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This I Believe! Tom's 60 TIBs
Tom Peters' collected wisdom over the years.
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THIS I BELIEVE!
TomÖs 60 TIBs
AN EXCERPT FROM
Project S0n4a:pshots of
Excellence in Unstable Times
contin u>e d
by Tom Peters
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Tom Peters is t he man
who can change it.
Tom invented the modern business book. But in many ways, he also invented
modern business. His writing gave us the freedom to treat work as something
personal. He gave us permission to break the rules and to make work matter.
ChangeThis is thrilled that Tom let us share the attachedÒsome of the best of
his most recent thinking. A lot comes froRm he-imias ngi. Ineew b!f estseller,
you havenÖt bought yourself a copy, you should (actually, you should buy ten, one
for everyone you work with).
This is Peters for beginners. Perfect to forward to everyone in your
TIP
organization. ItÖs also Peters for the experts, because it reminds you of whatÖs
Click on the un-der
important right now.
lined hyperlink for
more information
So, go aheadÊpost this on your blog, email it to your friends, print it out and
on Re-imagine. !
send it to the central copying department and get 500 copies made. Go make
For tips like this,
something happen.
visit (ˆÊ).
Ë Seth Godin, ChangeThis
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FOREWORD
The architect Bill Caudill was a contrarian. He pioneered the idea of working intimately with
clients to create spaces that met their needs; this !ew in the face of conventional wisdom,
which held that the architect was pure artist, barely deigning to make client contact. Caudill·s
approach was wildly successful³so much so that today it·s become conventional wisdom.
Over the years Bill jotted notes on this and that, and began to organize them for his children.
The title of his musings: This I Believe. After Caudill·s death, his colleagues collected the
notes and published them. ThaTth ei sT,I Bs of Bill C.a udill
A sixtieth birthday is a monumental occasion, and I chose, among other th-ings, to give my
self a present to mark the/my date in November 2002. I sat on a hill overlooking my farm in
Vermont, and scribbled down 60 thoughts, one for each year, that seemed to -capture my pro
fessional and, to some extent, my personal journey. Those thoughts³´Tom·s TIBsµ³herewith.
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Technicolor rul es!
Passion moves mountains!
Thats been the theme of my life·s work. When my company re-branded itself a couple of years
ago, we looked upon a red exclamation mark, Pantone PMS 032, as our logo. Smugly perhaps, I
believe that logo captures me (and our aspirations) almost perfectly.
I do not think business a dry, dreary, by-the-numbers a!air. I think business (at its best) is
about adventures and quests and growth and gold medals and booby prizes and emotion and
service and care and character. All of those are Technicolor words.
Warren Bennis has the peculiar distinction of being the only person who·s close to both Peter
Drucker and me. Asked about the two of us by a reporter some time back, Warren replied,
´If Peter Drucker invented modern management, Tom Peters vivi!ed it.µ I·m not ready for my
tombstone yet, but when the time approaches I wouldn·t mind imagining Warren·s Technicolor
encomium as my summa.
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2. Audacity matters!
All quests worth undertaking³a Girl Scout merit badge or a Nobel Prize³require audacity.
And willpower. (Of course.)
And persistence. (To be sure.)
But, frankly, a persistent misreading of the odds. The odds in 1940 of Charles de Gaulle at
the head of a parade liberating Paris in 1944? The odds of Martin Luthe-r King, Jr., emerg
ing from Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1954«then speaking to 400,000 gathered on the Mall
in Washington in 1963? The odds of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates humbling IBM, of Sam Walton
sneaking out of Bentonville, Arkansas, and throwing the fear of God into the world·s premier
retailers?
The odds in each case were 100 times greater than the longest shot in horse track history. Yet
each actor mentioned above had the sheer audacity to challenge conventional wisdom, accept
the lumps upon lumps associated therewith³and persist until victory.
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3. Revolution now!
Of course I know ´revolutionµ is a frighteningly strong word. Yet I also know (yes, know) that
from warfare to commerce to education to health care, these are times of unprecedented
change. Perhaps change of the once-a-millennium !avor. Hence it follows logically that such
madcap times call for madcap initiatives³from the Pentagon to P.S. 9 in Oakland, CA, to the
!nance or purchasing department at XYZ Widgets. If you choke on the word revolution, I am
fearful for your future. The future of your career. Your enterprise. Your children. Your nation.
Our world.
4. Question author ity!
(And hire disrespectful people!)
No assumption should go unchallenged! No strange idea should be dismissed or ignored!
(And the stranger who presents it should be welcomed rather than scorned!) Our schools
breed conformity. (Conforming students.) Our white-collar prisons, those insipid high rises
that mark most big-city skylines, cherish conformity. (Conforming workers.) And yet history·s
progress³from the dawn of civilization until today³is measured and marked by the assaults
of non-conformists: from politics to science to enterprise. By de!nition, the history book is a
Deviant·s Hall of Fame. (And indeed, upon occasion«Hall of Shame.) A Museum of Mis!ts. My
goal is to entrench the ethos of the history makers into our public and private institutions,
small and large, as we face decades upon decades of unprecedented uncertainty and turmoil.
Highest accolades should go to those who have the guts to hire the Deviants. And Gold Stars
for all who openly challenge the status quo³day after day after daunting day.
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5. Disorganization w ins!
(Love the mess!)
The di!erence-makers thrive on chaos that would intimidate others. Je!erson and Adams.
Lewis and Clark. Lincoln and Grant. TR and FDR. Churchill and Thatcher and Giuliani. The best
companies, I·ve discovered, are the most disorganized. (Take note that I -didn·t say undisci
plined.) Their leaders assemble a bulging portfolio of mavericks«and launch those mavericks
on maverick initiatives. They know that what they know is small beer compared to what they
don·t knowand only a passel of passionate and peculiar pioneers will successfully sort
through the mess. To be sure, most of those pioneers will fail«but the successful remnant,
alone, will vault the !rm or public institution to its next performance plateau. Organization is
needed to execute our daily chores; yet all progress (All. Big Word.) depe-nds on counterintui
tive leaps into the unknown. Hence, it depends on those who cherish the mess.
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6. Think 3M: Markets Matter Most.
(Only extreme competition staves o! staleness.)
Do markets have glaring ineciencies and dreadful side e!ects? Of course! Yet (only) the
spur of a new rival (the kid who was drafted for the NFL team, and now aims to swipe
your roster slot) leads us back to the practice !eld for a !nal 15 minutes of wind sprints.
Cooperation is, of course, invaluable to the achievement of most any complex task, from the
football !eld to the FBI; yet even within a largely cooperative e!ort, it is the maverick who
questions yesterday·s rituals and commits 168.2 percent of her energy to demonstrating the
validity of a wildly di!erent approach who lifts us to that next peak.
Sins and !aws aside, I·ve come to wholeheartedly believe that only Extreme Competition (and
the creation of an organizational context which encourages such extreme competition) leads
to sustained progress. (Note: the progress of those who do the best is seldom smooth. It
consists of plateaus, pitfalls, deep chasms. Followed by breakthroughs that- ratchet the enter
prise to a level higher than one could have dreamed existed.)
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7. Three hearty cheers for weirdos!
I love the !fth-grade student who leaps from his seat at the ´wrong moment.µ I love the
26-year-old who interrupts her boss. I love the heckler at a political event³even if it·s my
candidate he·s heckling.
It·s really quite simple: Hecklers alone (with incredible energy, persistence, and luck) change
the dimensions of the playing !eld. I had the privilege of living in Silicon Valley for 35 years.
Lucky me!
Ups? Many, many. Downs? Many, many. Accolades? Often. Derision? Constant. And yet the Jim
Clarks and Scott McNealys and Jerry Yangs and Andy Groves and Steve Jobses and George
Lucases actually changed the world·s rules³the way human a!airs are conducted. I have an
abiding passion for the Weird Ones. I honor their Purple Hearts (what a collection they have) as
much as I admire their Medals of Honor. Not a one of them is close to normal. Not even close.
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8. Message 2003: Technology ch ange
(info-science, bio-science)
is in its infancy. (Greatest understatement: We ain·t seen nothin· yet!)
The Internet has already lived up to its hype³and will soon exceed it. Wildly. The bio-tech/
life-sciences revolution is but gathering way. The new technologies change everything (love,
war, commerce, what it means to be human); the turmoil will extend for decades and the
fallout for centuries. While there will be further bumps in the road, like the dot-com bust that
marked the !rst couple of years of the new millennium, there is no going back. This genie is
out of the bottle!
9. Everything is up for g rabs!
Volatility is thy name!
(Forever. And ever.) Re-imagine«or perish.
I put this on the cover of my most recent book: ´It is the foremost tas-k³and responsibil
ity³of this generation to re-imagine all of our institutions, private and public.µ ´My God,
sounds like a line from a presidential address,µ one of my friends said. Well«yes. That is, it
could be. These are not times for the faint of heart. They call for the maximum from each
and every one of us. For the sake of ourselves, our communities, our children, our world. No
right answers or certain rules are on the horizon. We must make it up as we go along. As for
a Blessed Hiatus«forget about it. In short: We must all become«Re-imagineers.
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Big stinks. (Mostly.)
We go through repeated waves of entrepreneurship (when waves of new stu! rush in) followed
by consolidation (when the wave is past and the most absurd by-products of the irrational
exuberance are weeded out). To some extent, such waves and tides will continue to ebb and
!ow. Yet the inherent volatility that surrounds us at the beginning of this- new millennium sug
gests nothing less than a«Long Wave of Entrepreneurial Energy. Upstarts will indeed become
Establishment«and will then be savagely attacked by the next round of Upstarts. Truth is, Big
Company performance has always been more problematic than imagined; and m-ost adven
tures in consolidation (Big Mergers) fail miserably. While the new technology seems to promise
the possibility of ´agile giantsµ or ´dancing elephantsµ (the latter suggested by former IBM boss
Lou Gerstner), my money lies with the next generation(s) of Gateses and Waltons and Venters.
Truth Bisi,g Company perfor hmaasn caleways been
morep roblema ttihcan imagined; and most adventures
in consolidaBtiig oMne r(gers)f ail miserably.
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11. ÈPermanence is a snare and a delusion.
(Forget built to last. ItËs yes terdayËs idea,
if that.)
One serious study shows that but a single comFpoarnbye so ·n! rst List of Giants (the 1917
Forbes 100) outperformed the market between 1917 and 2003. The sole survivor, GE, is
marked, not so incidentally, by a powerful, lingering spirit of independence and autonomy.
While I admire the instinct to pursue Eternal Glory, I believe the times are better suited for
the Ellisons· and Gates·«pursuit of Temporal Glory. (Which may or may not last«but which
changes the world permanently.) Put your all into surviving today·s tsunamis of change«and
let the day after tomorrow take care of itself. Dream big? Absolutely! Aim to change the world?
Absolutely! The idea is to set in train events that rattle every cage from here to kingdom
come. But as to whether you and yours will be the engineers in charge of that train, circa
2053«who cares?
Puty ou ral lintsou rvivi tnogdayÖs
tsunam ioscf hangÊeand let dtahey
aftetro morro wtake care of itself.
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12. Kaizen (Continuous Improvemen t) is...
Very Dangerous Stuff.
Caught with our pants down by vigorous Japanese competitors, we Americans quickly copied
their essential competitive ideas, such as Total Quality Management and Kaizen. Fair enough!
Brilliant, in fact! Yet these important notions are in part cornerstones of an earlier, industrial
age«when winning products stayed on the shelves in showroom !oors for ye-ars, even de
cades. Now excellence has become transient (few teams win back-to-back championships
in sports, the competition and rate of improvement have become so intense); and the fact
is that the Pursuit of Perfection (at today·s ´sportµ) gets in the way of ferreting out the Next
Big Thing. My de facto mentors in all this are media guru Marshall McLuhan (´If it works, it·s
obsoleteµ) and IT guru Nicholas Negroponte (´Incrementalism is innovation·s worst enemyµ).
Excelle nhcaes becotmrea nsiÊent
theP ursu iotPf erfect i(oant todayÖs ÓsportÔ)
gets in the way of fterhree tNiengx to utB ig. Thing
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13. Destruction rules!
A surprising number of attendees at an end-of-millennium retreat I hosted left saying that
their biggest ´take-awayµ/´ahaµ could be captured by a single word. Namely: Cortez. That
is, the great explorer«Hernando Cortez. Upon landing in Vera Cruz, Mexico, in 1519, Cortez
headed inland to claim the nation for Spain. His soldiers faced a wily enemy and the ravages
of disease. Fearing mutiny, Cortez resorted to an extreme strategy: He sent a lieutenant back
to the sea«to burn the boats!
A little (orb omao trebu)r nin gwould do
manye nterpri sa ewsorlgd ooofd.
Our potent group·s conclusion: A little (or more) boat burning would do many enterprises
a world of good. The exemplar here is Nokia. In the 1980s, the proud but hodge-podge
Finnish conglomerate sold o! all the crown jewels, starting with forest products (what else is
Finland?), and threw in its lot with wireless communications³an arena where the leadership
had virtually no expertise. Likewise, upon coming to grips with the awesome power of the
Internet, legendary GE CEO Jack Welch, though in his sixties and only having a few years left
at the helm, labeled the new GE: dyb.com. For«destroy your business dot.com. My advice:
Re-title the Big Cheese! Drop CEO. Pick up«CDO. Chief Destruction Ocer. Cortez, anyone?
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14. Forget it! (Message: Learnin g = Easy.
Forgetting = Nigh-on-impossible.)
Visa founder Dee Hock said it best: ´The problem is never how to get new, innovative
thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out.µ Burn the boats redux, eh? My
take: Every enterprise (and every individual) needs a formal (written, for starters!)«Forgetting
Strategy. We must be as forceful and systematic about identifying and then- dumping yester
day·s baggage as we are about acquiring new baggage.
15. Innovation = Easy. ( True.)
(Message: Hang out with Freaks!)
It came to me in a !ash: Innovation is a lark! (´That !ash must have fried your brain,µ you
quickly respond.) Here·s my essential proposition:
1. Self-motivated change is virtually impossible, particularly if the individual or enterprise
is, shall we say, mature. (Or, worse yet, successful.)
2. Thence the ´answerµ (only?) to change is to throw yourself violently in harm·s way. I.e.:
Put yourself in a position where you have no option but to change.
3. Such a self-imposed precarious position comes from managing (caref-ully! quantita
tively!) the portfolio of those you hang out with.
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4. Acquire (hang out with) cool-weird-pioneering customers«and they will drag you into
the future. Acquire (hang out with) cool-weird-pioneering suppliers and they will drag
you into the future. Ditto: employees. Ditto: board members.
5. Consider: You are who you go to lunch with! Break bread with cool«a-nd you will be
come more cool. Conversely: break bread with dull«well, you can !gure it out. I·m
aware that the above might come across as simplistic. And perhaps that·s so. But then
again, perhaps it·s not. My experience and evidence say that most b-ig !rms, in par
ticular, are victims of dull, predictable, behind-the-times customers and suppliers and
employees and board members. At least: Think about it. Okay?
(And who are you lunching with today?)
16. Boring begets bo ring.
(Cool begets cool.)
Energy begets energy. Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm. Hustle begets hustle. And so on. The
Big Idea here is an ampli!cation of No. 15 above. Innovation = All. (In a wobbly world. We·re
in a wobbly world.)
One cannot expend too much ink on this topic. (See No. 17 below, while you·re at it.) THE
BIG IDEA. If we force ourselves into constant contact with Cool«the odds are (sky) high that
´coolµ will rub o!. And«of course«vice versa.
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This is personal, as well as professional. When I go too long without stimulation«I can feel
my edge dulling. No bull. (And just like the business of keeping physically !t«the dullness
sets in pretty quickly.)
It·s those edgy times«when I·m debating someone I respect but disagree with«or speaking
to high school kids, who seldom let you escape with glibness«or declaiming to a group that·s
totally new to me«that I feel most alive. Fully human. This is so central to personal growth
(mine, at least) that I deliberately micro-manage my calendar to ensure sucient contact
with«people and groups that«terrify«me.
17. Think Portfolio. We are a ll VCs.*
(*Venture Capitalists.)
I freely admit that I·m wildly, head-over-heels in love with the idea of portfolios, of bell-
shaped curves. (The fabled ´normal distribution.µ) Portfolios and bell-shaped curves suggest
diversity. Measurable diversity, at that. An NFL ´rosterµ is a classic ´portfolio,µ which ranges
from the tried-and-true player to the super-long-shot, who will make the Hall of Fame«or
!ame out. Likewise a Venture Capitalists ´portfolioµ = Roster of bets (investments).
I unabashedly want everyone to think about (damn near) everything in terms of«portfolios.
Your department·s ´payrollµ becomes a ´rosterµ-´portfolio.µ So«do you have an appropriate
share of those long shots, the wet-behind-the-ears, super-bright kids who will either alter
the world«or bomb? (We rarely do.) Portfolio-of-people = Roster. Young, old. Tried and
true sources of recruitment, new (to you) sources of recruitment. Conventional backgrounds,
(very) unconventional backgrounds. Journeymen, risky high-priced superstars (yes, in HR
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and Finance). The same applies to your«customer portfolio. Your«vendor portfolio. Your«
consultants portfolio. Your«marketing initiatives portfolio. (Etc.) (Etc.) (The great news: ´Itµ
can be measured!) (Must be measured!) E.g.: Upon evaluating your 26-person departmental
´roster,µ how many (precisely) score seven of ten or higher on the ´weirdµ/´longshotµ/´odd
backgroundµ scale?
Coaches-GMs (sports) ´doµ«rosters«portfolios. (Period.) VCs ´doµ«rosters«portfolios.
(Period.) And you?
Measure! Damn it! (Innovation«i.e. your life«depends on it!)
18. Perception is all there is.
(´Insidersµ«always«overestimate the radicalism of what they·re up to.)
I just begged you to«Measure Weirdness by quantitatively evaluating your Portfolio/Roster of
damn near everything. Now I·m going to go back on my word. (Partially.) Measure? Yes! But
have an outsider do it, or at least have an outsider evaluate your evaluation.
My experience is all too clear. (And common.) I talk to a 25-year company veteran, at his !rm·s
executive level. He glows with excitement about, say, his new supply chain initiative. He barely
notices that I·ve dozed o! in the middle of his recitation. That is, his m-easuring rod was fash
ioned by 25 years of internal experience. Mine was fashioned by 25 years o-f external experi
ence. I·m not diminishing at all the degree to which he·s stuck his neck out to champion this
idea. It·s just that to me it·s quite timid by contrast with the most incredibly interesting stu!
I·ve stumbled across in industries far, far distant from his. The idea-concern holds on every
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parameter. His idea (perception, sculpted by his 25 years in one bureaucracy) of a ´riskyµ
candidate for a top job is my idea of a ´ho-humµ candidate«who should be discarded in a
!ash. And so on.
Think about it. (Are you really as ´far outµ as you think?)
19. Action¿ALWAYS¿takes precedence.
Talk about not changing with the times! This was Idea INno .S e1a rfcrho mo f Excell ence
in 1982. It remains in the Top Spot two decades later. Except that my plea is more strident
than it was 20 years ago.
The notion froSme arch: We put too much emphasis on analysis, too little emphasis on
´gettin· on with gettin· on.µ
I could extend this section, just one of 60 in this relatively brief paper, for pages upon
pages. (Upon more pages.) Some people like to talk about stu!. Some (other) people like
to try stu!. Some people lick their wounds after a setback. (Or worse yet, initiate the blame
game.) Some (other) people ´get back on the horseµ (or !nd another horse) and go ridin·
again. (As for the blame game thing, the issue for me is sel!sh. My en-ergy is far too pre
cious to waste a single droplet on emotionally draining acts of recrimination.)
It·s almost funny. (If the stakes weren·t so damned high.) The Action Faction is completely
!ummoxed by the Memo Maniacs. AFs (Action Factioneers) are unable to sit still, to stay o!
the !eld, to delay the next step. (Sometimes their impatient rush to -action causes prob
lems. True. But«far fewer problems than the Ponder Partners· generic failure to act at all.)
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Innovation guru Michael Schrage gives brilliant intellectual cover to my Action Factioneers in
his masterful boSoekr ious Pl.a yHe claims (as I applaud) that all True Innovation comes as a
reaction to real action (a trial, prototype, experiment). My mantra (personal, professional):
Do«NOW. Think«later. At the very least, you·ll have something to think about since you·ve
just done«something.
He who makes the quick est,
coolest prototypes rei gns!
(Think: Demos. Stories. Heroes.)
TEST! (QUICK.) PROTOTYPE! (QUICK.) DEMO TIME! (QUICK.) COOL STORY! (Q UICK.)
NEW HERO! (QUICK.)
MESSAGE: Plans do not make the world go ·round. What does? Demos! Heroes! Stories! Tests!
Palpable examples! Experiments! Prototypes!
Okay. You caught me out. It·s action redux. So what? (It surely bears repeating. And then
repeating again.)
Stories-Heroes-Demos«not Plans«make the world go ·round. Think Bob Stone. Bob actually
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re-invented a fair share of the federal government·s practice. He had a simple (profound!)
management mantra: ´Some people look for things that went wrong and try to !x them. I
look for things that went right and try to build o! them.µ
Amen. (As in: AMEN!)
Fact 9is0, perc eonft Óurs eason-by-vign ette.Ô
WeÖre all honÓosrharoyw m eMÔissourians.
Fact is, 90 percent of us ´reason-by-vignette.µ We·re all honorary ´show meµ Missourians. We
need to see-it-to-believe-it. Or, early on, see-it-to-become-in!amed-by-the-potential-of-
it. We don·t need a lecture on TQM. We need the palpable, compelling story-of-42-year-old-
born-again-Charlie-the-distributioncenter-boss-who-reluctantly-but-wholehe-artedly-em
braced-the-´quality-thingµ-and-made-a-miracle-in-Padooka. To only partially coin a phrase,
one snapshot of Reluctant Charlie-turned-Demo-Hero is worth a thousand CEO exhortations
on videotape and a thousand pages of plans and policies.
MESSAGE: We (you, me) live by Demos-Heroes-Stories-Quick Prototypes-Experiments-Tests-
Concrete ´Stu!.µ So: Get concrete! Fast! Gimme«a Demo. Gimme a«Hero. Gimme a«Story.
(PLEASE.) (NOW.)
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21. Haste makes wast e.
(So¿go waste!)
Failure is the mother (father, and uncle) of success. (Period.) A few years back, the Economist
revealed Silicon Valley·s ´success secrets.µ At the top of the list: Embra-ce failure. The maga
zine used as illustration a typical venture capitalist·s portfolio. Of 20 ´betsµ (investments),
the following outcome set typically ensues: Six go bust. Nine hang in. Four do well. One goes
(positively) berserk.
There are several signi!cant messages here. Topping the list: Brilliant s-uccess = 1 in 20 bat
ting average! Failures and ho-hums far outnumber successes. The !rst (MBAs·? Planners·?)
reaction is to dismiss all this as a ´failure of analysisµ on the part of those VCs. Baloney! The
top VCs (in my extensive experience) are smarter than you and me«and they still hit 1 in
20«and live in the house at the Top of the Hill. Fact: No ´house at the top of the hillµ unless
you back a host of subsequent losers in pursuit of the winning lottery ticket for the«Next Big
Thing.
You could also try labeling all those ´lossesµ as«´waste.µ But you·d be wrong. We needed a
kajillion auto company start-ups in the !rst two decades of the 1900s«to produce a (one!)
Ford, a (one!) GM, a (one!) (more-or-less) Chrysler. Likewise, we actually (truly!) ´neededµ
WorldCom-like !ascos to push the astounding telecoms advances we·ve all bene!ted from in
the last 20 years. Of course, I decry the fraudulent actions at WorldCom, and (literally) weep
for the faithful employees who lost out in the process. But progress always claims victims.
And fast progress, alas, claims numerous victims. While I pine for the evaporated WorldCom
pensions (and hope that some form of restitution is possible), I hardly want to go back to the
Telecom Cocoon called Ma Bell, circa 1980. I.e.: Three cheers for ´waste.µ
(And three-plus cheers for ´Hasty Waste.µ)
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22. Screw-ups are¿THE¿Mark of Excellence.
(Corollary: Do it right the rst time is an¿
Obscenity.)
Richard Farson is a bum! He wrote the book I wanted to write! And got there !rst! With Ralph
Keyes, he penneWdh oever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins: The Paradox of In.n oAvlasot ion
consider:
1. From premier product developer David Kelley: ´Fail Faster. Succeed sooner.µ
2. From a Philadelphia area high-tech executive: ´Fail. Forward. Fast.µ
3. From successful Aussie businessman Phil Daniels: ´Reward excellent failures. Punish
mediocre successes.µ Take your pick. I·ll take ·em all.
My resolve on this issue of the paramount importance of failure was locked into granite a
dozen years ago, when I had a chance to introduce Wal*Mart founder Sam Walt-on at a presti
gious awards banquet.
I sought out Sam·s long-time pal and successor as Wal*Mart CEO, David Glass, and asked
him what single trait of Sam·s stood out above the rest. He quickly replied, ´Sam·s not afraid
to fail. It·s not,µ he continued, ´that Sam tolerates less than a Herculean e!ort, or anything
like that. To the contrary. It·s just that his attitude is, ¶Got that dumb one behind us. Let·s try
something else. Right now.·µ Alas, such an attitude is ever so rare, in sizeable enterprises in
particular³which seem to spend more time on backward-looking witch hunts than forward
motion«that all-important ´next-quick -try.µ
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23. Play hard! Right n ow!
Cherish play!
Michael SchrageS·esr ious Pl,a ymentioned before, is my pick as best book on innovation.
Well researched, its strategic message is captured in this opening statement: ´You can·t be a
serious innovator unless you are willing and able to play. ¶Serious play· is not an oxymoron;
it·s the essence of innovation.µ Schrage essentially devotes 300 pages to -the apparently sec
ond-order topic of quick prototyping, from tangible model building to processing thousands
of iterations of a spreadsheet in a matter of hours.
´Playµ is business·s Voldemort«one-of-those-words-that-dare-not-be-uttered-between-
nine-and-!ve.
And yet each day we confront hopelessly complex circumstances in the marketplace or in the
design of a new piece of software. Winners³I contend³have but one (yes, one!) consistent
strategy: Try. Something. Fast. See. What. Happens. Fast.
Four decades of observation (mine and Schrage·s) say it is that clear-cut: -´Playµ rules innova
tion·s roost!
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24. Talent Tim(eH! e/She who has t he¿
Best Roster¿rules.)
Oh how I love«LOVE«those two wordTsA. LENT. ROSTER. Say talent, say rosterµ«and the
Yankees«the Metropolitan Opera«or a space shuttle crew«or Microsoft·s latest bet-the-
company design team comes to mind. Alas, say Finance Department, HR Department,
´Personnel, Human Resourcesµ«and neither the Yankees nor Talent necessarily comes to
mind.
It is a New Economy. It is an Age of Intellectual Capital«or ´creation intensi!cation,µ as one
Japanese researcher in the !nancial industry put it. If it·s new economy/intellectual capital/
creation intensi!cation time«then ´itµ isH ea/lSlh ea bWohuot «Has the Best Talent/Roster
Wins.
I simply contend that when you say/think Talent/Roster, your mind is transformed from the
more pedestrian imagery that matches up with ´employee,µ ´worker,µ ´human resource,µ or
´department.µ
Talent is cool!
Talent gravitates to cool!
Talent attracts more Talent!
And: In Real Talent World (again, think Yankees, Metropolitan Opera)«Boss Job One (and 2
through 2,002) is the«Attraction & Development & Retention of Talent. For NFL GMs, a few of
whom I·ve known, Talent per se is a 25/8/53 Obsession (and don·t forget to capitalize the ´Oµ
in ´Obsession.µ)
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McKinsey & Co.·s former Talent Guru, Ed Michaels, places GE, virtually alone, in the Yankees·
league. The process of TA&D (Talent Acquisition and Development) at GE is- intense, relent
less, uncompromising, and played for keeps. Incidentally, I·m not talking about the ´top !fty,µ
or any such thin, stratospheric layer. I·m talking about the active/obsessed engagement with
the top several thousand ´rosterµ members. In short: If talent rules«then Talent Rules. (In
every nook and every cranny of the enterprise, 25/8/53.)
It is a New EcIot niosm ya.n Age of Intellectual
CapitalÊÓorc reation intensißcation.Ô
25. Re-do education. Totally.
(Foster creativity«not uniformity.) (The noisiest classroom wins the gold.)
Read it and weep, from Jordan Ayan·sA hbao!o:k ´My wife and I went to a [kinderga-rten] par
ent-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 child³
let alone our child³receive a poor grade in art at such a young age? His teacher informed us
that he had refused to ¶color within the lines,· which is a state requirement for demonstrating
¶grade-level motor skills.·µ
The school system was crafted to deliver factory slaves to Henry Ford, and cubicle slaves to
XYZ Insurers.
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Former Hallmark creative exec Gordon MacKenzie, who devoted his retirement to working
with the school system, went so far as to say, ´Every school I·ve visited was participating in
the systematic suppression of creative genius.µ Maybe that was okay in the Age of Ford. But
it is de!nitely not okay in the Age of the Smart Microprocessor and the Age of Wholesale
Outsourcing of Brain-Creative Jobs. To say the schools are not responding, let alone leading,
the global economic transition process is a grotesque understatement.
Tomorrow·s ´Requirement No. 1µ: Kids who color outside the lines! I, for one, am counting on
Christopher Ayan as Secretary of Education by 2025! In the meantime ...
To say stcheh oo lasreno t respondi,n g
let alone leading,e tchoen oglmoi btcarla nsit ion
processa gisr otesq uunederstatem.ent
26. DiversityËs hour is now!
I·m a diversity fan aPtoilci.tical correctness has no place in my credo. Pursui-t of rapid eco
nomic growth does. Hence I !nd myself applauding madly the words of GreTgh eZ achary in
Global Me: ´Diversity de!nes 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 ³these 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.µ
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Strong words! And accurate ones, as I see it. Carnegie Mellon professor Richard Florida claims
that in America a ´creative class,µ already 38 million strong, is leading the way on just about
any dimension you can name. He and Zachary sing from the same page of the same hymnal.
´You cannot get a technologically innovative place,µ Florida insists, ´unle-ss it·s open to weird
ness, eccentricity and di!erence.µ
Message: Creative age = Creative rules = Mix and match = Diversity·s hour. Q.E.D.
ÓDivers idteyßne sthhee alt h
andw ealt ohf nations in a new century.
Mighty ism othneg reÊlThe hybrid is hip.Ô
27. S-H-E is the best leader.
Women will rule. (Period.) And its a great-necessary thing! Logic: Women -bring to the work
place the perfect (big word!) skill set for the emergent new economy. Judy Rosener lays it out
brilliantlyA mienr ica·s Competitive Secret: Women Man.a gWeormsen, she enumerates, tend to:
link rather than rank workers«favor an interactive/collaborative leadership style, believe that
empowerment beats top-down decision making«sustain fruitful collaborations«-are comfort
able sharing information«see re-distribution of power as victory, not surr-ender«favor mul
tidimensional feedback«value technical and interpersonal skills equally; individual and group
contributions equally«readily accept ambiguity«honor intuition as well as pure rationality«are
inherently !exible«and appreciate cultural diversity.
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What a list! Of course not all men are hopeless on all these dimensions. Yet there is a clear
´central tendencyµ which di!ers among men and women³and which will increa-singly, espe
cially in the mid-to-long term, result in women·s accession to the top ranks of leadership.
(Far beyond the pathetic statistic, circa 2003, that women occupy only 8 of 500 CEO jobs
among the Fortune 500.) Given the above, I have no trouble with the conclusion of a 2000
BusinessWeek Special Report: ´As leaders, women rule: New studies !nd that- female manag
ers outshine their male counterparts in almost every measure.µ More humbly, I simply suggest
that women are the most underrated, under-attended answer to the always pressing question
of ´Where do we !nd more/better leaders?µ
28. Marketing mantra: Pocket Trillion$$$.
Embrace the Big Two: (1) She is the c ustomer!
(2) Boomers & Geezers have all the loot!
I·d be thrilled if the last quarter of my career led to the following la-bel: ´The guy who dis
covered women and geezers.µ Marketers get so caught up in micro-segmentation that they
often miss the«Main Game. In this case, two games«yes«YES!«Two Trends Worth Trillions,
as in Trillion$$$. Namely: (1) Women buy All the Stu!! (2) We·re getting older! I·ve written
extensively on both topics, and won·t repeat myself here. (Though I·m sorely tempted.) A raft
of indisputable statistics make it clear that women, as purchasers of retail and professional
goods and services, dominate virtually every market category you can name. And are blithely
ignored by 99 percent of companies. Sure, most !rms nod to the woman consumer. But only
the rarest of Big Players (such as a Lowe·s in DIY world) realign the enterprise strategically«
around the woman as consumer.
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Likewise, 99 percent of !rms blithely (that word again) ignore the Boomer-Geezer tsunami.
And«the Entirely New Brand of Oldster who is arriving on the scene«wallet bulging«aiming
to«live a lot longer«and«spend, spend, spend.
Let me brie!y add, after seven years of intense study, that I am convinced that as personal
and professional consumers, men and women, geezers and non-geezers, have damn little
in common. Hence to ´take advantageµ of these two trends requires«Wholesale Enterprise
Realignment. (Not some la-de-dah ´initiative.µ)
29. Re-boot health care.
Arguably, education and health care are our two most signi!cant ´industries.µ Both are almost
hopelessly out of tune with tomorrow·s times. I touched on education·s need- for a monumen
tal re-alignment in item No. 25 above. Now it·s time for health care·s shellacking.
To begin with«everybody is pissed o!! Everybody is at fault! Consider:
1. We must get quality-conscious. Fact: As a result of physician arrogance and outdated
procedures, our out-of-control health care system unnecessarily (!) kil-ls and maims mil
lions per year. (No exaggeration.)
2. Spoiled patients ´expect it allµ³and take little responsibility for the rationing of health
care.
3. The entire system is skewed (somebody help me !nd a stronger word!) toward !xing
things (!) after they·re broken, rather than toward wellness and prevention.
4. Narrowing the focus to America, I believe it·s a criminal shame that a third of us are
uninsured³in earth·s wealthiest (by far!) nation.
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Bottom line: There is an enormous opportunity to ´get the health/health -care quality/well
ness/universal access/rationing ¶thing· right.µ One hopes it will streak -to the top of the na
tional agenda³especially as our 80 million cantankerous Boomers (see No. 28- above) experi
ence the acceleration of aches and pains.
30. Q: What are we sel ling?
A: Experiences and solutions, far more
than top quality and satisfaction.É
Message: the Traditional value-added equation is being set on its ear.
The ´Mµ in IBM, obviously, stands for ´Machines.µ But IBM makes damn few machines today.
It mostly ´makesµ«´experiencesµ and ´solutions.µ Under the guidance of CEOs Lou Gerstner
and Sam Palmisano, a single IBM division, IBM Global Services, rapidly grew from a pittance
to about $40 billion. IBM today is a software-services-consulting-solutions company. It
has more in common with Cirque du Soleil than Caterpillar Tractor. (Whoops, CAT now sells
services and solutions«not to mention its licensed shoes and shirts and jackets!) In short,
the ´bedrockµ of ´national economic excellenceµ (Japanese-style, German-style) has been
crushed. Comfortable or not, welcome to (New) IBM World«where ´solutionsµ- and ´experi
encesµ dominate.
See too: Nike. Harley-Davidson. UPS (´What can brown do for you?µ). Ford (-´A ¶brand experi
ence provider,· not a ¶car maker,·µ per one wag.) Home Depot (which wants to ´ownµ the home
services market). Etc. (Etc.) (Etc.) (Etc.)
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The Big Deal: This«is«a«BIG DEAL. As one marketing expert put it, tomorrow·s Skill/
Requirement No. 1 is ´metaphysical managementµ«!nding fundamental economic value in
places long ignored, or dismissed out of hand. (Not so incidentally: One more b-i-g reason
to champion a wholesale re-do of education and to welcome women in unprecedented
numbers into the top ranks of leadership.)
Design = New Seat of the Soul.É
If there·s a spanking new ´value propositionµ (I think there is³see immediately above)«
then there·s a spanking new ´seat of the soul.µ It·s not balance-sheet machinations. It·s not
more (or even better) microsegmentation anIatl yiss«idse.s ign.
Design«meaning stu! that ´looks cool.µ Sure. But a lot more. Sometimes I call it ´design
mindfulnessµ«but I·ve really not concocted the right term. The right idea: an enterprise
with a ´total way of beingµ that is informed by design considerations. Where the aesthetic
and emotional sensibilities of Body Shop and Nike and Nokia and Harley-Davidson and
Starbucks and Apple and BMW and Southwest and, yes, the consultants McKinsey & Co.
and (the old, at least) EDS and (the new) UPS drive the business. Drive it from HR (the
pursuit and nurturing of top talent) to creating ´aesthetically pleasin-gµ business process
es«that o!er zip and zing across the entire customer interface/experience.
Design, then, is the calculated construction of«the total-persona-that-the-enterprise-
presents (and present it does, every microsecond) to all of its stakeho-lders and constitu
ents, internal and external, virtual and real.
Okay?
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32. Branding is for¿EVERYONE.
Whoever has«THE BEST STORY«takes home the most marbles. ´Branding?µ ´Branding is a
character issue. Next question?µ It is almost that simple. And, thus, that hard.
I·m a branding fanatic. But not a branding ´expert.µ I acknowledge the power of a great
logo. Brilliant ad campaign. Coherent marketing material. A razor-sharp message. And so
on. And on. Yet all the above misses the mark. ´Brandµ to me (personally) means: What
Tom«stands for. Tom·s character«behind his promise. Why I would want to«hang out
with Tom. Why what Tom does«matters in the larger scheme of things. Tom·s ability
to«make a di!erence.
Branding, then, at its best, is about the«Big Questions. (Very Big Questions.) Call it/them:
identity ...character«raison d·etre. Or (personally again): Tom·s«Big & Compelling Story.
Consider:
´We are in the twilight of a society based on data. As information and intelligence
become the domain of computers, society will place new value on the o-ne human abil
ity that can·t be automated: emotion. Imagination, myth, ritual³the l-anguage of emo
tion³will a!ect everything from our purchasing decisions to how well 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.µ
³ Rolf Jensen, Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies
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Howard Gardner, the renowned Harvard professor, insists that the primary key to leadership
is stor
key to exit
about this
ˆ
manifesto
email this
U
manifesto
THIS I BELIEVE!
TomÖs 60 TIBs
AN EXCERPT FROM
Project S0n4a:pshots of
Excellence in Unstable Times
contin u>e d
by Tom Peters
| iss. 2.01 | ˆ Ê|ÊÊÊU | X Ê|ÊÊ+Ê|Ê Not using Adobe Acrobat? Please HgToT Pt:o/ /CHANGETHIS.COM/CONTENT/READER
ÊCageT
Tom Peters is t he man
who can change it.
Tom invented the modern business book. But in many ways, he also invented
modern business. His writing gave us the freedom to treat work as something
personal. He gave us permission to break the rules and to make work matter.
ChangeThis is thrilled that Tom let us share the attachedÒsome of the best of
his most recent thinking. A lot comes froRm he-imias ngi. Ineew b!f estseller,
you havenÖt bought yourself a copy, you should (actually, you should buy ten, one
for everyone you work with).
This is Peters for beginners. Perfect to forward to everyone in your
TIP
organization. ItÖs also Peters for the experts, because it reminds you of whatÖs
Click on the un-der
important right now.
lined hyperlink for
more information
So, go aheadÊpost this on your blog, email it to your friends, print it out and
on Re-imagine. !
send it to the central copying department and get 500 copies made. Go make
For tips like this,
something happen.
visit (ˆÊ).
Ë Seth Godin, ChangeThis
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FOREWORD
The architect Bill Caudill was a contrarian. He pioneered the idea of working intimately with
clients to create spaces that met their needs; this !ew in the face of conventional wisdom,
which held that the architect was pure artist, barely deigning to make client contact. Caudill·s
approach was wildly successful³so much so that today it·s become conventional wisdom.
Over the years Bill jotted notes on this and that, and began to organize them for his children.
The title of his musings: This I Believe. After Caudill·s death, his colleagues collected the
notes and published them. ThaTth ei sT,I Bs of Bill C.a udill
A sixtieth birthday is a monumental occasion, and I chose, among other th-ings, to give my
self a present to mark the/my date in November 2002. I sat on a hill overlooking my farm in
Vermont, and scribbled down 60 thoughts, one for each year, that seemed to -capture my pro
fessional and, to some extent, my personal journey. Those thoughts³´Tom·s TIBsµ³herewith.
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Technicolor rul es!
Passion moves mountains!
Thats been the theme of my life·s work. When my company re-branded itself a couple of years
ago, we looked upon a red exclamation mark, Pantone PMS 032, as our logo. Smugly perhaps, I
believe that logo captures me (and our aspirations) almost perfectly.
I do not think business a dry, dreary, by-the-numbers a!air. I think business (at its best) is
about adventures and quests and growth and gold medals and booby prizes and emotion and
service and care and character. All of those are Technicolor words.
Warren Bennis has the peculiar distinction of being the only person who·s close to both Peter
Drucker and me. Asked about the two of us by a reporter some time back, Warren replied,
´If Peter Drucker invented modern management, Tom Peters vivi!ed it.µ I·m not ready for my
tombstone yet, but when the time approaches I wouldn·t mind imagining Warren·s Technicolor
encomium as my summa.
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2. Audacity matters!
All quests worth undertaking³a Girl Scout merit badge or a Nobel Prize³require audacity.
And willpower. (Of course.)
And persistence. (To be sure.)
But, frankly, a persistent misreading of the odds. The odds in 1940 of Charles de Gaulle at
the head of a parade liberating Paris in 1944? The odds of Martin Luthe-r King, Jr., emerg
ing from Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1954«then speaking to 400,000 gathered on the Mall
in Washington in 1963? The odds of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates humbling IBM, of Sam Walton
sneaking out of Bentonville, Arkansas, and throwing the fear of God into the world·s premier
retailers?
The odds in each case were 100 times greater than the longest shot in horse track history. Yet
each actor mentioned above had the sheer audacity to challenge conventional wisdom, accept
the lumps upon lumps associated therewith³and persist until victory.
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3. Revolution now!
Of course I know ´revolutionµ is a frighteningly strong word. Yet I also know (yes, know) that
from warfare to commerce to education to health care, these are times of unprecedented
change. Perhaps change of the once-a-millennium !avor. Hence it follows logically that such
madcap times call for madcap initiatives³from the Pentagon to P.S. 9 in Oakland, CA, to the
!nance or purchasing department at XYZ Widgets. If you choke on the word revolution, I am
fearful for your future. The future of your career. Your enterprise. Your children. Your nation.
Our world.
4. Question author ity!
(And hire disrespectful people!)
No assumption should go unchallenged! No strange idea should be dismissed or ignored!
(And the stranger who presents it should be welcomed rather than scorned!) Our schools
breed conformity. (Conforming students.) Our white-collar prisons, those insipid high rises
that mark most big-city skylines, cherish conformity. (Conforming workers.) And yet history·s
progress³from the dawn of civilization until today³is measured and marked by the assaults
of non-conformists: from politics to science to enterprise. By de!nition, the history book is a
Deviant·s Hall of Fame. (And indeed, upon occasion«Hall of Shame.) A Museum of Mis!ts. My
goal is to entrench the ethos of the history makers into our public and private institutions,
small and large, as we face decades upon decades of unprecedented uncertainty and turmoil.
Highest accolades should go to those who have the guts to hire the Deviants. And Gold Stars
for all who openly challenge the status quo³day after day after daunting day.
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5. Disorganization w ins!
(Love the mess!)
The di!erence-makers thrive on chaos that would intimidate others. Je!erson and Adams.
Lewis and Clark. Lincoln and Grant. TR and FDR. Churchill and Thatcher and Giuliani. The best
companies, I·ve discovered, are the most disorganized. (Take note that I -didn·t say undisci
plined.) Their leaders assemble a bulging portfolio of mavericks«and launch those mavericks
on maverick initiatives. They know that what they know is small beer compared to what they
don·t knowand only a passel of passionate and peculiar pioneers will successfully sort
through the mess. To be sure, most of those pioneers will fail«but the successful remnant,
alone, will vault the !rm or public institution to its next performance plateau. Organization is
needed to execute our daily chores; yet all progress (All. Big Word.) depe-nds on counterintui
tive leaps into the unknown. Hence, it depends on those who cherish the mess.
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6. Think 3M: Markets Matter Most.
(Only extreme competition staves o! staleness.)
Do markets have glaring ineciencies and dreadful side e!ects? Of course! Yet (only) the
spur of a new rival (the kid who was drafted for the NFL team, and now aims to swipe
your roster slot) leads us back to the practice !eld for a !nal 15 minutes of wind sprints.
Cooperation is, of course, invaluable to the achievement of most any complex task, from the
football !eld to the FBI; yet even within a largely cooperative e!ort, it is the maverick who
questions yesterday·s rituals and commits 168.2 percent of her energy to demonstrating the
validity of a wildly di!erent approach who lifts us to that next peak.
Sins and !aws aside, I·ve come to wholeheartedly believe that only Extreme Competition (and
the creation of an organizational context which encourages such extreme competition) leads
to sustained progress. (Note: the progress of those who do the best is seldom smooth. It
consists of plateaus, pitfalls, deep chasms. Followed by breakthroughs that- ratchet the enter
prise to a level higher than one could have dreamed existed.)
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7. Three hearty cheers for weirdos!
I love the !fth-grade student who leaps from his seat at the ´wrong moment.µ I love the
26-year-old who interrupts her boss. I love the heckler at a political event³even if it·s my
candidate he·s heckling.
It·s really quite simple: Hecklers alone (with incredible energy, persistence, and luck) change
the dimensions of the playing !eld. I had the privilege of living in Silicon Valley for 35 years.
Lucky me!
Ups? Many, many. Downs? Many, many. Accolades? Often. Derision? Constant. And yet the Jim
Clarks and Scott McNealys and Jerry Yangs and Andy Groves and Steve Jobses and George
Lucases actually changed the world·s rules³the way human a!airs are conducted. I have an
abiding passion for the Weird Ones. I honor their Purple Hearts (what a collection they have) as
much as I admire their Medals of Honor. Not a one of them is close to normal. Not even close.
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8. Message 2003: Technology ch ange
(info-science, bio-science)
is in its infancy. (Greatest understatement: We ain·t seen nothin· yet!)
The Internet has already lived up to its hype³and will soon exceed it. Wildly. The bio-tech/
life-sciences revolution is but gathering way. The new technologies change everything (love,
war, commerce, what it means to be human); the turmoil will extend for decades and the
fallout for centuries. While there will be further bumps in the road, like the dot-com bust that
marked the !rst couple of years of the new millennium, there is no going back. This genie is
out of the bottle!
9. Everything is up for g rabs!
Volatility is thy name!
(Forever. And ever.) Re-imagine«or perish.
I put this on the cover of my most recent book: ´It is the foremost tas-k³and responsibil
ity³of this generation to re-imagine all of our institutions, private and public.µ ´My God,
sounds like a line from a presidential address,µ one of my friends said. Well«yes. That is, it
could be. These are not times for the faint of heart. They call for the maximum from each
and every one of us. For the sake of ourselves, our communities, our children, our world. No
right answers or certain rules are on the horizon. We must make it up as we go along. As for
a Blessed Hiatus«forget about it. In short: We must all become«Re-imagineers.
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Big stinks. (Mostly.)
We go through repeated waves of entrepreneurship (when waves of new stu! rush in) followed
by consolidation (when the wave is past and the most absurd by-products of the irrational
exuberance are weeded out). To some extent, such waves and tides will continue to ebb and
!ow. Yet the inherent volatility that surrounds us at the beginning of this- new millennium sug
gests nothing less than a«Long Wave of Entrepreneurial Energy. Upstarts will indeed become
Establishment«and will then be savagely attacked by the next round of Upstarts. Truth is, Big
Company performance has always been more problematic than imagined; and m-ost adven
tures in consolidation (Big Mergers) fail miserably. While the new technology seems to promise
the possibility of ´agile giantsµ or ´dancing elephantsµ (the latter suggested by former IBM boss
Lou Gerstner), my money lies with the next generation(s) of Gateses and Waltons and Venters.
Truth Bisi,g Company perfor hmaasn caleways been
morep roblema ttihcan imagined; and most adventures
in consolidaBtiig oMne r(gers)f ail miserably.
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11. ÈPermanence is a snare and a delusion.
(Forget built to last. ItËs yes terdayËs idea,
if that.)
One serious study shows that but a single comFpoarnbye so ·n! rst List of Giants (the 1917
Forbes 100) outperformed the market between 1917 and 2003. The sole survivor, GE, is
marked, not so incidentally, by a powerful, lingering spirit of independence and autonomy.
While I admire the instinct to pursue Eternal Glory, I believe the times are better suited for
the Ellisons· and Gates·«pursuit of Temporal Glory. (Which may or may not last«but which
changes the world permanently.) Put your all into surviving today·s tsunamis of change«and
let the day after tomorrow take care of itself. Dream big? Absolutely! Aim to change the world?
Absolutely! The idea is to set in train events that rattle every cage from here to kingdom
come. But as to whether you and yours will be the engineers in charge of that train, circa
2053«who cares?
Puty ou ral lintsou rvivi tnogdayÖs
tsunam ioscf hangÊeand let dtahey
aftetro morro wtake care of itself.
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12. Kaizen (Continuous Improvemen t) is...
Very Dangerous Stuff.
Caught with our pants down by vigorous Japanese competitors, we Americans quickly copied
their essential competitive ideas, such as Total Quality Management and Kaizen. Fair enough!
Brilliant, in fact! Yet these important notions are in part cornerstones of an earlier, industrial
age«when winning products stayed on the shelves in showroom !oors for ye-ars, even de
cades. Now excellence has become transient (few teams win back-to-back championships
in sports, the competition and rate of improvement have become so intense); and the fact
is that the Pursuit of Perfection (at today·s ´sportµ) gets in the way of ferreting out the Next
Big Thing. My de facto mentors in all this are media guru Marshall McLuhan (´If it works, it·s
obsoleteµ) and IT guru Nicholas Negroponte (´Incrementalism is innovation·s worst enemyµ).
Excelle nhcaes becotmrea nsiÊent
theP ursu iotPf erfect i(oant todayÖs ÓsportÔ)
gets in the way of fterhree tNiengx to utB ig. Thing
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13. Destruction rules!
A surprising number of attendees at an end-of-millennium retreat I hosted left saying that
their biggest ´take-awayµ/´ahaµ could be captured by a single word. Namely: Cortez. That
is, the great explorer«Hernando Cortez. Upon landing in Vera Cruz, Mexico, in 1519, Cortez
headed inland to claim the nation for Spain. His soldiers faced a wily enemy and the ravages
of disease. Fearing mutiny, Cortez resorted to an extreme strategy: He sent a lieutenant back
to the sea«to burn the boats!
A little (orb omao trebu)r nin gwould do
manye nterpri sa ewsorlgd ooofd.
Our potent group·s conclusion: A little (or more) boat burning would do many enterprises
a world of good. The exemplar here is Nokia. In the 1980s, the proud but hodge-podge
Finnish conglomerate sold o! all the crown jewels, starting with forest products (what else is
Finland?), and threw in its lot with wireless communications³an arena where the leadership
had virtually no expertise. Likewise, upon coming to grips with the awesome power of the
Internet, legendary GE CEO Jack Welch, though in his sixties and only having a few years left
at the helm, labeled the new GE: dyb.com. For«destroy your business dot.com. My advice:
Re-title the Big Cheese! Drop CEO. Pick up«CDO. Chief Destruction Ocer. Cortez, anyone?
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14. Forget it! (Message: Learnin g = Easy.
Forgetting = Nigh-on-impossible.)
Visa founder Dee Hock said it best: ´The problem is never how to get new, innovative
thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out.µ Burn the boats redux, eh? My
take: Every enterprise (and every individual) needs a formal (written, for starters!)«Forgetting
Strategy. We must be as forceful and systematic about identifying and then- dumping yester
day·s baggage as we are about acquiring new baggage.
15. Innovation = Easy. ( True.)
(Message: Hang out with Freaks!)
It came to me in a !ash: Innovation is a lark! (´That !ash must have fried your brain,µ you
quickly respond.) Here·s my essential proposition:
1. Self-motivated change is virtually impossible, particularly if the individual or enterprise
is, shall we say, mature. (Or, worse yet, successful.)
2. Thence the ´answerµ (only?) to change is to throw yourself violently in harm·s way. I.e.:
Put yourself in a position where you have no option but to change.
3. Such a self-imposed precarious position comes from managing (caref-ully! quantita
tively!) the portfolio of those you hang out with.
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4. Acquire (hang out with) cool-weird-pioneering customers«and they will drag you into
the future. Acquire (hang out with) cool-weird-pioneering suppliers and they will drag
you into the future. Ditto: employees. Ditto: board members.
5. Consider: You are who you go to lunch with! Break bread with cool«a-nd you will be
come more cool. Conversely: break bread with dull«well, you can !gure it out. I·m
aware that the above might come across as simplistic. And perhaps that·s so. But then
again, perhaps it·s not. My experience and evidence say that most b-ig !rms, in par
ticular, are victims of dull, predictable, behind-the-times customers and suppliers and
employees and board members. At least: Think about it. Okay?
(And who are you lunching with today?)
16. Boring begets bo ring.
(Cool begets cool.)
Energy begets energy. Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm. Hustle begets hustle. And so on. The
Big Idea here is an ampli!cation of No. 15 above. Innovation = All. (In a wobbly world. We·re
in a wobbly world.)
One cannot expend too much ink on this topic. (See No. 17 below, while you·re at it.) THE
BIG IDEA. If we force ourselves into constant contact with Cool«the odds are (sky) high that
´coolµ will rub o!. And«of course«vice versa.
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This is personal, as well as professional. When I go too long without stimulation«I can feel
my edge dulling. No bull. (And just like the business of keeping physically !t«the dullness
sets in pretty quickly.)
It·s those edgy times«when I·m debating someone I respect but disagree with«or speaking
to high school kids, who seldom let you escape with glibness«or declaiming to a group that·s
totally new to me«that I feel most alive. Fully human. This is so central to personal growth
(mine, at least) that I deliberately micro-manage my calendar to ensure sucient contact
with«people and groups that«terrify«me.
17. Think Portfolio. We are a ll VCs.*
(*Venture Capitalists.)
I freely admit that I·m wildly, head-over-heels in love with the idea of portfolios, of bell-
shaped curves. (The fabled ´normal distribution.µ) Portfolios and bell-shaped curves suggest
diversity. Measurable diversity, at that. An NFL ´rosterµ is a classic ´portfolio,µ which ranges
from the tried-and-true player to the super-long-shot, who will make the Hall of Fame«or
!ame out. Likewise a Venture Capitalists ´portfolioµ = Roster of bets (investments).
I unabashedly want everyone to think about (damn near) everything in terms of«portfolios.
Your department·s ´payrollµ becomes a ´rosterµ-´portfolio.µ So«do you have an appropriate
share of those long shots, the wet-behind-the-ears, super-bright kids who will either alter
the world«or bomb? (We rarely do.) Portfolio-of-people = Roster. Young, old. Tried and
true sources of recruitment, new (to you) sources of recruitment. Conventional backgrounds,
(very) unconventional backgrounds. Journeymen, risky high-priced superstars (yes, in HR
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and Finance). The same applies to your«customer portfolio. Your«vendor portfolio. Your«
consultants portfolio. Your«marketing initiatives portfolio. (Etc.) (Etc.) (The great news: ´Itµ
can be measured!) (Must be measured!) E.g.: Upon evaluating your 26-person departmental
´roster,µ how many (precisely) score seven of ten or higher on the ´weirdµ/´longshotµ/´odd
backgroundµ scale?
Coaches-GMs (sports) ´doµ«rosters«portfolios. (Period.) VCs ´doµ«rosters«portfolios.
(Period.) And you?
Measure! Damn it! (Innovation«i.e. your life«depends on it!)
18. Perception is all there is.
(´Insidersµ«always«overestimate the radicalism of what they·re up to.)
I just begged you to«Measure Weirdness by quantitatively evaluating your Portfolio/Roster of
damn near everything. Now I·m going to go back on my word. (Partially.) Measure? Yes! But
have an outsider do it, or at least have an outsider evaluate your evaluation.
My experience is all too clear. (And common.) I talk to a 25-year company veteran, at his !rm·s
executive level. He glows with excitement about, say, his new supply chain initiative. He barely
notices that I·ve dozed o! in the middle of his recitation. That is, his m-easuring rod was fash
ioned by 25 years of internal experience. Mine was fashioned by 25 years o-f external experi
ence. I·m not diminishing at all the degree to which he·s stuck his neck out to champion this
idea. It·s just that to me it·s quite timid by contrast with the most incredibly interesting stu!
I·ve stumbled across in industries far, far distant from his. The idea-concern holds on every
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parameter. His idea (perception, sculpted by his 25 years in one bureaucracy) of a ´riskyµ
candidate for a top job is my idea of a ´ho-humµ candidate«who should be discarded in a
!ash. And so on.
Think about it. (Are you really as ´far outµ as you think?)
19. Action¿ALWAYS¿takes precedence.
Talk about not changing with the times! This was Idea INno .S e1a rfcrho mo f Excell ence
in 1982. It remains in the Top Spot two decades later. Except that my plea is more strident
than it was 20 years ago.
The notion froSme arch: We put too much emphasis on analysis, too little emphasis on
´gettin· on with gettin· on.µ
I could extend this section, just one of 60 in this relatively brief paper, for pages upon
pages. (Upon more pages.) Some people like to talk about stu!. Some (other) people like
to try stu!. Some people lick their wounds after a setback. (Or worse yet, initiate the blame
game.) Some (other) people ´get back on the horseµ (or !nd another horse) and go ridin·
again. (As for the blame game thing, the issue for me is sel!sh. My en-ergy is far too pre
cious to waste a single droplet on emotionally draining acts of recrimination.)
It·s almost funny. (If the stakes weren·t so damned high.) The Action Faction is completely
!ummoxed by the Memo Maniacs. AFs (Action Factioneers) are unable to sit still, to stay o!
the !eld, to delay the next step. (Sometimes their impatient rush to -action causes prob
lems. True. But«far fewer problems than the Ponder Partners· generic failure to act at all.)
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Innovation guru Michael Schrage gives brilliant intellectual cover to my Action Factioneers in
his masterful boSoekr ious Pl.a yHe claims (as I applaud) that all True Innovation comes as a
reaction to real action (a trial, prototype, experiment). My mantra (personal, professional):
Do«NOW. Think«later. At the very least, you·ll have something to think about since you·ve
just done«something.
He who makes the quick est,
coolest prototypes rei gns!
(Think: Demos. Stories. Heroes.)
TEST! (QUICK.) PROTOTYPE! (QUICK.) DEMO TIME! (QUICK.) COOL STORY! (Q UICK.)
NEW HERO! (QUICK.)
MESSAGE: Plans do not make the world go ·round. What does? Demos! Heroes! Stories! Tests!
Palpable examples! Experiments! Prototypes!
Okay. You caught me out. It·s action redux. So what? (It surely bears repeating. And then
repeating again.)
Stories-Heroes-Demos«not Plans«make the world go ·round. Think Bob Stone. Bob actually
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re-invented a fair share of the federal government·s practice. He had a simple (profound!)
management mantra: ´Some people look for things that went wrong and try to !x them. I
look for things that went right and try to build o! them.µ
Amen. (As in: AMEN!)
Fact 9is0, perc eonft Óurs eason-by-vign ette.Ô
WeÖre all honÓosrharoyw m eMÔissourians.
Fact is, 90 percent of us ´reason-by-vignette.µ We·re all honorary ´show meµ Missourians. We
need to see-it-to-believe-it. Or, early on, see-it-to-become-in!amed-by-the-potential-of-
it. We don·t need a lecture on TQM. We need the palpable, compelling story-of-42-year-old-
born-again-Charlie-the-distributioncenter-boss-who-reluctantly-but-wholehe-artedly-em
braced-the-´quality-thingµ-and-made-a-miracle-in-Padooka. To only partially coin a phrase,
one snapshot of Reluctant Charlie-turned-Demo-Hero is worth a thousand CEO exhortations
on videotape and a thousand pages of plans and policies.
MESSAGE: We (you, me) live by Demos-Heroes-Stories-Quick Prototypes-Experiments-Tests-
Concrete ´Stu!.µ So: Get concrete! Fast! Gimme«a Demo. Gimme a«Hero. Gimme a«Story.
(PLEASE.) (NOW.)
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21. Haste makes wast e.
(So¿go waste!)
Failure is the mother (father, and uncle) of success. (Period.) A few years back, the Economist
revealed Silicon Valley·s ´success secrets.µ At the top of the list: Embra-ce failure. The maga
zine used as illustration a typical venture capitalist·s portfolio. Of 20 ´betsµ (investments),
the following outcome set typically ensues: Six go bust. Nine hang in. Four do well. One goes
(positively) berserk.
There are several signi!cant messages here. Topping the list: Brilliant s-uccess = 1 in 20 bat
ting average! Failures and ho-hums far outnumber successes. The !rst (MBAs·? Planners·?)
reaction is to dismiss all this as a ´failure of analysisµ on the part of those VCs. Baloney! The
top VCs (in my extensive experience) are smarter than you and me«and they still hit 1 in
20«and live in the house at the Top of the Hill. Fact: No ´house at the top of the hillµ unless
you back a host of subsequent losers in pursuit of the winning lottery ticket for the«Next Big
Thing.
You could also try labeling all those ´lossesµ as«´waste.µ But you·d be wrong. We needed a
kajillion auto company start-ups in the !rst two decades of the 1900s«to produce a (one!)
Ford, a (one!) GM, a (one!) (more-or-less) Chrysler. Likewise, we actually (truly!) ´neededµ
WorldCom-like !ascos to push the astounding telecoms advances we·ve all bene!ted from in
the last 20 years. Of course, I decry the fraudulent actions at WorldCom, and (literally) weep
for the faithful employees who lost out in the process. But progress always claims victims.
And fast progress, alas, claims numerous victims. While I pine for the evaporated WorldCom
pensions (and hope that some form of restitution is possible), I hardly want to go back to the
Telecom Cocoon called Ma Bell, circa 1980. I.e.: Three cheers for ´waste.µ
(And three-plus cheers for ´Hasty Waste.µ)
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22. Screw-ups are¿THE¿Mark of Excellence.
(Corollary: Do it right the rst time is an¿
Obscenity.)
Richard Farson is a bum! He wrote the book I wanted to write! And got there !rst! With Ralph
Keyes, he penneWdh oever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins: The Paradox of In.n oAvlasot ion
consider:
1. From premier product developer David Kelley: ´Fail Faster. Succeed sooner.µ
2. From a Philadelphia area high-tech executive: ´Fail. Forward. Fast.µ
3. From successful Aussie businessman Phil Daniels: ´Reward excellent failures. Punish
mediocre successes.µ Take your pick. I·ll take ·em all.
My resolve on this issue of the paramount importance of failure was locked into granite a
dozen years ago, when I had a chance to introduce Wal*Mart founder Sam Walt-on at a presti
gious awards banquet.
I sought out Sam·s long-time pal and successor as Wal*Mart CEO, David Glass, and asked
him what single trait of Sam·s stood out above the rest. He quickly replied, ´Sam·s not afraid
to fail. It·s not,µ he continued, ´that Sam tolerates less than a Herculean e!ort, or anything
like that. To the contrary. It·s just that his attitude is, ¶Got that dumb one behind us. Let·s try
something else. Right now.·µ Alas, such an attitude is ever so rare, in sizeable enterprises in
particular³which seem to spend more time on backward-looking witch hunts than forward
motion«that all-important ´next-quick -try.µ
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23. Play hard! Right n ow!
Cherish play!
Michael SchrageS·esr ious Pl,a ymentioned before, is my pick as best book on innovation.
Well researched, its strategic message is captured in this opening statement: ´You can·t be a
serious innovator unless you are willing and able to play. ¶Serious play· is not an oxymoron;
it·s the essence of innovation.µ Schrage essentially devotes 300 pages to -the apparently sec
ond-order topic of quick prototyping, from tangible model building to processing thousands
of iterations of a spreadsheet in a matter of hours.
´Playµ is business·s Voldemort«one-of-those-words-that-dare-not-be-uttered-between-
nine-and-!ve.
And yet each day we confront hopelessly complex circumstances in the marketplace or in the
design of a new piece of software. Winners³I contend³have but one (yes, one!) consistent
strategy: Try. Something. Fast. See. What. Happens. Fast.
Four decades of observation (mine and Schrage·s) say it is that clear-cut: -´Playµ rules innova
tion·s roost!
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24. Talent Tim(eH! e/She who has t he¿
Best Roster¿rules.)
Oh how I love«LOVE«those two wordTsA. LENT. ROSTER. Say talent, say rosterµ«and the
Yankees«the Metropolitan Opera«or a space shuttle crew«or Microsoft·s latest bet-the-
company design team comes to mind. Alas, say Finance Department, HR Department,
´Personnel, Human Resourcesµ«and neither the Yankees nor Talent necessarily comes to
mind.
It is a New Economy. It is an Age of Intellectual Capital«or ´creation intensi!cation,µ as one
Japanese researcher in the !nancial industry put it. If it·s new economy/intellectual capital/
creation intensi!cation time«then ´itµ isH ea/lSlh ea bWohuot «Has the Best Talent/Roster
Wins.
I simply contend that when you say/think Talent/Roster, your mind is transformed from the
more pedestrian imagery that matches up with ´employee,µ ´worker,µ ´human resource,µ or
´department.µ
Talent is cool!
Talent gravitates to cool!
Talent attracts more Talent!
And: In Real Talent World (again, think Yankees, Metropolitan Opera)«Boss Job One (and 2
through 2,002) is the«Attraction & Development & Retention of Talent. For NFL GMs, a few of
whom I·ve known, Talent per se is a 25/8/53 Obsession (and don·t forget to capitalize the ´Oµ
in ´Obsession.µ)
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McKinsey & Co.·s former Talent Guru, Ed Michaels, places GE, virtually alone, in the Yankees·
league. The process of TA&D (Talent Acquisition and Development) at GE is- intense, relent
less, uncompromising, and played for keeps. Incidentally, I·m not talking about the ´top !fty,µ
or any such thin, stratospheric layer. I·m talking about the active/obsessed engagement with
the top several thousand ´rosterµ members. In short: If talent rules«then Talent Rules. (In
every nook and every cranny of the enterprise, 25/8/53.)
It is a New EcIot niosm ya.n Age of Intellectual
CapitalÊÓorc reation intensißcation.Ô
25. Re-do education. Totally.
(Foster creativity«not uniformity.) (The noisiest classroom wins the gold.)
Read it and weep, from Jordan Ayan·sA hbao!o:k ´My wife and I went to a [kinderga-rten] par
ent-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 child³
let alone our child³receive a poor grade in art at such a young age? His teacher informed us
that he had refused to ¶color within the lines,· which is a state requirement for demonstrating
¶grade-level motor skills.·µ
The school system was crafted to deliver factory slaves to Henry Ford, and cubicle slaves to
XYZ Insurers.
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Former Hallmark creative exec Gordon MacKenzie, who devoted his retirement to working
with the school system, went so far as to say, ´Every school I·ve visited was participating in
the systematic suppression of creative genius.µ Maybe that was okay in the Age of Ford. But
it is de!nitely not okay in the Age of the Smart Microprocessor and the Age of Wholesale
Outsourcing of Brain-Creative Jobs. To say the schools are not responding, let alone leading,
the global economic transition process is a grotesque understatement.
Tomorrow·s ´Requirement No. 1µ: Kids who color outside the lines! I, for one, am counting on
Christopher Ayan as Secretary of Education by 2025! In the meantime ...
To say stcheh oo lasreno t respondi,n g
let alone leading,e tchoen oglmoi btcarla nsit ion
processa gisr otesq uunederstatem.ent
26. DiversityËs hour is now!
I·m a diversity fan aPtoilci.tical correctness has no place in my credo. Pursui-t of rapid eco
nomic growth does. Hence I !nd myself applauding madly the words of GreTgh eZ achary in
Global Me: ´Diversity de!nes 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 ³these 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.µ
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Strong words! And accurate ones, as I see it. Carnegie Mellon professor Richard Florida claims
that in America a ´creative class,µ already 38 million strong, is leading the way on just about
any dimension you can name. He and Zachary sing from the same page of the same hymnal.
´You cannot get a technologically innovative place,µ Florida insists, ´unle-ss it·s open to weird
ness, eccentricity and di!erence.µ
Message: Creative age = Creative rules = Mix and match = Diversity·s hour. Q.E.D.
ÓDivers idteyßne sthhee alt h
andw ealt ohf nations in a new century.
Mighty ism othneg reÊlThe hybrid is hip.Ô
27. S-H-E is the best leader.
Women will rule. (Period.) And its a great-necessary thing! Logic: Women -bring to the work
place the perfect (big word!) skill set for the emergent new economy. Judy Rosener lays it out
brilliantlyA mienr ica·s Competitive Secret: Women Man.a gWeormsen, she enumerates, tend to:
link rather than rank workers«favor an interactive/collaborative leadership style, believe that
empowerment beats top-down decision making«sustain fruitful collaborations«-are comfort
able sharing information«see re-distribution of power as victory, not surr-ender«favor mul
tidimensional feedback«value technical and interpersonal skills equally; individual and group
contributions equally«readily accept ambiguity«honor intuition as well as pure rationality«are
inherently !exible«and appreciate cultural diversity.
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What a list! Of course not all men are hopeless on all these dimensions. Yet there is a clear
´central tendencyµ which di!ers among men and women³and which will increa-singly, espe
cially in the mid-to-long term, result in women·s accession to the top ranks of leadership.
(Far beyond the pathetic statistic, circa 2003, that women occupy only 8 of 500 CEO jobs
among the Fortune 500.) Given the above, I have no trouble with the conclusion of a 2000
BusinessWeek Special Report: ´As leaders, women rule: New studies !nd that- female manag
ers outshine their male counterparts in almost every measure.µ More humbly, I simply suggest
that women are the most underrated, under-attended answer to the always pressing question
of ´Where do we !nd more/better leaders?µ
28. Marketing mantra: Pocket Trillion$$$.
Embrace the Big Two: (1) She is the c ustomer!
(2) Boomers & Geezers have all the loot!
I·d be thrilled if the last quarter of my career led to the following la-bel: ´The guy who dis
covered women and geezers.µ Marketers get so caught up in micro-segmentation that they
often miss the«Main Game. In this case, two games«yes«YES!«Two Trends Worth Trillions,
as in Trillion$$$. Namely: (1) Women buy All the Stu!! (2) We·re getting older! I·ve written
extensively on both topics, and won·t repeat myself here. (Though I·m sorely tempted.) A raft
of indisputable statistics make it clear that women, as purchasers of retail and professional
goods and services, dominate virtually every market category you can name. And are blithely
ignored by 99 percent of companies. Sure, most !rms nod to the woman consumer. But only
the rarest of Big Players (such as a Lowe·s in DIY world) realign the enterprise strategically«
around the woman as consumer.
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Likewise, 99 percent of !rms blithely (that word again) ignore the Boomer-Geezer tsunami.
And«the Entirely New Brand of Oldster who is arriving on the scene«wallet bulging«aiming
to«live a lot longer«and«spend, spend, spend.
Let me brie!y add, after seven years of intense study, that I am convinced that as personal
and professional consumers, men and women, geezers and non-geezers, have damn little
in common. Hence to ´take advantageµ of these two trends requires«Wholesale Enterprise
Realignment. (Not some la-de-dah ´initiative.µ)
29. Re-boot health care.
Arguably, education and health care are our two most signi!cant ´industries.µ Both are almost
hopelessly out of tune with tomorrow·s times. I touched on education·s need- for a monumen
tal re-alignment in item No. 25 above. Now it·s time for health care·s shellacking.
To begin with«everybody is pissed o!! Everybody is at fault! Consider:
1. We must get quality-conscious. Fact: As a result of physician arrogance and outdated
procedures, our out-of-control health care system unnecessarily (!) kil-ls and maims mil
lions per year. (No exaggeration.)
2. Spoiled patients ´expect it allµ³and take little responsibility for the rationing of health
care.
3. The entire system is skewed (somebody help me !nd a stronger word!) toward !xing
things (!) after they·re broken, rather than toward wellness and prevention.
4. Narrowing the focus to America, I believe it·s a criminal shame that a third of us are
uninsured³in earth·s wealthiest (by far!) nation.
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Bottom line: There is an enormous opportunity to ´get the health/health -care quality/well
ness/universal access/rationing ¶thing· right.µ One hopes it will streak -to the top of the na
tional agenda³especially as our 80 million cantankerous Boomers (see No. 28- above) experi
ence the acceleration of aches and pains.
30. Q: What are we sel ling?
A: Experiences and solutions, far more
than top quality and satisfaction.É
Message: the Traditional value-added equation is being set on its ear.
The ´Mµ in IBM, obviously, stands for ´Machines.µ But IBM makes damn few machines today.
It mostly ´makesµ«´experiencesµ and ´solutions.µ Under the guidance of CEOs Lou Gerstner
and Sam Palmisano, a single IBM division, IBM Global Services, rapidly grew from a pittance
to about $40 billion. IBM today is a software-services-consulting-solutions company. It
has more in common with Cirque du Soleil than Caterpillar Tractor. (Whoops, CAT now sells
services and solutions«not to mention its licensed shoes and shirts and jackets!) In short,
the ´bedrockµ of ´national economic excellenceµ (Japanese-style, German-style) has been
crushed. Comfortable or not, welcome to (New) IBM World«where ´solutionsµ- and ´experi
encesµ dominate.
See too: Nike. Harley-Davidson. UPS (´What can brown do for you?µ). Ford (-´A ¶brand experi
ence provider,· not a ¶car maker,·µ per one wag.) Home Depot (which wants to ´ownµ the home
services market). Etc. (Etc.) (Etc.) (Etc.)
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The Big Deal: This«is«a«BIG DEAL. As one marketing expert put it, tomorrow·s Skill/
Requirement No. 1 is ´metaphysical managementµ«!nding fundamental economic value in
places long ignored, or dismissed out of hand. (Not so incidentally: One more b-i-g reason
to champion a wholesale re-do of education and to welcome women in unprecedented
numbers into the top ranks of leadership.)
Design = New Seat of the Soul.É
If there·s a spanking new ´value propositionµ (I think there is³see immediately above)«
then there·s a spanking new ´seat of the soul.µ It·s not balance-sheet machinations. It·s not
more (or even better) microsegmentation anIatl yiss«idse.s ign.
Design«meaning stu! that ´looks cool.µ Sure. But a lot more. Sometimes I call it ´design
mindfulnessµ«but I·ve really not concocted the right term. The right idea: an enterprise
with a ´total way of beingµ that is informed by design considerations. Where the aesthetic
and emotional sensibilities of Body Shop and Nike and Nokia and Harley-Davidson and
Starbucks and Apple and BMW and Southwest and, yes, the consultants McKinsey & Co.
and (the old, at least) EDS and (the new) UPS drive the business. Drive it from HR (the
pursuit and nurturing of top talent) to creating ´aesthetically pleasin-gµ business process
es«that o!er zip and zing across the entire customer interface/experience.
Design, then, is the calculated construction of«the total-persona-that-the-enterprise-
presents (and present it does, every microsecond) to all of its stakeho-lders and constitu
ents, internal and external, virtual and real.
Okay?
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32. Branding is for¿EVERYONE.
Whoever has«THE BEST STORY«takes home the most marbles. ´Branding?µ ´Branding is a
character issue. Next question?µ It is almost that simple. And, thus, that hard.
I·m a branding fanatic. But not a branding ´expert.µ I acknowledge the power of a great
logo. Brilliant ad campaign. Coherent marketing material. A razor-sharp message. And so
on. And on. Yet all the above misses the mark. ´Brandµ to me (personally) means: What
Tom«stands for. Tom·s character«behind his promise. Why I would want to«hang out
with Tom. Why what Tom does«matters in the larger scheme of things. Tom·s ability
to«make a di!erence.
Branding, then, at its best, is about the«Big Questions. (Very Big Questions.) Call it/them:
identity ...character«raison d·etre. Or (personally again): Tom·s«Big & Compelling Story.
Consider:
´We are in the twilight of a society based on data. As information and intelligence
become the domain of computers, society will place new value on the o-ne human abil
ity that can·t be automated: emotion. Imagination, myth, ritual³the l-anguage of emo
tion³will a!ect everything from our purchasing decisions to how well 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.µ
³ Rolf Jensen, Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies
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Howard Gardner, the renowned Harvard professor, insists that the primary key to leadership
is stor