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Tom Peters’ Manifestos2002
The Solutions Imperative:
From “Customer Satisfaction” to
“Customer Success”
Version 03.01.2002
1. Base Case …
“Customers will try ‘low cost
providers’ … because the Majors have not
given them any clear reason not to.”
Leading Insurance Industry Analyst
SWA > American +
Continental + Delta + Northwest + United + USAirways.
Source: Boston Globe (12.22.2001)
Getting Beyond Lip Service!
“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
TP2002: GE Industrial Systems. Farmers. Message I: Same-same kills. Go way up the VA Chain. (Or
else.) Transformation or bust: Full-service/ solutions provider. Great
rep … but … NOBODY OWNS THE SPACE. Message II: All dogs must learn … lotsa … new tricks. (Bad news: Everybody’s after the same
space. Mr. Darwin is on the prowl!)
Diversity Marketing … Communities of Interest … Bank of America relationship … specialized
acquisitions … Farmers Agency Dashboard … HelpPoint …
licensed financial planners …
etc. … etc. … etc.
2002: Same-Same-Same …
Farmers = GE = Oracle = MCAA =
Biotech & Pharmaceutical
Trainers = Omnicom
GE/IS: “We don’t sell circuit breakers.”
Farmers: “We don’t sell insurance.”
Oracle: “We don’t sell apps-in-boxes.”
MCAA: “We don’t sell ‘a job.’”
B&T Trainers: “We don’t sell pills.”
Omnicom: “We don’t sell ads.”
(Seagate: “We sell the sexiest boxes … and we’re proud of it.”)
Exec, CTFA: “The dirty little secret amidst an ‘age of
consolidation’: It’s not all
‘channel management.’ We need some very cool products!”
Bob Lutz: “I see us as being in the art business. Art,
entertainment and mobile sculpture, which,
coincidentally, also happens to provide transportation.”
Source: NYT 10.19.01
Whaddaboutheproduct?
20 of 26
7 of top 10
2. The Enemy …
“Quality as defined by few defects is becoming the
price of entry for automotive marketers
rather than a competitive advantage.”
J.D. Power
“While everything may
be better, it is also increasingly the same.”
Paul Goldberger on retail, “The Sameness of Things,” The New York Times
“We make over three new product announcements a
day. Can you remember them?
Our customers can’t!”Carly Fiorina
“The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of
similar companies, employing
similar people, with similar educational backgrounds, working in
similar jobs, coming up with similar
ideas, producing similar things, with
similar prices and similar quality.”
Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale, Funky Business
“Companies have defined so much
‘best practice’ that they are now more or
less identical.”Jesper Kunde, A Unique Moment
10X/10X
“Customers will try ‘low cost
providers’ … because the Majors have not
given them any clear reason not to.”
Leading Insurance Industry Analyst
3. A Pitiful Showing …
“Our military structure today is essentially one
developed and designed by Napoleon.”
Admiral Bill Owens, former Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
From: Weapon v. Weapon
To: Org structure v. Org structure
Forbes100 from 1917 to 1987: 39 members of the Class of ’17 were alive
in ’87; 18 in ’87 F100; 18 F100 “survivors” underperformed the market
by 20%; just 2 (2%), GE & Kodak, outperformed the market 1917 to 1987.
S&P 500 from 1957 to 1997: 74 members of the Class of ’57 were
alive in ’97; 12 (2.4%) of 500 outperformed the market from 1957 to 1997.
Source: Dick Foster & Sarah Kaplan, Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market
“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
“A pattern emphasized in the case studies in this book is the degree to which powerful competitors not only resist innovative threats, but actually resist all efforts to understand them, preferring to further their positions in
older products. This results in a surge of productivity and performance that may take the old technology to unheard of
heights. But in most cases this is a sign of impending death.”
Jim Utterback, Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation
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
“Chivalry is dead. The new code of conduct is an active strategy of disrupting the status quo to create an unsustainable
series of competitive advantages. This is not an age of defensive castles, moats and
armor. It is rather an age of cunning, speed and surprise. It may be hard for some to hang up the
chain mail of ‘sustainable advantage’ after so many battles. But hypercompetition, a state in which sustainable advantages are no longer
possible, is now the only level of competition.”
Rich D’Aveni, Hypercompetition: Managing the Dynamics of Strategic Maneuvering
“Acquisitions are about
buying market share. Our challenge is to create markets.
There is a big difference.” Peter Job, CEO, Reuters
Wendell Phillips, abolitionist:
“Republics exist only on the tenure of being constantly
agitated. There is no republican road to safety but in constant distrust.”
Source: Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America
“Fail . Forward.
Fast.”High Tech CEO, Pennsylvania
Read This!
Richard Farson & Ralph Keyes: Whoever Makes the Most
Mistakes Wins: The Paradox of Innovation
4. A White Collar Revolution …
108 X 5vs.
8 X 1= 540 vs. 8 (-98.5%)
The Pincer 5
1. “Destructive” entrepreneurs/ Global Competition
2. “White Collar Robots”
3. THE INTERNET! [E.g.: GM + Ford + DaimlerChrysler]
4. Global Outsourcing [E.g.: India, Mexico]
5. Speed!!
IBM’s Project
eLiza!** “Self-bootstrapping”/ “Artilects”
“So what does Drexel’s demise tell us about
Enron? Companies may die (or commit suicide), but ideas—if they’re any good—
survive.” James Surowiecki, The New Yorker
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.
“P.S.F.”: Summary
H.V.A. Projects (100%)Pioneer Clients
WOW Work (see below)Hot “Talent” (see below)“Adventurous” “culture”
Proprietary Point of View (Methodology)W.W.P.F. (100%)/Outside Clients (25%++)
Model PSF …
(1) Translate ALL departmental activities into discrete W.W.P.F. “Products.”(2) 100% go on the Web.
(3) Non-awesome are outsourced (75%??).
(4) Remaining “Centers of Excellence” are retained & leveraged to the hilt!
7 Rules for Leading/THRIVING in a Recession+
1. It’s ALREADY too late.2. Show up & tell the truth—CREDIBILITY rules.3. Kill with KINDNESS.4. Sharp pencils are imperative—but don’t forget that the CUSTOMER & our TALENT & RISKY INVESTMENTS are still our long-term Bread & Butter.
5. Everything’s different, everything’s the same—it’s the NEW ECONOMY, more than ever, stupid!6. “Use” the trauma to mount the bold initiatives you should have long before mounted: Flux = OPPORTUNITY.7. We’re in a War of Organizational Models—from retail to the Pentagon. IDEAS MATTER MOST.
5. Searching for New Bases for Value Added …
The Big Day!
09.11.2000: HP bids
$18,000,000,000for
PricewaterhouseCoopersconsulting business!
“These days, building the best server isn’t enough. That’s the
price of entry.”
Ann Livermore, Hewlett-Packard
HP … Sun … GE … IBM … UPS … UTC …
General Mills … Springs … Anheuser-Busch …
Carpet One … Delphi … Etc. … Etc.
“We want to be the air traffic
controllers of electrons.”
Bob Nardelli, GE Power Systems
“Customer Satisfaction” to “Customer Success”
“We’re getting better at [Six Sigma] every day. But we really
need to think about the customer’s profitability. Are customers’
bottom lines really benefiting from what we provide them?”
Bob Nardelli, GE Power Systems
Keep In Mind: Customer
Satisfaction versus
Customer
Success
HP … Sun … GE … IBM … UPS … UTC …
General Mills … Springs … Anheuser-Busch …
Carpet One … Delphi … Etc. … Etc.
Gerstner’s IBM: Systems Integrator of choice. (BW/12.01).
Global Services: $35B. Pledge/’99: Business Partner Charter. 72 strategic partners,
aim for 200. Drop many in-house programs/products.
HP … Sun … GE … IBM
… UPS … UTC … General Mills … Springs … Anheuser-Busch …
Carpet One … Delphi … Etc. … Etc.
“UPS wants to take over the sweet spot in the endless loop
of goods, information and capital that all the packages
[it moves] represent.”ecompany.com/06.01 (E.g., UPS Logistics
manages the logistics of 4.5M Ford vehicles, from 21 mfg. sites to 6,000 NA dealers)
HP … Sun … GE … IBM
… UPS … UTC …
General Mills … Springs … Anheuser-Busch …
Carpet One … Delphi … Etc. … Etc.
New Springs = Turnkey
Collections.Flexible sourcing.
Packaging.Merchandising.
Promotion.Systems & Site mgt.
Omnicom: 57% (of
$6B) from marketing services
Who was the number one employer of
architecture school grads in the U.S.
last year?
The Pursuit of … Whatever:
Accenture to “do” AT&T’s sales & customer service … for
$2.6B/5 years … savings to
AT&T of 50%. Accenture to “do” Avaya’s corporate
learning & training. Source: BW (02.04.2002)
“VISIONS OF A BRAND-NAME OFFICE EMPIRE. Sam Zell is not a man plagued by self doubt. Mr. Zell controls public
companies that own nearly 700 office buildings in the United States. … Now Mr. Zell says he will
transform the real estate market by turning those REITs into national brands. … Mr. Zell
believes [clients] will start to view those offices as something more than a commodity chosen
chiefly by price and location.” –New York Times (12.16.2001)
Problem: Everybody is going after the same space!
“Assetless Company”
John Bryan, CEO, on selling all Sara Lee’s manufacturing
“Don’t own nothin’ if you can
help it. If you can, rent your
shoes.”F.G.
Better Red than Dead?/Better Dead than Red?
“We will see more and more outsourcing of
discovery processes.”Craig Venter
Better Red than Dead?/Better Dead than Red?
“If we completely outsourced all of our genetic
analysis, we’d be held hostage by outside people.”
Brian Spear, Director of Pharmacogenomics, Abbott Labs
Pfizer: 1,000 projects with
academics and biotechs. Novartis:
30% of R&D is via
collaborations.
“The move toward outsourced manufacturing represents an obvious
opportunity for contract manufacturers [such
as Flextronics: $93M to $15B, ’93-’01], but it’s also a potential boon to product innovation. The
future of gadget-making is not about making gadgets; it’s about imagining them.
Someone else makes the imaginary real. ‘All that money that used to go to fund infrastructure is going into design and
innovation,’ says Flex CEO Michael Marks.”Wired/11.2001
Markets to networks. Hierarchies to networks. Sellers and buyers to suppliers and users.
Ownership to access. (Age of Access.) Marginalization of physical property. Weightless
economy. Protean generation. Outsourcing of everything. Franchising of everything. (Business format franchising.) (Leasing DNA.) Everything is a service/platform for services delivery. (Give away
the goods, charge for the services. VALUE = THE RELATIONSHIP. “Share of market” to “Share of
customer.”) Every business is show business.
Source: Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access
6. “It” Adds Up to an “Experience” …
“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
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
The “Experience Ladder”
Experiences Services
Goods Raw Materials
1940: Cake from flour, sugar (raw materials economy): $1.00
1955: Cake from Cake mix (goods economy): $2.00
1970: Bakery-made cake (service economy): $10.00
1990: Party @ Chuck E. Cheese (experience economy) $100.00
Message:
“Experience” is the
“Last 80%”
P.S.: “Experience” applies to all work!
1940: Cake from flour, sugar (raw materials economy): $1.00
1955: Cake from Cake mix (goods economy): $2.00
1970: Bakery-made cake (service
economy): $10.001990: Party @ Chuck E. Cheese
(experience economy) $100.00
Bob Lutz: “I see us as being in the art business. Art,
entertainment and mobile sculpture, which,
coincidentally, also happens to provide transportation.”
Source: NYT 10.19.01
The “Experience Ladder”
Experiences Services
Goods Raw Materials
Ladder Position Measure
Solutions Success
Services Satisfaction
Goods Six-sigma
7. Cut The [Internal] Crap …
Dell’s OptiPlex Facility
Big Job: 6 to 8 hours.(80,000 per day)
Parts Inventory: 100 square feet.
The Real “New Economy”
“Only a few times in history have interaction costs
radically changed—one was the railroads, then the telegraph
and telephone. We’re going through another one right now.”
Jeff Skilling, Enron
“In an era when terrorists use satellite phones and encrypted email, US gatekeepers stand
armed against them with pencils and paperwork, and archaic computer systems that don’t
talk to each other.”Boston Globe (09.30.2001)
“Once devised in Riyadh, the tasking order took hours to get to the Navy’s six aircraft carriers—because the
Navy had failed years earlier to procure the proper communications gear that would have connected the
Navy with its Air Force counterparts. … To compensate for the lack of communications capability, the Navy was forced to fly a daily cargo mission from
the Persian Gulf and Red Sea to Riyadh in order to pick up a computer printout of the air mission tasking
order, then fly back to the carriers, run photocopy machines at full tilt, and distribute the documents to the air wing squadrons that were planning the next
strike.” –Bill Owens, Lifting the Fog of War
Cisco!
90% of $20B (=$50M/day)Annual savings in service
and support from customer self-management: $550M (P.S.: C.Sat e >> C.Sat h)
Secret Cisco: Community!
Customer Engineer Chat Rooms/Collaborative
Design ($1B “free” consulting) (45,000 customer problems a week solved via
customer collaboration)
The Real “News”: X1,000,000
TowTruckNet.com
Welcome to D.I.Y. Nation: “Changes in business processes will emphasize self service. Your costs as a business
go down and perceived service goes up because
customers are conducting it themselves.” Ray Lane, Oracle
Anne Busquet/ American Express
Not: “Age of the Internet”
Is: “Age of Customer Control”
Amen!
“The Age of the
Never Satisfied Customer”
Regis McKenna
Reuters (12.11.01): “Teens and young adults are flocking to the Web for
health-related information as much as they are downloading music and playing games online and
more often than shopping online, according to a national survey
from the Kaiser Family Foundation.”
“One in Four Internet Users Seek Religious
Information”—Reuters
(12.24.2001) (“God trumps money, sex.”)
One Person’s Opinion
TP to reporter: “Service is MUCH better! Would you go back to bank tellers and phone
operators? Value that I place on a “smile”: 3 on a scale of 10. Value I place on fast & accurate “digital”
response: 11 on a scale of 10!!
“CRM has, almost universally, failed
to live up to expectations.”
Butler Group (UK)
CGE&Y (Paul Cole): “Pleasant
Transaction” vs. “Systemic Opportunity.” “Better job
of what we do today” vs. “Re-think overall
enterprise strategy.”
Read It Closely: “We don’t sell
insurance anymore. We sell speed.”
Peter Lewis, Progressive
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
Message: eCommerce is not a technology play! It is a
relationship, partnership, organizational and
communications play, made possible by new
technologies.
Message: There is no such thing as an effective B2B or
Internet-supply chain strategy in a low-trust,
bottlenecked-communication, six-layer
organization.
“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
Jargon Bath!
Bureaucracy free …Systemically integrated …
Internet intense …Knowledge based …
Time and location free …“Instantly” responsive …
Customer centric …Mass customization enabled.
Translation …
Bureaucracy free = Flat org, no B.S.Systemically integrated = Whole supply chain
tightly wired/ friction freeInternet intense = Do it all via the Web
Knowledge based = Open accessTime and location free = Whenever, wherever
“Instantly” responsive = Speed demonsCustomer centric = Customer calls the shotsMass customization enabled = Every product
and service rapidly tailored to client requirements
“Supply Chain” 2000:
“When Joe Employee at Company X launches his browser, he’s taken to Company X’s personalized
home page. He can interact with the entire scope of Company X’s world – customers, other employees, distributors, suppliers, manufacturers, consultants. The browser – that is, the portal – resembles a My
Yahoo for Company X and hooks into every network associated with Company X. The real trick is that Joe
Employee, business partners and customers don’t have to be in the office. They can log on from a cell phone, Palm Pilot, pager or home office system.”
Red Herring (09.2000)
The Real “New Economy”
“Imagine a chess game in which, after every half dozen moves, the arrangement of the pieces on the board stays the same but the capabilities of the pieces randomly change. Knights now move like bishops, bishops like rooks … Technology does that. It rubs out boundaries that separate industries. Suddenly new competitors with new
capabilities will come at you from new directions. Lowly truckers in brown vans become geeky
logistics experts. …”
Business 2.0 (8.2001)
“Suppose – just suppose – that the Web is a new world we’re just beginning to inhabit. We’re like the earlier European settlers in the United States, living on the
edge of the forest. We don’t know what’s there and we don’t know exactly what we need to do to find out: Do we pack mountain climbing gear, desert wear, canoes, or all three? Of course while the settlers may not have
known what the geography of the New World was going to be, they at least knew that there was a geography. The Web, on the other hand, has no
geography, no landscape. It has no distance. It has nothing natural in it. It has few rules of behavior and fewer lines of authority. Common sense doesn’t hold
here, and uncommon sense hasn’t yet emerged.” David Weinberger, Small Pieces Loosely Joined
8. Create “Beautiful Systems.”
Fred S.’s “mediocre” thesis. Herb K.’s
napkin.
Great design = One-page
business plan (Jim Horan)
K.I.S.S.: Gordon Bell (VAX
daddy): 500/50. Chas.
Wang (CA): Behind schedule?
Cut least productive 25%.
“Most companies would do more business on the Internet if they
fired their entire marketing department and replaced it with
people who could produce interactive content that actually made it easier for users to buy.”
Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group
SWA
Simple!!!!!!!!!!!! (customers call because the process is so easy they can’t
believe they’re done)
30% of revenues directly from site (vs. 6% for others)
Source: Business Week (09.00)
Read It Closely: “We don’t sell
insurance anymore. We sell speed.”
Peter Lewis, Progressive
Systems: Must have. Must
hate. / Must design. Must un-
design.
Mgt. Team
includes … EVP (S.O.U.B.)
Executive Vice President, Stomping Out Unnecessary Bullshit
Revised wisdom: Forget “best practice” (stultifying).
Concentrate on: Driving out “worst practice.”
Source: Equinox Manifesto (12.01)
“Ninety percent of what we call ‘management’ consists of making it difficult for people to
get things done.” – P.D.
First Steps: “Beauty Contest”!
1. Select one form/document: invoice, air bill, sick leave policy, customer returns-claim form.
2. Rate the selected doc on a scale of 1 to 10 [1 = Bureaucratica Obscuranta/ Sucks; 10 = Work
of Art] on four dimensions: Beauty. Grace. Clarity. Simplicity.
3. Re-invent!4. Repeat, with a new selection, every 15 working
days.
9. Renaissance Man/Woman Emerges …
“If there is nothing very special about your work, no matter how hard you apply
yourself, you won’t get noticed, and that
increasingly means you won’t get paid much either.”
Michael Goldhaber, Wired
N.W.O./Holy Moly:
Unemployment up 2% … Real wage growth highest since 60s … Productivity soaring.
Source: BW/02.11.2002
Minimum New Work SurvivalSkillsKit2001
MasteryRolodex Obsession (vert. to horiz. “loyalty”)
Entrepreneurial InstinctCEO/Leader/Businessperson/Closer
Mistress of ImprovSense of Humor
Intense Appetite for TechnologyGroveling Before the Young
Embracing “Marketing”Passion for Renewal
Brand You, Big Time!
I AM AN ARMY OF
ONE
Message: Distinct … or Extinct.
“My ancestors were printers in Amsterdam from 1510 or so until
1750 … and during that entire time they didn’t have to learn anything
new.”Peter Drucker, Business 2.0 (08.22.00)
26.3
3 Weeks in May
“Training” & Prep: 187“Work”: 41
(“Other”: 17)
1% vs.
367%
Divas do it. Violinists do it. Sprinters do it. Golfers do it.
Pilots do it. Soldiers do it. Surgeons do it. Cops do it.
Astronauts do it. Why don’t businesspeople do it
[very much]?
Invent. Reinvent. Repeat.
Source: HP banner ad
10. “Solutions
Imperative” = 100% Work That Matters [WOW Flavor] …
“Reward excellent failures. Punish
mediocre successes.”
Phil Daniels, Sydney exec
Language matters! Wow! BHAG! “Takes
your breath away!”
“Intimidate their [users] imaginations”
… “Where’s the revolution?” –J Allard,
on the Xbox
Your Current Project?
1. Another day’s work/Pays the rent.4. Of value.7. Pretty Damn Cool/Definitely subversive.10. WE AIM TO CHANGE THE WORLD. (Insane!/Insanely Great!/WOW!)
“Learn not to be
careful.”
Photographer Diane Arbus, to her students
Goal: Drive out fear. (Deming et al.)
Solution: Passion (alone?) drives out fear. Source: Equinox Manifesto (12.01)
He who has the quickest O.O.D.A.
Loops* wins!*Observe. Orient. Decide. Act. /
Col. John Boyd
BOTTOM LINE
The Enemy!
Joe J. Jones Joe J. Jones 1942 – 2001 1942 – 2001
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!
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
Characteristics of the “Also rans”*
“Minimize risk”“Respect the chain of
command”“Support the boss”
“Make budget”
*Fortune, article on “Most Admired Global Corporations”
Rule No. 1 (and there are no other
rules): How do we configure our company/operation so
that we’re truly able to provide talented people the
“ride of their lives”?
Source: Equinox Manifesto (12.01)
Sales2001
The Sales25: Great Salespeople …
1. Know the product. (Find cool mentors, and use them.)
2. Know the company.3. Know the customer. (Including the customer’s consultants.) (And especially the “corporate culture.”)4. Love internal politics at home and abroad.5. Religiously respect competitors. (No badmouthing, no matter how provoked.)6. Wire the customer’s org. (Relationships at all levels & functions.)7. Wire the home team’s org. and vendors’ orgs. (INVEST Big Time time in relationships at all levels & functions.) (Take junior people in all functions to client meetings.)
Great Salespeople …
8. Never overpromise. (Even if it costs you your job.) 9. Sell only by solving problems-creating profitable opportunities. (“Our product solves these problems, creates these unimagined INCREDIBLE opportunities, and will make you a ton of money—here’s exactly how.”) (IS THIS A “PRODUCT SALE” OR A WOW-ORIGINAL SOLUTION YOU’LL BE DINING OFF 5 YEARS FROM NOW? THAT WILL BE WRITTEN UP IN THE TRADE PRESS?)10. Will involve anybody—including mortal enemies—if it enhances the scope of the problem we can solve and increases the scope of the opportunity we can encompass.11. Know the Brand Story cold; live the Brand Story. (If not, leave.)
Great Salespeople …
12. Think “Turnkey.” (It’s always your problem!)
13. Act as “orchestra conductor”: You are responsible for making the whole-damn-network respond. (PERIOD.)
14. Help the customer get to know the vendor’s organization & build up their Rolodex.15. Walk away from bad business. (Even if it gets you fired.)
16. Understand the idea of a “good loss.” (A bold effort that’s sometimes better than a lousy win.)17. Think those who regularly say “It’s all a price issue” suffer from rampant immaturity & shrunken imagination.18. Will not give away the store to get a foot in the door. 19. Are wary & respectful of upstarts—the real enemy.20. Seek several “cool customers”—who’ll drag you into Tomorrowland.
Great Salespeople …
21. Use the word “partnership” obsessively, even though it is way overused. (“Partnership” includes folks at all levels throughout the supply chain.)22. Send thank you notes by the truckload. (NOT E-NOTES.) (Most are for “little things.”) (50% of those notes are sent to those in our company!) Remember birthdays. Use the word “we.” 23. When you look across the table at the customer, think religiously to yourself: “HOW CAN I MAKE THIS DUDE RICH & FAMOUS & GET HIM-HER PROMOTED?” 24. Great salespeople can affirmatively respond to the query in an HP banner ad: HAVE YOU CHANGED CIVILIZATION TODAY?25. Keep your bloody PowerPoint slides simple!
11. The V.A./Solutions
Imperative = The Talent
Imperative …
“The leaders of Great Groups love talent and know where to find it. They revel in
the talent of others.”Warren Bennis & Patricia Ward Biederman,
Organizing Genius
Model 25/8/53: Sports Franchise GM
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)
Message: Some people are better than other
people. Some people are a helluva lot better than other
people.
“Diversity defines the health and wealth of nations in a new century.
Mighty is the mongrel. … The hybrid is hip. The impure, the mélange, the adulterated, the
blemished, the rough, the black-and-blue, the mix-and-match – these people are inheriting
the earth. Mixing is the new norm. Mixing trumps isolation. It spawns creativity,
nourishes the human spirit, spurs economic growth
and empowers nations.”
G. Pascal Zachary, The Global Me: New Cosmopolitans and the Competitive Edge
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
“Are there enough weird people in
the lab these days?”V. Chmn., pharmaceutical house, to a lab director (06.01)
12. V.A. = “Freakiness” …
Saviors-in-Waiting
Disgruntled CustomersOff-the-Scope Competitors
Rogue EmployeesFringe Suppliers
Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision: Beat the Competition by Focusing on Fringe Competitors, Lost Customers, and Rogue Employees
CUSTOMERS: “Future-defining customers may
account for only 2% to 3% of your total, but they represent a crucial
window on the future.”Adrian Slywotzky, Mercer Consultants
!
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
WEIRD IDEAS THAT WORK: (1) Hire slow learners (of the organizational code). (1.5) Hire people who make you
uncomfortable, even those you dislike. (2) Hire people you (probably) don’t need. (3) Use job interviews to get ideas, not
to screen candidates. (4) Encourage people to ignore and defy superiors and peers. (5) Find some happy people and get them to fight. (6) Reward success and failure, punish inaction.
(7) Decide to do something that will probably fail, then convince yourself and everyone else that success is certain. (8) Think of
some ridiculous, impractical things to do, then do them. (9) Avoid, distract, and bore customers, critics, and anyone who just wants to talk about money. (10) Don’t try to learn anything from people who seem to have solved the problems you face.
(11) Forget the past, particularly your company’s success.
Bob Sutton, Weird Ideas that Work: 11½ Ideas for Promoting, Managing and Sustaining Innovation
The GM/VC “model” of
leadership.
The Top Creators of Shareholder Value
Accept depressed earnings for several quarters to support hot productExpense rather than capitalize new venture costs
Bonuses without caps
Source: Fortune (09.17.2001)
13. Tomorrow’s Organizations
= Itinerant Potential
Machines …
TALENT POOL TO DIE FOR. Youthful. Insanely energetic. Value creativity. Risk taking is routine. Failing is normal … if you’re stretching. Want to “make their
bones” in “the revolution.”Love the new technologies. Well rewarded. Don’t plan to
be around 10 years from now.
TALENT POOL PLUS. Seek out and work with “world’s best” as needed (it’s often
needed). “We aim to change the world, and we need gifted colleagues—who well may
not be on our payroll.”
BRASSY-BUT-GROUNDED-LEADERSHIP. Say “I don’t know”—and then unleash the TALENT.
Have a vision to be DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT—but don’t expect the co. to be around forever. Will scrap pet projects, and change course 180
degrees—and take a big write-off in the process. NO REGRETS FROM SCREW-UPS WHOSE TIME
HAS NOT-YET-COME. GREAT REGRETS AT TIME & $$$ WASTED ON “ME TOO” PRODUCTS
AND PROJECTS.
BRASSY-BUT-GROUNDED-LEADERSHIP. (Cont.) “Visionary” leaders matched by leaders with
shrewd business sense: “HOW DO WE TURN A PROFIT ON THIS GORGEOUS IDEA?”
Appreciate “market creation” as much as or more than “market share growth.” ARE
INSANELY AWARE THAT MARKET LEADERS ARE ALWAYS IN PRECARIOUS POSITIONS,
AND THAT MARKET SHARE WILL NOT PROTECT US, IN TODAY’S VOLATILE WORLD,
FROM THE NEXT KILLER IDEA AND KILLER ENTREPRENEUR. (Gates. Ellison. Venter.
McNealy. Walton. Case. Etc.)
ALLIANCE MANIACS. Don’t assume that “the best resides within.” WORK WITH A
SHIFTING ARRAY OF STATE-OF-THE-ART PARTNERS FROM ONE END OF THE “SUPPLY CHAIN” TO THE OTHER.
Including vendors and consultants and … especially … PIONEERING CUSTOMERS …
who will “pull us into the future.”
TECHNOLOGY-NETWORK FANATICS. Run the whole-damn-company, and relations with all
outsiders, on the Internet … at Internet speed. Reluctant to work with those who don’t share
this (radical) vision.
POTENTIAL MACHINES-ORGANISMS. Don’t know what’s coming next. But are ready to jump at opportunities, especially those that challenge-overturn our own “way of doing
things.”
14. V.A./ Solutions
Imperative = The Brand …
“Brand Promise” Exercise: (1) Who Are WE? (poem/novella/song, then 25
words.) (2) List three ways in which we are UNIQUE … to our Clients.
(3) Who are THEY (competitors)? (ID, 25 words.)
(4) List 3 distinct “us”/“them” differences. (5) Try “results” on your teammates. (6) Try ’em on a friendly Client. (7) Try ’em on a
skeptical Client!
1st Law Mktg Physics: OVERT BENEFIT (Focus: 1 or 2 > 3 or 4/“One Great Thing.” Source #1: Personal Passion)
2ND Law: REAL REASON TO BELIEVE (Stand & Deliver!)
3RD Law: DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE (Execs Don’t Get It:
See the next slide.)
Source: Jump Start Your Business Brain, Doug Hall
2 Questions:
“How likely are you to purchase this new product or service?” (95% to 100% weighting by execs)
“How unique is this new product or service?” (0% to 5%*)
*No exceptions in 20 years – Doug Hall, Jump Start Your Business Brain
The Heart of Branding …
“WHO ARE WE?”
WHAT’S OUR
STORY?
DO THE HOUSEKEEPERS & CLERKS “BUY
IT”? [ARE YOU V-E-R-Y SURE?]
“EXACTLY HOW ARE WE
DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT?”
“ WHY DOES IT MATTER TO
THE CLIENT?”
“EXACTLY HOW DO I PASSIONATELY CONVEY THAT
DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE TO THE
CLIENT ?”
15. The Solutions Imperative:
From “Customer Satisfaction” to
“Customer Success.”
The …
Solutions25
1. It’s the (OUR!) organization, stupid!2. Friction free! 3. No STOVEPIPES!4. “Stovepiping” is a F.O.—Firing Offense.5. ALL on the Web! (ALL = ALL.)6. Open access!7. Project Managers rule! (E.g.: Control the purse strings and evals.)8. VALUE-ADDED RULES! (Services Rule.) (Experiences Rule.) (Brand Rules.)9. SOLUTIONS RULE! (We sell SOLUTIONS. Period. We sell PRODUCTIVITY & PROFITABILITY. Period.)10. Solutions = “Our ‘culture.’ ”11. Partner with B.I.C. (Best-In-Class). Period.
12. All functions contribute equally—IS, HR, Finance, Purchasing, Engineering, Logistics, Sales, Etc.13. Project Management can come from any function.14. WE ARE ALL IN SALES. PERIOD.15. We all invest in “wiring” the customer organization.16. WE ALL “LIVE THE BRAND.” (Brand = Solutions. That MAKE MONEY FOR OUR CUSTOMER- PARTNER.)17. We use the word “PARTNER” until we all want to barf!18. We NEVER BLAME other parts of our organization for screwups.19. WE AIM TO REINVENT THIS INDUSTRY!20. We hate the word-idea “COMMODITY.”
21. We believe in “High tech, High touch.”22. We are DREAMERS.23. We deliver . (PROFITS.) (CUSTOMER SUCCESS.)24. If we play the “SOLUTIONS GAME” brilliantly, no one can touch us!25. Our TEAM needs 100% I.C.s (Imaginative Contributors). This is the ULTIMATE “All Hands” affair!
26. This is a hoot!
Q: Is that all there is?
A: Quite possibly.
“Roche’s New Scientific Method”—
Fast Company. And? X-Functional Teams (NO STOVEPIPES!). “Fail fast.” “The only way to embrace a technological revolution, Roche has discovered, is to unleash an organizational revolution.”
“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
Farmers: “We don’t sell insurance.”
GE/IS: “We don’t sell circuit breakers.”
Oracle: “We don’t sell apps-in-boxes.”
MCAA: “We don’t sell ‘a job.’”
B&T Trainers: “We don’t sell pills.”
Omnicom: “We don’t sell ads.”
(Seagate: “We sell the sexiest boxes … and we’re proud of it.”)
Thank You!
