Brand
Inside
Tom Peters
Omnicom02.28.2002
1. An “Action
Culture.”
Forbes100 from 1917 to 1987: 39
members of the Class of ’17 were alive
in ’87; 18 in ’87 F100; 18 F100
“survivors” underperformed the market
by 20%; just 2 (2%), GE & Kodak,
outperformed the market 1917 to 1987.
S&P 500 from 1957 to 1997: 74 members of the Class of ’57 were
alive in ’97; 12 (2.4%) of 500 outperformed the market from 1957
to 1997.
Source: Dick Foster & Sarah Kaplan, Creative Destruction: Why
Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market
“Good management was the most
powerful reason [leading firms] failed
to stay atop their industries. Precisely
because these firms listened to their customers,
invested aggressively in technologies that would
provide their customers more and better
products of the sort they wanted, and because
they carefully studied market trends and
systematically allocated investment capital to
innovations that promised the best returns, they
lost their positions of leadership.”
Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma
“Active mutators in placid
times tend to die off. They
are selected against.
Reluctant mutators in
quickly changing times are
also selected against.”
Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan,
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Wendell Phillips, abolitionist:
“Republics exist only on the
tenure of being constantly
agitated. There is no
republican road to safety
but in constant distrust.”
Source: Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club:
A Story of Ideas in America
Cortez!
The [New] Ge Way
DYB.com
Leaders “dump
the
ones who brung
’em” —Nokia, HP, 3M,
PerkinElmer, Corning, etc.
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
The Kotler Doctrine:
1965-1980: R.A.F.
(Ready.Aim.Fire.)
1980-1995: R.F.A.
(Ready.Fire!Aim.)
1995-????: F.F.F.
(Fire!Fire!Fire!)
“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
2. Work that
Matters: WOW
Projects/
BHAGs.
“Let’s make a
dent in the
universe.”
Steve Jobs
“Intimidate their
[users] imaginations”
… “Where’s the
revolution?” –J Allard,
on the Xbox
Language
matters! Wow!
BHAG! “Takes
your breath
away!”
1st Law Mktg Physics: OVERT BENEFIT (Focus: 1 or 2 > 3 or
4/“One Great Thing.”
Source #1: Personal Passion)
2ND Law: REAL REASON TO BELIEVE (Stand & Deliver!)
3RD Law: DRAMATIC
DIFFERENCE (Execs Don’t Get It:
“intent to purchase” – 100%; “unique” – 0% to
5%)
Source: Jump Start Your Business Brain, Doug Hall
Characteristics of the “Also rans”*
“Minimize risk”
“Respect the chain of
command”
“Support the boss”
“Make budget”
*Fortune, article on
“Most Admired Global Corporations”
3. Demo
Mania.
Demos!
Heroes!
Stories!
“A key – perhaps the key –
to leadership is
the effective
communication
of a story.”
Howard Gardner
Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership
G.M. … V.C. …
W.P. …
M.B.S.A.
Each VP a V.C.: Portfolio
of high-risk investments in
people & ideas from all
across the company.
4. Web World =
ALL: The
“Friction-free
Enterprise.”
108 X 5
vs.
8X1
= 540 vs. 8 (-98.5%)
N.W.O./Holy Moly:
Unemployment up 2%
… Real wage growth
highest since 60s …
Productivity soaring.
Source: BW/02.11.2002
Dell’s OptiPlex Facility
Big Job: 6
to 8 hours.
(80,000 per day)
Parts Inventory:
square feet.
Cisco!
90% of $20B (=$50M/day)
Annual savings in service
and support from customer
self-management: $550M
(P.S.: C.Sat e >> C.Sat h)
The Real “News”: X1,000,000
TowTruckNet.com
WebWorld = Everything
Web as a way to run your business’s innards
Web as connector for your entire supply-demand chain
Web as “spider’s web” which re-conceives the industry
Web/B2B as ultimate wake-up call to
“commodity producers”
Web as the scourge of slack, inefficiency, sloth,
bureaucracy, poor customer data
Web as an Encompassing Way of Life
Web = Everything (P.D. to after-sales)
Web forces you to focus on what you do best
Web as entrée, at any size, to World’s Best at Everything
as next door neighbor
Message: eCommerce
is not a
technology play! It is a
relationship, partnership,
organizational and
communications play, made
possible by new
technologies.
Message: There
is no such
thing as an effective B2B or
Internet-supply chain
strategy in a low-trust,
bottleneckedcommunication, six-layer
organization.
“Ebusiness is about rebuilding
the organization from the
ground up. Most companies today
are not built to exploit the Internet.
Their business processes, their
approvals, their hierarchies, the
number of people they employ … all of
that is wrong for running an
ebusiness.”
Ray Lane, Kleiner Perkins
CGE&Y (Paul Cole): “Pleasant
“Systemic
Opportunity.” “Better job
of what we do today” vs. “Rethink overall
enterprise strategy.”
Transaction” vs.
Suppose, just suppose, that the Web is a new world
we’re just beginning to inhabit. We’re like the earlier
European settlers in the United States, living on the
edge of the forest. We don’t know what’s there and we
don’t know exactly what we need to do to find out: Do
we pack mountain climbing gear, desert wear, canoes,
or all three? Of course while the settlers may not have
known what the geography of the new world was
going to be, they at least knew that there was a
geography. The Web, on the other hand, has no
geography, no landscape. It has no distance. It has
nothing natural in it. It has few rules of behavior and
fewer lines of authority. Common sense doesn’t hold
here, and uncommon sense hasn’t yet emerged.”
David Weinberger, Small Pieces Loosely Joined
“There’s no use trying,” said Alice.
“One can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much
practice,” said the Queen. “When I was
your age, I always did it for half an
hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve
believed as many as six impossible
things before breakfast.”
Lewis Carroll
I’net …
allows you to
dream dreams
you could never
have dreamed
before!
…
Q: Is that all there is?
A: Quite possibly.
“Roche’s New Scientific Method”—
Fast Company. And? X-Functional
Teams (NO STOVEPIPES!).
“Fail fast.” “The only way to
embrace a technological revolution,
Roche has discovered, is to unleash
an organizational revolution.”
5. “Beautiful”
Systems.
Fred S.’s “mediocre”
thesis. Herb K.’s
napkin.
Read It Closely: “We
don’t sell
We
sell speed.”
insurance anymore.
Peter Lewis, Progressive
Great design =
One-page
business plan (Jim
Horan)
K.I.S.S.:
Gordon Bell (VAX
500/50.
daddy):
Chas.
Wang (CA): Behind schedule?
Cut least
productive 25%.
“Most companies would do more
business on the Internet if they
fired their entire marketing
department and replaced it with
people who could produce
interactive content that actually
made it easier for users to buy.”
Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group
SWA
Simple!!!!!!!!!!!! (customers call
because the process is so easy they can’t
believe they’re done)
30% of revenues directly from
site (vs. 6% for others)
Source: Business Week (09.00)
Danger:
S.I.O.
(Strategic
Initiative Overload)
1@T: (1) Neutron
JackWorld/
Jack. (Banish bureaucracy.) (2) “1, 2
or out” Jack. (Lead or leave.) (3)
“Workout” Jack. (Empowerment,
GE style.) (4) 6-Sigma Jack. (5)
Internet Jack. (Throughout)
TALENT JACK!
have. Must
hate. / Must
design. Must undesign.
Systems: Must
Mgt. Team
includes … EVP
(S.O.U.B.)
Executive Vice President, Stomping Out Unnecessary Bullshit
Revised wisdom: Forget
“best
practice” (stultifying).
Concentrate on: Driving
out “worst practice.”
Source: Equinox Manifesto (12.01)
“Ninety percent of what
we call ‘management’
consists of making it
difficult for people to
get things done.” – P.D.
6. The “Solutions
Imperative”: New
Bases for Value
Added.
The
Day!
09.11.2000: HP bids
$18,000,000,000
for
PricewaterhouseCoopers
consulting business!
“These days, building
the best server isn’t
enough. That’s the
price of entry.”
Ann Livermore, Hewlett-Packard
“We want to be the
air traffic
controllers of
electrons.”
Bob Nardelli, GE Power Systems
“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/06.01 (E.g., UPS Logistics manages
the logistics of 4.5M Ford vehicles, from 21 mfg.
sites to 6,000 NA dealers)
Keep In Mind:
Customer
Satisfaction
versus
Customer
Success
7. Talent:
The 25/8/53
Obsession.
25/8/53*
(*Damn it!)
“The leaders of Great
Groups love talent and know
where to find it. They revel in
the talent of others.”
Warren Bennis & Patricia Ward Biederman,
Organizing Genius
From “1, 2 or you’re out” [JW]
to …
“Best Talent in each
industry segment to build
best proprietary
intangibles” [EM]
Source: Ed Michaels, War for Talent (05.17.00)
“We believe companies can increase their
market cap 50 percent in 3 years. Steve
changed 20 of
his 40 box plant managers to put
more talented, higher paid
managers in charge. He increased
Macadam at Georgia-Pacific
profitability from $25 million to $80 million in 2
years.”
Ed Michaels, War for Talent (05.17.00)
Message: Some
people are
better than other
people. Some people
are a helluva lot
better than other
people.
8. Automatic
Renewal:
The “HSDE.”
Saviors-in-Waiting
Disgruntled Customers
Upstart Competitors
Rogue Employees
Fringe Suppliers
Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision
“The corporate faith in big
industrial mergers [2/3rds of which
is a vestige of the
spats-and-spittoons era.”
fail]
—James Suroweicki, The New Yorker (More, a Buffett annualreport quote: “Many managers were overexposed in
impressionable childhood years to the story in which
the imprisoned handsome prince is released from a
toad’s body by a kiss from the beautiful princess.”)
CUSTOMERS: “Futuredefining customers may
account for only 2% to 3%
of your total, but they
represent a crucial
window on the future.”
Adrian Slywotzky, Mercer Consultants
COMPETITORS: “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
Employees: “Are there
enough weird
people in the lab these
days?”
V. Chmn., pharmaceutical house, to a lab director (06.01)
The Cracked Ones Let in the Light
“Our business needs a massive
transfusion of talent, and talent, I
believe, is most likely to be found
among non-conformists,
dissenters and rebels.”
David Ogilvy
Suppliers: There
is an ominous
downside to strategic supplier
relationships. An SSR supplier is not
likely to function as any more than a mirror
to your organization. Fringe suppliers that
offer innovative business practices need
not apply.”
Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision: Beat the Competition by Focusing on
Fringe Competitors, Lost Customers, and Rogue Employees
WE
BECOME WHO
WE HANG
WITH!
Leaders know …
WEIRD IDEAS THAT WORK: (1) Hire slow learners (of the
organizational code). (1.5) Hire people who make you
uncomfortable, even those you dislike. (2) Hire people you
(probably) don’t need. (3) Use job interviews to get ideas, not
to screen candidates. (4) Encourage people to ignore and defy
superiors and peers. (5) Find some happy people and get them
to fight. (6) Reward success and failure, punish inaction.
(7) Decide to do something that will probably fail, then convince
yourself and everyone else that success is certain. (8) Think of
some ridiculous, impractical things to do, then do them.
(9) Avoid, distract, and bore customers, critics, and anyone who
just wants to talk about money. (10) Don’t try to learn anything
from people who seem to have solved the problems you face.
(11) Forget the past, particularly your company’s success.
Bob Sutton, Weird Ideas that Work: 11½ Ideas for Promoting,
Managing and Sustaining Innovation
9. Cherish
FAILURES.
The Gales of Creative Destruction
+29M = -44M + 73M
+4M = +4M - 0M
“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 (and, de facto, Jack)
Read This!
Whoever
Makes the Most
Mistakes Wins: The
Paradox of Innovation
Richard Farson & Ralph Keyes:
10. Talent II:
The “Check-out
Clerks Test.”
New World of Work
< 1 in 10 F500
#1: Manpower Inc.
Freelancers/I.C.: 16M-25M
Temps: 3M (incl. CEOs & lawyers)
Microbusinesses: 12M-27M
Total: 31M-55M
Source: Daniel Pink, Free Agent Nation
Leaders-Teachers Do Not “Transform People”!
Instead leaders-mentors-teachers (1) provide a
context which is marked by (2) access to a luxuriant
portfolio of meaningful opportunities (projects) which
(3) allow people to fully (and safely, mostly—caveat: “they”
don’t engage unless they’re “mad about something”) express
their innate curiosity and (4) engage in a vigorous
discovery voyage (alone and in small teams, assisted by an
extensive self-constructed network) by which those people
(5) go to-create places they (and their mentors-teachersleaders) had never dreamed existed—and then the
leaders-mentors-teachers (6) applaud like hell, stage
“photo-ops,” and ring the church bells
100 times to commemorate the bravery of their
“followers’ ” explorations!
Minimum New Work SurvivalSkillsKit2001
Mastery
Rolodex Obsession (vert. to horiz. “loyalty”)
Entrepreneurial Instinct
CEO/Leader/Businessperson/Closer
Mistress of Improv
Sense of Humor
Intense Appetite for Technology
Groveling Before the Young
Embracing “Marketing”
Passion for Renewal
“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
Brand You, Big Time!
I AM AN
ARMY OF
ONE
11. “A Place
Worth Working
For.”
MantraM3
Talent = Brand
What’s your company’s …
Employee Value Proposition, per Ed
Michaels et al., The War for Talent
EVP = Challenge,
professional growth,
respect, satisfaction,
opportunity, reward
Source: Ed Michaels et al., The War for Talent
“Soft” Is
“Hard”
- ISOE
Message: Leadership is
all about love! [Passion,
Enthusiasms, Appetite for Life,
Engagement, Commitment, Great
Causes & Determination to Make a
Damn Difference, Shared Adventures,
Bizarre Failures, Growth, Insatiable
Appetite for Change.] [Otherwise, why bother?
Just read Dilbert. TP’s final words: CYNICISM SUCKS.]
G.H.:
“Create a
‘cause,’ not
a ‘business.’ ”
1.
2.
3.
4.
An “Action Culture.”
Work that Matters: WOW Projects/BHAGS.
Demo Mania.
Web World = ALL: The “Friction-free
Enterprise.
5. “Beautiful” Systems.
6. “Departments” as Heroes: New Bases for
Value Added.
7. Talent: The 25/8/53 Obsession.
8. Automatic Renewal: The “HSDE.”
9. Cherish FAILURES.
10. Talent II: The “Check-out Clerks Test.”
11. Brand Inside: “A Place Worth
Working For.”