESIGN MINDFULNESS”) IS THE
“SOUL”/ENGINE OF THE NEW VALUE-ADDED IMPERATIVE.
6. Design as Soul-Core Competence #1 is a “cultural imperative,” not
a “programmatic” or “process” or
“throw $$$ at it” issue!
7. CDEs (Culturally Design-driven Enterprises) use DesignExperiences-Dream Merchantry-Lovemarks as the Lead
Dog(s) in the OlympianInnovation-“Strategy”-Value
Proposition Struggle.
8. “Dream Merchant” makes as much sense for IBM or GE or UPS as
for Starbucks!
Better By Design: Tom’s Design49
9. At CDEs, Design is the Heart of the “Emotional Branding”
Process.
10. CDEs wholeheartedly embrace ideas such as “mystery,”
“surprise,” sensuality.”
11. CDEs love “WOW!” and “B.H.A.G.” and “Insanely Great”
and “Gasp-worthy” and “Passion” and “Love”! (Axiom: Extreme
language breeds extreme products and services.)
12. Staff at CDEs laugh and cry a lot! (Axiom: “Calm” enterprise =
Crappy enterprise.)
13. CDEs love “strange” and “weird.”
14. CDEs scour the earth for “strange” and “weird” people. (CDEs
know: FREAKS RULE!)
15. CDEs are “extremists.” (KR: “Avoid moderation.”)
16. CDEs know that … EXCELLENCE IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!
(We must use non-linear measures!)
Better By Design: Tom’s Design49
17. CDEs seek Discontinuities. (JG: “We don’t want to be the best of
the best, we want to be the only ones who do what we do.”)
18. CDEs are “respectful” of their customers, but not slaves to their
customers! CDEs … LEAD THEIR CUSTOMERS! (Axioms: “Listening
to customers” is over-rated! Focus groups suck!)
19. But: “Lead” customers are an entirely different matter!
20: Yet: CDEs turn “customers” into “Raving Fans.” (Think: “Tattoo
Brand”!)
21. CDEs abide by Phil Daniels’ Credo: “REWARD EXCELLENT
FAILURES. PUNISH MEDIOCRE SUCCESSES.”
22. At CDEs the Design Director is at least an Exec Vice President, a
Member of the Senior Executive Team, perhaps on the Board, and
has an office within 10 meters of the CEO (unless she is the CEO).
23. Design Directors at large companies not worth $5,000,000
per year aren’t worth hiring! (DD$21M.)
Better By Design: Tom’s Design49
24. Great Designers are “10,000X” better than “good designers.”
25. At CDEs CFOs are never former CFOs! The CEO always doubles
as the Chief Innovation Officer.
26. CDEs are “Top-line Obsessed.”
27. CDE execs know there is a chasm between “excellent design”
and “game-changer design.”
28. Gasp-worthy design is a moving target!
29. No Broadway shows last forever. So too, great designers!
(Hire them! Pay them! Cherish them! Nurture them! Fire them!)
30. Great design wrestles incessantly with the issue of “cool”
and/versus “usability.”!
31. Designers “get” the stunning principles of Wabi Sabi. (Great
designers side with Chris Alexander against the A.I.A.)
32. CDEs “get” the “feminine side” of life.
Better By Design: Tom’s Design49
33. CDEs Know I: WOMEN BUY EVERYTHING!
34. CDEs Know II: MEN ARE INCAPABLE OF DESIGNING PRODUCTS
FOR WOMEN.
35. CDEs understand that “We’re getting’ older”—and vigorously
embrace the Boomer-Geezer market.
36. CDEs understand: Boomers-Geezers have “ALL THE MONEY” …
are by and large healthy … and have 20 or so years left!
37. CDEs wonder: Can 28-year-olds design “experiences” for 68-yearolds?
38. CDEs seek the sweetest “sweet spot”: Woman-Boomer-GreenieWellness.
39. “Design-mindfulness” is as apparent in the CDE’s facilities as in
its products-services!
Better By Design: Tom’s Design49
40. “Design mindfulness” is as apparent in HR and
Engineering and Logistics and IS/IT as in NPD.
41. CDEs will settle for nothing less then “beautiful,” “gaspworthy” Business Processes/Infrastructure!
42. CDEs obsess on K.I.S.S. (Beware creeping feature-itis!)
(450/8.)
43. “Design-mindfulness”/“aesthetic sensibility” is a requisite
for Every Hire—including waiters and waitresses in Fast Food
outlets and Housekeepers in hotels.
44. Gasp-worthy Design is as essential to “service
companies” as to “manufacturers.”
45. Gasp-worthy design can transform any “commodity,”
including ag!
Better By Design: Tom’s Design49
46. DESIGN MANIA IS A NATIONAL ECONOMIC ISSUE OF
THE FIRST ORDER.
47. “Small” is no disadvantage in an Age of Creativity!
48. There is no such thing as a “National Design
Advantage” unless the current school system is Destroyed
& Re-imagined—to emphasize creativity and risk-taking and
acceptance of failure. (Design Mindfulness … the
suppression thereof … typically begins at Age 4.)
49.
How sweet it is!
(If your head is screwed on right.)
Up,
Up,
Up,
Up
the Value-added Ladder.
Auckland/pm
taipei/vp
singapore/pm
bangkok/dpm
flanders
amsterdam/MPs
barcelona/ma
Kuala Lumpur/CM
lisbon/ma
dublin/pm
buenos aires
são paulo
Warsaw/MPs
london/mps
milan
SEOUL/Ma
mexico d.f./m
istanbul/dpm
dubai/rfm
oman/rfm
usa
stockholm/mps
shanghai
mauritius/pm
johannesburg
bucharest/CM
EXCELLENCE.
VALUE ADDED.
UP THE LADDER.
NoT Optional.
The Value-added Ladder/ “BEDROCK”
Raw Materials*
*Farmers and Miners (“Degree”: Weightlifting)
The Value-added Ladder/ THINGS
Goods*
Raw Materials
*Engineers and Factory Workers (Degree: Engineering)
The Value-added Ladder/TRANSACTIONS
Services*
Goods
Raw Materials
*Clerks (Degree: Process Engineering)
Up,
Up,
Up,
Up
the Value-added Ladder.
LEAVE IT
TO BEAVER.
Trapper:
<$20
per beaver pelt.
Source: WSJ
wdcp/“Wildlife
Damage-control
Professional”: $150 to
“remove” “problem beaver”;
$750-$1,000 for
flood-control piping … so
that beavers can stay.
Source: WSJ
Trapper =
Redneck
WDCP = PSF/
Professional Services
Provider
7X to 40X
for
“Solution”
[rather than “service transaction”]
“M” = $0
EXCELLENCE.
VALUE-ADDED LADDER I.
SOLVE IT.
IB :
$55B*
M
*Also HP-EDS
And the “M” Stands for … ?
“Systems
Integrator of choice.”/BW
Gerstner’s IBM:
(“Lou, help us turn ‘all this’ into that long-promised ‘revolution.’ ” )
IBM Global Services*
Services Corp.):
$55B
(*Integrated Systems
“THE GIANT STALKING BIG OIL: How
Schlumberger Is
Rewriting the Rules of the Energy
Game.”: “IPM [Integrated Project
Management] strays from
[Schlumberger’s] traditional role
as a service provider and moves
deeper into areas once dominated
by the majors.”
Source: BusinessWeek cover story, January 2008
“Big Brown’s New Bag: UPS Aims
to Be the Traffic Manager for
Corporate America” —Headline/BW
“UPS wants to take over the
sweet spot in the endless loop
of goods, information and
capital that all the packages
[it moves] represent.” —ecompany.com
(E.g., UPS Logistics manages the logistics of 4.5M Ford vehicles,
from 21 mfg. sites to 6,000 NA dealers)
MasterCard
Advisors
IBM
HP
Schlumberger
GE Energy
GE Infrastructure
UPS
MasterCard
etc.
etc.
etc.
I. LAN Installation Co.
II. Geek Squad.
(3%)
(30%.)
III. Acquired by Best Buy.
IV. Flagship of Best Buy
Wholesale “Solutions”
Strategy Makeover.
Huge: Customer
Satisfaction
versus
Customer
Success
“ ‘Results’ are
measured by the
success of all those
who have purchased
your product or
service” —Jan Gunnarsson & Olle Blohm, The
Welcoming Leader
“Customer Satisfaction” to “Customer
“We’re getting better at [Six
Sigma] every day. But we really need
to think about the customer’s
Success”:
profitability: Are customers’
bottom lines really
benefiting from
what we provide
them?”
—Bob Nardelli, then chief of
GE Power Systems
“He had done nothing to sell me on his
business, yet he had given me the most
Because
his sole concern had
been my welfare and the
success of my business.”
powerful sales pitch of my life.
—Jim Penman, on learning how to sell (What Will
They Franchise Next? The Story of Jim’s Group)
The Value-added Ladder/TRANSFORMATION
Customer Success/
Gamechanging
Solutions
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
“The business of selling is not just about matching viable
It’s
equally about managing the
change process the customer
will need to go through to
implement the solution and
achieve the value promised by
the solution. One of the key differentiators of
solutions to the customers that require them.
our position in the market is our attention to managing change
and making change stick in our customers’ organization.”*
(*E.g.: CRM failure rate/Gartner: 70%)
—Jeff Thull, The Prime Solution: Close the Value Gap,
Increase Margins, and Win the Complex Sale
The Value-added Ladder/TRANSFORMATION
Customer Success through
Implemented
Gamechanging Solutions*
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
*Subject-matter Professionals and
Organization Effectiveness Experts (Degree: MBA,
Organizational Psychology)
#26.1.1
Up,
Up,
Up,
Up
the Value-added Ladder.
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
Chicago:
HRMAC
Sarah:
Mom:
“ Mom, what
do you do?”
“I’m ‘overhead.’”
“support function” /
“cost center”/
“overhead”
or …
Are you …
“Rock
Stars of the
Age of
Talent”
Department Head
to …
Managing
Partner,
IS Inc.
[HR, R&D, etc.]
Answer:
Core Mechanism:
“Game-changing Solutions”
PSF
(Professional Service Firm “model”/The Organizing Principle)
+
Brand You
(“Distinct” or “Extinct”/The Talent)
+
Wow! Projects
(“Different” vs “Better”/The Work)
Series/Reinventing Work
The Project 50: Fifty Ways To Transform
Every “Task” Into A Project That Matters
The Professional Service Firm 50: Fifty
Ways To Transform Your “Department”
Into A Professional Service Firm Whose
Trademarks Are Passion And Innovation
The Brand You 50: Fifty Ways To Transform
Yourself From An “Employee” Into A Brand
That Shouts Distinction, Commitment And
Passion
Are you the …
“Principal
Engine of
Value Added”
*E.g.: Your R&D budget as robust as the New Products team?
#26.1.2
The “PSF35”:
Thirty-Five
Professional Service Firm
Marks of Excellence
The PSF35: The Work & The Legacy
1.
CRYSTAL CLEAR POINT OF VIEW
(E very Practice Group: “If you can’t explain your position in eight
words or less, you don’t have a position”—Seth Godin)
2. DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE (“We are the only ones who do what
we do”—Jerry Garcia)
3. Stretch Is Routine (“Never bite off less than you can chew”—anon.)
4. Eye-Appetite for Game-changer Projects (Excellence at Assembling
“Best Team”—Fast)
5. “Playful” Clients (Adventurous folks who unfailingly Aim to Change
the World)
6. Small “Uneconomic” Clients with Big Aims
7. Life Is Too Short to Work with Jerks (Fire lousy clients)
8. OBSESSED WITH LEGACY (Practice Group and Individual: “Dent the
Universe”—Steve Jobs)
9. Fire-on-the-spot Anyone Who Says, “Law/Architecture/Consulting/
I-banking/ Accounting/PR/Etc. has become a ‘commodity’ ”
10. Consistent with #9 above … DO NOT SHY AWAY FROM THE
WORD (IDEA) “RADICAL”
Pointed
Point of
View!
R.POV8*
*Remarkable Point Of View/8 Words or less: “If you
can’t state your position in eight words or less you
don’t have a position.”—SG
The PSF35: The Client Experience
11. Always team with client: “full partners in
achieving memorable results” (Wanted: “Chimeras
of Moonstruck Minds”!)
12. We will seek assistance Anywhere to assemble the Best-inPlanet Team for the Project
13. Client Team Members routinely declare that working with us
was “the Peak Experience of my Career”
14. The job’s not done until implementation is
“100.00% complete” (Those who don’t “get it” must go)
IMPLEMENTATION IS NOT COMPLETE UNTIL
THE CLIENT HAS EXPERIENCED “CULTURE
CHANGE”
16. IMPLEMENTATION IS NOT COMPLETE UNTIL
SIGNIFICANT “TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER HAS
TAKEN PLACE-ROOT (“Teach a man to fish …”)
17. The Final Exam: DID WE MAKE A DRAMATIC,
LASTING, GAME-CHANGING DIFFERENCE?
15.
“The business of selling is not just about matching
viable solutions to the customers that require
them. It’s
equally about managing
the change process the customer
will need to go through to
implement the solution and
achieve the value promised by
the solution.”*
(*E.g.: CRM failure rate/Gartner: 70%)
—Jeff Thull, The Prime Solution: Close the Value Gap,
Increase Margins, and Win the Complex Sale
UniCredit Group/
UniCredito Italiano* **
—3rd party measurement
—Customer-initiated
measurement
—Primary $$$$ incentives
—“Factories”
—Primary Corporate Initiative
—Etc
*#13
**TP/#1
The PSF35: The People & The Leadership
18. TALENT FANATICS (“Best-Coolest place to work”) (PERIOD)
19. EYE FOR THE PECULIAR (Hiring: Go beyond “same old,
same old”)
20. Early Opportunities (vs. “Wait your turn”)
21. Up or Out (Based on “Legacy”/Mentoring as much as
“Billings”/“Rainmaking”)
22. Slide the Old Aside/Make Room for Youth (Find oldsters
new roles?)
23. TALENT IS OBSESSED WITH RENEWAL FROM DAY #1 TO
DAY #“R” [R = Retirement]
24. Office/Practice Leaders Evaluated Primarily on
Mentoring-Team Building Skills
25. A “PROPRIETARY” TALENT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS (GE)
26. Team Leadership Skills Valued Early
27. Partner with B.I.W. [Best In World] Outsiders as Needed
and to Infuse Different Views
The PSF35: The Firm & The Brand
28. EAT-SLEEP-BREATHE-OOZE
is my message”—Gandhi)
INTEGRITY (“My life
29. Excellence+ in EXECUTION … 100.00% of the Time
30. “Drop everything”/“Swarm” to Support a Harried-On
The Verge Team
31. SPEND
ON R&D LIKE A TECH FIRM.
32. A PROPRIETARY METHODOLOGY (FBR, McKinsey,
Chiat Day, IDEO, old EDS)
33. BRAND
MANIACS (Organize Around a Point of View Worth
BROADCASTING)
34. PASSION!
35.
ENTHUSIASM!
EXCELLENCE. ALWAYS.
(1) Translate ALL departmental
activities into discrete
W.W.P.F. “Products.”
(2) 100% go on the Web.
(3) Non-awesome are
outsourced (75%??).
(4) Remaining “Centers of
Excellence” are retained &
leveraged to the hilt!
#26.1.3
Psf.
Bedrock.
PSF/Professional Service Firm/Beliefs
Profession: Calling/Passion to make a
difference/Excellence (always)
point of view: know exactly what we
stand for/
“Dramatic Difference”
Client: enduring, test-the-limits
relationship/“Trusted advisor”
Solution: Rock His-her World/ “wow”/
implemented “Culture change”/
>>>>>> “satisfaction”
Cost
(at All Costs*) Minimization
Professional?
Or/to: Full Partner“Purchasing Officer” Thrust #1:
Leader in Lifetime
Value-added
Maximization?
(*Lopez: “Arguably ‘Villain #1’ in GM tragedy”/Anon VSE-Spain)
Fleet Manager
Rolling Stock Cost
Minimization Officer
vs/or
Chief of Fleet Lifetime
Value Maximization
Strategic Supply-chain Executive
Customer Experience Director
(via drivers)
“Technology
Executive” (workin’ in a hospital)
HCare CIO:
Full-scale,
Accountable (life or death)
Member-Partner of XYZ
Hospital’s Senior
Or/to:
Healing-Services
Team
(who happens to be a techie)
PSF Transformation: Credit Department/Trek
Was
Is
Credit Dept
Financial Services
Hammer on dealers until
they pay
Make dealers successful so they
CAN pay
AR sold to 3rd party
commercial co.
Trek is the commercial financial
Company
23 employees
12 employees
Oversee peak AR of $70M
Oversee peak AR of $160M
Identify risky dealers
Identify opportunities
Cost Center
Profit Center
No products
Products: Consulting, MC/Visa,
Stored value of gift cards, Gift card
peripherals, Online payments
Source: John Burke/0330.06
Photographer: Louise Roach
Big Idea:
“Corporation” as
Mega-“PSF”
(Professional Service
Firm*)
* “Virtual” Collection of Entrepreneurially-minded
Professionals (“Talent”/“Roster”) Creating/Applying
Intellectual Capital (“Work Product”)
Are you the …
“Principal
Engine of
Value Added”
*E.g.: Your R&D budget as robust as the New Products team?
Core Mechanism:
“Game-changing Solutions”
Brand You(S)
(“Distinct” or “Extinct”/The Talent)
+
Wow! Project(s)
(“Different” vs “Better”/The Work)
=
PSF(S)
(Professional Service Firm “model”/The Organizing Principle)
=
“Corporation” as
“Mega-PSF”
Photographer: Mike Brake
The FEVP/Fundamental Enterprise Value-Added
Proposition-Equation/Mark2008
(1) 100% “WOW PROJECTS”
(New Org “DNA”/“The Work”)
+
(2) Incredible “TALENT” Transformed into
(3) Entrepreneurial “BRAND YOUs” and
(4) Given Room-to-Roam & Launched on
Awesome “QUESTS”
=
(5) Internal “Rockin’ PSFs” (Staff Depts. Morphed into
Wildly Innovative Professional Service Firms) …
(6) Which Coalesce to Transform the FEVP/Fundamental Enterprise
Value Proposition from “Superior Products & Services” to
“ENCOMPASSING SOLUTIONS” &
“GAME-CHANGING CLIENT SUCCESS”
Big Idea/“Meta”-Idea/Premier “Engine of Value Added”
(1) The Talent: “Best Roster” of Entrepreneurialminded Brand Yous.
(2) The (Virtual) Organization: Internal or
External “PSF”/Professional Service Firm
working with “Best Anywhere” = Engine of
Value Added through the Application of Creative
“Intellectual Capital”
(3) The Work Product: “Game Changer”/
“Gaspworthy” WOW Projects
“… but I'm having a hard time
imagining 300 million Brand Yous.”
“Would you call a clerk in a purchasing
department at a big insurance company
"brand you"? Probably not. But what
about a single Hispanic Mom, age 32,
raising 3 kids in the LA area and holding
2.5 jobs to do so? I'd call her a hero, selfreliant, resilient--and a Brand You!”
Posted by tom peters at November 20, 2006 10:16 PM
#26.1.4
WOW!
The
Project.
A “position” is
not an
“accomplishment.”
—TP
“Let’s make a
dent in the
universe!”
—Steve Jobs
Your Current Project?
1. Another day’s work/Pays
the rent.
4. Of value.
7. Pretty Damn Cool/Definitely
subversive.
10. WE AIM TO CHANGE THE
WORLD. (Insane!/Insanely
Great!/WOW!)
“Every project we undertake starts with
‘How can
we do what has
never been done
before?’”
the same question:
—Stuart Hornery, Lend Lease
If you are not
prepared to be
fired over your
beliefs … you are
working on the
wrong project.
—TP
#26.1.5
WOW! Projects:
Nuts & Bolts
(a few)
Playmate!*
Playpen!
Prototype!
*Can be Client, supplier … as well as Insider
Where to look for “Playmates”:
F.F.F.F.
(Find a Fellow Freak Faraway)
F2F!/f2fK!/
1@T/R.F!A.*
*Freak-to-Freak/Freak-to-Freaky Kustomer/ One at a Time/ Ready.Fire!Aim.
The
“Sri Lanka
Stratagem”
Forward, march:
BIG
Division, BIG Customer,
Where NOT to look for “Playmates”:
BIG Vendor,
UP
Culture of Prototyping
“Effective prototyping may be
the most valuable core
competence an innovative
organization can hope
to have.”
—Michael Schrage
#26.1.6
WOW!
Projects
Epidemic:
Starting a
Demos, Heroes,
Stories!
Premise:
“Ordering”
Systemic Change is a
Waste of Time!
“Somewhere in your
organization, groups of people
are already doing things
differently and better. To
create lasting change,
find these areas of
positive deviance and fan
the flames.”
—Richard Tanner Pascale &
Jerry Sternin, “Your Company’s Secret Change Agents,” HBR
“Some people look for
things that went wrong
and try to fix them. I
look for things
that went right, and
try to build off
them.”
—Bob Stone (Mr ReGo)
JKC
1. Scour for renegades;
wine & dine.
2. Go outside for funds.
Demo = Story
“A key – perhaps the key –
to leadership is the
effective communication
of a story.”
—Howard Gardner, Leading Minds:
An Anatomy of Leadership
Best
story
wins!
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
Demos!
Heroes!
Stories!
Build a “School on top of
a school”/ContinuingExec Ed (The Parallel
Universe Strategy)
Stories … Paint me a
picture … Story
“infrastructure” … Demos
… Quick prototypes …
Experiments … Heroes …
Renegades … Skunkworks
… Demo Funds … V.C. … G.M.
… Roster … Portfolio …
Stone’s Rules … JKC’s Rules
Subversive Change
Be(very)ware “genetic constraints” (history’s looong arm)
You must “do” Gandhi
Hire weird (fulltime or temp)
Find the extant crazies (troll for them via offers to join
weird project teams)
Create a (quiet) “Crazies Club”/Keep extendin’ the Web
Create “boondocks projects” by the truckload (with
partners of every flavor)
Understand: Yours is a “protection racket”
Sky High Standards!! (There’s a deadly serious reason for
“all this”—life or death)
TP Heroes: Allan Puckett; Bob Stone; Jill Ker Conway;
Kelly Johnson; John Boyd
SP: “But can you turn a ‘defensive player’
into an ‘offensive player’?”
TP: “Yes! Work with him/her to re-frame
their principal project to the point that
their ego is fully engaged and it becomes
something of a ‘life compulsion.’ ” *
* “If you and I had $150K in the bank and on the line
and the day before the opening the Fire Inspector …”
Up,
Up,
Up,
Up
the Value-added Ladder.
#26.2
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
“The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of
companies, employing
similar
similar
similar
similar
similar
people, with
educational backgrounds, coming up with
similar
similar
ideas, producing
with
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”
“Companies have
defined so much
‘best practice’
that they are now
more or less
identical.”
—Jesper Kunde, Unique Now ... or Never
“The [Starbucks] Fix” Is on …
“We have
identified a ‘third
place.’
And I really believe
that sets us apart. The third place is
that place that’s not work or home. It’s
the place our customers come for
refuge.” —Nancy Orsolini, District Manager
Warren Goes
Shopping …
Q: “Why did you buy
Jordan’s Furniture?”
A: “Jordan’s is
It’s all
showmanship.”
spectacular.
Source: Warren Buffet interview/Boston Sunday Globe/12.05.04
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*
Customer Success/Implemented
Gamechanging Solutions
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
*Theatrical Skills (Degree: Theater Arts)
Beyond the “Transaction”/ “Satisfaction” Mentality
“Good hotel”/ “Happy guest”/
“Exceeded Expectations”
vs.
“Great Vacation”/
“Great Conference”/
“Operation Personal
Renewal”
C
*Chief e
O*
Xperience Officer
Hire a
theater director,
as a consultant
or FTE!
First Step (?!):
“Car designers need to create a
story. Every car provides an
opportunity to create an adventure.
…
“The Prowler makes you smile.
Why? Because it’s focused. It has a
plot, a reason for being, a passion.”
Freeman Thomas, co-designer VW Beetle; designer Audi TT
Hmmmm(?): “Only” Words …
Story
Adventure
Smile
Focus
Plot
Passion
“Most executives have
no idea how to add value
to a market in the
metaphysical world. But
that is what the market will cry
out for in the future. There is no
lack of ‘physical’ products to
choose between.”
Jesper Kunde, Unique Now ... or Never [on the
excellence of Nokia, Nike, Lego, Virgin et al.]
Extraction & Goods:
Male dominance
Services &
Female
dominance
Experiences:
#26.2.1
Planetree:
A Radical Model for New
Healthcare/Healing/
Wellness Excellence
"All sane persons agree that 'healthcare needs an overhaul.' And that's where
the agreement stops. Healthcare issues are thorny, and system panaceas are
about as likely as the sun rising in the West. But there is good news here and
there--and great news courtesy the Planetree Model.
"In the midst of ceaseless gnashing of teeth over 'healthcare issues,' the
patient and frontline staff often get lost in the shuffle. Enter Planetree. While
oceanic systemic solutions remain out of reach, Planetree provides a
remarkable demonstration of what healthcare--with the patient at the center-can be all about; and is all about among Planetree Alliance members.
"I know this may sound ridiculous, but everything about the 'model' works. It
is great for patients and their families--and is truly about humanity and
healing and health and longterm wellness, not just a 'fix' for today's problem.
It is great for staff--Planetree-Griffin is rightly near the top of the 'best places
to work in America' list, year in and year out. And Planetree also works as a
'business model'--any effectiveness measure you can name is in the Green
Zone at Griffith.
"For 25 years my 'gig' has been 'excellence.' Put simply, there is no better
exemplar of customer-centered, employee-friendly excellence, in any
industry, than Griffin-Planetree. The Planetree model works--and in my
extensive work in the health sector, I 'sell' it shamelessly, and pray that my
clients are taking it all in."
tom peters/response to request for comment on Planetree
The 9 Planetree Practices
1. The Importance of Human Interaction
2. Informing and Empowering Diverse Populations: Consumer
Health Libraries and Patient Information
3. Healing Partnerships: The importance of Including
Friends and Family
4. Nutrition: The Nurturing Aspect of Food
5. Spirituality: Inner Resources for Healing
6. Human Touch: The Essentials of Communicating
Caring Through Massage
7. Healing Arts: Nutrition for the Soul
8. Integrating Complementary and Alternative Practices
into Conventional Care
9. Healing Environments: Architecture and Design
Conducive to Health
Source: Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
The Patient-Family Experience
“Patients are stripped of control, their clothes are
taken away, they have little say over their schedule,
and they are deliberately separated from their family
and friends. Healthcare professionals control all of the
information about their patients’ bodies and access to
the people who can answer questions and connect them
with helpful resources. Families are treated more as
intruders than loved ones.” Putting Patients First
—
Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
,
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
PS directly related to Staff Interaction
PS directly correlated with Employee
Satisfaction
Source: Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
“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 can be argued that negative
interactions—alienating patients, being non-responsive 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.” —Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton,
Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
Care Partner Programs
(IDs, discount meals, etc.)
Unrestricted visits (“Most Planetree hospitals
have eliminated visiting restrictions altogether.”) (ER at one
hospital “has a policy of never separating the patient from the
family, and there is no limitation on how many family members
may be present.”)
Collaborative Care Conferences
Clinical Guidelines Discussions
Family Spaces
Pet Visits (POP: Patients’ Own Pets)
Source: Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
Griffin:
Music in the parking
lot; professional musicians in
the lobby (7/week, 3-4hrs/day) ;
5 pianos ;
volunteers (120-140 hrs arts &
entertainment per month).
Source: Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
“Planetree Look”
Woods and natural materials
Indirect lighting
Homelike settings
Goals: Welcome patients, friends and
family … Value humans over technology ..
Enable patients to participate in their care
… Provide flexibility to personalize the
care of each patient … Encourage
caregivers to be responsive to patients …
Foster a connection to nature and beauty
Source: Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
Access to nurses station:
“Happen to”
vs
“Happen with”
Source: Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
Conclusion:
Caring/Growth
“Experience”
“It was the goal of
Planetree to help
patients not only get
well faster but also to
stay well longer.”
—Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton,
Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
(Planetree Alliance/Griffin Hospital)
Care!/Love!/Spirit!
Self-Control!
Connect!/learn!/
involve!/Engage!
Understanding!/Growth!
De-stress!/heal!
Whole patient & family
& friends!
be well!/stay well!
“Planetree is about
human beings
caring for other
human beings.”
—Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin,
Patrick Charmel (“Ladies and gentlemen serving
ladies and gentlemen”—4S credo)
f.y.i.
Griffin Hospital/Derby CT (Planetree Alliance “HQ”) Results:
Financially successful.
Expanding programsphysically. Growing market
share. Only hospital in “100
Best Cos to Work for”—
7 consecutive years,
currently #6.
—“Five-Star Hospitals,” Joe Flower,
strategy+business (#42)
“What’s Really Propping
Up the Economy:
Healthcare has added 1.7
million jobs since 2001.
The rest of the private
sector? None.”
Source: Title, cover story, BusinessWeek, 0925.2006
#26.2.1.1
TP & Healthcare/May 2008:
***Prevention and wellness
***Population outcomes, outcomes in general;
key metrics
***EMR, info-tech for procedural integration and guidance for
evidence-based treatment.
***Safety
***Quality
***Chronic care
***Provision of the basics
***Simple tools (Checklists)
***Clinical micro-systems (Patient Care Teams)
***Patient Quarterbacks (Family Practice specialists,
PAs, Nurses)
***Patient-centric/Healing environments (Planetree/Griffin)
***Evidence-based medicine
***Primary care
***Overtreatment
***Obesity
“If we sent 30 percent
of the doctors in this
country to Africa, we
might raise the level of
health on both
continents.” —Dr Elliott Fisher,
Center of Evaluative Clinical Sciences, Dartmouth Medical School
(“Overdose,” Atlantic, Shannon Brownlee.)
“1-in-7 Chance
of Medical
Mishap: Health
Ministry Report”
Source: Headline, The Press, Christchurch, NZ,
0216.08 (odds of a screw-up during a hospital stay)
DVM/Lyme/2005-2008
**Multiple diagnoses (>5)
**Specialist self-certainty
**Health deterioration failed to produce urgencycommunication
**Virtually no communications between specialists
**Follow-up very spotty unless bugged incessantly
**Lost major test results, mis-placed 3 or 4
occasions
**Near fatal drug mistake (one nurse takes charge)
**Effectively, disinterest in chronic-care
**Lack of curiosity
#26.2.2
Excellence.
Bank on it.
(commerce bank.)
The Commerce Bank Model
“Are you going to cost cut
your way to prosperity?
Or …
are you going to spend your
way to prosperity?”
Source: Fans! Not customers. How Commerce Bank
Created a Super-growth Business in a No-growth Industry,
Vernon Hill & Bob Andelman
The Commerce Bank Model
*deposit focused.
*Customer value-added.
*Great retail experience.
*Best facilities. Best locations.
*No stupid rules.
*Driven by revenue growth,
not cost reduction.
Source: Fans! Not customers. How Commerce Bank
Created a Super-growth Business in a No-growth Industry,
Vernon Hill & Bob Andelman
The Commerce Bank Model
“cost cutting
is a death
spiral.”
Source: Fans! Not customers. How Commerce Bank
Created a Super-growth Business in a No-growth Industry,
Vernon Hill & Bob Andelman
“Our whole
story is
growing
revenue.”
—Vernon Hills (Top-line driven; standard
is bottom-line driven by cost cutting)
The Commerce Bank Model
“over-invest in our
people, over-invest
in our facilities.”
Source: Fans! Not customers. How Commerce Bank
Created a Super-growth Business in a No-growth Industry,
Vernon Hill & Bob Andelman
The Commerce Bank Model
“we want
them in our
stores.”
Source: Fans! Not customers. How Commerce Bank
Created a Super-growth Business in a No-growth Industry,
Vernon Hill & Bob Andelman
Commerce Bank: From “Service” to “Experience”
7X. 730A800P. F12A.*
*’93-’03/10 yr annual return: CB: 29%;
WM: 17%; HD: 16%. Mkt Cap: 48% p.a.
The Commerce Bank Model
“we don’t accept the 80/20 theory.
We believe every customer has
value, that you can’t tell which
one is the high-value customer
over time, and that that
philosophy degrades the brand.”
Source: Fans! Not customers. How Commerce Bank
Created a Super-growth Business in a No-growth Industry,
Vernon Hill & Bob Andelman
The Commerce Bank Model
“every computer at commerce bank has a
special red key on it that
says, ‘found something stupid that we are doing
that interferes with our ability to service the
customer? Tell us about it, and if we agree, we
will give you $50.’”
Source: Fans! Not customers. How Commerce Bank
Created a Super-growth Business in a No-growth Industry,
Vernon Hill & Bob Andelman
YESBANK*
*Commerce Bank
“You do not merely want to be
You
want to be
considered the
only ones who
do what you
do.”
the best of the best.
—Jerry Garcia
#26.2.3
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!)
The Small*Mart
Revolution: How
Local Businesses
Are Beating Local
Competition
—Michael Shuman
#26.2.3
<TGW
vs.
>TGR
[Things Gone WRONG/Things Gone RIGHT]
“Perfection is achieved
only by institutions on the
point of collapse.”
— C. Northcote Parkinson
3M’s Innovation
Crisis: How Six Sigma
Almost Smothered
Its Idea Culture
Source: Title/Cover Story, BW, 0611.07 (“What’s remarkable is
how fast a culture can be torn apart,” 3M lead scientist; “In
an innovation economy, [6 Sigma] is no longer a cure all”/BW)
“What Rikyu
demanded was not
cleanliness alone,
but the beautiful
and the natural
also.”
—Kakuzo Okakura, The Book of Tea
“Rikyu was watching his son Sho-an as he
swept and watered the garden path. ‘Not clean
enough,’ said Rikyu, when Sho-an had finished
his task, and bade him try again. After a weary
hour, the son turned to Rikyu: ‘Father, there is
nothing more to be done. The steps have been
washed for the third time, the stone planters
and the trees are well sprinkled with water,
moss and lichens are shining with a fresh
verdure; not a twig, not a leaf have I left on the
ground.’ ‘Young fool,’ chided the tea-master,
‘that is not the way a garden path should be
swept.’ Saying this, Rikyu stepped into the
garden, shook a tree and scattered over the
garden gold and crimson leaves, scraps of the
brocade of autumn! What Rikyu demanded was
not cleanliness alone, but the beautiful and the
natural also.” —Kakuzo Okakura, The Book of Tea
Masters of “TGR” Cont.
Granite Rock Co.
(Cross it out if you think we did it poorly)
Elgin Corrugated Box
(days before-after promised delivery)
Up,
Up,
Up,
Up
the Value-added Ladder.
#26.3
EXCELLENCE.
SOUL I.
DESIGN.
“You know a
design is good
when you want
to lick it.”
—Steve Jobs
Source: Design: Intelligence Made Visible,
Stephen Bayley & Terence Conran
The Value-added Ladder/ MEMORABLE CONNECTION
Spellbinding Experiences
via
“Soul” Through Design*
Customer Success/
Implemented Gamechanging Solutions
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
*
*Blending Beauty, Usability, Theatricality (Degree: MFA/
Master of Fine Arts, “D-school,” Cultural Anthropology)
“Business people
don’t need to
‘understand
designers better.’
Businesspeople need
to be designers.”
—Roger Martin/Dean/Rotman Management School/
University of Toronto
Message (?????):
cannot
Men
design for women’s
needs.
“Perhaps the macho
look can be interesting
… if you want to fight
dinosaurs. But now to
survive you need
intelligence, not power and
aggression. Modern
intelligence means
intuition—it’s female.”
Source: Philippe Starck, Harvard Design Magazine
#26.3.1
EXCELLENCE.
SYSTEMS.
DESIGN.
K.I.S.S.
Lisbon/New Biz:
Weeks
to …
Minutes
(!!!!)
450/8
Great design =
One-page
business plan
(Jim Horan)
First Steps: “Beauty Contest”!
1. Select one form/document:
invoice, airbill, sick leave policy,
customer returns claim form.
2. Rate the selected doc on a scale of
1 to 10 [1 = Bureaucratica
Obscuranta/Sucks; 10 = Work of
Art] on four dimensions:
Beauty. Grace.
Clarity. Simplicity.
3. Re-invent!
4. Repeat, with a new selection,
every 15 working days.
Beauty
Grace
Clarity
Simplicity
“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.’”
—Charles Handy
“I assume that it is just
saying that it is there to
‘help its customers
wherever they are’.”
—Charles Handy
“Seek honest, minimalist management.
Look for companies run by a team that
explains things clearly and briefly. …
You can tell a lot about the firm by
reading an annual report or two. If
management can’t explain the
business in plain English, move
on to another firm. If you see
phrases like ‘creating knowledge-based
value in emerging markets’ … someone
is trying to pull the wool over your eyes,
you lazy Fool. Run.” —Seth Jayson, “Stocks for the
Lazy Investor,” The Motley Fool
The Value-added Ladder/
MEMORABLE CONNECTION
COURTESY THE “ENTIRE SUPPLY CHAIN”
Work as Art*
Customer Success/
Implemented Gamechanging Solutions
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
*Artists and Process Engineers working in tandem
#26.4
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
“No longer are we only an insurance
provider. Today, we also offer
our customers the products
and services that help them
achieve their dreams —
whether it’s financial security, buying
a car, paying for home repairs, or even
taking a dream vacation.” —Martin
Feinstein, CEO, Farmers Group
The Marketing of Dreams (Dreamketing)
Dreamketing: Touching the clients’ dreams.
Dreamketing: The art of telling stories
and entertaining.
Dreamketing: Promote the dream,
not the product.
Dreamketing: Build the brand around
the main dream.
Dreamketing: Build the “buzz,” the
“hype,” the “cult.”
Source: Gian Luigi Longinotti-Buitoni
Up,
Up,
Up,
Up
the Value-added Ladder.
The Value-added Ladder/ EMOTION
Dreams Come True*
Design-driven Spellbinding
Experiences
Customer Success/Implemented
Gamechanging Solutions
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
*Psychologists (Degree: Psychology)
C
*Chief Dream Merchant
Six Market Profiles
1. Adventures for Sale
2. The Market for Togetherness,
Friendship and Love
3. The Market for Care
4. The Who-Am-I Market
5. The Market for Peace of Mind
6. The Market for Convictions
Rolf Jensen/The Dream Society: How the Coming Shift from
Information to Imagination Will Transform Your Business
Six Market Profiles
1. Adventures for Sale/ IBM-UPS
2. The Market for Togetherness, Friendship
and Love/ IBM-UPS
3. The Market for Care/ IBM-UPS
4. The Who-Am-I Market/ IBM-UPS
5. The Market for Peace of Mind/ IBM-UPS
6. The Market for Convictions/ IBM-UPS
Rolf Jensen/The Dream Society: How the Coming Shift from
Information to Imagination Will Transform Your Business
“The sun is setting on the Information Society—even
before we have fully adjusted to its demands as
individuals and as companies. We have lived as hunters
and as farmers, we have worked in factories and now we
live in an information-based society whose icon is the
We stand facing the
fifth kind of society: the
Dream Society. … Future products will
computer.
have to appeal to our hearts, not to our heads. Now is the
time to add emotional value to products and services.”
Rolf Jensen/The Dream Society:How the Coming Shift from
Information to Imagination Will Transform Your Business
#26.4.1
EXCELLENCE.
SOUL II.
THE STORY.
“Storytelling
is the core
of culture.”
—Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch,
College Inc., and Museumworld, James Twitchell
Market Power =
Story Power
Best
story
wins!
C
O*
*Chief Storytelling Officer
“We are in the twilight of a society based on data. As
information and intelligence become the domain of
computers, society will place more value on the one human
ability that cannot be automated: emotion. Imagination, myth,
ritual - the language of emotion - will affect everything from
our purchasing decisions to how we work with others.
Companies will thrive on
the basis of their stories
and myths.
Companies will need to
understand that their products are less important than their
stories.” —Rolf Jensen, Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies
The Value-added Ladder/ EMOTION
Dreams Come
True/Best Story Wins*
Design-driven Spellbinding Experiences
Customer Success/Implemented
Gamechanging Solutions
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
*Anthropology (Degree: Anthropology)
#26.5
EXCELLENCE.
VALUE-ADDED LADDER III.
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE.
“Brands have
run out of
juice. They’re
dead.”
—Kevin Roberts/Saatchi & Saatchi
“Brands Are Out of Juice”
1. Brands are worn out from overuse.
2. Brands are no longer mysterious.
3. Brands can’t understand the new consumer.
4. Brands struggle with good old-fashioned
competition.
5. Brands have been captured by formula.
6. Brands have been smothered by creeping
conservatism.
Source: Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands, Kevin Roberts
Kevin Roberts:
Lovemarks!
“When I first suggested that Love was the
way to transform business, grown CEOs
blushed and slid down behind annual
accounts. But I kept at them. I knew it was
Love that was missing. I knew that Love
was the only way to ante up the emotional
temperature and create the new kinds of
relationships brands needed. I knew that
Love was the only way business could
respond to the rapid shift in control to
consumers.” —Kevin Roberts/Lovemarks
Brand …………………………………………………. Lovemark
Recognized by consumers ………………. Loved by People
Generic ………………………………………………… Personal
Presents a narrative ………………….. Creates a Love story
The promise of quality ……………… A touch of Sensuality
Symbolic ………………………………………………….. Iconic
Defined ………………………………………………….. Infused
Statement ………………………………………………….. Story
Defined attributes ……………………... Wrapped in Mystery
Values ………………………………………………………. Spirit
Professional …………………………... Passionately Creative
Advertising agency ………………………….. Ideas company
Source: Kevin Roberts, Lovemarks
“When we were working
through the essentials of a
Mystery
Lovemark,
was always at the top of the
list.”
—Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands, Kevin Roberts
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
Top 10 “Tattoo Brands”*
Harley .… 18.9%
Disney .... 14.8
Coke …. 7.7
Google .... 6.6
Pepsi .... 6.1
Rolex …. 5.6
Bunge … ??
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/
Best Story Wins
Spellbinding Experiences/
“Soul” Through Design
Customer Success/Implemented
Gamechanging Solutions
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
*Passion (Degree: ????)
C
O*
*Chief Lovemark Officer
Up,
Up,
Up,
Up
the Value-added Ladder.
#26.6
Ladder.2008: 4 of 7!
Lovemark
Dreams Come True
Spellbinding Experiences
Gamechanging Solutions
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
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-M
Goods/M
Raw Materials/M
Note #1:
Men: Reductionist/
Things
Women: Holistic/
Relationships
Note #2: The
composition
of work groups engaged
in the “4 of 7” “new
steps” on the Ladder
must “look like” the
global market we serve!
#26.7
EXCELLENCE.
DOES MATTER
MATTER?
“What Isn’t
Matter Is What
Matters”
—section title, Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch,
College Inc., and Museumworld, James Twitchell
VA “Teaching Moment”
“Andy pointed to
a molding,
about halfway
up the wall …”
The Boot … and
Timberland
The Tomato/
Farmer … and
Campbell’s
Ladder.2008: 4 of 7!
Lovemark
Dreams Come True
Spellbinding Experiences
Gamechanging Solutions
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
#26.7.1
EXCELLENCE.
NEW VALUE
EQUATION.
NEW “C-levels”.
C.E.O.
to
C.D.O.
C
*Chief
O*
Revenue
Officer
C
*Chief e
O*
Xperience
Officer
C
*Chief Dream Merchant
C
O*
*Chief Festivals Officer
C
*Chief Portal Impresario
C
W
M*
*Chief WikiWorld Maniac
C
O*
*Chief Conversations Officer
C
O*
*Chief Lovemark Officer
C
O*
*Chief Seduction Officer
C
O*
*Chief Storytelling Officer
O*
C
*Chief
Design
Officer
C
O*
*Chief talent acquisition Officer
C
O*
*Chief freaks acquisition Officer
C
O*
*Chief quest-meister
C
O*
*Chief Thrills Officer
C
O*
*Chief WOW Officer
*
C
o
Chief DESTRUCTION Officer
C
o*
*Chief Transcendence Officer
C
*Chief
O*
!
Officer
EXCELLENCE.
BEDROCK.
LEADERSHIP.
THE 9Ps.
THE 1M.
L(+21) = L(-21)
Leadership(21A.D.) =
Leadership(21B.C.)
THE 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)
“I never, ever thought of
myself as a businessman.
I was interested in
creating things
I would be
proud of.” —Richard Branson
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Potent.
Positive.
“I am a …
Dispenser of
Enthusiasm!”
—Ben Zander
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
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.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Potent.
Positive.
MBWA
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Potent.
Positive.
“You must
be
the change you
wish to see in the
world.”
Gandhi
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
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
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!
“Do one thing
every day
that scares
you.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt
“Ever notice that
‘what the hell’ is
always the right
decision?”
Source: unknown Hollywood script writer (courtesy The Borealis Press)
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Potent.
Positive.
“[other]
admirals more
frightened of
losing than
anxious to win”
On NELSON:
PURPOSE.
PASSION.
Potential.
Presence.
Personal.
PERSISTENCE.
PEOPLE.
Potent.
Positive.
The 1m
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
#28
“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)
Excellence Is a
Universal
Striving.
If Not
Excellence,
What?
#29
Geron-imo!
"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)
EXCELLE
ALWAYS