Tom Peters Leadership2002 Leading in Totally Screwed Up Times 09.27.2002

Tom Peters’ Leadership2002

Leading in Totally Screwed

Up Times09.27.2002

Slides:

tompeters.com

The

Leadership40

The Basic Premise.

1. Leaders …FORGET!/

Leaders … DESTROY!

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

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.

Source: Dick Foster & Sarah Kaplan, Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market

“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)

“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

The Leadership

Types.

2. In “Screwed Up Times,” Leaders Must

Provide Beacons of Hope (Type I Leadership).

“A leader is a dealer in hope.”

Napoleon

(+TP’s writing room pics)

3. Great Leaders on Snorting

Steeds Are Important – but

Great Talent Developers (Type II

Leadership) are the Bedrock of Organizations that Perform Over

the Long Haul.

Whoops: Jack didn’t have a vision!

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

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 … (3) Inspired

Profit Mechanic.

6. 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.

7. Leaders …

SHOW UP!

Rudy!

8. Leaders … LOVE the

MESS!

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

going fast enough.”

Mario Andretti

9. 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!)

10. BUT … Leaders

Know When to Wait.

Tex Schramm: The

“too hard” box!

11. Leaders …

DELIVER!

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

what is necessary.” —WSC

12. Leaders Are …

Optimists.

Hackneyed but none the less

true: LEADERS SEE CUPS AS “HALF

FULL.”

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

happiness.”Lou Cannon, George (08.2000)

13. Leaders

FOCUS!

“To Don’t ” List

If It Ain’t Broke … Break It.

14. Leaders …

HONOR THE USURPERS.

Saviors-in-Waiting

Disgruntled CustomersUpstart CompetitorsRogue EmployeesFringe Suppliers

Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision

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

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

15. Leaders Make [Lotsa] Mistakes

– and MAKE NO BONES ABOUT IT!

Sam’s

Secret #1!

“Fail faster. Succeed sooner.”

David Kelley/IDEO

16. Leaders Make …

BIG MISTAKES!

“Reward excellent

failures. Punish mediocre successes.”

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

Create.

17. Leaders Pursue

DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE!

“The Internet is the most effective profit-killer on earth … it stimulates a TRUE

FREE MARKET; and a real free market is the most dangerous of marketplaces for

companies selling the SAME OLD STUFF. To those with COURAGE, free markets are

great—they help kill off the deadwood competitors who don’t have the courage

to change—making way for them to LEVERAGE their DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE

into profitable growth.”—Doug Hall

“I don’t intend to be known as the ‘King of

the Tinkerers.’ ”CEO, large financial services company

“Incrementalism is innovation’s worst enemy.”

Nicholas Negroponte

“Don’t rebuild. Reimagine.”

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

18. 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

The greatest dangerfor most of us

is not that our aim istoo high

and we miss it,but that it is

too lowand we reach it.

Michelangelo

19. Leaders Push Their

Organizations W-a-y Up the Value-added/

Intellectual Capital Chain

WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?

“No longer are we only an insurance provider. Today,

we also offer our customers the products and services that help them

achieve their dreams, whether it’s financial security, buying a car, paying

for home repairs, or even taking a dream vacation.”—Martin Feinstein, CEO,

Farmers Group

20. Leaders … Demolish

Stovepipes!

“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 & Rene Tissen, Zero Space: Moving Beyond Organization Limits.

“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

21. Leaders

LOVE the New Technology!

100 square feet

“There’s no use trying,” said Alice. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was

your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve

believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Lewis Carroll

I’net …

… allows you to dream dreams

you could never have dreamed

before!

Talent.

22. When It Comes to

TALENT … Leaders Always Swing

for the Fences!

From “1, 2 or you’re out” [JW] to …

“Best Talent in each industry segment to build

best proprietary intangibles” [EM]

Source: Ed Michaels, War for Talent (05.17.00)

23. Leaders Don’t Create “Followers”:

THEY CREATE LEADERS!

Brand You, Big Time!

I AM AN ARMY OF

ONE

24. Leaders …

Cede Control.

“I don’t know.”

25. Leadership Is a

… Mutual Discovery Process.

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!

26. Leaders Try … Not to Screw

Things Up

“Ninety percent of what we call ‘management’ consists of making it

difficult for people to get things done.” – P.D.

Passion.

27. Leaders …

Out Their

PASSION!

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

28. Leaders Know: ENTHUSIASM

BEGETS ENTHUSIASM!

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

29. Leaders …

Have a GREAT STORY!

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

communication of a story.”

Howard Gardner Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership

30. Leaders Focus on the

SOFT STUFF!

“Soft” Is “Hard”

- ISOE

The “Job” of Leading.

31. 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.)

32. Leaders

LOVE “POLITICS.”

TP: If you don’t LOVE POLITICS … find

another life. (Don’t pretend

you’re a “leader.”)

33. But … Leaders Also

Break a Lot of China

Characteristics of the “Also rans”*

“Minimize risk”“Respect the chain of

command”“Support the boss”

“Make budget”

*Fortune, article on “Most Admired Global Corporations”

Joe J. Jones Joe J. Jones 1942 – 2002 1942 – 2002

HE WOULDA DONE SOME HE WOULDA DONE SOME

REALLY COOL STUFF REALLY COOL STUFF

BUT …BUT …

HIS BOSS WOULDN’T LET HIM! HIS BOSS WOULDN’T LET HIM!

34. 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

35. 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]

36. Leaders Are …

Graceful.

“My favorite word is grace –

whether it’s amazing grace,

saving grace, grace under

fire, Grace Kelly. How we live contributes to beauty – whether it’s how we treat other people or

the environment.”

Celeste Cooper, designer

Rodale’s on “Grace” …

elegance … charm … loveliness … poetry in motion … kindliness ..

benevolence … benefaction … compassion … beauty

Introspection.

37. Leaders …

Enjoy Leading.

“Warren, I know you want to ‘be’

president. But do you want to ‘do’

president?”

“[Bertelsman’s Reinhard] Mohn wasn’t a creative type. What got him juiced was the

art of running an organization and motivating the people who work there.”

—Fortune/05.27.2002

38. Leaders … Take Breaks.

Zombie!Zombie!Zombie!Zombie!

The End Game.

39. Leaders ???

:

“Leadership is the PROCESS of

ENGAGING PEOPLE in CREATING a LEGACY

of EXCELLENCE.”

“LEADERS NEED TO BE THE ROCK OF

GIBRALTAR ON ROLLER BLADES”

40. Leaders Know

WHEN TO LEAVE!

Thank You!