LONG
Tom Peters’
Developing a Culture of Excellence
The Second Annual Leadership Lecture
Abu Dhabi/10 March 2009

NOTE: To appreciate this presentation
[and ensure that it is not a mess
], you need
Microsoft fonts:
“Showcard Gothic,”
“Ravie,” “Chiller” and “Verdana”

“Too Much Cost, Not Enough Value” … “Too
Much Speculation, Not Enough Investment” …
“Too Much Complexity, Not Enough Simplicity”
… “Too Much Counting, Not Enough Trust” …
“Too Much Business Conduct, Not Enough
Professional Conduct” … “Too Much
Salesmanship, Not Enough Stewardship” …
“Too Much Focus on Things, Not Enough Focus on Commitment” … “Too Many Twenty-first
Century Values, Not Enough Eighteenth-
Century Values” … “Too Much ‘Success,’ Not
Enough Character”
—chapter titles from John Bogle,
Enough. The Measures of Money, Business, and Life (Bogle is founder of the Vanguard Mutual Fund Group)

If Not Excellence, What?
If Not Excellence Now, When?
The “19 Es” of Excellence
Enthusiasm.
(Be an irresistible force of nature!)
Energy.
(Be fire! Light fires!)
Exuberance.
(Vibrate—cause earthquakes!)
Execution.
(Do it! Now! Get it done! Barriers are baloney! Excuses are for wimps! Accountability is gospel!
Adhere to the Bill Parcells doctrine: “Blame nobody! Expect nothing! Do something!”)
Empowerment.
(Respect and appreciation! Always ask, “What do you think?”
Then: Listen! Liberate! Celebrate! 100% innovators or bust!)
Edginess.
(Perpetually dancing at the frontier, and a little or a lot beyond.)
Enraged.
(Determined to challenge & change the status quo!)
Engaged.
(Addicted to MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around. In touch. Always.)
Electronic.
(Partners with the world 60/60/24/7 via electronic community building and entanglement of every sort. Crowdsourcing/doing power!)
Encompassing.
(Relentlessly pursue diverse opinions—the more diversity the merrier! Diversity per se “works”!)
Emotion.
(The alpha. The omega. The essence of leadership. The essence of sales.
The essence of marketing. The essence. Period. Acknowledge it.)
Empathy.
(Connect, connect, connect with others’ reality and aspirations! “Walk in the other person’s shoes”—until the soles have holes!)
Experience.
(Life is theater! Make every activity-contact memorable! Standard:
“Insanely Great”/Steve Jobs; “Radically Thrilling”/BMW.)
Eliminate.
(Keep it simple!)
Errorprone.
(Ready! Fire! Aim! Try a lot of stuff and make a lot of booboos and then try some more stuff and make some more booboos—all of it at the speed of light!)
Evenhanded.
(Straight as an arrow! Fair to a fault! Honest as Abe!)
Expectations.
(Michelangelo: “The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” Amen!)
Eudaimonia.
(Pursue the highest of human moral purpose—the core of Aristotle’s philosophy. Be of service. Always.)
Excellence.
(The only standard! Never an exception! Start now! No excuses! If not Excellence, what?
If not Excellence now, when?)

“You do not merely want to be the best of the best.
You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.”
—Jerry Garcia

1982

Excellence1982: The Bedrock “Eight Basics”
1. A Bias for Action
2. Close to the Customer
3. Autonomy and Entrepreneurship
4. Productivity Through People
5. Hands On , Value-Driven
6. Stick to the Knitting
7. Simple Form, Lean Staff
8. Simultaneous Loose-Tight
Properties”

“Breakthrough” 82*
* In Search of Excellence

Hard Is Soft (Plans, # s
)
Soft Is Hard (people, customers, values, relationships))

—Ben Zander

BMW

MBWA

“It suddenly occurred to me …

“It suddenly occurred to me that in the space of two or three hours he never talked about cars.”
—Les Wexner

Conrad Hilton, at a gala celebrating his life, was asked, “What was the most important lesson you’ve learned in your long and distinguished career?”
His immediate answer …

Conrad Hilton, at a gala celebrating his life, was asked, “What was the most important lesson you’ve learned in your long and distinguished career?”
His immediate answer:
remember to tuck the shower curtain inside the bathtub”

—Fred Malek fffffii

L(+21) = L(-21)

Leadership(21A.D.) =
Leadership(21B.C.)

2007

Enterprise* ** (*at its best):
An emotional, vital, innovative, joyful, creative, entrepreneurial endeavor that elicits maximum concerted human potential in the wholehearted service of others.**
**Employees, Customers, Suppliers, Communities, Owners, Temporary partners

Organizations exist to serve. Period.
Leaders live to serve. Period.

… no less than shrines in which the full and awesome power of the Imagination and
Spirit and native
Entrepreneurial flair of diverse individuals is unleashed in passionate pursuit of … Excellence.

“The role of the Director is to create a space where the actors and actresses can become more than they’ve ever been before, more than they’ve dreamed of being.”
—Robert Altman, Oscar acceptance speech

Dave Liniger, founder, RE/MAX

“You have to treat your employees like customers.”
—Herb Kelleher, complete answer, upon being asked his “secrets to success”
Source: Joe Nocera, NYT , “Parting Words of an Airline Pioneer,” on the occasion of
Herb Kelleher’s retirement after 37 years at Southwest Airlines (SWA’s pilots union took out a full-page ad in USA Today thanking HK for all he had done; across the way in Dallas American Airlines’ pilots were picketing the Annual Meeting)

“The four most important words in any organization are …
Source: courtesy Dave Wheeler, posted at tompeters.com, source of original unknown (0609.08)

“The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.”
William James

—inspired by Robert Greenleaf

*Big Hairy Audacious Goal/Collins

TP:

Our Mission
To develop and manage talent; to apply that talent, throughout the world, for the benefit of clients; to do so in partnership; to do so with profit.
WPP

100 Best Companies to work for/2008
#28/PCL Construction
Enterprises
#37/TD Industries

“Business has to give people enriching, rewarding lives, or it's simply not worth doin g.”
—Richard Branson

*Calendars never lie

“I used to have a rule for myself that at any point in time I wanted to have in mind — as it so happens, also in writing, on a little card I carried around with me — the three big things I was trying to get done.
Not two.
Not four.
Not five.
Not ten.
Three.”
— Richard Haass, The Power to Persuade

“ Dennis, you need a …
List !”

You must
the change you wish to see in the world.”
Gandhi

“Mapping your competitive position” or …

1. Have you in the last 10 days … visited a custome r?
2. Have you called a customer … TODAY ?

—Eleanor Roosevelt

Kevin Roberts’ Credo
1 . Ready. Fire! Aim.
2. If it ain’t broke ... Break it!
3. Hire crazies.
4. Ask dumb questions.
5. Pursue failure.
6. Lead, follow ... or get out of the way!
7. Spread confusion.
8. Ditch your office.
9. Read odd stuff.
10.
Avoid moderation!

“I am often asked by would -be entrepreneurs seeking escape from life within huge corporate structures, ‘How do I build a small firm for myself?’ The answer seems obvious :
—Paul Ormerod, Why Most Things Fail:
Evolution, Extinction and Economics

“Data drawn from the real world attest to a fact that is beyond our control:
Everything in existence tends to deteriorate .”
—Norberto Odebrecht, Education Through Work

"...In one study, perceivers are asked to watch a video tape of a basketball game and they are asked to count the number of times one team takes possession of the ball. During the film clip, which lasts a few minutes, a person in a gorilla suit strolls onto the center of the court, turns and faces the audience and does a little jig. The gorilla then slowly walks off the court.
The remarkable fact is that perceivers (including this author) do not notice the gorilla. This is an example of what has been called inattentional blindness...”
Source: http://host.uniroma3.it/progetti/kant/field/hurleysymp_noe.htm
"A demonstration of inattentional blindness goes something like this.
Viewers are asked to monitor three basketball players in white T-shirts and count the number of times they pass the ball during a video clip.
Thirty-four seconds into this experiment, a person wearing a gorilla suit walks through the game and even pauses to pound his chest before moving on.
Despite their vigilance, approximately half the viewers never see the gorilla. Even after they are told about the gorilla and shown the video, they refuse to believe it.“
Source: http://www.aquaticsafetygroup.com/perceptions.html

#4 Japan
#3 USA
#2 China

Reason!!!

— Herb Kelleher

dan

“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
By the time our rivals are ready with wires and screws, we are on version
It gets back to planning versus acting: We act from day one; others plan how to plan— for months.”
—Bloomberg by Bloomberg

Source: BW 0821.06, Type A Organization Strategies/
“How to Hit a Moving Target”— Tactic #1

High Tech CEO, Pennsylvania

Phil Daniels, Sydney exec

DECENTRALIZATION.
EXECUTION.
ACCOUTABILITY.
6 :15A.M.

Small is (can often be)

“Design is everything.
Everything is design.”
“We are all designers.”
Inspiration: The Power of Design: A Force for
Transforming Everything, Richard Farson

Behavioral Primacy!
E.g.: plate size; location of platters,
feet Away =
“Seconds”
Source: Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating
(20 lbs per year; 200 decisions per day)

Seating arrangement
Table shape
Physical arrangements (distance, co-location, grand or not/Apple)
Geologists/Geophysicists
XFX/Cross-functional Excellence
(meetings, talks, etc)
“The hang out axiom” (“We are what we eat.”)
See greenery, recover faster (map, smell of cookies, pianos/
Planetree)
Vary road crossing times/engage

Measure “Strangeness”/Portfolio Quality
Staff
Consultants
Vendors
Out-sourcing Partners
(#, Quality)
Innovation Alliance Partners
Customers
Competitors
(who we “benchmark” against)
Strategic Initiatives
Product Portfolio
(LineEx v. Leap)
IS/IT Projects
HQ Location
Lunch Mates
Language
Board

The “Hang Out Axiom”: At its core, every (!!!) relationship-partnership decision (employee, vendor, customer, etc) is a strategic decision about:
“Innovate,
‘Yes’ or ‘No’ ”

“Diverse groups of problem solvers — groups of people with diverse tools — consistently outperformed groups of the best and the brightest. If I formed two groups, one random (and therefore diverse) and one consisting of the best individual performers, the first group almost always did better. …
Diversity trumped ability.”
—Scott Page, The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups,
Firms, Schools, and Societies Diversity

“[CEO A.G.] Lafley has shifted P&G’s focus on inventing all its own products to developing others’ inventions at least half the time
.
One successful example Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, based on a product found in an
Osaka market.”
— Fortune

Axiom:
Never use a vendor who is not in the top quartile
(decile?) in their industry on R&D spending!*
*Inspired by Hummingbird

“The Billion-man
Research Team:
Companies offering work to online communities are reaping the benefits of
‘crowdsourcing.’”
—Headline, FT , 0110.07

Rob McEwen/CEO/
Goldcorp Inc./
Red Lake gold
Source: Wikinomics: How Mass
Collaboration Changes Everything ,
Don Tapscott & Anthony Williams

“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:
— Gary Hamel/ Harvard Business Review

Vanity Fair:
“What is your most marked characteristic?”
Mike Bloomberg:

“Who’s the most interesting person you’ve met in the last 90 days? How do I get in touch with them?”
—Fred Smith

All You Need to Know About
“Sources of Innovation”:
[angry with the status quo]

The “8Ps” of Innovation Success:
Pissed off!
[Determined to change the world]
Passion!!!!
[Persist, take the heat, sell]
Prototypes.
[Fast & Furious] pow!!
[Insanely great!]
Pals.
[Buddies with different skills, recruiting ability]
Protector.
[Run cover, champion your cause]
Politics.
[Political skill]
Persistence.
[Can handle the bumps and U-turns]

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?

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.

* Excellence = Cross-functional Excellence

????
*Measure!

The “XF-50”: 50 Ways to
Enhance Cross-Functional
Effectiveness and Deliver
Speed, “Service Excellence” and “Value-added
Customer ‘Solutions’”*
*Entire “XF-50” List is an Appendix to the LONG version of this presentation, posted at tompeters.com

“ Development can help great people be even better — but if
I had a dollar to spend, I’d spend 70 cents getting the right person in the door.”
—
Paul Russell, Director, Leadership &
Development, Google

“In short, hiring is the most important aspect of business and yet remains woefully misunderstood.”
Source: review of
Wall Street Journal , 10.29.08,
Who: The A Method for Hiring,
Geoff Smart and Randy Street

cause of
Dis-satisfaction?

Employee retention & satisfaction:
Overwhelmingly , based on the firstline manager!
Source: Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman, First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently

“Forget China ,
India and the
Internet : Economic
Growth Is Driven by
.
—Headline, Economist , April 15, 2006, Leader, page 14

“One thing is certain: Women’s rise to power, which is linked to the increase in wealth per capita, is happening in all domains and at all levels of society. Women are no longer content to provide efficient labor or to be consumers with rising budgets and more autonomy to spend. … This is just the beginning. The phenomenon will only grow as girls prove to be more successful than boys in the school system.
For a number of observers, we have already entered the age of
‘womenomics,’ the economy as thought out and practiced by a woman.”
—Aude Zieseniss de Thuin, Financial Times

Give good tea!

“Allied commands depend on mutual confidence
[and this confidence] is gained, above all through the development of friendships .”
—General D.D. Eisenhower,
Armchair General * (05.08)
*“Perhaps his most outstanding ability [at West Point] was the ease with which he made friends and earned the trust of fellow cadets who came from widely varied backgrounds; it was a quality that would pay great dividends during his future coalition command.”

“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
Successfu.

Relationships
(of all varieties)
: THERE
ONCE WAS A TIME WHEN A
WOULD
HAVE AVOIDED SETTING OFF THE
DOWNWARD SPIRAL THAT RESULTED
IN A COMPLETE RUPTURE.

THE PROBLEM IS
RARELY/NEVER THE
PROBLEM. THE
RESPONSE TO THE
PROBLEM INVARIABLY
ENDS UP BEING THE
REAL PROBLEM.
*
*PERCEPTION IS ALL THERE IS!

“Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.”
—Henry Clay

— Woody Allen

Thoughtfulness is key to customer retention.
Thoughtfulness is key to employee recruitment and satisfaction.
Thoughtfulness is key to brand perception.
Thoughtfulness is key to your ability to look in the mirror—and tell your kids about your job.
“Thoughtfulness is free.”
Thoughtfulness is key to speeding things up— it reduces friction.
Thoughtfulness is key to transparency and even cost containment—it abets rather than stifles truth-telling.

Press Ganey Assoc:
139,380 former patients from 225 hospitals: none of THE top 15 factors determining
P atient
S atisfaction referred to patient’s health outcome
P.S.
directly related to
Staff Interaction
P.P.S.
directly correlated with
Employee
Satisfaction
Source: Putting Patients First , Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel

Commerce Bank: From “Service” to “Experience”

are as distinct from services as services are from goods.”
—Joe Pine & Jim Gilmore, The
Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a
Stage

vs.
R
[Things Gone WRONG /Things Gone RIGHT ]

On NELSON:

If Not Excellence, What?
If Not Excellence Now, When?
The “19 Es” of Excellence
Enthusiasm.
(Be an irresistible force of nature!)
Energy.
(Be fire! Light fires!)
Exuberance.
(Vibrate—cause earthquakes!)
Execution.
(Do it! Now! Get it done! Barriers are baloney! Excuses are for wimps! Accountability is gospel!
Adhere to the Bill Parcells doctrine: “Blame nobody! Expect nothing! Do something!”)
Empowerment.
(Respect and appreciation! Always ask, “What do you think?”
Then: Listen! Liberate! Celebrate! 100% innovators or bust!)
Edginess.
(Perpetually dancing at the frontier, and a little or a lot beyond.)
Enraged.
(Determined to challenge & change the status quo!)
Engaged.
(Addicted to MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around. In touch. Always.)
Electronic.
(Partners with the world 60/60/24/7 via electronic community building and entanglement of every sort. Crowdsourcing/doing power!)
Encompassing.
(Relentlessly pursue diverse opinions—the more diversity the merrier! Diversity per se “works”!)
Emotion.
(The alpha. The omega. The essence of leadership. The essence of sales.
The essence of marketing. The essence. Period. Acknowledge it.)
Empathy.
(Connect, connect, connect with others’ reality and aspirations! “Walk in the other person’s shoes”—until the soles have holes!)
Experience.
(Life is theater! Make every activity-contact memorable! Standard:
“Insanely Great”/Steve Jobs; “Radically Thrilling”/BMW.)
Eliminate.
(Keep it simple!)
Errorprone.
(Ready! Fire! Aim! Try a lot of stuff and make a lot of booboos and then try some more stuff and make some more booboos—all of it at the speed of light!)
Evenhanded.
(Straight as an arrow! Fair to a fault! Honest as Abe!)
Expectations.
(Michelangelo: “The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” Amen!)
Eudaimonia.
(Pursue the highest of human moral purpose—the core of Aristotle’s philosophy. Be of service. Always.)
Excellence.
(The only standard! Never an exception! Start now! No excuses! If not Excellence, what?
If not Excellence now, when?)

Excellence.
Always.
If not Excellence, what?
If not Excellence now, when?

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
Michelangelo