EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Tom Peters’
Business Excellence in a
Disruptive Age
Learning Annex/San Francisco/30October2003

Slides at …

“Uncertainty is the only thing to be sure of.
–Anthony Muh, head of investment in Asia, Citigroup Asset Management
“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
—General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff,
U. S. Army

Re-imagine!
Business Excellence in a
Disruptive Age
1. It is the foremost task —and responsibility —of our generation to re-imagine our enterprises and institutions, public and private.

Re-imagine!
2. War-making, commerce, politics, and the essential nature of human interchange have come unglued. We are in a … Brawl with No
Rules. We have to make it up as we go along.

Paul Allaire

S.A.V.*
*Fail.Forward.Fast.
Fail Faster, Succeed Sooner.

Phil Daniels, Sydney exec

Re-imagine!
3. Incrementalism is .. Out.
Destruction is … In. Built to last is
… Out. Built to flip is … In.

Forbes100 from 1917 to 1987: 39 members of the Class of ’17 were alive in ’87; 18 in ’87 F100; 18 F100
“survivors” underperformed the market by 20%; just 2 (2%) , GE & Kodak, outperformed the market 1917 to 1987.
S&P 500 from 1957 to 1997: 74 members of the Class of ’57 were alive in ’97; 12 (2.4%) of 500 outperformed the market from 1957 to 1997.
Source: Dick Foster & Sarah Kaplan, Creative Destruction: Why
Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market

“Good management was the most powerful reason [leading firms] failed to stay atop their industries.
Precisely because these firms listened to their customers, invested aggressively in technologies that would provide their customers more and better products of the sort they wanted, and because they carefully studied market trends and systematically allocated investment capital to innovations that promised the best returns, they lost their positions of leadership.”
Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma

Forget>“Learn”
“The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind,
Dee Hock

No Wiggle Room!
Nicholas Negroponte

Just Say No …
CEO, large financial services company

Huh?
“Quiet, workmanlike, stoic leaders bring about the big transformations.”--JC

Pastels?
T. Paine/P. Henry/A. Hamilton/T. Jefferson/B. Franklin
A. Lincoln/U. S. Grant/W. T. Sherman
TR/FDR/LBJ/RR/JFK
M.L. King
C. de Gaulle
M. Gandhi
W. Churchill
M. Thatcher
Picasso
Mozart
Copernicus/Newton/Einstein
J. Welch/L. Gerstner/L. Ellison/B. Gates/S. Ballmer/S. Jobs/S.
McNealy
A. Carnegie/J. P. Morgan/H. Ford/J.D. Rockefeller/T. A. Edison

Audie Murphy was the most decorated soldier in WW2.
He won every medal we had to offer, plus 5 presented by
Belgium and France. There was one common medal he never won …

Re-imagine!
4. There is no higher priority than the Total
Transformation of all business practice to eBusiness practice —encompassing every element of the enterprise and every member of its family of alliances and partners. The
Internet changes everything. Now.

“The organizations we created have become tyrants. They have taken control, holding us fettered, creating barriers that hinder rather than help our businesses. The lines that we drew on our neat organizational diagrams have turned into walls that no one can scale or penetrate or even peer over.”
—Frank Lekanne Deprez &
Ren é Tissen, Zero Space: Moving Beyond Organizational Limits.

square feet

“Dawn Meyerreicks, CTO of the Defense Information Systems Agency, made one of the most fateful military calls of the 21 st century. After 9/11 … her office quickly leased all the available transponders covering Central Asia. The implications should change everything about U.S. military thinking in the years ahead.
“The U.S. Air Force had kicked off its fight against the Taliban with an ineffective bombing campaign, and Washington was anguishing over whether to send in a few Army divisions. Donald Rumsfeld told Gen. Tommy Franks to give the initiative to 250 Special Forces already on the ground. They used satellite phones, Predator surveillance drones, and GPS- and laser-based targeting systems to make the air strikes brutally effective.
“In effect, they ‘Napsterized’ the battlefield by cutting out the middlemen
(much of the military’s command and control) and working directly with the real players.
… The data came in so fast that HQ revised operating procedures to allow intelligence analysts and attack planners to work directly together.
Their favorite tool, incidentally, was instant messaging over a secure network.”—Ned Desmond/“Broadband’s New Killer App”/Business 2.0/
OCT2002

Re-imagine!
5. Ninety percent of white-collar jobs
(90 percent of all jobs) as we know them will be disemboweled in the next 15 years.
Done. Gone. Kaput.

E.g. …
Jeff Immelt: 75% of “admin, back room, finance” “digitalized” in years.
Source: BW (01.28.02)

Re-imagine!
6. “Winners” (survivors!) will become de facto bosses of Me Inc.
Free the Cubicle Slaves! Self-reliance replaces corporate cosseting.
Hooray!

no matter how hard you apply yourself, you won’t get noticed, and that increasingly means you won’t get paid much either.”
Michael Goldhaber, Wired

E-V-E-R-Y TASK MUST BE
CONVERTED INTO A
“BRAGGABLE.”
(Success =
Sense of Impermanence + Portfolio of Braggables + Network Mastery.)

Re-imagine!
7. We must learn to add value through creativity, by inventing Extraordinary Experiences … which provide scintillating “solutions” to customers’ oft unexpressed desires and dreams. Out: Tangibles. In: Intangibles.

Gerstner’s IBM:
Global Services:
Pledge/’99: Business
Partner Charter. 72 strategic partners, aim for 200. Drop many in-house programs/products.
(BW/12.01).

Experience: “Rebel Lifestyle!”
“What we sell is the ability for a 43-year-old accountant to dress in black leather, ride through small towns and have people be afraid of him.”
Harley exec, quoted in Results-Based Leadership

WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?

It’s All About EXPERIENCES: “Trapper” to
“Wildlife Damage-control Professional”
Trapper: <$20 per beaver pelt.
WDCP: $150 /“problem beaver”;
$750-$1,000 for flood-control piping … so that beavers can stay.
Source: WSJ/05.21.2002

Re-imagine!
8. Design Rules … in an Age of
Experiences/ Dream Fulfillment.

Design Transforms even the
[Biggest] Corporations!
…
“the champion of
America’s new design democracy”
(Time ) “Marketer of the Year 2000”
(Advertising Age)

Westin’s …

Re-imagine!
9. Brand Value = All Value = Obeisance to
Metaphysical Management.

“We are in the twilight of a society based on data. As information and intelligence become the domain of computers, society will place more value on the one human ability that cannot be automated: emotion.
Imagination, myth, ritual - the language of emotion will affect everything from our purchasing decisions to how we work with others.
Companies will thrive on the basis of their stories and myths.
Companies will need to understand that their products are less important than their stories.”
Rolf Jensen, Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies

Re-imagine!
10. Women buy (ALL) the stuff. Re-imagine the brand itself —and all business practices —around women-aspurchasers.

?????????
Home Furnishings … 94%
Vacations … 92%
(Adventure Travel … 70%/ $55B travel equipment)
Houses … 91%
D.I.Y.
(“home projects”)
… 80%
Consumer Electronics … 51%
Cars … 60% (90%)
All consumer purchases … 83%
Bank Account … 89%
Health Care … 80%

$4.8T
9M/27.5M/$3.6T

Read This Book …
Faith Popcorn & Lys Marigold

FemaleThink/ Popcorn
“Men and women don’t think the same way, don’t communicate the same way, don’t buy for the same reasons.”
“He simply wants the transaction to take place. She’s interested in creating a relationship. Every place women go, they make connections.”

EVEolution

2.6

1. Men and women are different.
2. Very different.
3. VERY, VERY DIFFERENT.
4. Women & Men have a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y nothing in common.
5. Women buy lotsa stuff.
6. WOMEN BUY A-L-L THE STUFF.
7. Women’s Market = Opportunity No. 1.
8. Men are (STILL) in charge.
9. MEN ARE … TOTALLY, HOPELESSLY
CLUELESS ABOUT WOMEN.
10. Women’s Market = Opportunity No. 1.

Re-imagine!
11. Boomers & Geezers have (ALL) the money. Pay attention!

“Marketers attempts at reaching those over 50 have been miserably unsuccessful. No market’s motivations and needs are so poorly understood .”
— Peter
Francese, founding publisher,
American Demographics

st
Ken Dychtwald, Age Power
: How the 21 st
Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old

Re-imagine!
12. Creative Enterprises demand … Awesome
(& Creative) Talent. Everywhere.

“When land was the scarce resource, nations battled over it. The same is happening now for talented people.”
Stan Davis & Christopher Meyer, futureWEALTH

Message:

Re-imagine!
13. Women are … Tomorrow’s Leaders.
(Period.)

Title, Special Report, BusinessWeek, 11.20.00

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
14 to 168*
*Leadership Positions/D&T/1992-2002/WIAR

Re-imagine!
14. “Talent Development” rests upon Total
Re-imagining of our insipid schools.
Those who “color outside the box” and
“can’t sit still” are the New Heroes.

“My wife and I went to a [kindergarten] parent-teacher conference and were informed that our budding refrigerator artist, Christopher, would be receiving a grade of Unsatisfactory in art. We were shocked. How could any child —let alone our child—receive a poor grade in art at such a young age?
His teacher informed us that he had refused to color within the lines, which was a state requirement for demonstrating ‘grade-level motor skills.’ ”
Jordan Ayan, AHA!

“How many artists are there in the room? Would you please raise your hands. FIRST GRADE: En masse the children leapt from their seats, arms waving. Every child was an artist. SECOND
GRADE: About half the kids raised their hands, shoulder high, no higher. The hands were still. THIRD GRADE: At best, 10 kids out of 30 would raise a hand, tentatively, self-consciously. By the time I reached SIXTH GRADE, no more than one or two kids raised their hands, and then ever so slightly, betraying a fear of being identified by the group as a ‘closet artist.’ The point is:
Every school I visited was participating in the suppression of creative genius .”
Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace

Re-imagine!
15. Weird Wins … in Weird Times.
(Innovation = Easy. Hang Out with
Weird = Get Weird.) (Q.E.D.)

Saviors-in-Waiting
Disgruntled Customers
Off-the-Scope Competitors
Rogue Employees
Fringe Suppliers
Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision: Beat the Competition by Focusing on
Fringe Competitors, Lost Customers, and Rogue Employees

Re-imagine!
16. Leading = Re-imagining = Unleashing
Passion in One & All. Winners … Pursue
Quests to Places as Yet Unimagined.
Leaders applaud their “followers’ ” Quirky
Bravery … and egg them on to ever more wild & woolly experiments.

“In Tom’s world it’s always better to try a swan dive and deliver a colossal belly flop than to step timidly off the board while holding your nose
.” —Fast Company /October2003