Tom Peters Re-Imagine! Excellence in a Disruptive Age World Bank/3.25.2003.

Tom Peters’

Re-Imagine!Excellence in a Disruptive Age

World Bank/3.25.2003

Slides at …

tompeters.com

Timetable

09:00-10:30: New Game, New Rules10:30-10:50: Q & A10:50-12:00: Leading in Totally Screwed-Up Times

PART I

1. We Are in a Brawl with No

Rules.

“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 &

René Tissen, Zero Space: Moving Beyond Organizational Limits.

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like

irrelevance even less.” —General Eric Shinseki, Chief

of Staff, U. S. Army

Eric’s Army

Flat.Fast.Agile.Adaptable.Light … But Lethal.Brand You/ Talent/ “I Am An ARMY Of One.”Info-intense.Network-centric.

“We are in a

brawl with no rules.”

Paul Allaire

S.A.V.

2. The Destruction Imperative.

“It is generally much easier to kill an

organization than change it

substantially.” Kevin Kelly, Out of Control

“Wealth in this new regime flows directly from innovation, not

optimization. That is, wealth is not gained by perfecting the known,

but by imperfectly seizing the unknown.”

Kevin Kelly, New Rules for the New Economy

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

“Mr. Foster and his McKinsey colleagues collected detailed

performance data stretching back 40 years for 1,000 U.S. companies. They

found that none of the long-term survivors managed to outperform the market. Worse, the longer companies had been in the database, the worse

they did.”—Financial Times/11.28.2002

“It’s just a fact: Survivors underperform.”

—Dick Foster

Rate of Leaving F500

1970-1990: 4XSource: The Company, John Micklethwait & Adrian

Wooldridge (1974-200: One-half biggest 100 disappear)

“Far from being a source of comfort,

bigness became a code for inflexibility.” —John

Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge, The Company

“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,

but how to get the old ones out.”

Dee Hock

“When asked to name just one big merger that had lived up to expectations, Leon

Cooperman, former cochairman of Goldman Sachs’ Investment Policy

Committee, answered: I’m sure there are success stories

out there, but at this moment I draw a blank.”

Mark Sirower, The Synergy Trap

“Acquisitions are about buying market share.

Our challenge is to create markets. There is a big difference.”

Peter Job, CEO, Reuters

“Active mutators in placid times tend to die off. They

are selected against. Reluctant mutators in

quickly changing times are also selected against.”

Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

Lessons from the Bees!

“Since merger mania is now the rage, what lessons can the bees teach us? A simple one: Merging is not in

nature. [Nature’s] process is the exact opposite: one of growth, fragmentation and dispersal. There is no

megalomania, no merging for merging’s sake. The point is that unlike corporations, which just get bigger, bee colonies know when the time has come to split up into

smaller colonies which can grow value faster. What the bees are telling us is that the corporate

world has got it all wrong.”David Lascelles, Co-director of The Centre for the

Study of Financial Innovation [UK]

The [New] Ge Way

DYB.com

The Gales of Creative Destruction

+29M = -44M + 73M

+4M = +4M - 0M

“The secret of fast progress is

inefficiency, fast and furious and numerous

failures.”Kevin Kelly

RM: “A lot of companies in the Valley fail.”

RN: “Maybe not enough fail.”

RM: “What do you mean by that?”

RN: “Whenever you fail, it means you’re trying new things.”

Source: Fast Company

“The Silicon Valley of today is built less atop

the spires of earlier triumphs than upon the

rubble of earlier debacles.”—Newsweek/ Paul Saffo (03.02)

Silicon Valley Success [Failure?] Secrets

“Pursuit of risk”: 4 of 20 in V.C. portfolio go bust; 6 lose money;

6 do okay; 3 do well; 1 hits the jackpot

Source: The Economist

Jim & Tom. Joined at the

hip. Not.

Huh?

“Quiet, workmanlike, stoic leaders bring about the big

transformations.”--JC

Pastels?

T. Paine/P. Henry/A. Hamilton/T. Jefferson/B. FranklinA. Lincoln/U. S. Grant/W. T. Sherman

TR/FDR/LBJ/RR/JFKM.L. King

C. de GaulleM. Gandhi

W. ChurchillM. Thatcher

PicassoMozart

Copernicus/Newton/EinsteinJ. Welch/L. Gerstner/L. Ellison/B. Gates/S. Ballmer/S. Jobs/S.

McNealyA. Carnegie/J. P. Morgan/H. Ford/J.D. Rockefeller/T. A. Edison

Built to Last v. Built to Flip

“The problem with Built to Last is that it’s a romantic notion. Large companies are

incapable of ongoing innovation, of ongoing flexibility.”

“Increasingly, successful businesses will be ephemeral. They will be built to yield

something of value – and once that value has been exhausted, they will vanish.”

Fast Company (03-00)

“The corporation as we know it, which is now 120 years old, is

not likely to survive the next 25 years. Legally and

financially, yes, but not structurally and economically.”

Peter Drucker, Business 2.0 (08.00)

“The difficulties … arise from the inherent conflict between the need to control existing operations and the need to create the kind of environment that will permit new ideas to flourish—and old ones to die a

timely death. … We believe that most corporations will find it impossible to

match or outperform the market without abandoning the assumption of continuity. The current apocalypse—the transition from a state of

continuity to state of discontinuity—Has the same suddenness [as the trauma that beset civilization in

1000 A.D.]”

Richard Foster & Sarah Kaplan, “Creative Destruction” (The McKinsey Quarterly)

Jane Jacobs: Exuberant Variety vs. the Great Blight of Dullness.

F.A. Hayek: Spontaneous Discovery Process. Joseph Schumpeter: the Gales of Creative Destruction.

3. IS/ IT/ Web … “On the Bus” or “Off the

Bus.”

2.5G, 3G, 4GWindowsSymbian

JavaBluetooth

Wi-FiPCs-PDAs-Cell“phones”

E-business vs. M-businessEtc.

Outsider’s view: (1) Billions are being spent, even in a down

market. (2) NOBODY HAS A CLUE AS TO WHO THE

WINNERS—AND LOSERS—WILL BE. (3) Yet you must play.

Now. Hard. Fast.

WebWorld = Everything

Web as a way to run your business’s innardsWeb as connector for your entire supply-demand chain Web as “spider’s web” which re-conceives the industry

Web/B2B as ultimate wake-up call to “commodity producers”

Web as the scourge of slack, inefficiency, sloth, bureaucracy, poor customer data

Web as an Encompassing Way of LifeWeb = Everything (P.D. to after-sales)

Web forces you to focus on what you do bestWeb as entrée, at any size, to World’s Best at Everything

as next door neighbor

“Ebusiness is about rebuilding the organization from the

ground up. Most companies today are not built to exploit the Internet.

Their business processes, their approvals, their hierarchies, the

number of people they employ … all of that is wrong for running an

ebusiness.”

Ray Lane, Kleiner Perkins

“Don’t rebuild. Reimagine.”

The New York Times Magazine on the future of the WTC space in Lower Manhattan/09.08.2002

“Suppose—just suppose—that the Web is a new world we’re just beginning to inhabit. We’re like the earlier European settlers in the United States, living on the

edge of the forest. We don’t know what’s there and we don’t know exactly what we need to do to find out: Do we pack mountain climbing gear, desert wear, canoes, or all three? Of course while the settlers may not have

known what the geography of the New World was going to be, they at least knew that there was a geography. The Web, on the other hand, has no

geography, no landscape. It has no distance. It has nothing natural in it. It has few rules of behavior and fewer lines of authority. Common sense doesn’t hold

here, and uncommon sense hasn’t yet emerged.” David Weinberger, Small Pieces Loosely Joined

“The e-conomy is one of re-intermediation, where new

technologies make it possible to radically increase complexity and

efficiency with the introduction of new marketplaces. In these markets, value

chains constantly reorganize as the demands of the consumer and

business change.”Thomas Koulopoulos, Delphi Group

“Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy!”

The Cluetrain Manifesto

“The Web enables total transparency. People with

access to relevant information are beginning to challenge any type of

authority. The stupid, loyal and humble customer, employee, patient

or citizen is dead.”

Kjell Nordström and Jonas Ridderstråle, Funky Business

“Parents, doctors, stockbrokers, even military leaders are starting to

lose the authority they once had. There are all these roles premised on access to privileged information. …

What we are witnessing is a collapse of that advantage,

prestige and authority.”Michael Lewis, next

What’s the Common Denominator?

The Dutch … the British … the Rothschilds … Cargill … Sumitomo …

the KGB … the CIA … Mossad … Enron … Wal*Mart … McKinsey …

FedEx … UPS … Executive secretaries … the Corner Grocer … Women-in-

general?

Masters of information acquisition, manipulation, dissemination, and

utilization.

Networkmeisters.

Agile.

Temporary.

Virtual is thy name.

Motto: Applied information is power/wealth.

“Dawn Meyerreicks, CTO of the Defense Intelligence Systems Agency, made one of the most fateful military calls of the 21st 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

4. The “PSF Solution”:

The Professional Service Firm Model.

108 X 5vs.

8 X 1= 540 vs. 8 (-98.5%)

E.g. …

Jeff Immelt: 75% of “admin, back room, finance” “digitalized” in

3 years.

Source: BW (01.28.02)

Answer: PSF![Professional Service Firm]

Department Head

to …

Managing Partner, HR [IS, etc.] Inc.

5. Toward Work that Matters: The

WOW Project.

“Reward excellent failures. Punish

mediocre successes.”

Phil Daniels, Sydney exec

Characteristics of the “Also rans”*

“Minimize risk”“Respect the chain of

command”“Support the boss”

“Make budget”*Fortune, article on “Most Admired Global Corporations”

6. WOW Projects for the “Powerless”: A

Surefire Recipe.

Topic: Boss-free

Implementation of STM /Stuff That

MATTERS!

World’s Biggest Waste …

Selling “Up”

THE IDEA: Model F4

Find a Fellow

Freak Faraway

F2F!/K2K!/1@T/R.F!A.*

*Freak to Freak/ Kook to Kook/ One at a Time/ Ready.Fire!Aim.

7. Boss Work: Demos, Heroes,

Stories … Starting a WOW Projects Conflagration.

Premise: “Ordering” Systemic Change is a Stupid Waste

of Time!

Demos! Heroes! Stories!

Demo = Story

“A key – perhaps the key – to leadership is the

effective communication of a story.”

Howard Gardner, Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership

Culture of Prototyping

“Effective prototyping may be

the most valuable core competence an innovative organization can

hope to have.”

Michael Schrage

“You can’t be a serious innovator unless and until you are ready,

willing and able to seriously play. ‘Serious play’ is not an oxymoron;

it is the essence of innovation.”

Michael Schrage, Serious Play

He who has the quickest O.O.D.A.

Loops* wins!*Observe. Orient. Decide. Act. /

Col. John Boyd

“Some people look for things that went wrong and

try to fix them. I look for things that went right

and try to build on them.” —Bob Stone/ Mr.Rego/ Lessons from an

Uncivil Servant

REAL Org Change: Demos & Models (“Model

Installations,” “ReGo Labs”)/ Heroes (mostly extant: “burned

to reinvent gov’t”)/ Stories & Storytellers (Props!)/

Chroniclers (Writers, Videographers, Pamphleteers, Etc.)/

Cheerleaders & Recognition (Pos>>Neg, Volume)/

New Language (Hot/Emotional/WOW)/ Seekers

(networking mania)/ Protectors/ Support Groups/

End Runs—“Pull Strategy” (weird alliances, weird

customers, weird suppliers, weird alumnae-JKC)/ Field “Real People” Focus (3 COs) (long way away)/

Speed (O.O.D.A. Loops—act before the “bad guys” can react)

C.f., Bob Stone, Lessons from an Uncivil Servant

“Find something small that you can turn

around. If you’re on a 9-game losing streak, you need to start with one great inning.”—Rudy

“ ‘Giant’ projects contain within them the almost certain seeds of mediocrity.

The very fact of their size causes constant scrutiny and thence ‘political’ interference. Such ‘oversight’ drains

the passion of the champions and risks—to the point of certainty—fatal

‘dumbing down’ and thence loss of the very distinction and quirkiness sought

in the first place.”

—Studio President, Hollywood

8. Boss Job One:

The Talent Obsession.

“The leaders of Great Groups love talent and know where to find it. They revel in

the talent of others.”Warren Bennis & Patricia Ward Biederman,

Organizing Genius

PARC’s Bob Taylor:

“Connoisseur of Talent”

The Cracked Ones Let in the Light

“Our business needs a massive transfusion of talent, and talent, I believe, is most likely to be found

among non-conformists, dissenters and rebels.”

David Ogilvy

“A great idea always comes from one person’s

mind, someone who is, by definition, local. If you place 10

people in Brussels to conceive a European [ad/marketing]

campaign, you’ll get nothing.”Source: Jean-Marie Dru, Disruption

“The A students work

for the B students. The

C students run the

business. The D students dedicate the buildings.” —Assertion to Kinko’s founder

Paul Orfalea from his Mom (Fortune/05.13.02)

“Thomas Stanley has not only found no correlation between success in school and an

ability to accumulate wealth, he’s actually found a negative correlation. ‘It seems that school-

related evaluations are poor predictors of economic success,’ Stanley concluded. What did predict success was a willingness to take risks.

Yet the success-failure standards of most schools penalized risk takers. Most educational

systems reward those who play it safe. As a result, those who do well in school find it hard to

take risks later on.”Richard Farson & Ralph Keyes, Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins

9. THINK WEIRD: The High Standard

Deviation Enterprise.

“We are crazy. We should do something when people say it is

‘crazy.’ If people say something is ‘good’, it

means someone else is already doing it.”

Hajime Mitarai, Canon

Saviors-in-Waiting

Disgruntled CustomersOff-the-Scope Competitors

Rogue EmployeesFringe Suppliers

Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision: Beat the Competition by Focusing on Fringe Competitors, Lost Customers, and Rogue Employees

CUSTOMERS: “Future-defining customers may

account for only 2% to 3% of your total, but they represent a crucial

window on the future.”Adrian Slywotzky, Mercer Consultants

“The future has already happened. It’s

just not evenly distributed.”

Adrian Slywotzky

W.I.W?

20 of 267 of top 10*

*P&G: Declining domestic sales in 20 of 26 categories; 7 of top 10

categories. (The “billion-dollar” problem.)

Source: Advertising Age 01.21.2002/BofA Securities

Ways to Raise a Purple Cow

Think small. One vestige of the TV-industrial complex is a need to think

mass. If it doesn’t appeal to everyone, the thinking goes, it’s not worth it. Think of the smallest conceivable

market—and describe a product that overwhelms it with remarkability. Go

from there.Source: Seth Godin, Fast Company (02.2003)

“HAVE MBAs KILLED OFF MARKETING? Prof Rajeev Batra says: ‘What these times call for is more creative

and breakthrough reengineering of product and service benefits, but we don’t train people to think like that.’ The way marketing is

taught across business schools is far too analytical and data-driven. ‘We’ve taken away the emphasis on creativity and big ideas that characterize real marketing breakthroughs.’ In India there is an added problem: most senior marketing jobs have been traditionally dominated by MBAs. Santosh Desai, vice

president, McCann Erickson, an MBA himself, believes in India engineer-MBAs, armed with this Lego-like approach, tend to reduce marketing into neat components. ‘This reductionist

thinking runs counter to the idea that great brands must have a core, unifying idea.’ ”—Businessworld/04Nov2002/“Why Is

Marketing Not Working?”

COMPETITORS: “The best swordsman in the world doesn’t need to fear

the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a

sword in his hand before; he doesn’t do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn’t

prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do and often it catches the expert out and

ends him on the spot.”

Mark Twain

Employees: “Are there enough weird

people in the lab these days?”

V. Chmn., pharmaceutical house, to a lab director (06.01)

Suppliers: “There is an ominous downside to strategic supplier

relationships. An SSR supplier is not likely to function as any more than a mirror to your organization. Fringe suppliers that offer innovative business practices need

not apply.”

Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision: Beat the Competition by Focusing on Fringe Competitors, Lost Customers, and Rogue Employees

We become who we

hang out with!

Big Idea/s

V.C. GM

PortfolioRoster

WEIRD IDEAS THAT WORK: (1) Hire slow learners (of the organizational code). (1.5) Hire people who make you

uncomfortable, even those you dislike. (2) Hire people you (probably) don’t need. (3) Use job interviews to get ideas, not

to screen candidates. (4) Encourage people to ignore and defy superiors and peers. (5) Find some happy people and get them to fight. (6) Reward success and failure, punish inaction.

(7) Decide to do something that will probably fail, then convince yourself and everyone else that success is certain. (8) Think of

some ridiculous, impractical things to do, then do them. (9) Avoid, distract, and bore customers, critics, and anyone who just wants to talk about money. (10) Don’t try to learn anything from people who seem to have solved the problems you face.

(11) Forget the past, particularly your company’s success.

Bob Sutton, Weird Ideas That Work: 11½ Ideas for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation

Advice to Corporate Leaders: “Consider the metaphor of the windmill: You can harness raw

power but you can’t control it. … Hire artists, clowns, or other disrupters to come in and

challenge your corporate environment. … Hire a corporate anthropologist to analyze how tolerant

your organization is of deviants and other

innovators. … Once the anthropologist leaves, hire a shaman to drive out the

evil spirits of conformity. …”

Source: Ryan Matthews & Watts Wacker, Fast Company (03.02)

Successful Businesses’ Dozen Truths: TP’s 30-Year Perspective

1. Insanely Great & Quirky Talent.2. Disrespect for Tradition.3. Totally Passionate (to the Point of Irrationality) Belief in What We Are Here to Do.4. Utter Disbelief at the BS that Marks “Normal Industry Behavior.”5. A Maniacal Bias for Execution … and Utter Contempt for Those Who Don’t “Get It.”6. Speed Demons.7. Up or Out. (Meritocracy Is Thy Name. Sycophancy Is Thy Scourge.)8. Passionate Hatred of Bureaucracy.9. Willingness to Lead the Customer … and Take the Heat Associated Therewith. (Mantra: Satan Invented Focus Groups to Derail True Believers.)10. “Reward Excellent Failures. Punish Mediocre Successes.” 11. Courage to Stand Alone on One’s Record of Accomplishment Against All the Forces of Conventional Wisdom.12. A Crystal Clear Understanding of the power of Great Stories.

20 Insane Ideas for the World Bank

1. “10 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT THE WORLD BANK” … is Very Cool. 2. You couldn’t BRAND your way out of a wet paper bag.3. Make your Mark where you can make a Difference … a Real & Immediate Difference, not a Theoretical Difference. (In the Long Run, we’re all dead.) (A “good” plan executed right now trumps a “great” plan executed much later.”)4. The Field Matters … WASHINGTON IS BULLSHIT.5. THEORY STINKS. ACTION MATTERS.6. “BIG” projects [MOSTLY] stink. 7. “Crazy” experiments rule! (Drop the “ ”.)8. Whoever has the fastest OODA Loops wins.9. Energy & Passion & Commitment Move Mountains … not “importance.”10. If the “Local Establishment” supports “it,” it is probably a Bad Idea. (After all, they got us into this mess.)11. RENAGADES!12. Wildly Passionate Teams … alone … can change the world.13. There are too many Economists at the World Bank. (CEOs who are economists < 1%.)14. “They” don’t call “economics” the dismal science for nothing. (Think “Exuberant Variety.” Think “Gales of Creative Destruction.”)15. GIVE ME “DO-ERS” … NOT “THINKERS.”16. Whoever makes the most mistakes wins. (“REWARD EXCELLENT FAILURES. PUNISH MEDIOCRE SUCCESSES.”)17. Herbalife & the World Bank???18. COOL STORIES RULE.19. Transparency KILLS Bad Guys. So … PRACTICE TRANSPARENCY.20. A half century of honorable work has not saved the world. (So: S.A.V. GO FOR IT!)

Q&A

PART II

11. The Passion

Imperative: The

Leadership50

The Basic Premise.

1. Leadership Is a …

Mutual Discovery Process.

“I don’t know.”

Leaders-Teachers Do Not “Transform People”!

Instead leaders-mentors-teachers (1) provide a context which is marked by (2) access to a luxuriant portfolio of meaningful opportunities (projects) which

(3) allow people to fully (and safely, mostly—caveat: “they”

don’t engage unless they’re “mad about something”) express their innate curiosity and (4) engage in a vigorous

discovery voyage (alone and in small teams, assisted by an

extensive self-constructed network) by which those people (5) go to-create places they (and their mentors-teachers-

leaders) had never dreamed existed—and then the leaders-mentors-teachers (6) applaud like hell, stage

“photo-ops,” and ring the church bells 100 times to commemorate the bravery of their

“followers’ ” explorations!

The Leadership

Types.

2. Great Leaders on Snorting

Steeds Are Important – but

Great Talent Developers (Type I

Leadership) are the Bedrock of Organizations that Perform Over

the Long Haul.

25/8/53*(*Damn it!)

3. But Then Again, There Are Times When This “Cult of Personality”

(Type II Leadership) Stuff Actually Works!

“A leader is a dealer in hope.”

Napoleon

(+TP’s writing room pics)

4. Find the “Businesspeople”!

(Type III Leadership)

I.P.M. (Inspired Profit

Mechanic)

5. All Organizations

Need the Golden Leadership

Triangle.

The Golden Leadership Triangle: (1) Creator-

Visionary … (2) Talent Fanatic-Mentor-V.C. …

(3) Inspired Profit Mechanic.

6. Leadership Mantra

#1: IT ALL DEPENDS!

Renaissance Men are … a snare, a

myth, a delusion!

7. The Leader Is Rarely/Never the Best Performer.

33 Division Titles. 26 League Pennants. 14

World Series: Earl Weaver—0. Tom Kelly—0. Jim Leyland—0.

Walter Alston—1AB. Tony LaRussa—132 games, 6 seasons. Tommy Lasorda—P, 26 games. Sparky

Anderson—1 season.

The Leadership

Dance.

8. Leaders …

SHOW UP!

P.S. …

Mark McCormack: 5,000 miles for a 5

min. meeting!

9. Leaders … LOVE the

MESS!

“If things seem under control, you’re just not

going fast enough.”

Mario Andretti

10. Leaders

DO!

The Kotler Doctrine:

1965-1980: R.A.F.(Ready.Aim.Fire.)

1980-1995: R.F.A.(Ready.Fire!Aim.)

1995-????: F.F.F.(Fire!Fire!Fire!)

11. Leaders

Re-do.

“If Microsoft is good at anything, it’s avoiding the trap of worrying about criticism. Microsoft fails constantly.

They’re eviscerated in public for lousy

products. Yet they persist, through version after version, until they get

something good enough. Then they leverage the power they’ve gained in

other markets to enforce their standard.”Seth Godin, Zooming

“If it works, it’s

obsolete.”

—Marshall McLuhan

12. BUT … Leaders

Know When to Wait.

Tex Schramm: The

“too hard” box!

13. Leaders Are …

Optimists.

Half-full Cups: “[Ronald Reagan] radiated an almost transcendent

happiness.”Lou Cannon, George (08.2000)

14. Leaders …

DELIVER!

“It is no use saying ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing

what is necessary.” —WSC

“When assessingassessing candidates, the first thing I looked for was energy and

enthusiasm for execution. Does she talk about the thrill of getting things

done, the obstacles overcome, the role her people played—or does she keep

wandering back to strategy or philosophy?” —Larry Bossidy,

Honeywell/AlliedSignal, in Execution

15. BUT … Leaders Are

Realists/Leaders Win Through LOGISTICS!

The “Gus Imperative”!

16. Leaders

FOCUS!

“To Don’t ” List

17. Leaders …

Set CLEAR DESIGN SPECS.

Danger: S.I.O. (Strategic

Initiative Overload)

JackWorld/1@T: (1) Neutron Jack. (Banish bureaucracy.) (2) “1, 2 or out” Jack. (Lead or leave.) (3)

“Workout” Jack. (Empowerment,

GE style.) (4) 6-Sigma Jack. (5)

Internet Jack. (Throughout)

TALENT JACK!

18. Leaders …

Send V-E-R-Y Clear Signals About

Design Specs!

Ridin’ with Roger: “What have you done to

DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE quality in the

last 90 days?”

It’s Relationships,

Stupid.

19. Leaders Trust in

TRUST!

Credibility!

If It Ain’t Broke … Break It.

20. Leaders …FORGET!/

Leaders … DESTROY!

Cortez!

21. BUT … Leaders

Have to Deliver, So They Worry About “Throwing the Baby Out with the

Bathwater.”

“Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t, Just Plain

Damned.”Subtitle in the chapter, “Own Up to the Great Paradox: Success

Is the Product of Deep Grooves/ Deep Grooves Destroy Adaptivity,” Liberation Management (1992)

22. Leaders …

HONOR THE USURPERS.

Saviors-in-Waiting

Disgruntled CustomersUpstart CompetitorsRogue EmployeesFringe Suppliers

Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision

23. Leaders Make [Lotsa] Mistakes

– and MAKE NO BONES ABOUT IT!

“Fail faster. Succeed sooner.”

David Kelley/IDEO

24. Leaders Make …

BIG MISTAKES!

“Reward excellent

failures. Punish mediocre successes.”

Phil Daniels, Sydney exec (and, de facto, Jack)

Create.

25. Leaders Pursue

DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE!

1st Law Mktg Physics: OVERT BENEFIT (Focus: 1 or 2 > 3 or 4/“One Great Thing.”

Source #1: Personal Passion)

2ND Law: REAL REASON TO BELIEVE (Stand & Deliver!)

3RD Law: DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE (Execs Don’t Get It: “intent to purchase” – 100%; “unique” – 0% to

5%)

Source: Jump Start Your Business Brain, Doug Hall

26. Leaders … Make Their Mark /

Leaders … Do Stuff That Matters

“I never, ever thought of myself

as a businessman. I was interested in creating

things I would be proud of.” —Richard Branson

Ah, kids: “What is your vision for the future?” “What have you accomplished since your first book?” “Close your eyes and

imagine me immediately doing something about what you’ve just said. What would it be?”

“Do you feel you have an obligation to ‘Make the world a

better place’?”

27. Leaders

LOVE the New Technology!

100 square feet

28. Needed? Type IV Leadership: Technology

Dreamer-True Believer

The Golden Leadership Quadrangle: (1) Creator-Visionary … (2) Talent

Fanatic-Mentor-V.C. … (3) Inspired Profit Mechanic. (4) Technology Dreamer-True

Believer

Talent.

29. When It Comes to

TALENT … Leaders Always Swing

for the Fences!

Message: Some people are better than other

people. Some people are a helluva lot better than other

people.

30. Leaders “Manage” Their

EVP/Internal Brand Promise.

MantraM3

Talent = Brand

31. Leaders LOVE RAINBOWS – for Pragmatic Reasons.

“Diversity defines the health and wealth of nations in a new century.

Mighty is the mongrel. … The hybrid is hip. The impure, the mélange, the adulterated, the

blemished, the rough, the black-and-blue, the mix-and-match – these people are inheriting

the earth. Mixing is the new norm. Mixing trumps isolation. It spawns creativity,

nourishes the human spirit, spurs economic growth

and empowers nations.”

G. Pascal Zachary, The Global Me: New Cosmopolitans and the Competitive Edge

Passion.

32. Leaders …

Out Their

PASSION!

G.H.: “Create a ‘cause,’ not a ‘business.’ ”

33. Leaders Know: ENTHUSIASM

BEGETS ENTHUSIASM!

BZ: “I am a … Dispenser of Enthusiasm!”

34. Leaders Are …

in a Hurry

The Urgency Factor: LEADERS … have a distorted

sense of time. (E.g.:

Rummy thinks he asked months ago … it was the day before yesterday.)

35. Leaders Focus on the

SOFT STUFF!

“Soft” Is “Hard”

- ISOE

Message: Leadership is all about love! [Passion, Enthusiasms, Appetite for Life,

Engagement, Commitment, Great Causes & Determination to Make a

Damn Difference, Shared Adventures, Bizarre Failures, Growth, Insatiable

Appetite for Change.] [Otherwise, why bother? Just read Dilbert. TP’s final words: CYNICISM SUCKS.]

The “Job” of Leading.

36. Leaders Know It’s

ALL SALES ALL THE TIME.

TP: If you don’t LOVE SALES … find

another life. (Don’t pretend

you’re a “leader.”) (See TP’s The Project50.)

37. Leaders

LOVE “POLITICS.”

TP: If you don’t LOVE POLITICS … find

another life. (Don’t pretend

you’re a “leader.”)

38. But … Leaders Also

Break a Lot of China

If you’re not pissing people off, you’re not making

a difference!

39. Leaders

Give … RESPECT!

“It was much later that I realized Dad’s secret. He gained respect by giving it. He

talked and listened to the fourth-grade kids in Spring Valley who shined shoes the same way he talked and listened to a

bishop or a college president. He was seriously interested in who you were and what you had to say.”

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Respect

40. Leaders Say

“Thank You.”

“The two most powerful things

in existence: a kind word and a thoughtful gesture.”

Ken Langone, CEO, Invemed Associates [from Ronna Lichtenberg, It’s Not Business, It’s Personal]

41. Leaders Are …

Curious.

TP/08.2001: The Three Most Important Letters …

WHY?

42. Leadership Is a …

Performance.

“It is necessary for the President to be the

nation’s No. 1 actor.”

FDR

“You can’t lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a

horse.” —John Peers, President, Logical

Machine Corporation

43. Leaders … Are The Brand

“You must be the change you

wish to see in the world.”

Gandhi

44. Leaders …

Have a GREAT STORY!

Leaders don’t just make products and make decisions.

Leaders make meaning. – John Seeley Brown

Introspection.

45. Leaders …

Enjoy Leading.

“Warren, I know you want to ‘be’

president. But do you want to ‘do’

president?”

46. Leaders …

KNOW THEMSELVES.

Individuals (would-be leaders) cannot engage in a

liberating mutual discovery process unless they are comfortable with their own skin. (“Leaders” who are not comfortable with themselves become petty

control freaks.)

47. But … Leaders

have MENTORS.

The Gospel According to TP: Upon having the Leadership

Mantle placed upon thine head, thou shalt never hear the unvarnished

truth again!* (*Therefore, thy needs one faithful

compatriot to lay it on with no jelly.)

48. Leaders … Take Breaks.

The End Game.

49. Leaders ???

:

“LEADERS NEED TO BE THE ROCK OF

GIBRALTAR ON ROLLER BLADES”

50. Leaders Know

WHEN TO LEAVE!

20 Insane Ideas for the World Bank

1. “10 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT THE WORLD BANK” … is Very Cool. 2. You couldn’t BRAND your way out of a wet paper bag.3. Make your Mark where you can make a Difference … a Real & Immediate Difference, not a Theoretical Difference. (In the Long Run, we’re all dead.) (A “good” plan executed right now trumps a “great” plan executed much later.”)4. The Field Matters … WASHINGTON IS BULLSHIT.5. THEORY STINKS. ACTION MATTERS.6. “BIG” projects [MOSTLY] stink. 7. “Crazy” experiments rule! (Drop the “ ”.)8. Whoever has the fastest OODA Loops wins.9. Energy & Passion & Commitment Move Mountains … not “importance.”10. If the “Local Establishment” supports “it,” it is probably a Bad Idea. (After all, they got us into this mess.)11. RENAGADES RULE.12. Wildly Passionate Teams … alone … can change the world.13. There are too many Economists at the World Bank. (CEOs who are economists < 1%.)14. “They” don’t call “economics” the dismal science for nothing. (Think “Exuberant Variety.” Think “Gales of Creative Destruction.”)15. GIVE ME “DO-ERS” … NOT “THINKERS.”16. Whoever makes the most mistakes wins. (“REWARD EXCELLENT FAILURES. PUNISH MEDIOCRE SUCCESSES.”)17. Herbalife & the World Bank???18. COOL STORIES RULE.19. Transparency KILLS Bad Guys. So … PRACTICE TRANSPARENCY.20. A half century of honorable work has not saved the world. So: S.A.V. GO FOR IT!)

Successful Businesses’ Dozen Truths: TP’s 30-Year Perspective

1. Insanely Great & Quirky Talent.2. Disrespect for Tradition.3. Totally Passionate (to the Point of Irrationality) Belief in What We Are Here to Do.4. Utter Disbelief at the BS that Marks “Normal Industry Behavior.”5. A Maniacal Bias for Execution … and Utter Contempt for Those Who Don’t “Get It.”6. Speed Demons.7. Up or Out. (Meritocracy Is Thy Name. Sycophancy Is Thy Scourge.)8. Passionate Hatred of Bureaucracy.9. Willingness to Lead the Customer … and Take the Heat Associated Therewith. (Mantra: Satan Invented Focus Groups to Derail True Believers.)10. “Reward Excellent Failures. Punish Mediocre Successes.” 11. Courage to Stand Alone on One’s Record of Accomplishment Against All the Forces of Conventional Wisdom.12. A Crystal Clear Understanding of Brand Power.

Thank You!