Tom Peters Squares Off with Jim Collins. Or:

The Case for …

Technicolor!Tom Peters/03.16.2004

“intrepid, unprincipled, reckless, predatory, with

boundless ambition, civilized in externals but

a savage at heart.”

Herman Melville on JPJ: “intrepid, unprincipled,

reckless, predatory, with boundless ambition,

civilized in externals but a savage at heart.” —from Evan

Thomas, John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy

Huh?

“Humility: The Surprise Factor in Leadership … bosses with Gung-

ho Qualities and Charisma May Be Out of Fashion” —Headline/FT/

re JCollins/10.03

Jim & Tom. Joined at the

hip. Not.

I. Good to GreatII. Built to LastIII. Quiet, Humble Leaders

I. Good to GreatII. Built to LastIII. Quiet, Humble Leaders

Good to Great: Fannie Mae … Kroger … Walgreens … Philip

Morris … Pitney Bowes … Abbott … Kimberly-Clark … Wells Fargo

Good to Great: Fannie Mae … Kroger … Walgreens … Philip

Morris … Pitney Bowes … Abbott … Kimberly-Clark … Wells Fargo

Good to Great: “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac receive as much as

$164 billion in implicit federal subsidies but have done little to

increase home ownership or reduce the cost of home loans,

according to a draft study by the Federal Reserve.” —New York Times/12.23.03

(Average rate reduction is 7 basis points, or .07%)

Great Companies … SET THE AGENDA.

(Period.)

AGENDA SETTERS: “Set the Table”/ Pioneers/ Questors/ Adventurers

US Steel … Ford … Macy’s … Sears … Litton Industries … ITT … The Gap … Limited … Wal*Mart … P&G … 3M …

Intel … IBM … Apple … Nokia … Cisco … Dell … MCI … Sun … Oracle …

Microsoft … Enron … Schwab … GE … Southwest … Laker …People Express

… Ogilvy … Chiat/Day … Virgin … eBay … Amazon … Sony … BMW … CNN …

T & B: Atari, DEC, WANG?

J vs. T: HP/CarlyF?

I. Good to GreatII. Built to LastIII. Quiet, Humble Leaders

Built to Last v. Built to Flip

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

incapable of ongoing innovation, of ongoing flexibility.”

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

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

Fast Company

Warren Bennis & Patricia Ward Biederman/

Organizing Genius: Great Groups Don’t

Last Very Long!

W.A. Mozart W.A. Mozart 1756 – 17911756 – 1791

HE CHANGED THE WORLDHE CHANGED THE WORLD

AND AND

ENRICHED HUMANITY ENRICHED HUMANITY

“We are in a

brawl with no rules.”

Paul Allaire

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

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

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

match or outperform the market without abandoning the assumption of continuity. … The current apocalypse—the transition from a state of continuity to state of discontinuity—has the same suddenness [as the trauma that beset civilization in

1000 A.D.]”

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

Rate of Leaving F500

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

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

“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

“But what if [former head of strategic planning at Royal Dutch Shell] Arie De Geus is wrong in suggesting, in The Living Company, that firms

should aspire to live forever? Greatness is fleeting and, for corporations, it will become

ever more fleeting. The ultimate aim of a business organization, an artist, an athlete or a stockbroker may be to explode in a dramatic

frenzy of value creation during a short space of time, rather than to live forever.”

Kjell Nordström and Jonas Ridderstråle, Funky Business

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

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

I. Good to GreatII. Built to LastIII. Quiet, Humble Leaders

Huh?

“Quiet, workmanlike, stoic leaders bring about the big

transformations.”--JC

Huh?

“Humility: The Surprise Factor in Leadership … bosses with Gung-

ho Qualities and Charisma May Be Out of Fashion” —Headline/FT/

re JCollins/10.03 (TP: scribble: “Nelson, Wellington, Montgomery, Disraeli, Churchill, Thatcher”)

WellingtonNelsonDisraeliChurchill

MontgomeryThatcher

“Humble” Pastels?

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

TR/FDR/LBJ/RR/JFKPatton/Monty/Halsey

M.L. King/C. de Gaulle/M. Gandhi/W. ChurchillPicasso/Mozart/Copernicus/Newton/Einstein/Djarassi/Watson

H. Clinton/G. Steinem/I. Gandhi/G. Meir/M. Thatcher E. Shockley/A. Grove/J. Welch/L. Gerstner/L. Ellison/B. Gates/

S. Jobs/S. McNealy/T. Turner/R. Murdoch/W. Wriston A. Carnegie/J.P. Morgan/H. Ford/S. Honda/J.D. Rockefeller/

T.A. Edison Rummy/Norm/Henry/Wolfie

Elizabeth Cady Stanton/Susan B. Anthony/Martha Cary Thomas/Carrie Chapman Catt/Alice Paul/Anna Elizabeth

Dickinson/Arabella Babb Mansfield/Margaret Sanger

“You can’t behave in a calm, rational manner. You’ve got to

be out there on the lunatic fringe.” — Jack Welch,

on GE’s quality program

“When it comes to transformative technologies, overoptimistic investors are actually working for the common good—even if they don’t know it. We can be

glad that investors financed the construction of thousands of miles of track in the middle of the nineteenth century, despite the fact that most of

them dropped a bundle doing it. The same goes for over-optimistic investors who poured money into

semiconductors thirty years ago, financed undersea fiber-optic cables in the late nineties, and now are poised to lose their shirts in the coming

nanobubble. In the dreams of avarice lie the seeds of progress.” —james Surowiecki/New Yorker/03.2004

“the wildest chimera of a moonstruck

mind” —The Federalist on

Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase

“Roosevelt’s duplicity, Churchill’s self-absorption” … “We are all

worms. But I do believe that I am a glow-worm.” (WSC) … “Imperial

and bold” [WSC and TR] … “arrogance and instability” … “rough, sarcastic, bullying”

Source: Jon Meacham, Franklin and Winston, et al.

“a vainglorious self-promoter spoiling for

a fight” —Arthur Koestler on Galileo

“In my experience, all successful

commanders are prima donnas, and must be so

treated.” —George S. Patton

Herman Melville on JPJ: “intrepid, unprincipled,

reckless, predatory, with boundless ambition,

civilized in externals but a savage at heart.” —from Evan

Thomas, John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy

Audie Murphy was the most decorated soldier in WW2.

He won every medal we had to offer, plus 5 presented by Belgium and France. There was one common medal he

never won …

… the Good Conduct medal.

“Men with no vices have very few virtues.” —A. Lincoln

Jim Collins vs. Michael Maccoby

“quiet, workmanlike, stoic”vs.

“larger-than-life leaders”/ “egoists, charmers, risk-takers with big

visions”: Carnegie, Rockefeller, Edison, Ford, Welch, Jobs, Gates

“In Tom’s world it’s always better to try a

swan dive and deliver a

colossal belly flop than to step timidly off the

board while holding your nose.” —Fast Company /October2003

The Re-imagineer’s Credo … or, Pity the Poor Brown*

Technicolor Times demand …Technicolor Leaders and Boards who recruit …

Technicolor People who are sent on …Technicolor Quests to execute …

Technicolor (WOW!) Projects in partnership with …Technicolor Customers and …

Technicolor Suppliers all of whom are in pursuit of …Technicolor Goals and Aspirations fit for …

Technicolor Times.

*WSC

“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder,

bloodshed—and produced Michelangelo, da Vinci and the

Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce

—the cuckoo clock.”

Orson Welles, as Harry Lime, in “The Third Man”