Tom Peters’

Re-imagine!50 Rules for Leading

in Totally Screwed-Up Times

Palacio Das Artes/Belo Horizonte/28-29May2003

Slides at …

tompeters.com

“Uncertainty is the only thing to be sure of.” —Anthony Muh,

head of investment in Asia, Citigroup Asset management (FT/03.27.2003)

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

irrelevance even less.” —General Eric Shinseki, Chief

of Staff, U. S. Army

The Context.

The

Leadership50

The Basic Premise.

1. Leadership Is a …

Mutual Discovery Process.

“I don’t know.”

Leaders-Teachers Do Not “Transform People”!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“followers’ ” explorations!

1A. 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.

The Leadership

Types.

2. Great Leaders on Snorting

Steeds Are Important – but

Great Talent Developers (Type I

Leadership) are the Bedrock of Organizations that Perform Over

the Long Haul.

25/8/53

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

(Type II Leadership) Stuff Actually Works!

“A leader is a dealer in hope.”

Napoleon

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) Visionary … (2) Talent Fanatic … (3)

Inspired Profit Mechanic.

5A. Leadership

Mantra #1: IT ALL DEPENDS!

Renaissance Men are … a snare, a

myth, a delusion!

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!)

9A. Leaders

Re-do.

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

They’re eviscerated in public for lousy

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

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

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

10. BUT … Leaders

Know When to Wait.

Tex Schramm: The

“too hard” box!

11. Leaders

KNOW They Can Make a Difference!

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

what is necessary.” —WSC

11A. Leaders Are …

Optimists.

Hackneyed but none the less

true: LEADERS SEE CUPS AS “HALF

FULL.”

12. BUT … Leaders Are

Realists/Leaders Win Through LOGISTICS!

The “Gus [Pagonis]

Imperative”!

13. Leaders

FOCUS!

“To Don’t ” List

13A. Leaders … Set CLEAR DESIGN

SPECIFICATIONS.

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

“Workout” Jack. (Empowerment,

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

Internet Jack. (Throughout)

TALENT JACK!

Danger: S.I.O. (Strategic

Initiative Overload)

It’s Relationships,

Stupid.

14. Leaders Trust in

TRUST!

Credibility!

15. Leaders Know …

Women Roar/ Women Rule.

“AS LEADERS, WOMEN RULE: New Studies find that female managers

outshine their male counterparts in almost

every measure”Title, Special Report, Business Week, 11.20.00

Women’s Strengths Match New Economy Imperatives: Link [rather than rank] workers;

favor interactive-collaborative leadership style [empowerment beats top-down decision making]; sustain fruitful collaborations; comfortable with sharing information; see redistribution of power

as victory, not surrender; favor multi-dimensional feedback; value technical & interpersonal skills, individual & group contributions equally; readily accept ambiguity; honor intuition as well as pure

“rationality”; inherently flexible; appreciate cultural diversity

Source: Judy B. Rosener, America’s Competitive Secret

If It Ain’t Broke … Break It.

16. 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

The [New] Ge Way

DYB.com

17. BUT … Leaders

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

Bathwater.”

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

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

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

18. Leaders …

HONOR THE USURPERS.

Saviors-in-Waiting

Disgruntled CustomersUpstart CompetitorsRogue EmployeesFringe Suppliers

Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision

18A. Leaders …

HANG OUT WITH FREAKS!

The Cracked Ones Let in the Light

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

among non-conformists, dissenters and rebels.”

David Ogilvy

19. Leaders Make [Lotsa] Mistakes

– and MAKE NO BONES ABOUT IT!

Fail. Forward. Fast. –High-tech Exec

19A. Leaders Make …

BIG MISTAKES!

“Reward excellent

failures. Punish mediocre successes.”

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

Create.

20. Leaders Know that

THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN “LINE EXTENSIONS.”

No one ever made it into the Business Hall of Fame on a record of

“line extensions.”

21. 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

New Model.

22. Leaders … Understand the

Enormity of the White Collar Revolution.

108 X 5vs.

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

E.g. …

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

3 years.

Source: BW (01.28.02)

IBM’s Project

eLiza!** “Self-bootstrapping”/ “Artilects”

23. Leaders … Turn All

Departments into “PSFs.”

Every job done in W.C.W. is

also done “outside”

…for profit!

Answer: PSF![Professional Service Firm]

Department Head

to …

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

24. Leaders Push Their

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

Intellectual Capital Chain

Gerstner’s IBM: Systems Integrator of

choice. Global Services:

$35B. Pledge/’99: Business Partner Charter. 72 strategic partners,

aim for 200. Drop many in-house

programs/products. (BW/12.01).

“You are headed for commodity

hell if you don’t have services.”—Lou Gerstner on IBM’s coming

revolution (1997)

“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

25. 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 &

René Tissen, Zero Space: Moving Beyond Organizational Limits.

26. Leaders Know that the “HVA/Solutions

Revolution” rests upon: Experiences … Dream Fulfillment … Design.

A World of Scintillating/

Awesome/ WOW “Experiences.”

“Experiences are as distinct from services as services are from

goods.”Joseph Pine & James Gilmore, The Experience Economy:

Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage

“Club Med is more than just a ‘resort’; it’s a means of rediscovering oneself, of inventing an

entirely new ‘me.’ ”

Source: Jean-Marie Dru, Disruption

Experience: “Rebel Lifestyle!”

“What we sell is the ability for a 43-year-old accountant to dress in black leather, ride

through small towns and have people be afraid of him.”

Harley exec, quoted in Results-Based Leadership

Experiences+: Embracing the

“Dream Business.”

DREAM: “A dream is a complete moment in the life of a client.

Important experiences that tempt the client to commit substantial resources. The essence of the desires of the consumer. The

opportunity to help clients become what they want to be.” —Gian Luigi

Longinotti-Buitoni

The marketing of Dreams (Dreamketing)

Dreamketing: Touching the clients’ dreams.

Dreamketing: The art of telling stories and entertaining.

Dreamketing: Promote the dream, not the product.

Dreamketing: Build the brand around the main dream.

Dreamketing: Build the “buzz,” the “hype,” the “cult.”

Source: Gian Luigi Longinotti-Buitoni

The [Mostly Ignored] “Soul” of “Experiences”:

Design Rules!

All Equal Except …

“At Sony we assume that all products of our competitors have basically the same

technology, price, performance and

features. Design is the only thing that differentiates one product from another in the

marketplace.”Norio Ohga

Technology.

27. Leaders

LOVE the New Technology!

WebWorld = Everything

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

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

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

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

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

as next door neighbor

“Ebusiness is about rebuilding the organization from the

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

Their business processes, their approvals, their hierarchies, the

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

ebusiness.”

Ray Lane, Kleiner Perkins

“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!

28. Needed? Type IV Leadership: Technology

Dreamer-True Believer

The Golden Leadership Quadrangle: (1) Visionary …

(2) Talent Fanatic … (3) Inspired Profit Mechanic. (4) Technology Dreamer-True

Believer

Talent.

29. When It Comes to

TALENT … Leaders Always Go for

Broke!

Message: Some people are better than other

people. Some people are a helluva lot better than other

people.

MantraM3

Talent = Brand

30. Leaders Don’t Create “Followers”:

THEY CREATE LEADERS!

Brand You, Big Time!

I AM AN ARMY OF

ONE

31. Leaders “Win Followers Over”

PJ: “Coaching is winning

players over.”

32. Leaders “Manage” Their

EVP/Internal Brand Promise.

EVP = Challenge, professional growth, respect, satisfaction, opportunity, reward

Source: Ed Michaels et al., The War for Talent

33. Leaders LOVE KIDS.

“Why focus on these late teens and twenty-

somethings? Because they are the first young who are both in a position to change the world, and are actually doing so. … For the first time in history,

children are more comfortable, knowledgeable and literate than their parents about an

innovation central to society. … The Internet has triggered the first industrial revolution in history

to be led by the young.”

The Economist [12/2000]

Passion.

34. Leaders …

Out Their

PASSION!

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

35. Leaders Know: ENTHUSIASM

BEGETS ENTHUSIASM!

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

36. Leaders Focus on the

SOFT STUFF!

“Soft” Is “Hard”

- ISOE

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

Engagement, Commitment, Great Causes & Determination to Make a

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

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

The “Job” of Leading.

37. 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.)

38. Leaders

LOVE “POLITICS.”

TP: If you don’t LOVE POLITICS … find

another life. (Don’t pretend

you’re a “leader.”)

39. Leaders

Give … RESPECT!

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

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

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

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Respect

40. Leaders Say

“Thank You.”

“The two most powerful things

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

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

41. Leaders Are …

Curious.

TP/08.2001: The Three Most Important Letters …

WHY?

42. Leadership Is a …

Performance.

“It is necessary for the President to be the

nation’s No. 1 actor.”

FDR

43. Leaders … Are The Brand

“You must be the change you

wish to see in the world.”

Gandhi

44. 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

Introspection.

46. Leaders …

Enjoy Leading.

“Warren, I know you want to ‘be’

president. But do you want to ‘do’

president?”

47. Leaders Know …

“It’s My Fault.”

You recruited ’em.You hired ’em.

You trained ’em. You evaluated ’em.

You “motivated” ’em.

48. Leaders … Take Breaks.

Zombie!Zombie!Zombie!Zombie!

The End Game.

49. 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”

50. Leaders …

Aim High!

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