Tom Peters’
Re-Imagine
EXCELLENCE
!
Initially prepared for:
e-town Festival
Edmonton Economic Development
Edmonton/12 September 2014; modified & expanded 17 September 2014
(For more see tompeters.com and our fully annotated 23-part Master
Compendium [Mother of All Presentations] at excellencenow.com.)
CONRAD HILTON …
CONRAD HILTON, at a gala celebrating
his career, was called to the podium and
“What were the
most important
lessons you learned
in your long and
distinguished
career?” His answer …
asked,
“Remember
to tuck the
shower curtain
inside the
bathtub.”
They come for “location, location,
location.” They …
COME
BACK … because of the tucked-in
shower curtain.
(And [
ALL] the profit is made on the
return visits and recommendations to
others.)
IS
“EXECUTION
STRATEGY.”
—Fred Malek
“Amateurs talk
about strategy.
Professionals talk
about logistics.”
—Omar Bradley, commander of American troops/D-Day
“In real life, strategy
is actually very
straightforward.
Pick a general
and
implement
like hell.”
direction
…
—Jack Welch
“COSTCO FIGURED OUT
BIG,
SIMPLE THINGS
THE
AND
EXECUTED
WITH TOTAL
FANATICISM.”
—Charles Munger, Berkshire Hathaway
“EXECUTION IS
THE JOB OF
THE BUSINESS
LEADER.”
—Larry
Bossidy & Ram
Charan/ Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
No matter how crazy and disruptive the
times are … Execution Excellence is (as
always) the sine qua non of success and
durability.
BELIEVE IT.
!
EXCELLENCE
!
People
Customers
!
Values!
Action
!
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
In Search of Excellence in …
(No kidding.)
4
words.
EXCELLENCE is not a “longterm” "aspiration.”
EXCELLENCE is the ultimate
short-term strategy.
EXCELLENCE is … THE
NEXT
5
MINUTES.*
(*Or NOT.)
EXCELLENCE is not an "aspiration."
EXCELLENCE is … THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
is your next conversation.
is your next meeting.
is shutting up and listening—really listening.
is your next customer contact.
is saying “Thank you” for something “small.”
is the next time you shoulder responsibility and apologize.
is waaay over-reacting to a screw-up.
is the flowers you brought to work today.
is lending a hand to an “outsider” who’s fallen behind schedule.
is bothering to learn the way folks in finance (or IS or HR) think.
is waaay “over”-preparing for a 3-minute presentation.
is turning “insignificant” tasks into models of … EXCELLENCE.
WHY
NOT?
“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 pursuit of
EXCELLENCE in
service of others.**
**Employees, Customers, Suppliers, Communities, Owners, Temporary partners
Lecturing in Siberia. In April 2006.
Capitalism seeps into the farthest
corners of the world.
I laid out a vision for enterprise—at its
best.
I said there, and I say here:
WHY NOT?
People
People
People
People
It’s as obvious as the end of one’s nose
… but still honored in the breach far
more often than not. People first means
people first. (And along the way it’s the
best way to boost profit and growth.)
People:
1/4,096
4,096 slides in my 23-part MOAP/“Mother
Of All Presentations,” three years in the
making. ONE slide by definition had to
come first. This one, with a quote from
Richard Branson, was
#1:
“Business has to
give people
enriching,
rewarding lives …
1/4,096: excellencenow.com
“Business has to give people enriching,
or it's
simply not
worth doing.”
rewarding lives …
—Richard Branson
“You have to
treat your
employees like
customers.”
—Herb Kelleher,
upon being asked his “secret to success”
Source: Joe Nocera, NYT, “Parting Words of an Airline Pioneer,”
on the occasion of Herb Kelleher’s retirement after 37 years at Southwest
Airlines (SWA’s pilots union took out a full-page ad in USA Today
thanking HK for all he had done) ; across the way in Dallas, American
Airlines’ pilots were picketing AA’s Annual Meeting)
“hostmanship”/
“consideration
renovation”
hostmanship
“The path to a
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
exceptionalism is finding the right people and getting them to love their work and
see it as a passion. ... 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
“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
management has made customers its highest priority?’”
the staff. They were the ones we wanted
to make happy. We wanted them to wake up every morning excited
about a new day at work.” —Jan Gunnarsson and Olle Blohm, Hostmanship:
The Art of Making People Feel Welcome.
“ … 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?’”
Ponder this.
P-L-E-A-S-E.
(Take your time.)
EMPLOYEES FIRST, CUSTOMERS SECOND:
Turning Conventional Management Upside Down
Vineet Nayar/CEO/HCL Technologies
Rocket Science.
NOT.
“If you want staff to
give great service,
give great service
to staff.”
—Ari Weinzweig, Zingerman’s
Source: Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great
Instead of Big, Bo Burlingham
EXCELLENT
customer experience
depends … entirely …
on EXCELLENT
employee experience!
If you want to WOW your
FIRST
customers,
you
must WOW those who
WOW the customers!
I repeat. This is
rocket science.
NOT
Wegmans
(was #1/Best Company to Work For in USA)
Container Store
(was #1/Best Company to Work For in USA)
Whole Foods
Costco
Publix
Darden Restaurants
Build-A-Bear
Workshops
Starbucks
“They” say you can’t do this “people
stuff” in the likes of retail.
NONSENSE.
These were a few of the retailers on the
most recent list of “100 Best Companies
to Work for in America.” In the past,
a couple of these companies were in
fact
#1.
“Contrary to conventional
corporate thinking, treating
retail workers much better
may make everyone
(including their employers)
much richer.” * **
*Duh!
**Cited in particular, The Good Jobs Strategy, by M.I.T. professor Zeynep
Ton.
Duh
The Good Jobs Strategy:
How the Smartest
Companies Invest in
Employees to Lower Costs
& Boost Profits
—Zeynep Ton, MIT Sloan School
Notes: Cases all retail, include Costco and Trader Joe’s.
E.g., Costco: Average hourly pay $20.89—40% greater
than #1 competitor, Sam’s Club.
Read this.
“In a world where customers wake up
every morning asking, ‘What’s new, what’s
success
depends on a company’s
ability to unleash initiative,
imagination and passion of
employees at all levels —and this
different, what’s amazing?’
can only happen if all those folks are
connected heart and soul to their work
[their ‘calling’], their company and their
mission.” —John Mackey and Raj Sisoda, Conscious Capitalism:
Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business
Mackey is the CEO/founder of
Foods.
Whole
(The book is a gem; I’ve given close to 50
copies away.)
Brand =
Talent.
Our Mission
TO DEVELOP AND MANAGE TALENT;
TO APPLY THAT TALENT,
THROUGHOUT THE WORLD,
FOR THE BENEFIT OF CLIENTS;
TO DO SO IN PARTNERSHIP;
TO DO SO WITH PROFIT.
WPP
Profit ROCKS.
Profit is:
DERIVATIVE.
FROM
FASHION TRENDS GURU
TO KICKS FROM
PICKING/DEVELOPING
PEOPLE!*
Les Wexner:
*Limited Brands founder Les Wexner queried
on astounding longterm growth & profitability:
It happened because “I got as excited about
developing people” as he had been about
predicting fashion trends in his early years.
“G-E-N-I-U-S”
Getting more and more cantankerous (short tempered!)
about this:
Job #1 (& #2 & #3)
is to abet peoples' personal
growth. All other good things
flow there from.
My idea of a gen-u-ine "genius“
If you work your
heart out to help people grow,
they'll work their hearts out
to give customers a great
experience.
"breakthrough" idea:
I repeat. This is
rocket science.
NOT
"When I hire
someone, that's
when I go to
work for
them.”
—John DiJulius, "What's the Secret
to Providing a World-class Customer Experience"
DDOs/
Deliberately Developmental Organizations
“These companies operate on the
foundational assumptions that adults
can grow, that not only is attention to the
bottom line and the personal growth of all
employees desirable, but the two are
interdependent. Both profitability and individual
development rely on structures that are built into every
aspect of how the company operates. … Decurion and
Bridgewater [cases] offer a form of proof that the quest for
business excellence and the search for personal realization
need not be mutually exclusive—and can, in fact, be
essential to each other.”
E.g., At Bridgewater Associates, every employee (new hire to
CEO) has a
“crew”
that “supports his or her growth, both
professionally and personally.”
Source: “Making Business Personal,” Robert Kegan et al., HBR/04.14
DDO
“WOW!”
is a
this is my “book.”
in my book—and
“I start with the
premise that the
function of
leadership is to
produce more
leaders, not more
followers.”
—Ralph Nader
“I didn’t have a ‘mission
statement’ at Burger King. I had
a dream. Very simple. It was
something like, ‘Burger King is
250,000 people, every one of
whom gives a shit.’ Every one.
Accounting. Systems. Not just
the drive through. Everyone is
‘in the brand.’ That’s what we’re
talking about, nothing less.”
— Barry Gibbons
THE DREAM MANAGER
— by Matthew Kelly
“AN ORGANIZATION CAN ONLY BECOME THE-
BEST-VERSION-OF-ITSELF TO THE EXTENT THAT
THE PEOPLE WHO DRIVE THAT ORGANIZATION
ARE STRIVING TO BECOME BETTER-VERSIONSOF-THEMSELVES.” “A company’s purpose is to become
the-best-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-best-version-of-himself or –herself. … When a company forgets
that it exists to serve customers, it quickly goes out of business.
OUR EMPLOYEES ARE OUR FIRST CUSTOMERS,
AND OUR MOST IMPORTANT CUSTOMERS.”
EVERY employee has a dream … related to
their current job or not.
Focusing on helping employees attain those
dreams (which may not be job related) is
simply the best way to create an environment
where employees strive to improve
themselves more or less each and every day—
and in the process serve each other,
and the Client, with verve.
(Admission: At first glance I thought “how silly.” At 3rd
through 10th glance I thought … “pure genius.”) (The Dream
Manager, presented in parable form, is based on a wildly
successful industrial cleaning services company. I was
fortunate to meet the publicity-shy CEO.)
Training =
Investment
#1
#1 = #1*
*Damn it!
6/2/3*
SIX MONTHS to develop
THREE MINUTES of new material
*It takes Jerry Seinfeld
TWO
or
(documentary: Comedian)
He’s the quintessential “old pro.” No
trains and
trains and trains and
trains some more. (Most of
matter. He still …
the “training gigs” are performed in
small, out-of-the-way places.)
Recession comes. Most retailers cut
back on training to save money.
CONTAINER STORE
doubles
training for in-store customer-contact
employees.
Basketball coach John Wooden, perhaps the best coach of
“I was never much
of a game coach, but I
was a pretty good
practice coach.”
anything, ever:
Hall of fame football coach Bill Walsh on preparation:
“The score takes care
of itself.”
In the Army, 3-star
generals worry about
training. In most
businesses, it's a
“ho-hum” mid-level
staff function.
Why is intensiveextensive training
obvious for the army &
navy & sports teams &
performing arts groups--
not
but
for the
average business?
Is your CTO/Chief
Training Officer your top
paid “C-level” job (other
than CEO/COO)?
Are your top trainers
paid/cherished as much as
your top marketers/
engineers?
Most firms don’t even have a “CTO.”
For shame.
Is your CTO/Chief Training Officer your top paid “C-level” job (other than CEO/COO)?
If not, why not?
Are your top trainers paid as much as your top marketers and engineers?
If not, why not?
Are your training
courses so good they
make you giggle and
tingle?
If not, why not?
Randomly stop an employee in the hall: Can she/he meticulously describe her/his development plan for the next 12
months?
If not, why not?
Why is your world of business any different than the (competitive) world of rugby, football, opera, theater,
the military?
If “people/talent first” and hyper-intense continuous training are laughably obviously for them, why not you?
Training often doesn’t get the attention
it ought to get because the training
course portfolio is far from scintillating.
I believe the aim must be …
UNADULTERATED
EXCELLENCE & WOW
IN EVERY TRAINING
OFFERING.
(Damn it.)
(I repeat: Damn it.)
(Someone at a seminar challenged me on this. Said it was
unrealistic and, by the way, what does “tingle” mean. I pointed to
my sophomore year in college. For us engineers, including civil
engineers like me, an introductory chemistry course was
required. Most of us looked forward to it as the equivalent of a
4-month long root canal. We had two well known professors,
Michell Sienko and Robert Plane. They were scholars of the first
order and simultaneously entertainers of the first order. Bottom
line: By the end of the course, probably half of us (among
hundreds) wanted to be chemistry majors. Ten years later the
same sort of lightning struck courtesy an econ prof, Keith
Lumsden, at the Stanford business school. That is, there are
great teachers and great courses—and I do not understand why
the corporate world can’t develop or recruit the Sienkos and
Planes and Lumsdens. Billions are at stake—and great “profs”
concocting great courses could do wonders to, say, recruitment
and retention and productivity. As to “tingle,” I’m looking for
something beyond “very good”; I’d accept for “earthshaking” or
“mind-blowing” or, for sure …
“supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”)
Is your CTO/Chief Training Officer your top paid “C-level” job (other than CEO/COO)?
If not, why not?
Are your top trainers paid as much as your top marketers and engineers?
If not, why not?
Are your trai
ning courses so good they make you giggle and tingle?
If not, why not?
Randomly stop an employee
in the hall: Can she/he
meticulously describe her/his
development plan for the
next 12 months?
If not, why not?
Why is your world of business any different than the (competitive) world of rugby, football, opera,
theater,
the military?
If “people/talent first” and hyper-intense continuous training are laughably obviously for them,
why not you?
her or
his boss should be sternly
reprimanded ASAP. (I would
And if the answer is “No” …
say “fired”—but you might accuse me of
over-the-top-ism.)
Gamblin’ Man
>> 5 of 10 CEOs see
training as expense rather than
investment.
Bet #2: >> 5 of 10 CEOs see
training as defense rather than
offense.
Bet #3: >> 5 of 10 CEOs see
training as “necessary evil”
rather than “strategic
opportunity.”
Bet #1:
>> 8 of 10
CEOs, in 45-min
“tour d’horizon” of
their biz, would
NOT mention
training.
Bet #4:
My odds are not speculative. I’ve tested
this. (Alas.)
What is the best reason to go
bananas over training?
GREED. (It pays off.)
(Training should be an official part of the
R&D budget and a capital expense.)
Training #1: Bottom Line
NOBODY gets off the
hook! “Training & Development
Maniac” applies as much to the
leader of the
4-person
business as to the chief of
the 44,444-person business.
This rant on training is not particularly
aimed at big companies. My target is …
ALL COMPANIES/
ORGANIZATIONS.
(No exceptions.)
“training,
TRAINING and
M-O-R-E
T-R-A-I-N-I-N-G”
—CINCPAC Nimitz to CNO King/1943
(punctuation Nimitz’s); when Pearl Harbor occurred,
U.S. Navy preparation was found wanting—the crews’
training was more important than the number of available
war ships.
I am more or less …
purple
with rage
… at the generic disregard of training in
the private sector.
Hiring
“Development can help great people
be even better— but
if
I had a dollar to spend, I’d
70 cents
spend
getting the right person in
the door.”
—Paul Russell, Director, Leadership and
Development, Google
the
most important
aspect of business
and yet remains woefully
misunderstood.”
“In short, hiring is
Source: Wall Street Journal, 10.29.08,
review of Who: The A Method for Hiring,
Geoff Smart and Randy Street
So do you consider yourself a full-bore …
PROFESSIONAL … when it
comes to hiring? (Take care in
answering, please.)
“It’s simple, really,
Tom. Hire for s,
and, above all,
promote for
s.”
—Starbucks regional manager,
on why so many smiles at Starbucks shops
Put it (e.g., the likes of
“smiles in a way that
lights up a room”) in the
FORMAL criteria
list. DAMN IT!
Andrew Carnegie’s Tombstone Inscription …
Here lies a man
Who knew how to enlist
In his service
Better men than himself.
Source: Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management
Quiet
Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in
a World That Can’t Stop Talking made a
profound impact on me. We tend to favor the
“noisy ones”—and thence downplay the
power of the 50% amongst us who are “the
quiet ones.”
I.e., we blow off (or, at least, undervalue)
50%
0f the talent pool.
“We live with a value system that I call the Extrovert Ideal—the
omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and
comfortable in the spotlight. The archetypal extrovert prefers action to
contemplation, risk-taking to heed-taking, certainty to doubt. … We think
that we value individuality, but all too often we admire one type of
individual … Introversion is now a second-class personality trait. … The
Extrovert Ideal has been documented in many studies.
Talkative people, for example, are rated as smarter,
better looking, more interesting, and more desirable as
friends. Velocity of speech counts as well as volume: We
rank fast talkers as more competent and likeable than
slow ones. But we make a grave mistake to embrace the
Extrovert Ideal so unthinkingly. … As the science journalist
Winifred Gallagher writes, ‘The glory of the disposition that stops to
consider stimuli rather than rushing to engage with them is its long
association with intellectual and artistic achievement. Neither E = mc
squared or Paradise Lost was dashed off by a party animal.’ Even in less
obviously introverted occupations, like finance, politics, and activism,
some of the greatest leaps forward were made by introverts … figures
like Eleanor Roosevelt, Warren Buffett and Gandhi achieved what they
did not in spite of but because of their introversion.” —Susan Cain,
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
“The next time you see a
person with a composed face
and a soft voice, remember
that inside her mind she might
be solving an equation,
composing a sonnet,
designing a hat. She might,
that is, be deploying the
power of quiet.”
—Susan Cain,
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
2/Year =
Legacy
Your legacy is achieved and maintained
to a great extent by your promotion
decisions—about two per year on
average. In a five-year stint, that’s 10
decisions that make or break you.
DO YOU ACT
ACCORDINGLY?
(No glib answer, please.)
Promotion Decisions
“life and
death
decisions”
Source: Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management
A promotion decision is akin to an
acquisition decision. The same degree
of care therewith should be exercised.
“A man should never
be promoted to a
managerial position if his
vision focuses on people’s
weaknesses rather than
on their
strengths.”
—Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management
Evaluation
EVALUATING
#1
PEOPLE =
DIFFERENTIATOR
Source: Jack Welch, now Jeff Immelt on
GE’s top strategic skill (
!!!!)
“In most companies, the Talent Review Process is a
farce. At GE, Jack Welch and his two top HR people
visit each division for a day. They review the top 20 to
50 people by name. They talk about Talent Pool
The Talent
Review Process is a
contact sport at GE;
it has the intensity and
the importance of the
budget process at most
companies.”
strengthening issues.
—Ed Michaels, War for Talent
A mouthful, eh?
Self-
Evaluation
“To develop
others, start
with yourself.”
—Marshall Goldsmith
“Being aware of yourself
and how you affect
everyone around you is
what distinguishes a
superior leader.”
—Edie Seashore (strategy + business #45)
“Work on
me first.”
—Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al
Switzler/Crucial Conversations
“Leadership is self-knowledge.
Successful leaders are those who are
conscious about their behavior and
the impact it has on the people
around them. They are willing to
examine what behaviors of their own
may be getting in the way. … The
toughest person you will ever lead is
yourself. We can’t effectively lead
others unless we can lead ourselves.”
—Betsy Myers, Take the Lead: Motivate, Inspire,
and Bring Out the Best in Yourself and Everyone Around You
“How can a high-level leader like _____ be
so out of touch with the truth about
himself? It’s more common than you
In fact, the higher
up the ladder a leader
climbs, the less accurate his
self-assessment is likely to
be. The problem is an acute lack of
would imagine.
feedback [especially on people issues].”
—Daniel Goleman (et al.), The New Leaders
"Everyone thinks
of changing the
world, but no one
thinks of changing
himself."
- Leo Tolstoy
The leadership gurus speak with one
voice on this. Self-knowledge and selfdevelopment is leader job #1.
Think about it.
st
1 -Line
Bosses
(Cadre of) =
Productivity Asset
#1!
If the regimental commander lost most of his
2nd lieutenants and 1st lieutenants and captains
If he
lost his sergeants it
would be a
catastrophe. The Army and the
and majors, it would be a tragedy.
Navy are fully aware that success on the
battlefield is dependent to an extraordinary
degree on its Sergeants and Chief Petty
Officers. Does industry have the same
awareness?
“In great armies, the
job of generals is to
back up their
sergeants.”
—COL Tom Wilhelm, from Robert Kaplan,
“The Man Who Would Be Khan,” The Atlantic
Employee retention
& satisfaction & productivity:
Overwhelmingly
based on the
first-line
manager!
Source: Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman, First, Break All the
Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
“People leave
managers not
companies.”
—Dave Wheeler
Actually, a profound statement of the
utmost importance.
Is there ONE “secret” to
productivity and
employee satisfaction?
YES!
The Quality of your
FULL CADRE of …
1st-line Leaders.
No way to overstate here. Companies do
pay attention to 1st-line supervisors—but
do not/rarely consider the full cadre of 1st-
st
line leaders a … 1
-ORDER
STRATEGIC ASSET
… worthy of stupendous investment in
selection and development.
(PLEASE PONDER THIS.)
E.g.: Do you have the ...
ABSOLUTE BEST
TRAINING &
DEVELOPMENT
PROGRAMS
IN THE INDUSTRY ...
(or some subset thereof)
for first-line supervisors?
Suggested addition to your statement of Core
“We are obsessed with
developing a cadre of 1st line
managers that is second to
none—we understand that this
cadre per se is arguably one of
our top two or three most
important ‘Strategic Assets.’”
Values:
As I write, I’ve been banging on about this for
about 18 months. In all my experience, I have
rarely hit such an exposed nerve—and have
rarely observed such vigorous follow-up
(interestingly, especially from giant company
CEOs).
Upon reflecting, most agree with the basic
assertion of the “over-the-top” importance
of the 1st line cadre—and, further, that they
are doing a half-assed job at best with
selection and development, and that they’re
downright embarrassed at how inadequate
their training is.
!
WOMEN RULE
“Research
suggests that to
succeed, start
by promoting
women.”
Source: Nicholas Kristof, “Twitter, Women, and Power,” NYTimes, 1024.13
Progress has been made.
But there is a long way to go.
“I speak to you with a feminine voice.
It’s the voice of democracy, of equality.
that
this will be
the woman’s
century.
I am certain, ladies and gentlemen,
In the Portuguese language,
words such as life, soul, and hope are of the feminine
gender, as are other words like courage and sincerity.”
—President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, 1st woman to
keynote the United Nations General Assembly (2011)
“AS
LEADERS,
WOMEN
RULE:
New Studies find that
female managers outshine their male
counterparts in almost every measure”
TITLE/ Special Report/ BusinessWeek
Women’s Strengths Match New
Economy Imperatives: Link [rather than
rank] workers; favor interactive-collaborative
leadership style [empowerment beats topdown decision making]; sustain fruitful
collaborations; comfortable with sharing
information; see redistribution of power
as victory, not surrender; favor multidimensional feedback; value technical &
interpersonal skills, individual & group
contributions equally; readily accept
ambiguity; honor intuition as well as pure
“rationality”; inherently flexible; appreciate
cultural diversity.
Source: Judy B. Rosener, America’s Competitive Secret: Women Managers
In the “modern” organization, huffing
and puffing and shouting orders is dying.
Gaining cooperation of scattered team
members who don’t “report to” the
leader is the emergent norm. Which
plays to women’s strengths.
Women’s Negotiating Strengths
*Ability to put themselves in their
counterparts’ 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”
For One (BIG) Thing …
“McKinsey & Company found that the
international companies with more
women on their corporate boards far
outperformed the average company in
return on equity and other measures.
Operating profit was …
56%
higher.”
Source: Nicholas Kristof, “Twitter, Women, and Power,” NYTimes, 1024.13
“Headline 2020:
Women Hold
80 Percent of
Management and
Professional Jobs”
Source: The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will
Reshape the World in the Next 20 Years, James Canton
Context for the above.
Non-trivial.
Warren Buffett
Invests Like a Girl:
And Why You
Should Too
—Louann Lofton
FYI.
Portrait of a Female Investor
1. Trade less than men do
2. Exhibit less overconfidence—more likely to know
what they don’t know
3. Shun risk more than male investors do
4. Less optimistic, more realistic than their male
counterparts
5. Put in more time and effort researching possible
investments—consider details and alternate points
of view
6. More immune to peer pressure—tend to make
decisions the same way regardless of who’s watching
7. Learn from their mistakes
8. Have less testosterone than men do, making them
less willing to take extreme risks, which, in turn,
could lead to less extreme market cycles
Warren Buffett Invests Like a Girl: And Why
You Should Too, Louann Lofton, Chapter 2, “The Science Behind the Girl”
Source:
Sparkling list of attributes.
(Could we have avoided the Great
Recession if women had run the
investment world?)
THE MORAL
IMPERATIVE
CIRCA 2014
THE MORAL
IMPERATIVE:
PEOPLE
DEVELOPMENT
Your principal
moral obligation as a leader is to
develop the skillset, “soft” and
“hard,” of every one of the people
in your charge (temporary as well
as semi-permanent) to the
maximum extent of your abilities.
The good news: This is also the
#1 mid- to long-term …
profit maximization strategy!
CORPORATE MANDATE #1 2014:
To my way of thinking,
this is by far the most
important point
considered in this
presentation.
“The notion that corporate law requires
directors, executives, and employees
to maximize shareholder wealth simply
isn’t true. There is no solid legal support
for the claim that directors and
executives in U.S. public corporations
have an enforceable legal duty to
The
idea is fable.”
maximize shareholder wealth.
—Lynn Stout, professor of corporate and business law, Cornell
The Shareholder Value Myth:
How Putting Shareholders First Harms
Investors, Corporations, and the Public
law school, in …
Though I believe that people
development is the keystone of profit
maximization, it will not happen
overnight. Short-termism is, alas, often
the excuse for not pursuing this path—it
comes in the guise of ‘it fails to
maximize shareholder value.” It’s a long
story, but fact is shareholder value
maximization is in no way a corporate
legal imperative. (The book cited in this
slide is a peach.)
In Good Business, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argues
persuasively that business has become the center of
society. As such, an obligation to community is front &
center. Business as societal bedrock, has the
“SUM OF
HUMAN WELL-BEING.”
RESPONSIBILITY to increase the
Business is NOT "part of the community." In terms of
how adults collectively spend their waking
BUSINESS IS THE
COMMUNITY. And should act accordingly.
hours …
The (REALLY) good news: Community mindedness
is a great way (THE best way?) to have
spirited/committed/ customer-centric work
force—and, ultimately, increase (maximize?)
profitability!
I love this!
(And “buy it” 100%.)
Oath of Office: Managers/Servant Leaders
Our goal is to serve our customers brilliantly and profitably over
the long haul.
Serving our customers brilliantly and profitably over the long
haul is a product of brilliantly serving, over the long haul, the
people who serve the customer.
Hence, our job as leaders—the alpha and the omega and
everything in between—is abetting the sustained growth
and success and engagement and enthusiasm and
commitment to Excellence of those, one at a time, who
directly or indirectly serve the ultimate customer.
We—leaders of every stripe—are in the “Human Growth and
Development and Success and Aspiration to Excellence
business.”
“We” (leaders) only grow when “they” (each and every one of our colleagues) are
growing.
“We” (leaders) only succeed when “they” (each and every one of our colleagues)
are succeeding.
“We” (leaders) only energetically march toward Excellence when
“they” (each and every one of our colleagues) are energetically marching
toward Excellence.
Period.
Please consider.
“The role of the Director is to
create a space where the actors
become
more than they’ve ever
been before,
more than they’ve
dreamed of being.”
and actresses can
—Robert Altman, Oscar acceptance speech
Perfecto.
(And—damn it—as applicable to parttimers as movie stars.)
The Memories That Matter
The people you developed who went on to
stellar accomplishments inside or outside
the company.
The (no more than) two or three people you developed who went on to
create stellar institutions of their own.
The long shots (people with “a certain something”) you bet on who
surprised themselves—and your peers.
The people of all stripes who 2/5/10/20 years
later say “You made a difference in my life,”
“Your belief in me changed everything.”
The sort of/character of people you hired in general. (And the bad
apples you chucked out despite some stellar traits.)
A handful of projects (a half dozen at most) you doggedly pursued that
still make you smile and which fundamentally changed the way
things are done inside or outside the company/industry.
The supercharged camaraderie of a handful of Great Teams aiming to
“change the world.”
This is the sort of thing you’ll look back
on at my age—71. Not the $$$ wealth
you accumulated.
CONTEXT
Context:
1,000,000
“The greatest
shortcoming of the
human race is our
inability to
understand the
exponential
function.”
1/721:
—Albert A. Bartlett
It is not that dramatic change is in the
air, though that’s true. It is that the …
ACCELERATION … of the
rate of change is unprecedented.
China/Foxconn:
1,000,000
robots/next 3 years
Source: Race AGAINST the Machine, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
We typically think of China in terms of
low-cost labor. China’s labor costs are
soaring—and, like the rest of us, the
Chinese are stepping up their game. (In
fact this trend is so prominent that
manufacturing employment in China is
falling.)
“Automation has become so
sophisticated that on a typical
passenger flight, a human pilot holds
the controls for a grand total of
3 minutes
…
. [Pilots]
have become, it’s not much of an
exaggeration to say, computer
operators.”
Source: Nicholas Carr, “The Great Forgetting,” The Atlantic, 11.13
“Meet Your
Next Surgeon:
Dr. Robot”
Source: Feature/Fortune/15 JAN 2013/on Intuitive Surgical’s
da Vinci
/multiple bypass heart-surgery robot
“[Michael Vassar/MetaMed founder] is creating a better information system and new
‘Almost all health
care people get is going to
be done—hopefully—by
algorithms within a decade
or two.
class of people to manage it.
We used to rely on doctors to be experts, and we’ve crowded
them into being something like factory workers, where their job is to see one patient
every 8 to 11 minutes and implement a by-the-book solution. I’m talking about
creating a new ‘expert profession’—medical quants, almost like
hedgefund managers, who could do the high-level analytical work
of directing all the information that flows into the world’s hard
drives. Doctors would now be aided by Vassar’s new information experts who would
be aided by advanced artificial intelligence.”—New York /0624.13
Persado
(vs. copywriter): emotion words, product
characteristics, “call to action,” position of text, images
Up To $250 To Spend On
All Ships In All
Destinations. 2 Days Left
(1.3%)
vs.
No kidding! You Qualify to
Experience An Incredible
Vacation With Us :-)
(4.1)
“A creative person is good but random. We’ve taken the
randomness out by building an ontology of language”
—Lawrence Whittle, head of sales
Source: Wall Street Journal/ 0825.14/ “It’s Finally Time to Take AI Seriously”
Algorithmically derived/produced
ad copy more effective than that of a
human copywriter.
“Flash forward to dystopia. You work in a chic
cubicle, sucking chicken-flavor sustenance from
a tube. You’re furiously maneuvering with a
joystick … Your boss stops by and gives you a
look. ‘We need to talk about your loyalty to this
The organization you work
for has deduced that you are
considering quitting. It predicts
your plans and intentions,
possibly before you have even
conceived them.”
company.’
—Eric Siegel, Predictive Analytics:
The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die (based on a real case, an
HP “Flight risk” PA model developed by HR, with astronomical savings potential)
AI comes to HR in the Age of “Big Data.”
Katy bar the door.
Robot Wars!
“The combination of new
market rules and new
technology was turning
the stock market into, in
a war of
robots.”
effect,
—Michael Lewis, “Goldman’s Geek
Tragedy,” Vanity Fair, 09.13
Let’s Welcome Our Newest
Board Member: “Just like
other members of the board,
the algorithm gets to vote on
whether the firm makes an
investment in a specific
company or not. The
program will be the sixth
member of DKV's board.”
—B
usiness Insider, 13 May 2014:
“A Hong Kong VC fund has just appointed an algorithm to its board.”
“A Hong Kong VC fund has just appointed an
algorithm to its board. Deep Knowledge Ventures, a firm that
focuses on age-related disease drugs and regenerative medicine projects, says the
program, called VITAL, can make investment recommendations about life sciences
firms by poring over large amounts of data.
“Just like other members of the board, the
algorithm gets to vote on whether the firm
makes an investment in a specific company or
not. The program will be the sixth member of
DKV's board.
“VITAL's software was developed by UK-based Aging Analytics.
‘[The goal] is actually to draw attention developing it as an independent decision
maker,’ Deep Knowledge Venture's Charles Groome told BI.
“How does the algorithm work? VITAL makes its decisions by scanning prospective
companies' financing, clinical trials, intellectual property and previous funding
rounds. Groome says it has already helped approved two investment decisions
(though has not yet cast its first vote), both of which resemble its own function: In
Silico Medicine, which develops computer-assisted methods for drug discovery in
aging research; and In Silico's partner firm Pathway Pharmaceuticals, which
employs a platform called OncoFinder to select and rate personalized cancer
therapies.” —Business Insider, 13 May 2014
“Algorithms have already written symphonies
as moving as those composed by
Beethoven, picked through legalese with
the deftness of a senior law partner,
diagnosed patients with more accuracy than a
doctor, written news articles with the
smooth hand of a seasoned reporter, and
driven vehicles on urban highways with far
better control than a human
driver.”
Automate This: How
Algorithms Came to Rule the World
—Christopher Steiner,
“ … Which haiku are human
writing and which are from a
group of bits? Sampling centuries of
haiku, devising rules, spotting patterns, and
inventing ways to inject originality, Annie
[algorithm] took to the short Japanese sets of
prose the same way all of [Prof David] Cope’s.
algorithms tackled classical music. ‘In the end,
it’s just layers and layers of binary math, he says.
… Cope says Annie’s penchant for tasteful
originality could push her past most human
composers who simply build on work of the past,
which, in turn, was built on older works. …” —
Christopher Steiner, Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule
the World
“Human level
capability has not
turned out to be a
special stopping point
from an engineering
perspective. ….”
Source: Illah Reza Nourbakhsh, Professor of Robotics, Carnegie Mellon, Robot Futures
Automate This:
How Algorithms
Came to Rule
the World
—Christopher Steiner
“A bureaucrat is
an expensive
microchip.”
—Dan Sullivan, consultant and executive coach
Robotics and Artificial Intelligence are
taking on high-end white-collar (and
“white coat”) jobs.
And we’re only warming up …
“I believe that ninety percent
of white-collar/“knowledgework” jobs (which are 80
percent of all jobs) in the
U.S. will be either destroyed
or altered beyond recognition
in the next 10 to 15 years.”
—Cover story/Time/22 May 2000/Tom Peters
(I was a little premature with my Y2K
prognostication. But, perhaps, not by
much.)
IoT/The Internet of Things
IoE/The Internet of
Everything
M2M/Machine-to-Machine
Ubiquitous computing
Embedded computing
Pervasive computing
Industrial Internet
Etc.* ** ***
*“More Than 50
BILLION connected devices by 2020” —Ericsson
**Estimated 212 BILLION connected devices by 2020—IDC
***“By 2025 IoT could be applicable to $82 TRILLION of output or
approximately one half the global economy”—GE (The WAGs to end all WAGs!)
Internet of Everything
“The idea of the IoE* [Internet of
Everything/Cisco Systems] is a networked
connection of people, processes,
data and ‘things,’ which is being
facilitated by technology
transitions such as increased
mobility, cloud computing and the
importance of big data.”
*Estimated market size, next decade:
$14.4 trillion
Source: “The Big Switch,” Capital Insights
“Ford is working with the
healthcare industry on a
solution that would notify a
nearby hospital if you were
having a heart attack in your
car, which can send an
ambulance … before you even
know you’re having one. …”
—Daniel Kellmereit & Daniel Obodovski, The Silent Intelligence: The Internet of Things
Everything connected to every thing—
with system self-management as one
result.
“The root of our problem is not
that we’re in a Great Recession
or a Great Stagnation, but rather
that we are in the early
Great
Restructuring
throes of a
.
Our technologies are racing ahead,
but our skills and organizations
are lagging behind.”
Source: Race AGAINST the Machine, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
“The median
worker is losing
the race against
the machine.”
—Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee,
Race Against the Machine
(1) Interviewee re TurboTax: “No way. I don’t use an H&R Block
tax preparer any more. I’ve switched to TurboTax software.
It’s only $49 and much quicker and more accurate.”
Brynjolfsson/McAfee: “The creators of TurboTax are better
off—but tens of thousands of tax preparers now find their
jobs and incomes threatened.”
(2) CEO interviewed by the authors says he installed new
infotech equipment before the Great Recession, but did not
cut payroll when profits were soaring. And then: “When the
recession came, business as usual was obviously not
sustainable, which made it easier to implement a round of
painful streamlining and layoffs. As the recession ended and
profits and demand returned, the jobs doing routine work
were not restored.”
(3) “For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, employment usually
rebounded after each recession, but since the 1990s
employment didn’t recover briskly after recessions. It’s not
coincidence that as the computerization of the economy
advanced, post-recession hiring patterns changed.”
Source: The Second Machine Age, by Eric Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
Your principal
moral obligation as a leader is to
develop the skillset, “soft” and
“hard,” of every one of the people
in your charge (temporary as well
as semi-permanent) to the
maximum extent of your abilities.
The good news: This is also the
#1 mid- to long-term …
profit maximization strategy!
CORPORATE MANDATE #1 2014:
I repeat this slide, because the
extraordinary context sketched here is
the reason we must turn our attention
posthaste—and with major resource
allocation—to the development of our
teammates as they attempt to run the
race against the machine.
INNOVATION:
FIVE TACTICS
/48
the
only thing I’ve learned
“for sure” … in the 48 years
No kidding, this truly is …
since I began my managerial career—as
a U.S. Navy construction battalion
ensign in Vietnam.
Lesson48:
WTTMSW
WHOEVER
TRIES
THE
MOST
STUFF
WINS
Excellence82: 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
If I were to update the book in 2014,
there is
ZERO
doubt that “a
bias for action” would top the list—with
even more emphasis than 32 years ago.
“WE HAVE A
‘STRATEGIC
PLAN.’ IT’S
CALLED DOING
THINGS.”
— Herb Kelleher
READY.
FIRE!
AIM.
H. Ross Perot (vs “Aim! Aim! Aim!” /EDS vs GM/1985)
Screw it.
Just do it.
—book title, Richard Branson
“EXPERIMENT
FEARLESSLY”
Tactic #1
Source: BusinessWeek, “Type A Organization Strategies: How to Hit a Moving Target”—
“RELENTLESS TRIAL
AND ERROR”
Source: Wall Street Journal, cornerstone of effective approach to “rebalancing” company
portfolios in the face of changing and uncertain global economic conditions (11.08.10)
Key words:
Fearlessly
Relentless
“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
“DEMO
OR DIE!”
Source: This was the approach championed by Nicholas Negroponte
which vaulted his MIT Media Lab to the forefront of IT-multimedia
innovation. It was his successful alternative to the traditional
MIT-academic “publish or perish.” Negroponte’s rapid-prototyping
version was emblematic of the times and the pace and the enormity
of the opportunity. (NYTimes/0426.11)
Culture of Prototyping
“Effective prototyping may
THE MOST
VALUABLE CORE
COMPETENCE an
be
innovative organization can
hope to have.” —Michael Schrage
“This is so simple it sounds stupid, but it is
amazing how few oil people really
YOU ONLY
FIND OIL IF YOU
DRILL WELLS.
understand that
You
may think you’re finding it when you’re
drawing maps and studying logs, but you
have to drill.” —The Hunters, by John Masters,
wildly successful Canadian Oil & Gas wildcatter
“FAIL.
FORWARD.
FAST.”
High Tech CEO, Pennsylvania
“Fail faster.
Succeed
Sooner.”
David Kelley/IDEO
“No matter.
Try again. Fail
again. Fail
better.”
—Samuel Beckett
“REWARD
excellent failures.
PUNISH mediocre
successes.”
—Phil Daniels, Sydney exec
“In business, you reward
people for taking risks. When
it doesn’t work out you
promote them—because they
were willing to try new
things. 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)
Ideas Economy:
CAN YOUR
BUSINESS FAIL
FAST ENOUGH TO
SUCCEED?
Source: ad for Economist Conference/0328.13/Berkeley CA (caps are Economist)
“The secret of fast
progress is
inefficiency, fast
and furious and
numerous failures.”
—Kevin Kelly
“The essence
of capitalism is
encouraging failure,
not rewarding
success.”
—Nassim Nicholas Taleb/Reason TV/0124.13
If you wish, I can muster another 20
“dittohead” slides on this topic.
“It is not enough to
‘tolerate’ failure—
you must
‘celebrate’
failure.”
—Richard Farson (Whoever Makes the
Most Mistakes Wins)
Think about this.
P-L-E-A-S-E.
C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E.
“YOU MISS
100%
OF
THE SHOTS YOU
NEVER TAKE.”
—Wayne Gretzky
All you need to know in life?
“All life is an
experiment. The
more experiments
you make, the
better.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Act fast.
Fail fast.
Correct fast.
Make bigger and more
interesting mistakes.
All of life is an
experiment.
“What are [pioneer aircraft developer Bert]
Rutan’s management rules? He insists he
doesn’t have any. ‘I don’t like rules,’ he says.
‘Things are so easy to change if you don’t write
them down.’ Rutan feels good management
works in much the same way good aircraft
Instead of trying to
figure out the best way to do
something and sticking to it,
just try out an approach and
keep fixing it.”
design does:
—Eric Abrahamson & David Freedman, Chapter 8, “Messy Leadership,”
from A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder
WTTMSASTMSUTFW
WTTMSASTMSUTFW
WHOEVER
TRIES
THE
MOST
STUFF
AND
SCREWS
THE
MOST
STUFF
UP
THE
FASTEST
WINS
We Are
What
We Eat
We Are What
We Eat
We Are Who We
Hang Out With
The point here, perhaps, is that I rank
this next to “bias for action” as one of
my Top Two innovation strategies.
“It is hardly possible to
overrate the value of placing human
beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with
modes of thought and action unlike
those with which they are familiar.
Such communication has always
been, and is peculiarly in the
present age, one of the primary
sources of progress.” —John Stuart Mill
Diversity:
“You will become like
the five people you
associate with the
most—this can be
either a blessing or a
curse.”
—Billy Cox
“HANG
OUT WITH ‘COOL’ AND
THOU SHALT BECOME
MORE COOL. HANG
OUT WITH ‘DULL’ AND
THOU SHALT BECOME
MORE DULL. PERIOD.”
The “Hang Out Axiom”:
It really is about this simple.
The “We are what we eat”/
“We are who we hang out with”
Axiom: At its core, every (!!!)
relationship-partnership decision
(employee, vendor, customer, etc.,
etc.) is a strategic decision about:
“Innovate,
‘Yes’ or ‘No’ ”
Key word:
EVERY
Measure/Manage: Portfolio “Strangeness”/“Quality”
1. Customers
2. Vendors
3. Out-sourcing Partners
4. Acquisitions
5. Purposeful “Theft”
6. Diversity/“d”iversity
7. Diversity/Crowd-sourcing
8. Diversity/Weird
9. Diversity/Curiosity
10. Benchmarks
11. Calendar
12. MBWA
13. Lunch/General
14. Lunch/Other functions
15. Location/Internal
16. Location/HQ
17. Top team
18. Board
“The Billion-man
Research Team:
Companies offering
work to online
communities are
reaping the benefits of
crowdsourcing.”
—Headline, FT
“Crowdsourcing” can more or less apply
to … EVERYTHING.
“Who’s the most
interesting person
you’ve met in the last
90 days? How do I
get in touch with
them?”
—Fred Smith
Maybe not such an easy question to
answer?
Take it seriously.
VERY seriously.
(PLEASE.)
Ouch!
“The Bottleneck …
“The Bottleneck is at the …
“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 …
Top of the
Bottle”
— Gary Hamel/Harvard Business Review
Alas.
So true.
WE ARE THE
COMPANY
WE KEEP!
MANAGE IT!
This is not intended to be “a good idea.”
It is a strategic asset—and should be
consciously measured and managed.
Diversity: Hang out with cool and thou
shalt become more cool. Hang out with
dull and thou shalt become more dull.
Diversity: Your “hang out with” “portfolio”
can/should be as carefully concocted/
managed/ measured as your strategic
plan—it IS your de facto strategic plan!
Diversity: Every relationship-partnership
decision (employee/ vendor/customer/etc.)
is a strategic decision: “Innovate, ‘Yes’ or
‘No.’”
XFX =
#1
XFX = #1*
*Cross-Functional eXcellence
A project is behind schedule by three
months? Six months? There is a mess amidst
the supply chain? Customer orders are badly
backlogged? Etc. Invariably there is
ONE
reason above all others when
such snafus occur.
(As they routinely do.)
BOTCHED
CROSS-FUNCTIONAL
CO-ORDINATION.
Namely:
NEVER
WASTE A
LUNCH!
% XF
lunches*
*Measure!
evaluation!
Monthly! Part of
% of lunches with people in …
FUNCTIONS.
(
BIG deal.)
OTHER
XFX: SOCIAL
ACCELERATORS …
The key “XFX” attainment tools are social—
not technological.
XFX/Typical Social Accelerators
1. EVERYONE’s (more or less) JOB #1: Make friends in other functions!
(Purposefully. Consistently. Measurably.)
2. “Do lunch” with people in other functions!! Frequently!! (Minimum
10% to 25% for everyone? Measured.)
3. Ask peers in other functions for references so you can become
conversant in their world. (It’s one helluva sign of ... GIVE-A-DAMNism.)
4. Religiously invite counterparts in other functions to your team
meetings. Ask them to present “cool stuff” from “their world” to your
group. (Useful. Mark of respect.)
PROACTIVELY SEEK EXAMPLES OF “TINY”
ACTS OF “XFX” TO ACKNOWLEDGE—
PRIVATELY AND PUBLICALLY. (Bosses: ONCE
A DAY … make a short call or visit or send an
email of “Thanks” for some sort of XFX
gesture by your folks and some other
function’s folks.)
5.
6. Present counterparts in other functions awards for service to your
group. Tiny awards at least weekly; and an “Annual All-Star
Supporters (from other groups) Banquet” modeled after superstar
salesperson banquets.
XFX/ Typical Social Accelerators
7. Routinely discuss—A SEPARATE AGENDA ITEM—good and
problematic acts of cross-functional cooperation at every
Team Meeting.
8. When someone in another function asks for assistance,
respond with … more … alacrity than you would if it were the
person in the cubicle next to yours—or even more than you
would for a key external customer. (Remember, XFX is the key
to Customer Retention which is in turn the key to “all good
things.”)
9. Do not bad mouth ... “the damned accountants,” “the bloody
HR guy.” Ever. (Bosses: Severe penalties for this—including
public tongue-lashings.)
10. Get physical! “Co-location” may well be the most powerful
“culture change lever.” Physical X-functional proximity is
almost a … guarantee … of remarkably improved cooperation—
to aid this one needs flexible workspaces that can be
mobilized for a team in a flash.
11. Establish “adhocracy” as S.O.P. To improve the new “Xfunctional Culture” (and business results), little XF teams
should be formed on the spot to deal with an urgent issue—
they may live for but ten days, but it helps the XF habit,
making it normal to be “working the XF way.”
XFX/ Typical Social Accelerators
12. Early project “management” experience. Within days, literally,
of coming aboard folks should be “running” some bit of a bit of a
bit a project, working with folks from other functions—hence, “all
this” becomes as natural as breathing.
13. Work proactively to give as large as possible numbers of
people temporary assignments in other functions—especially
Finance.
14. “Get ’em out with the customer.” Rarely does the accountant
or bench scientist call on the customer. Reverse that. Give
everyone more or less regular “customer-facing experiences.”
She or he learns quickly that the customer is not interested in
our in-house turf battles!
15. Consider creating a special role, or even position. Specialty
chemical company Buckman Labs established “knowledge
transfer facilitators,” effectively former “middle managers,” with
100% of discretionary pay based on success at spurring
integration across previously impermeable barriers.
XFX/: Typical Social Accelerators
16. Formal evaluations. Everyone, starting with the receptionist, should
have a significant XF rating component in their evaluation. (The “XFX
Performance” should be among the Top 3 items in all managers’
evaluations.)
Every functional unit should have strict and
extensive measures of “customer satisfaction”
based on evaluations from other functions of its
usefulness and effectiveness and value-added to
the enterprise as a whole.
17.
18. Demand XF experience for, especially, senior jobs. For example, the
U.S. military requires all would-be generals and admirals to have served
a full tour in a job whose only goals were cross-functional achievements.
19. “Deep dip.” Dive three levels down in the organization to fill a senior
role with some one who has been noticeably pro-active on adding value
via excellent cross-functional integration.
20. XFX is … PERSONAL … as well as about organizational effectiveness.
PXFX (Personal XFX) is arguably the #1 Accelerant to personal
success—in terms of organizational career, freelancer/Brand You, or as
entrepreneur.
21. Excellence! There is a “State of XF Excellence” per se. Talk it
up constantly. Pursue it. Aspire to nothing less.
EXPLICITLY & VISIBLY &
RELENTLESSLY MANAGE
TO XFX STANDARD!
ONE DAMN ACT OF XFX
ENHANCEMENT
EVERY DAY!
“Allied commands depend on
mutual confidence
and this confidence is
gained, above all
development
of friendships.”
through the
—General D.D. Eisenhower, Armchair General*
*“Perhaps his most outstanding ability [at West Point]
he made friends and earned
the trust of fellow cadets who came from
widely varied backgrounds; it was a quality that would pay
was the ease with which
great dividends during his future coalition command.”
“XFX”: Friendship driven
!
Innovate
or Die:
Measure It!
Innovation Index: How many
of your Top 5 Strategic
Initiatives/Key Projects
score 8 or higher (out of 10)
on a “Weird”/“Profound”/
“Wow”/“Game-changer”
Scale? (At least 3???)
Innovation Index: Move every
2
project (definition)
notches up on the
“WOWification
Scale” … THIS WEEK.
Innovate
or Die:
Ubiquitous!
Iron Innovation Equality Law:
The quality and
quantity and
imaginativeness
of innovation shall be
the same in all
functions —e.g., in HR and
purchasing as much as in marketing or
product development.*
SOME
VALUE-ADDED
STRATEGIES
TGRs:
8/80
Customers describing their service
experience as “superior”:
8%
Companies describing
the service experience they provide as
“superior”:
80%
—Source: Bain & Company survey of 362 companies, reported in John DiJulius,
What's the Secret to Providing a World-class Customer Experience?
STUNNING.
Conveyance: Kingfisher Air
Location: Approach to New Delhi
“May I clean
your glasses,
sir?”
On a Mumbai to Delhi flight, as we began our
approach the flight attendant came down the
aisle in business class and asked us if we
wished to have our glasses cleaned. No joke,
that’s the sort of “little” thing one remembers
…
for a lifetime
.
BEGINS
(and ENDS)
It
in the …
PARKING
LOT*
*Disney
Parking lot development at Disney is an art
and a science. The parking lot is a …
Supreme STRATEGIC Asset.
<TGW
and …
>TGR
(Things Gone
WRONG-Things Gone RIGHT)
Quality—minimizing things gone wrong—is of
the utmost importance. But fact is, most
things work pretty well these days. Hence the
emphasis associating with differentiation
switches to the other side of the equation:
THINGS GONE RIGHT.
The trick is to focus—systematically—
on adding to the TGR population.
“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
C
*Chief e
O*
Xperience Officer
I’m urging a
“C-level” position.
TGRS.
MANAGE ’EM.
MEASURE ’EM.*
*I use “manage-measure” a lot. Translation: These are
not “soft” ideas; they are exceedingly important things
that can be managed—AND measured.
TGRs:
K=R=P
The ultimate “TGR”?
“Courtesies of a small and trivial
character are the ones which strike
deepest in the grateful and appreciating
heart.” —Henry Clay
“The deepest principle in human nature
is the craving* to be appreciated.”
—William James
*“Craving,” not “wish” or “desire” or “longing”/Dale Carnegie, How to Win
Friends and Influence People (“The BIG Secret of Dealing With People”)
“The deepest urge in human nature is
the desire to be important.” —John Dewey
"Let's not forget
that small
emotions are the
great captains of
our lives."
–—Van Gogh
139,380 former
patients from 225 hospitals:
Press Ganey Assoc:
NONE
of THE top 15
factors determining Patient Satisfaction
referred to patient’s health outcome.
Instead: directly related to Staff
Interaction; directly correlated with
Employee Satisfaction
Source: Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
Wow.
“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
KINDNESS
IS FREE.
the budget.
Listening to patients
or answering their questions costs nothing. It can be argued
that negative interactions—alienating patients, being nonresponsive 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
(Griffin Hospital/Derby CT; Planetree Alliance)
K=R=P
Kindness =
Repeat Business =
Profit.
K = R = P/Kindness = Repeat business = Profit
Kindness:
Kind.
Thoughtful.
Decent.
Caring.
Attentive.
Engaged.
Listens well/obsessively.
Appreciative.
Open.
Visible.
Honest.
Responsive.
On time all the time.
Apologizes with dispatch for screw-ups.
“Over”-reacts to screw-ups of any magnitude.
“Professional” in all dealings.
Optimistic.
Understands that kindness to staff breeds kindness to others/outsiders.
Applies throughout the “supply chain.”
Applies to 100% of customer’s staff.
Explicit part of values statement.
Basis for evaluation of 100% of our staff.
Kindness … WORKS!
Kindness …
PAYS!
The Manager’s
Book of Decencies:
How Small
Gestures Build
Great Companies.
—
Steve Harrison, Adecco
TGRs:
LBTs*
*Little BIG Things
LITTLE =
Little
BIG
Things:
Small moves.
Enormous payoff.
(Not every pursuit of major innovation needs
to begin with a $250,000 check!)
Bag sizes = New markets:
Source: PepsiCo
Frito Lay, stuck some years ago with a string
of failed (expensive) new product
introductions, goes “trivial”—adding some
new bag sizes to its potato chip offerings.
E.g., family size, single-serve, etc.
Astonishingly, these became fullscale new
product categories—and added, literally,
>$1 billion to the top line.
Big carts =
Source: Walmart
Walmart increases shopping cart size. Big
item—microwave ovens, etc.—sales soar
…
50%.
120-oz container to ketchup-bottle size laundrydetergent concentrate (100% conversion): 1/4th
packaging; 1/4th weight; 1/4th cost to ship;
1/4th space on ships, trucks, shelves. 3
95M #s plastic resin saved,
125M #s cardboard conserved, 400M
less gallons of water shipped, 500K
gallons less diesel fuel, 11M less #s CO2
years:
released)
Source: Force of Nature: The Unlikely Story of Walmart’s Green Revolution , Edward Humes
2X: “When Friedman
slightly
curved
the right angle of an
entrance corridor to one property, he
was ‘amazed at the magnitude of
change in pedestrians’ behavior’—the
percentage who entered increased from
one-third to nearly two-thirds.”
—Natasha Dow Schull, Addiction By Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas
Ye gads.
(Again, >$1B impact.)
Machine Gambling
“Pleasing” odor #1 vs.
“pleasing” odor #2:
+45% revenue
Source: “Effects of Ambient Odors on Slot-Machine Useage in Las Vegas
Casinos,” reported in Natasha Dow Schull, Addiction By Design:
Machine Gambling in Las Vegas (66% revenue, 85% profit)
Ye gads.
SEE GREEN
= RECOVER
20% FASTER
Hospital patient sees green living material
out her or his window—recovery times shrink
significantly.
“PAINT IT
WHITE!”
— On Hashem Akbari’s (Lawrence Livermore labs) powerful program
to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions; using conservative
reduce 44 billion tons of CO2
assumptions, it could
emissions by cooling buildings, roads, entire cities (The Guardian, 0116.09)
(1) AMENABLE TO RAPID
EXPERIMENTATION/FAILURE “FREE”
(NO BAD “PR,” NO $$)
(2) QUICK TO IMPLEMENT/QUICK TO
ROLL OUT
(3) INEXPENSIVE TO IMPLEMENT/
ROLL OUT
(4) HUGE MULTIPLIER
(5) AN “ATTITUDE”
(6) DOES NOT BY AND LARGE REQUIRE A
“POWER POSITION” FROM WHICH
TO LAUNCH EXPERIMENTS.
The Little = BIG approach is available to
most anybody, regardless of location on
the organization chart or location on the
corporate totem pole!
Social Business/
Customer
Engagement
“Customer engagement is moving
from relatively isolated market
transactions to deeply connected
and sustained social
relationships. This basic change
in how we do business will make
an impact on just about
everything we do.”
Social Business By Design: Transformative Social Media Strategies
For the Connected Company —Dion Hinchcliffe & Peter Kim
Biz 2014: Get Aboard the “S-Train”
SM/Social Media.
SX/Social eXecutives.
SE/Social Employees.
SO/Social Organization.
SB/Social Business.
“Social” is a … New World Order. Among
other things:
ALL in marketing.
We’re ALL in sales.
We’re ALL in brand maintenance and
We’re
development.
Seven Characteristics of the Social Employee
1. Engaged
2. Expects Integration of the
Personal and Professional
3. Buys Into the Brand’s Story
4. Born Collaborator
5. Listens
6. Customer-Centric
7. Empowered Change Agent
Source: Cheryl Burgess & Mark Burgess,
The Social Employee
“Social”:
EMPOWEMENT
ON STEROIDS.
I call it …
Marbles, a Ball and Social Employees ay IBM
“Picture a ball and a bag of marbles side by side. The two
items might have the same volume—that is, if you dropped
them into a bucket, they would sisplace the same amount of
water. The difference, however, lies in the surface area,
Because a bag of marbles is comprised
of several individual pieces, the
combined surface area of all the
marbles far outstrips the surface area
of a single ball. The expanded surface area
represents a social brand’s increased diversity. These
surfaces connect and interact with each other in unique
ways, offering customers and employees alike a variety of
paths toward a myriad of solutions. If none of the paths prove
to be suitable, social employees can carve out new paths on
their own.” —Ethan McCarty, Director of Enterprise Social Strategy, IBM (from Cheryl
Burgess & Mark Burgess,
The Social Employee
To do the “social thing” right—in a way
that maximizes value added—we must
get very serious about employee
engagement. Each employee now wields
enormous power and responsibility. The
upside is simply …
ENORMOUS.
Social Business/
New Ball Game
“We’re moving toward an age of nearly perfect
information. Review sites, shopping apps on
smartphones, an extended network of acquaintances
available through social media, and unprecedented
access to experts mean that consumers operate in a
radically different, socially interactive information
environment.* … Consumers tend to make better
decisions and become less susceptible to context or
framing manipulations. For businesses, it means
marketing is changing forever.”
—Itamar Simonson and Emanuel Rosen,
Value:
Absolute
What Really Influences Customers in the
Age of (Nearly) Perfect Information
*Google:
ZMOT
(ZERO Moment Of Truth)
The purchasing process is upended.
Flipped
180
degrees.
ZMOT
: ZERO Moment Of Truth/Google*
“You know what a ‘moment of truth’ is. It’s when a prospective
customer decides either to take the next step in the purchase
funnel, or to exit and seek other options. … But what is a ‘zero
moment of truth’? Many behaviors can serve as a zero moment of
truth, but what binds them together is that the purchase is being
researched and considered before the prospect even enters the
classic sales funnel … In its research, Google found that
84%
of shoppers said the new mental model,
ZMOT, shapes their decisions. …”
—Jay Baer, Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is About Help, Not Hype
*See www.zeromomentoftruth.com for ZMOT in booklength format
“Amy Howell
[social marketer extraordinaire,
ignites
epidemics. In a good way,
of course. Epidemics of
excitement. Epidemics of
business connections.
Epidemics of influence.”
founder of Howell Marketing]
—Mark Schaeffer, ROI/Return on Influence: The Revolutionary
Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing
New job description, circa 2014.
DESIGN
Design Rules!
APPLE market cap
> Exxon Mobil*
*August 2011
When Apple’s market cap shot past
Exxon Mobil’s, there was no longer any
“DESIGN
POWER.”
issue about …
Now only
idiots will ignore it—in enterprises of
any and every size and flavor.
“You know a
design is good
when you want to
lick it.”
—Steve Jobs
Source: Design: Intelligence Made Visible,
Stephen Bayley & Terence Conran
!
Go Steve
All Equal Except …
“At Sony we assume that all
products of our competitors have
basically the same technology,
price, performance and features.
Design is the only thing
that differentiates one
product from another in
the marketplace.”
—Norio Ohga
The glory days.
“Design is
treated like a
religion at
BMW.” —Fortune
“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 of … the
‘Every Starbucks
store is carefully designed to
enhance the quality of everything
the customers see, touch, hear,
smell or taste,’ writes CEO Howard Schultz.”
aesthetic imperative. …
—Virginia Postrel, The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic
Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture and Consciousness
“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 the
DESIGN IS
THE FUNDAMENTAL
SOUL OF A MANMADE CREATION.”
meaning of design.
—Steve Jobs
DESIGN is the
principal difference
Hypothesis:
love and
hate!*
between
*Not “like” and “dislike”
Design is …
NEVER
neutral.
Design, though emphasizing
functionality as well as aesthetics, is
primarily about an …
emotional
reaction … to a product or
service.
Not “like” or “dislike.”
Rather: “Love” or “hate.”
Powerful stuff!
“Design is everything.
Everything is design.”
“We are all designers.”
Inspiration: The Power of Design: A Force for
Transforming Everything, Richard Farson
“PACKAGES …
are about containing and labeling
and informing and celebrating. They
are about power and flattery and
trying to win people’s trust. They are
about beauty and craftsmanship and
comfort. They are about color,
protection, survival.”
–Thomas Hine, The Total Package
An encompassing view of design … in
packaging.
“Only one company
can be the cheapest.
All others must use
design.”
—Rodney Fitch, Fitch & Co.
Source: Insights, definitions of design, the Design Council (UK)
Not a silly assertion.
Ann Landers as management guru/
Three criteria for products, projects, a
communication, etc.:
Good.
True.
Helpful.
Nice.
(Interesting source, eh?)
O*
C
*Chief
Design
Officer
A … Chief Design Officer … is
a clear need in a sizeable
organization.
And some form of CDO assignment is/can be
of abiding importance in the smallest of
firms.
Again: Regardless of industry.
“Businesspeople don’t
need to ‘understand
designers better.’
Businesspeople need to
be designers.”
—Roger Martin/Dean/Rotman Management School/University of Toronto
Design is …
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
The reception area
The loo!!
Dialogues at the call center
Every electronic (or paper) form
Every business process “map”
Every email
Every meeting agenda/setting/etc.
Every square meter of every facility
Every new product proposal
Every manual
Every customer contact
A consideration in every promotion decision
The presence and ubiquity of an “Aesthetic sensibility”/
“Design mindfulness”
* An encompassing “design review” process
* Etc.
* Etc.
Hypothesis: Men
CANNOT
design for women’s
!!??
needs
Sooooo …..
Women BUY
(Everything)
!
“Forget CHINA,
INDIA and the
INTERNET: Economic
Growth Is Driven by
WOMEN.”
Source: Headline, Economist
Not an iota of exaggeration.
(But many a missed opportunity.)
“Since 1970, women have held two out of
three new jobs. According to the Economist,
which compiled studies from a number of
research firms, the arrival of this new
workforce has done more to encourage
global growth than increases in capital
investment and improvements in
productivity. ‘Over the last 10 years the
increase in women [in the workplace] in
developed countries has made more of a
contribution to global growth than China
has,’ concludes the British weekly.”
Source: “Women Are Drivers of Global Growth,” Aude Zieseniss de Thuin,
founder and president of the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society ( FT)
W>
2X (C + I)*
*“Women now drive the global economy. Globally, they control about $20
trillion in consumer spending, and that figure could climb as high as
$28 trillion
in the next five years. Their
$13 trillion in total yearly earnings could reach $18 trillion in the same
period. In aggregate, women represent a growth market bigger than China and India combined—more than
twice as big in fact. Given those numbers, it would be foolish to ignore or underestimate the female consumer. And
yet many companies do just that—even ones that are confidant that they have a winning strategy when it comes to
women. Consider Dell’s …”
Source: Michael Silverstein and Kate Sayre, “The Female Economy,” HBR, 09.09
$28,000,000,000,000.
(Lots of ZEROS.)
“Women are
THE majority
market”
—Fara Warner/The Power of the Purse
Women as Decision Makers/Various sources
Home Furnishings … 94%
Vacations … 92% (Adventure Travel … 70%/ $55B travel equipment)
Houses … 91%
D.I.Y. (major “home projects”) … 80%
Consumer Electronics … 51% (66% home computers)
Cars … 68% (influence 90%)
All consumer purchases …
83% *
Bank Account … 89%
Household investment decisions … 67%
Small business loans/biz starts … 70%
Health Care …
80%
*In the USA women hold >50% managerial positions including >50% purchasing officer
positions; hence women also make the majority of commercial purchasing decisions.
Women as …
55%
Purchasing managers: 42%
Wholesale/retail buyers: 52%
Purchasing agents:
Employee health-benefit
plans:
60%
Source: Martha Barletta/TrendSight Group/0517.11
With stats like these, one can see that
women are driving the purchase of the
commercial goods,
bulk of
not just consumer goods.
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…
Gets a belly laugh in my speeches—and
(almost) all agree it’s true.
Sales/After-sales Process
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Kick-off – Women
Research – Women
Purchase – Men
Ownership – Women
Word-of-mouth – Women
Source: Martha Barletta, Marketing to Women: How to Increase Your Share of the World’s Largest Market
She still allows him to preserve his ego
by signing the check—though women
are now the primary breadwinner in a
large share of families.
We
(old farts like me)
Got the
$$$$$$
1/8/20
USA:
65
Every 8 SECONDS
For the next 20 YEARS.
1 boomer will turn
(And the boomers have the money—and
the time to spend it.)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“PEOPLE TURNING 50
MORE
THAN HALF OF
TODAY HAVE
THEIR ADULT LIFE
AHEAD OF THEM.”
—BILL NOVELLI,
50+: IGNITING A REVOLUTION TO REINVENT AMERICA
This one really put things in perspective
for me.
PROFOUND.
Profound CONSEQUENCES.
“In 2009, households headed by
adults ages 65 and older ... had
47 times
as much
net wealth as the typical
household headed by someone
under 35 years of age. In 1984,
this had been a less lopsided
10-to-1 ratio.”
Source: Pew Research/10.11
1/8/20
(One USA boomer will turn 65 every 8 seconds for the
next 20 years.)
10/1/22
(USA adult population will have grown by 23
million between 2006 and 2016. Ages 18-49 will have grown by a
million, age 50+ will have grown by 22 million.)
>50@50
(At age 50, we have more than 50% of our adult
life ahead of us.)
7/13
(An American will buy 13 cars in the course of a
lifetime—7 after the age of 50.)
10-25
47X
(Boomers inherit $10-25 trillion in the next 20 years.)
(Net wealth of households headed by 65+ is 47X greater
than net wealth of households headed by someone <35.)
55+ > 55-
(55-plus are more active in online finance,
shopping and entertainment than those under 55)
“NEW
CUSTOMER
MAJORITY”
44-65:
Source: Ageless Marketing, David Wolfe & Robert Snyder
“Baby-boomer
Women: The
Sweetest of
Sweet Spots for
Marketers”
—David Wolfe and Robert Snyder, Ageless Marketing
“Marketers’ attempts at reaching
those over 50 have been miserably
No market’s
motivations and
needs are so
poorly understood.”
unsuccessful.
—Peter Francese, founding publisher, American Demographics
“The New Customer
Majority is the …
ONLY … adult market
with realistic prospects
for significant sales
growth in dozens of
product lines for
thousands of companies.”
—David Wolfe & Robert Snyder, Ageless Marketing
“Households headed by
someone 40 or older enjoy 91%
of our population’s net worth. …
The mature market is the
dominant market in the U.S.
economy, making the majority
of expenditures in virtually
every category.”
—Carol Morgan & Doran Levy,
Marketing to the Mindset of Boomers and Their Elders
“Fifty-four years of age has been
the highest cutoff point for any
marketing initiative I’ve ever
been involved in. Which is pretty
weird when you consider age 50
is right about when people who
have worked all their lives start
to have some money to spend.”
—Marti Barletta, PrimeTime Women
“One particularly puzzling category of youthobsession is the highly coveted target of men
18-34, and it’s always referred to as ‘highly
coveted category.’ Marketers have been
distracted by men age 18-34 because they are
getting harder to reach. So what? Who wants
to reach them? Beyond fast food and beer, they
don’t buy much of anything. … The theory is
that if you ‘get them while they’re young,
What
nonsense!”
they’re yours for life.’
—Marti Barletta, PrimeTime Women
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
we will be the
Center of your universe
for the next twenty-five
years.
of the world—and
We have arrived!
To an astonishing degree, a missed
opportunity.
The (ENORMOUS)
“Services Added”
Opportunity
“You are headed
for commodity
hell if you don’t
have services.”
—Lou Gerstner, on IBM’s revolution (1997)
M
IBM
IB
to
In the 1990s, with its old businesses in
retreat, IBM began a rapid & radical
transformation from hardware to
services.
“Never mind computers
and tech services. IBM’s
radical new focus is
on revamping
customers’ operations—
and running them.”
—Headline/ BW
Planetary Rainmaker-in-Chief!
“[CEO Sam] Palmisano’s
strategy is to expand tech’s
borders by pushing users—and
entire industries—toward
radically different business
models. The payoff for IBM would be
access to an ocean of revenue—Palmisano
estimates it at $500 billion a year —
that technology companies have never been
able to touch.” —Fortune
$50B*
*IBM Global Services/
“Systems integrator of choice”
IBM is the poster child of this “movement.” In the
early ’90s, new CEO Lou Gerstner was ordered by the
board to break up the company. Before complying, he
made a round-the-world customer tour. He discovered
that his customers were not by and large dissatisfied
with IBM’s products—they were upset that their vast
array of IBM products had not been integrated in a
way that allowed the client to achieve promised
enterprise-wide gains in business effectiveness.
Gerstner found a small extant consulting unit—and
recast it as IBM Global Services; its goal was to use
the new tools to enable no less than total enterprise
transformation. In surprisingly short order, Global
Services became the dog that wags the tail— a
$50
billion++ unit, essentially the world’s largest
consultancy, that indeed assists re-imagining/reinventing/re-positioning their entire firm!
(As to the IBM on the slide—the “M”/machine is now
more or less secondary.)
PS
UPS
U
to
“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
“It’s all about solutions. We work
with customers on creating and
running better, stronger, cheaper
supply chains.” —Bob Stoffel, UPS senior exec
UPS still has 10s of thousands of trucks,
but it is also becoming a major provider
of integrated logistics services—master
of the all-important supply chain.
“Rolls-Royce now earns
more from tasks such
as managing clients’ overall
procurement strategies and
maintaining aerospace
engines it sells than it does
from making them.”
—Economist
IDEO
Product Design
Product Design Training
Innovation Training
The big company examples are readily
translatable into the world of smaller
IDEO
firms.
, the peerless product
design firm based in Palo Alto, was
asked by (big/very big) clients if its
legendary approach to creativity could
be imported into their firms. The answer
was a resounding yes—and IDEO now
has a thriving business helping others
improve their creative and product
development processes.
Era #1/Obvious Value: “Our ‘it’ works, is
delivered on time” (“Close”)
Era #2/Augmented Value: “How our ‘it’
can add value—a ‘useful it’ ” (“Solve”)
Era #3/Complex Value Networks: “How
our ‘system’ can change you and
deliver ‘BUSINESS ADVANTAGE’”
(“Culture-Strategic change”)
Source: Jeff Thull, The Prime Solution: Close the Value Gap,
Increase Margins, and Win the Complex Sale
BIG deal.
VERY
big deal.
AND THE
WINNERS
AREN’T/ARE
-1/+1/2
S&P 500
+1/-1*
*Every …
!
2 weeks
Source: Richard Foster (via Rita McGrath/HBR/12.26.13
I was staggered by this. The S&P 500
defines the USA economy. The BIGGEST
of the BIG guys. And yet one drops off
the list … every 2 weeks.
Wow!
“Mr. Foster and his McKinsey colleagues collected
detailed performance data stretching back
years for
1,000
found that
U.S. companies.
40
They
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
Big company performance is, shall we
say, problematic. (I could provide a
hundred more equally compelling
slides.)
THE RED
CARPET
STORE
(Joel Resnick/Flemington NJ)
My favorite company. Provide the red
carpet for the Oscars, etc., etc., etc.
dominate/own their
They
niche.
Cool.
VERY
cool.
*Basement Systems Inc.
(Larry Janesky/Seymour CT)
*Dry Basement Science
(100,000++ copies!)
*1990: $0; 2003: $13M;
2010:
$80,000,000
Larry Janesky turns damp moldy
basements into dry storage areas,
family rooms, etc. He is …
Mr. Basement … and
has the patents & profits to prove it.
The Magicians of Motueka (PLUS)
!
W.A. Coppins Ltd.*
(Coppins Sea Anchors/
PSA/para sea anchors)
*Textiles, 1898; thrive on
“wicked problems”
U.S. Navy STLVAST (Small To Large Vehicle At Sea
Transfer); custom fabric from W. Wiggins Ltd./Wellington
(specialty nylon, “Dyneema,” from DSM/Netherlands)
—e.g.,
Motueka, New Zealand, is a peanutsized town. (Very near where I live in the
winter.) But it sports best-in-world in the
high-value-added business of sea
anchors. Clients include the U.S. Navy
and the Norwegian government.
“wicked
problems.”
Grooves on …
(I organized a keynote speech to New Zealand’s business and
government leaders around W.A. Coppins—an exemplar of global
business “domination” in a small corner of a small country.)
Going “Social”: Location and Size Independent
“Today, despite the fact that we’re just a little swimming
pool company in Virginia, we have the most trafficked
swimming pool website in the world. Five years ago, if
you’d asked me and my business partners what we do, the
answer would have been simple, ‘We build in-ground
‘We
are the best teachers
… in the world … on the
fiberglass swimming pools.’ Now we say,
subject of fiberglass swimming pools,
and we also happen to build them.’”
—Jay Baer, Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is About Help, Not Hype
A small swimming pool firm takes to
social media with a vengeance and
becomes a major
(world)
force in its market space.
“BE THE BEST.
IT’S THE ONLY
MARKET THAT’S
NOT CROWDED.”
From: Retail Superstars: Inside the 25 Best
Independent Stores in America, George Whalin
LOVE this sentence
—and LOVE the firms that embody it.
I
Retail Superstars:
Inside the 25 Best
Independent Stores
in America
—by George Whalin
JUNGLE JIM’S INTERNATIONAL MARKET, FAIRFIELD, OH:
“An adventure in
‘shoppertainment,’ begins in the parking lot
and goes on to
1,600
cheeses and
1,400
varieties of hot sauce—not to mention 12,000 wines priced from
$8-$8,000
4,000
a bottle; all this is brought to you by
vendors. Customers from every corner of the globe.”
BRONNER’S CHRISTMAS WONDERLAND, FRANKENMUTH, MI, POP
5,000: 98,000-square-foot “shop” features
ornaments,
50,000
6,000
Christmas
trims, and anything else you can
name pertaining to Christmas. …”
Incredible. I give this book to accountants
and lawyers and anyone I can buttonhole.
It amount to 25 acts of unparalleled
imagination—that define excellence and
differentiation. (In, often as not, out of the
way corners of the world—or, at least, the
USA.)
I LOVE THESE
FOLKS.
I repeat:
Middle-sized
NicheMicro-niche
Dominators!
I love …
"Own" a niche through EXCELLENCE
(Writ large: Germany’s MITTELSTAND)
!
Forget the giants. (More or less.) Economic
excellence is largely built more upon a
hearty base of middle-sized superstars.
Such a group, called the Mittelstand, are
the source of Germany’s astounding/
sustaining export excellence. (Until
recently, the world’s #1 exporter.)
MITTELSTAND*
*“agile creatures darting between the
legs of the multinational monsters” (Bloomberg
BusinessWeek)
Michael Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed’: THE THREE RULES:
How Exceptional Companies Think*:
1. Better before cheaper.
2. Revenue before cost.
3. There are no other rules.
(*From a database of over 25,000 companies from hundreds of industries covering 45 years, they
uncovered 344 companies that qualified as statistically “exceptional.”)
Jeff Colvin, Fortune: “The Economy Is Scary … But Smart
Companies Can Dominate”:
They manage for value—not for EPS.
They keep developing human capital.
They get radically customer-centric.
These mid-size superstars typically play
the value added game to the hilt.
“‘Commodity’ is a
state of mind.
ANYTHING can be
DRAMATICALLY
differentiated.”
Small Giants: Companies that Chose to
Be Great Instead of Big (Bo Burlingham)
“THEY CULTIVATED EXCEPTIONALLY INTIMATE
RELATIONSHIPS WITH CUSTOMERS AND SUPPLIERS, based
on personal contact, one-on-one interaction, and mutual
commitment to delivering on promises.
“EACH COMPANY HAD AN EXTRAORDINARILY INTIMATE
RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LOCAL CITY, TOWN, OR COUNTY in
which it did business—a relationship that went well beyond
the usual concept of ‘giving back.’
“The companies had what struck me as UNUSUALLY
INTIMATE WORKPLACES.
“I noticed the PASSION that the leaders brought to what the
company did. THEY LOVED THE SUBJECT MATTER, whether it
be music, safety lighting, food, special effects, constant
torque hinges, beer, records storage, construction, dining, or
fashion."
Small Giants is a stellar book with stellar
case studies. Big message: There are
paths to greatness other than an
obsession with growth. In fact, growth-forgrowth’s-sake is usually a loser’s game.
Where the +201,000 new private-sector
jobs came from …
51% Small firms
41% Medium-sized*
8% Big
Source: ADP National Employment Report/March 2011
*E.g., German MITTELSTAND
Read it twice.
WHITE-COLLAR SURVIVAL STRATEGY #1:
Department as Small/
Entrepreneurial BUSINESS
Training Inc., a 14-person
unit* in a 50-person HR
department in a $200M
business unit in a $3B
corporation—aiming for
Excellence & WOW!
*PSF/
Professional Service Firm (See my …
Professional Service Firm 50: Fifty Ways to Transform Your “Department” Into
A Professional Service Firm Whose Trademarks Are Passion and Innovation.)
Think back to the discussion of the extraordinary
technology change engulfing us—and, now, its likely
impact on high-end white collar jobs. I believe there is an
escape path, a route to not only survival, but flourishing.
I 1st wrote about it in my 1999 book, Professional Service
Firm 50: Fifty Ways to Transform Your “Department” Into
A Professional Service Firm Whose Trademarks Are
Passion and Innovation. The idea: CONVERT EVERY
“DEPARTMENT”/ “UNIT” [and yourself] INTO A FULL-FLEDGED
… “PSF”/ PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRM … WHOLLY
DEDICATED TO EXCELLENCE & WOW & ADDING
SKYSCRAPING VALUE TO THEIR CUSTOMERS’ [usually
internal customers] ACTIVITIES.
human
beings are
entrepreneurs. When we
Muhammad Yunus:
“All
were in the caves we were all self-employed . .
. 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.”
—Muhammad Yunus,
Nobel Laureate/The News Hour/PBS/1122.2006
An entrepreneurial flair is not limited to a
handful of Mark Zuckerbergs. As microlending guru and Nobel Laureate
Muhammad Yunus tells us, virtually all of
us who have survived the Darwinian
sorting process find that some form of
entrepreneurial behavior comes naturally.
Distinct or extinct!
“I believe that ninety percent
of white-collar/“knowledgework” jobs (which are 80
percent of all jobs) in the
U.S. will be either destroyed
or altered beyond recognition
in the next 10 to 15 years.”
—Cover story/Time/22 May 2000/Tom Peters
Circa 2014:
Brand YOU.
Fabulous at … something.
STAND OUT.
Or … STAND DOWN.
No other options.
“The average age of a
startup founder is 40. And
high-growth startups are
nearly twice as likely to
be launched by people
over 55 as by people
20-34.”
—Vivek Wadhwa, Kauffman foundation (Time/0325.13)
Wow.
“The ecosystem used to
funnel lots of talented
people into a few clear
winners. Now it’s
funneling lots of
talented people into
lots of experiments.”
“Bay Watched:
How San Francisco’s New Entrepreneurial Culture Is
Changing the Country,” The New Yorker, 1014.13
—Tyler Willis, business developer, to Nathan Heller in
“The growth and
success of womenowned businesses is one
of the most profound
changes taking place in
the business world
today.”
—Margaret Heffernan, How She Does It
Under-attended lynchpin of the New
Entrepreneurial Age?!
U.S. firms owned or controlled by Women:
10.6 million (48% of all firms)
Growth rate of Women-owned firms vs all
firms: 3X
Rate of jobs created by Women-owned firms
vs all firms: 2X
Ratio of total payroll of Women-owned firms
vs total for Fortune 500 firms: >1.0
Ratio of likelihood of Women-owned firms
staying in business vs all firms: >1.0
Growth rate of Women-owned companies
with revenues of >$1,000,000 and >100
employees vs all firms: 2X
Source: Margaret Heffernan, How She Does It
Women-owned Biz
U.S. employees >
F500 employees
worldwide
Source: Martha Barletta, Marketing to Women
Women-owned Start-ups
424 per day
2X men
Source: Martha Barletta/TrendSight Group/0517.11
LEADERSHIP
Not a “theory of leadership” by any means.
Just a few ideas to ponder—and, I hope in
some cases, implement.
25/50
“I’m always stopping by our
at least
a week.
stores—
25
I’m also in other
places: Home Depot, Whole Foods, Crate &
Barrel. I try to be a sponge to pick up as
much as I can.” —Howard Schultz
Source: Fortune, “Secrets of Greatness”
MBWA
Managing
By
Wandering
Around
The MBWA idea—in touch management—
was the signature of In Search of
Excellence.
“Most managers spend a great deal of time thinking about what they plan to do, but relatively little time thinking about what
they plan not to do. As a result, they become so caught up … in fighting the fires of the moment that they cannot really
attend to the long-term threats and risks facing the organization. So the first soft skill of leadership the hard way is to
cultivate the perspective of Marcus Aurelius: avoid busyness, free up your time, stay focused on what really matters.
Let me put it bluntly: every leader should
routinely keep a substantial portion of
his or her time—I would say as much as
50
percent—unscheduled.
…
Only when you have substantial ‘slop’ in your schedule—unscheduled time—will you have the space to reflect on what you
are doing, learn from experience, and recover from your inevitable mistakes. Leaders without such free time end up tackling
issues only when there is an immediate or visible problem. Managers’ typical response to my argument about free time is,
Yet we waste so much time in
unproductive activity—it takes an enormous effort on the part of the
leader to keep free time for the truly important things.”
‘That’s all well and good, but there are things I have to do.’
—Dov
Frohman (& Robert Howard), Leadership The Hard Way: Why Leadership Can’t Be Taught—
And How You Can Learn It Anyway (Chapter 5, “The Soft Skills Of Hard Leadership”)
Consider it.
(Seriously.)
4, 8, 12
“The
4 most
important
words in any
organization are …
THE FOUR MOST IMPORTANT WORDS IN ANY ORGANIZATION
“WHAT
DO YOU
THINK?”
ARE …
Source: courtesy Dave Wheeler, posted at tompeters.com
Tomorrow: How
many times will you
“ask the WDYT
question”?
(Count ’em!!)
(Practice makes better!)
(This is a STRATEGIC skill!)
8
MBWA
:
Change the World With EIGHT Words
What do you think?*
How can I help?**
*Dave Wheeler: “What are the four most important words in the boss’ lexicon?”
**Boss as CHRO/Chief Hurdle Removal Officer **********************************
Are you a full-fledged
“professional” when it
comes to helping?
Helping: (MUCH) easier said than done!
(I.e., a formal skill to be studied and
practiced.)
What do managers do for a living?
Help!
Right?
How many of us could call ourselves “professional helpers,” meaning that we have
studied—like a professional mastering her musical craft—“helping”? (Not many, I’d
judge.)
Ed Schein:
Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help
Last chapter: 7 “principles.” E.g.:
PRINCIPLE 2: “Effective Help Occurs When the Helping Relationship Is
Perceived to Be Equitable.
PRINCIPLE 4: “Everything You Say or Do Is an Intervention that
Determines the Future of the Relationship.
PRINCIPLE 5: “Effective Helping Begins with Pure Inquiry.
PRINCIPLE 6: “It Is the Client Who Owns the Problem.”*
(Words matter!! Read a quote from NFL player-turned lawyer-turned professional football coach,
calling his players “my clients.”
(*Love the idea that the employee is a “Client” ! )
Employee as Client!
“Helping” is what we (leaders) “do” for a living!
STUDY/PRACTICE “helping” as you would neurosurgery!
(“Helping”
is your neurosurgery!)
Some Help With Helping …
Help works when the recipient subsequently feels
smarter—not dumber.
Regularly help too soon—and you will set up expectation of
inaction until your "help" is provided.
Help poorly conveyed spawns powerlessness
and resentment in recipient.
Helping requires a sniper's rifle or surgeon's
scalpel—not a shotgun or machete.
Helping strategies vary (significantly) from individual to
individual—leave the “cookie cutter” at home.
Effectively "helping" may be the most difficult
leadership task of all!
"Help" is only truly successful when the recipient
says, and believes: "I did it myself!"
Near truism: Nobody wants help. But we would
all like to have received help.
Guitarist Robert Fripp: "Don't be helpful. Be available.
Helpful people are a nuisance."
12
MBWA
:
Change the World
With TWELVE Words
What do you think?*
How can I help?**
What have you learned?***
*Dave Wheeler: “What are the four most important words in the boss’ lexicon?”
**Boss as CHRO/Chief Hurdle Removal Officer **********************************
***What (new thing) have you learned (in the last 24 hours)? ********************* *
Acknowledgement
!
Acknowledgement
I like the second title slide better than the
first.
“The deepest principle
in human nature is the
craving* to be
appreciated.”
—William James
*“Craving,” not “wish” or “desire” or “longing”/Dale
Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
(“The BIG Secret of Dealing With People”)
“The deepest urge
in human nature
is the desire to be
important.”
—John Dewey
(In Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence
People (“The BIG Secret of Dealing With People”)
"Appreciative words are the
most powerful force
for good on earth.”
—George W. Crane, physician, columnist
“The two most powerful
things in existence: a
kind word and a
thoughtful gesture.”
—Ken Langone, co-founder, Home Depot
“Acknowledge” …
perhaps the most
powerful word (and
idea) in the English
language—and
manager’s tool kit!
“Employees who
don't feel significant
rarely make
significant
contributions.”
—Mark Sanborn
“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
“If there is any
ONE
‘secret’ to
effectiveness, it is concentration.
Effective executives do first things first …
and they do
ONE thing at a
time.”
—Peter Drucker
You = Your
calendar*
*The calendar
NEVER
lies.
Your priorities are revealed in your
allocation of time.
PERIOD.
!
Meetings ROCK
(Make that: SHOULD Rock)
Bitch all you
want, but
meetings
are what you
(boss/leader) do!
Meetings are
#1
do. Therefore,
thing bosses
100% of
those meetings:
EXCELLENCE.
ENTHUSIASM.
ENGAGEMENT.
LEARNING. TEMPO.
Meetings are what bosses do.
GET OVER IT.
Hence it is the bosses job-opportunity to
make these meetings no less than …
paragons of excellence.
No kidding.
Think about it.
PLEASE.
Prepare for a
meeting/every meeting
as if your professional
life and legacy
depended on it.
It does.
#1
CEO Failing?
“If I had to
pick one failing
of CEOs, it’s
that …
—Co-founder of one of the largest investment services firms in the USA/world
“If I had to pick one failing of
they
don’t read
enough.”
CEOs, it’s that …
Wow.
AND: Well worth considering.
(I.e., pause and reflect on this. PLEASE.)
“In my whole life, I have known no
wise people (over a broad subject
matter area) who didn’t read all the
time — none.
Zero.
You’d be
amazed at how much Warren
[Buffett] reads — and how much I
read.” —Charlie Munger (Berkshire Hathaway)
“The doctor
interrupts
after …*
*Source: Jerome Groopman, How Doctors Think
18 …
18 …
seconds!
AND … I’d bet (a pretty penny) that the
average manager would achieve about the
same score.
(An obsession with) Listening is ... the ultimate mark
of
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
is
is
is
is
...
...
...
...
the heart and soul of Engagement.
the heart and soul of Kindness.
the heart and soul of Thoughtfulness.
the basis for true Collaboration.
the basis for true Partnership.
a Team Sport.
a Developable Individual Skill.* (*Though women
are far better at it than men.)
the basis for Community.
the bedrock of Joint Ventures that work.
the bedrock of Joint Ventures that grow.
the core of effective Cross-functional
Communication* (*Which is in turn Attribute #1 of
organization effectiveness.)
(cont.)
Respect
.
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
EXECUTION
the engine of superior
.
the key to making the Sale.
the key to Keeping the Customer’s Business.
Service.
the engine of Network development.
the engine of Network maintenance.
the engine of Network expansion.
Social Networking’s “secret weapon.”
Learning.
the sine qua non of Renewal.
the sine qua non of Creativity.
the sine qua non of Innovation.
the core of taking diverse opinions aboard.
Strategy.
Source #1 of “Value-added.”
Differentiator #1.
Profitable.* (*The “R.O.I.” from listening is higher than
from any other single activity.)
Listening is … the bedrock which underpins a Commitment to
EXCELLENCE
Best Listeners Win …
“IF YOU DON’T
LISTEN, YOU
DON’T SELL
ANYTHING.”
—Carolyn Marland
*8 of 10 sales presentations fail
*50% failed sales
talking
“at” before
listening!
presentations …
—Susan Scott, “Let Silence Do the Heavy Lifting,” chapter title,
Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life,
One Conversation at a Time
Trevor Gay:
“I once had a boss who
‘Have
you given your
team a good
listening
to lately?’ ”
regularly asked me,
If
you agree with the above, shouldn’t listening be ... a
Core Value?
If you agree with the above, shouldn’t listening be ...
perhaps Core Value #1?* (*“We are Effective Listeners—
we treat Listening EXCELLENCE as the Centerpiece of our
Commitment to Respect and Engagement and Community
and Growth.”)
If you agree, shouldn’t listening be
If you agree, shouldn’t listening be
#1?
If you agree, shouldn’t listening be
item” at every Meeting?
If you agree, shouldn’t listening be
se? (Listening = Strategy.)
If you agree, shouldn’t listening be
for in Hiring (for every job)?
... a Core Competence?
... Core Competence
... an explicit “agenda
... our Strategy—per
... the #1 skill we look
If you agree, shouldn’t listening be ... the #1 attribute
we examine in our Evaluations?
If you agree, shouldn’t listening be ... the #1 skill we
look for in Promotion decisions?
If you agree, shouldn’t listening be ... the #1 Training
priority at every stage of everyone’s career—from Day
#1 to Day LAST?
If you agree, what are you going to do about it ... in the
next 30 MINUTES?
If you agree, what are you going to do about it ... at your
NEXT meeting?
If you agree, what are you going to do about it ... by the
end of the DAY?
If you agree, what are you going to do about it ... in the
next 30 DAYS?
If you agree, what are you going to do about it ... in the
next 12 MONTHS?
Suggested
Core Value
#1: “We are Effective
Listeners—we treat
Listening EXCELLENCE as
the Centerpiece of our
Commitment to Respect
and Engagement and
Community and Growth.”
LISTEN =
“PROFESSION” =
STUDY = PRACTICE =
EVALUATION =
ENTERPRISE VALUE
Listening can be
practiced
studied and
to the same extent and in
the same fashion as learning to play the
piano or cello.
Ear Muscle
Exercise =
!
H-A-R-D Work
If you ain't exhausted
(after a serious
conversation), then you
weren't really listening.*
(*That is not a throwaway line.)
Really listening is literally the
most exhausting activity I
know—that includes vigorous
physical activities.
“I always write
‘LISTEN’ on
the back of my hand
before a meeting.”
Source: Tweet viewed @tom_peters
“I regard apologizing as the
most magical, healing,
restorative gesture human
beings can make. It is the
centerpiece of my
work with executives who
want to get better.”
—Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There:
How Successful People Become Even More Successful.
“Centerpiece” is a mouthful.
(And Goldsmith has few if any peers as an
executive coach. Hence: Take heed.)
THERE ONCE
WAS A TIME WHEN A
Relationships
(of all varieties):
THREE-MINUTE
PHONE CALL WOULD
HAVE AVOIDED SETTING OFF THE
DOWNWARD SPIRAL THAT
RESULTED IN A COMPLETE
RUPTURE.*
*Divorce, loss of a BILLION $$$ aircraft sale, etc., etc.
I call this an …
“IRON LAW.”
THE PROBLEM IS
RARELY/NEVER THE
PROBLEM. THE
RESPONSE TO THE
PROBLEM INVARIABLY
ENDS UP BEING THE
REAL PROBLEM.
(OPPORTUNITY).
Step Up To
Creating/
Living/
Maintaining an
Effective Culture
“What matters most
to a company over time?
Strategy or culture?
WSJ/0910.13:
Dominic Barton, MD, McKinsey & Co.:
“Culture.”
Developing and maintaining an effective
culture is a hard-nosed task, anything but
ephemeral, and is … LEADER JOB ONE.
“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
Yet I came to see in
my time at IBM that culture
isn’t just one aspect of the
is very, very hard.
game
—IT IS THE
GAME.”
—Lou Gerstner, Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance
As Mr. Analysis, Lou Gerstner, says in no
Culture
issues must be
squarely addressed.
uncertain terms:
“It may sound radical, unconventional, and
bordering on being a crazy business idea.
However— as ridiculous as it sounds—joy is the
core belief of our workplace.
Joy
is the reason my company,
Menlo Innovations, a customer software design
and development firm in Ann Arbor, exists. It
defines what we do and how we do it. It is the
single shared belief of our entire team.”
Joy, Inc.:
How We Built a Workplace People Love
—Richard Sheridan,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why not????????
Three hearty cheers
(Think about it.)
Hard is Soft.
Soft is Hard.
The “hard stuff”—numbers, plans—are in
fact the flimsy (soft) bits. The “soft stuff”—
relationships, people practices, culture—
are the bedrock (hard). That was the core
belief animating In Search of Excellence.
The Moral
Imperative Redux
Your principal
moral obligation as a leader is to
develop the skillset, “soft” and
“hard,” of every one of the people
in your charge (temporary as well
as semi-permanent) to the
maximum extent of your abilities.
The good news: This is also the
#1 mid- to long-term …
profit maximization strategy!
CORPORATE MANDATE #1 2014:
A reminder.
“The role of the Director is to
create a space where the actors
become
more than they’ve ever
been before,
more than they’ve
dreamed of being.”
and actresses can
—Robert Altman, Oscar acceptance speech
0/800
“Normal” =
“0
*There are …
for
ZERO
800”
… “normal people” in the history books.
We do not live in normal times.*
ACT ACCORDINGLY.
(That’s my advice.)
(*As to the 800, an average high school history book is 400
pages long and averages two names per page. Hence, 800
remarkable people in total recognized.)
“INSANELY GREAT”
STEVE JOBS
“RADICALLY THRILLING”
BMW
High standards.
(Why not?)
“Astonish me!”
(Sergei Diaghlev)
“Build something great!”
(Hiroshi Yamauchi)
“Make it immortal!”
(David Ogilvy).
Raise your sights!
Blaze new trails!
Compete with the
immortals!
—David Ogilvy, on Ogilvy & Mather’s corporate culture
“Let us create such
a building that
future generations
will take us for
lunatics.”
—the church hierarchs at Seville
“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
“You can’t behave in
a calm, rational
manner. You’ve got
to be out there on
the lunatic fringe.”
— Jack Welch
“If I had any epitaph that I would
rather have more than any other,
it would be to say that I had
…disturbed
the
sleep of my
generation.”
—Adlai Stevenson
“I WANT TO BE THOROUGHLY
USED UP WHEN I DIE. … Life is
no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a
sort of splendid torch which I
have got hold of for the moment,
and I want to make it burn as
brightly as possible before
handing it on to future
generations.” —George Bernard Shaw
“If you ask me what I
have come to do in
this world, I who am
an artist, I will reply: I
am here to live my life
out loud.”
— Émile Zola
“The reasonable man adapts
himself to the world; the
unreasonable one persists in
trying to adapt the world to
himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable
man.” —G.B. Shaw, Man and Superman: The Revolutionist’s Handbook
“Whenever anything is being
accomplished, it is being done, I
have learned, by a monomaniac
with a mission.” —Peter Drucker
Kevin Roberts’ Credo
1. Ready. Fire! Aim.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
If it ain’t broke ... Break it!
Hire crazies.
Ask dumb questions.
Pursue failure.
Lead, follow ... or get out of the way!
Spread confusion.
Ditch your office.
Read odd stuff.
10.
AVOID MODERATION!
Kevin Roberts is CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi
Worldwide—and a good friend.
My company logo (in full).
My personal aspiration.
Excellence. Always.
If not Excellence,
what?
If not Excellence
now, when?
And, of course.
This 77-year-old aims to do no less than
change the world—beginning with
changing dramatically changing the
culture of a 2,000+ year old institution.
(And you?)
Appendix
The 34
BFOs*
*BFO/Blinding Flash of the Obvious
NOTE: In 1985, I gave a 2-day seminar to YPO members in Manhattan. As
we moved to close, I asked for feedback. Early on, a chap by the name of
Manny Garcia got up to speak—Manny, who became a pal, was one of
Burger King’s top franchisees. He began, “I really didn’t hear anything
new in the two days”—you could have heard my sharp intake of breath
from the back row. He continued, “I’d add that this was probably the best
seminar I’ve attended in my many years in business.” Huh? “I’d call it a
‘BLINDING FLASH OF THE OBVIOUS.’ We KNOW all these things—but time
and again we fail to relentlessly practice them.” In retrospect, I consider
Manny’s feedback to be the best I’ve ever gotten.
There will be … GUARANTEED … nothing new in the slides in this set. We
know putting people REALLY first translates into mid- to long-term growth
and maximized profitability. SO WHY DON’T WE DO IT? We know … GREAT
TRAINING … pays for itself 100 times over—in business just much as in
sports and the arts. SO WHY DON’T WE DO IT? We know a simple “THANK
YOU” is the greatest of all motivators. SO WHY DON’T WE DO IT? And
on—and on—it goes.
Frankly, I am in a rotten mood. If I was preaching rocket science, and
people didn’t “get it,” that’d be one thing. But each point in this section
amounts to, beyond doubt, a, yes … BLINDING FLASH OF THE OBVIOUS.
Damn it! Let’s get a move on! It is indeed obvious, then … NO EXCUSES!
This Is the (OBVIOUS)
Stuff I Care About.
This Is the (OBVIOUS)
Stuff, the Absence of
Which Sends Me Into a …
BLIND RAGE.
Tom Peters/14 May 2014
The 34 BFOs*
*Blinding Flash(es) of the Obvious
BFO
#1: If you (RELIGIOUSLY) help people—
EVERY SINGLE PERSON, JUNIOR OR
SENIOR, LIFER OR TEMP—grow and
reach/exceed their perceived potential, then
they in turn will bust their individual and
collective butts to create great experiences for
Clients—and the “bottom line” will get fatter and
fatter and fatter. (ANYBODY LISTENING?)
(PEOPLE FIRST = MAXIMIZED
PROFITABILITY. PERIOD.)
(ANYBODY LISTENING?) (FYI: “People
FIRST” message 10X more urgent than ever in
the high-engagement “AGE OF SOCIAL
BUSINESS.”)
ENABLING “ALL
HANDS” GROWTH/
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
BFO 2:
IS … LEADER DUTY
(And ALL good things flow there from.)
#1.
BFO 3: The “CTO”/Chief Training Officer should
(MUST! ) be on a par with the CFO/CMO.
TRAINING =
INVESTMENT #1.
(8 of 10 CEOs see training as an “expense,” not
an investment/prime asset booster.) ( “Our
training courses are so good they make
me want to giggle.” “Our trainers are on
the same pay scale as our engineers.” )
(In a 45-minute “tour d’horizon” of the
enterprise: GUARANTEE 9 of 10 CEOs* [*10 of
10?] wouldn’t once mention training.
THAT = DISGRACE.)
OUT-READ ’EM.
AGE 17. AGE 77. 2014: READ &
BFO 4:
GROW … or wilt.
(One financial services superstar pegs CEO problem #1:
“They don’t read enough.”) STUDENTHOOOD
(OBSESSION THEREWITH) (for ALL of us) FOR LIFE!
BFO 5: Organizations one & all exist for ONE reason …
TO BE OF SERVICE. PERIOD.
(And effective leaders in turn are …
SERVANT LEADERS. PERIOD.)
BFO 6: The … HEART OF THE MATTER (productivity,
quality, service, you name it) … is the typically under-
FIRST-LINE BOSS. (Your FULL
CADRE of 1st-line bosses is arguably … ASSET
#1.)
attended …
WTTMSW
BFO 7:
. (Whoever Tries The Most Stuff
Wins.) WTTMSASTMSUTFW. (Whoever Tries The Most
Stuff And Screws The Most Stuff Up The Fastest Wins.)
Practical translation #1: Winning through the Discipline of
QUICK PROTOTYPES.
READY. FIRE. AIM.
Winners:
“RELENTLESS EXPERIMENTATION.”
“A Bias For Action”: #1 Success Requisite in 1982.
“A Bias For Action”: #1 Success Requisite in 2014.
.
BFO 8: “Fail faster. Succeed sooner.”
“FAIL. FORWARD. FAST.”
“Fail. Fail again. Fail better.”
“REWARD excellent failures. PUNISH
mediocre successes.”
Book/Farson: “Whoever Makes The Most Mistakes Wins.”
We do NOT “accept”/ “tolerate” failures.
WE CELEBRATE FAILURES.
BFO 9:
Excellence is NOT an “aspiration.”
Excellence IS the next 5 minutes.
(Or not.)
BFO 10: Enabling change Rule #1: It’s NOT NOT
NOT about “vanquishing [‘ignorant’] foes.” It’s
ALL ALL ALL about RELENTLESSLY seeking &
recruiting & nurturing …
ALLIES.
BFO 11: The Gospel of “SMALL WINS.” You
and your Allies cobbble together a skein of
successful trials (“small wins”); momentum
around this portfolio of demos more important
than any high-investment Big Victory.
(ALLLIES + SMALL WINS +
MOMENTUM = UNSTOPPABLE.)
Year = 220 LUNCHES.
WASTE NOT ONE. Cross-functional
BFO 12:
SNAFUs #1 problem for most orgs. Software …
WILL NOT … fix it. ONLY … “Social Stuff” works—
e.g., makin’ pals in other functions; LUNDH =
Strategy #1.
XFX/Cross-Functional
Excellence … or die trying. Requisite:
Goal:
DAILY/RELENTLESS ATTENTION & ALL-HANDSALL-THE-TIME ENGAGEMENT.
BFO 13:
In Search of Excellence in 6 words:
“Hard is soft. Soft is Hard.”
(E.g., Numbers are the “soft stuff”—witness the crash.
Solid relationships/ integrity/trust/teamwork = True “hard
stuff.”)
Strategy is important.
Systems are important.
CULTURE is … MORE IMPORTANT.
(Serious change = Tackling the culture. PERIOD.)
(In his autobiography, even “Mr. Analysis,” Lou Gerstner,
IBM turnaround CEO, reluctantly acknowledged culture’s
unequivocal primacy in the big-change-game.)
BFO 14: We Are What We Eat =
WE ARE WHO
WE HANG OUT WITH. (“Hang out with
‘cool’ and thou shalt become more cool. Hang
out with ‘dull’ and thou shalt become more
dull.”)
RELIGIOUSLY-CONSCIOUSLY MANAGE
“HANG OUT.” EVERY “hang out decision”
(employees/customers/
vendors/consultants/lunch mates/board
STRATEGIC
INNOVATION DECISION.
composition/ locale/etc.) is a …
(Diversity [ON ANY DIMENSION YOU CAN NAME]
an imperative in confusing times.)
(Hire for …
CURIOSITY. EXPLICITLY.)
BFO 15: Apple market cap surpasses Exxon Mobil.
Why?
D-E-S-I-G-N.
Are YOU obsessed by …
DESIGN? (In EVERY nook and cranny of EVERY tiny
or humongous enterprise—and in your own professional
affairs.) (DESIGN is an instinctive STATE OF MIND as well
as a set of practices.) (Less than EXCELLENCE in
functionality = Unacceptable.)
(Less than SUPER-COOL aesthetics = Unacceptable.)
LBT/TGR MULTIPLIER POWER.
Ceaselessly seek the LBTs/ Little BIG Things.
BFO 16:
“Small stuff” … BIG Impact: Walmart increases (mere)
shopping basket size, small appliance sales up 50%.
Reducing TGWs/Things Gone Wrong invaluable. BUT … put
at least as much effort into remorselessly accumulating
TGRs/THINGS GONE RIGHT.
(E.g. Disney’s OBSESSION with a memorable Start &
Finish courtesy … PARKING LOT EXCELLENCE.)
BFO 17:
WOMEN BUY EVERYTHING.
WOMEN ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE LEADERS.
WOMEN ARE THE MOST SUCCESSFUL
INVESTORS.
(Does your organization … UNMISTAKABLY … reflect
these immutable truths from stem to stern?) (“This will
be the women’s century.” —Dilma Rousseff, president
of Brazil, opening address U.N. General Assembly)
BFO 18:
KEEP ADDING VALUE.
IBM To IBM: Machine dominance to Business
Services dominance. UPS to UPS: delivering
Parcels to Managing Logistics Systems.
(EVERYONE’s game: “Customer SATISFACTION”
to “Systemic customer SOLUTIONS”)
Forget B-I-G. (100% of biggies
UNDER-perform long-term.) Instead build
national wealth around …
BFO 19:
“MITTELSTAND” companies—
MIDSIZE SUPERSTAR NICHE/MICRO-NICHE DOMINATORS —in
ANY category you can name. (C.f., Germany’s Mittelstand
worldbeaters--#1 global exporter for years.) (Battle cry:
“BE THE BEST. IT’S THE ONLY MARKET
THAT’S NOT CROWDED.” WHY ELSE BOTHER?)
(FYI: ANYTHING/EVERYTHING subject to
MIND-BOGGLING ADDED-VALUE/
DIFFERENTIATION.
(BANISH the word … “commodity.”)
BFO 20: The problem is RARELY the problem. The
lackluster RESPONSE to the problem is invariably the real
problem. Answer? Slavishly adhere to these two response
LIGHTENING-FAST
RESPONSE OVERKILL. UNEQUIVOCAL
QUICK-TIME APOLOGY.
commandments:
BFO 21: What do people (MOST) desire—including thee
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
and me?
.
So: Show your appreciation … BIG TIME/ALL THE TIME.
(Track it … RELIGIOUSLY!) (“Acknowledgement” is … THE
MOST POWERFUL WORD IN THE LEADER’S VOCABULARY.)
BFO 22: The two most powerful words in the English
language are?
No contest: “THANK YOU.”
(ACT ACCORDINGLY—e.g., OBSESSIVELY.)
MBWA
BFO 23: Have you done your
/ Managing By
Wandering Around … TODAY? If not, why not? (Hint: There
are … ZERO ACCEPTABLE EXCUSES.)
BFO 24: Your CALENDAR knows your TRUE priorities.
Do YOU?
You … ARE … your calendar.
Your calendar … NEVER LIES.
(Drucker: Best bosses do ONE thing at a Time)
BFO 25: What is the individual’s/organization’s #1 enduring
strategic asset? Easy: ASSET
COLLECTIVE EXCELLENCE AT …
#1 = INDIVIDUAL AND
L-I-S-T-E-N-I-N-G. (Listening can be …
TAUGHT. Listening PER SE is a … PROFESSION. Are YOU a
“stellar professional listener”? THINK ABOUT IT. PLEASE.)
BFO 26:
LEADERSHIP is not about ABSTRACTIONS.
LEADERSHIP is about … MASTERING DISCREET SKILLS.
E.g.:
“Aggressive ‘professional’ listener.”
Meetings as leadership opportunity #1.
Creating a “civil society.”
Expert at “helping.” (Helping “professional.”)
Expert at holding productive conversations.
Fanatic about clear communications.
Fanatic about training.
Master of appreciation/acknowledgement.
Effective at apology.
Creating a culture of automatic helpfulness by all to all.
Presentation excellence.
Conscious master of body language.
Master of hiring. (Hiring “professional”)
Master of evaluating people.
Avid practitioner of MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around.
Avid student of the process of influencing others per se.
Student of decision-making/devastating impact of irrational aspects thereof.
Creating a no-nonsense execution culture.
Meticulous about employee development/100% of staff.
Student of the power of “d”iversity (all flavors of difference).
Aggressive in pursuing gender balance.
Making team-building excellence everyone’s daily priority.
Understanding value of matchless 1st-line management.
BFO 27: Aim to make EVERY internal and external
experience (PRODUCT/
SERVICE/SYSTEM/EMPLOYEE
INTERACTION/CUSTOMER INTERACTION/
COMMUNITY INTERACTION) a …
WOW!
(WOW = WOW. USE THE “W-WORD” PER SE!
E.g., Do 4 out of your Top 5 projects score
8 or above on a 10-point“WOW Scale”?
If not, get on it:
NOW.
TODAY.
WITHIN THE HOUR.
WOW-ify!
WOW Now.)
BFO 28: While on the topic of … WOW:
White collar work is by and large ticketed to fall prey to
artificial intelligence/eye-popping algorithms as well as
globalization. Stand there and take it on the chin?
NO.
My answer/1999 book/The Professional Service Firm 50:
CONVERT EVERY “DEPARTMENT”/ “UNIT” [AND
YOURSELF] INTO A FULL-FLEDGED …
“PSF”/PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FIRM …
EXCELLENCE &
WOW & ADDING SKYSCRAPING
VALUE TO THEIR/ YOUR CUSTOMERS’
WHOLLY DEDICATED TO …
[USUALLY INTERNAL CUSTOMERS] ACTIVITIES.
Why not?
There is no good reason not to proceed in this direction
within the fortnight!
BFO 29: EVERY DAY PROVIDES A DOZEN
(LITERALLY) LEADERSHIP
OPPORTUNITIES FOR EVERY ONE OF US.
(Every = EVERY. From the most junior—and even
the 3-day temp—to the Big Dudes.)
GRAB AT LEAST ONE.
Circa 2014+: You (me/all of
us) totally misunderstand overall
econ context if you choose not to
BFO 30:
RPD/Radical
Personal Development.
start today on …
BFO 31: CIVILITY WORKS. CIVILITY PAYS.
E.g.:
K = R = P.
Kindness =
Repeat business =
Profit.
(ONE MORE TIME: “Kindness” is
N-O-T “Soft.”)
BFO 32: Most of us/most organizations discount
… INTROVERTS. THAT IS A … 1ST ORDER
STRATEGIC BLUNDER. (Please read Susan
Cain’s book QUIET. It was a no-bull lifechanger
for me.)
BFO 33: Listen (HARD) to my old D.C. boss, Fred
Malek:
“EXECUTION IS STRATEGY.”
(Kelleher/Southwest: “We have a ‘strategic plan.’ DOING
THINGS.”) (Welch/GE: “In real life, strategy is actually
very straightforward. Pick a general direction … AND
IMPLEMENT LIKE HELL.” ) (Charles Munger, Berkshire
Hathaway: “Costco figured out the big, simple things and
executed with total fanaticism.” ) (Execution: That
all-important …
“LAST 99 PERCENT.” )
BFO 34: The Works …
SEGEW 2014: SERVICE!-ENGAGEMENT!-GROWTH!-EXCELLENCE!-WOW!
Employees as 1st customers
Acknowledgement & Respect
Commitment to Personal Growth & Training-to-Die-For
Engagement
Work Worth Doing
Peerless 1st-line Leadership Cadre Committed to Employee Growth
MBWA Obsession
Seamless Cross-functional Excellence
360-degree “Social” Engagement Inside & Outside the Firm
Co-creation of Everything
A Moral Service Ethos
(Each other/Vendors/Customers/Customers’ Customers/Communities)
An Ethos of Helping (“On the Bus” or “Off the Bus”)
Scintillating Design—Aesthetics & Functionality—Pervades Every
Aspect of the Business (Inside & Outside)
Provision of Extraordinary Customer (& Employee) Experiences
Obsession With TGRs/Things Gone Right
Matchless Quality
“Services Added”/Extended-Integrated-Partnered Solutions
to Broad Customer Needs
Relentless Experimentation (“Bias for Action”/Instant Prototyping/
Celebration of “Excellent Failures”/Transparency/
Pursuit of “Multipliers”)
JOY! (In All We Do)
GROWTH! (In All We Do)
WOW! (In All We Do)
EXCELLENCE! (In All We Do)