Tom Peters’

Re-imagine!
Leadin g for
Excellence
L50.12.06.2005
 Slides at …

tompeters.com
 The

Leadership 50
 “If you don’t like
change, you’re
going to like
irrelevance even
less.” —General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff. U. S. Army
I. The Basic
Premise.
1. Leadership Is a …
Mutual
Discovery
Process.
Quests!
 Organizing Genius / Warren Bennis
and Patricia Ward Biederman

“Groups become great only when

everyone in them, leaders and
members alike, is free to do his or
her absolute best.”
“The best thing a leader can do for a
Great Group is to allow its
members to discover their
greatness.”
 Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“free to do his or her

absolute best” …
“allow its members
to discover their
greatness.”
 II. 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.
 Whoops: Jack
didn’t have a vision!
Les Wexner: From
sweaters to
people!
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) Talent
Fanatic …
(2) Visionary …
(3) Inspired Profit
Mechanic.
 III. The
Leadership
Dance.
6. Leaders …
SHOW UP!
 “A body can
pretend to care,
but they can’t
pretend to be
there.”— Texas Bix Bender
MBWA
7. Leaders …
LOVE the
MESS!
“If things seem
under control,
you’re just not
going
fast enough.”
Mario Andretti
8. Leaders

DO!
“Ninety percent of what
we call ‘management’
consists of making it
difficult for people to
get things done.” – Peter Drucker
 “Execution is
the job of the
business
leader.” —Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan/
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
 A man approached JP Morgan, held up an envelope, and said,
“Sir, in my hand I hold a guaranteed formula for success, which I
will gladly sell you for $25,000.”
“Sir,” JP Morgan replied, “I do not know what is in the envelope,
however if you show me, and I like it, I
give you my word as a gentleman that I will pay you what you
ask.”
The man agreed to the terms, and handed over the envelope. JP
Morgan opened it, and extracted a single sheet of paper. He gave
it one look, a mere glance, then handed the piece of paper back
to the gent.

And paid him the

agreed-upon $25,000.
1. Every morning, write a list
of the things that need to
be done that day.

2. Do them.
Source: Hugh MacLeod/tompeters.com/NPR
 “We have a
‘strategic’ plan.
It’s called doing
things.” — Herb Kelleher
 9. BUT … Leaders
Know When to

Wait.
 Tex Schramm: The
“too hard”
box!
10. Leaders
FOCUS!
“To Don’t ”
List
 11. Leaders …
SetCLEAR
DESIGN SPECS.
Danger: S.I.O. (Strategic
Initiative Overload)
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!
IV. If It’s Not
Broken …
Break It!
12. 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
13. 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)
14. Leaders …
HONOR THE
USURPERS.
 Saviors-in-Waiting

Disgruntled Customers
Upstart Competitors
Rogue Employees
Fringe Suppliers
Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision
15. Leaders Make
[Lotsa] Mistakes
– and MAKE NO
BONES ABOUT IT!
“Fail faster.
Succeed
sooner.”
David Kelley/IDEO
 Sam’s
Secret #1!
 16. Leaders Make …
BIG MISTAKES!
 “Reward
excellent
failures. Punish
mediocre
successes.”
Phil Daniels, Sydney exec (and, de facto, Jack)
V. Create.
17. Leaders Put
INNOVATION
First!
 “A focus on cost-cutting and efficiency has
helped many organizations weather the
downturn, but this approach will ultimately
Only the
render them obsolete.

constant pursuit of
innovation can ensure
long-term success.” —Daniel
Muzyka, Dean, Sauder School of Business, Univ of British
Columbia (FT/09.17.04)
18. Leaders
Love the
Top Line!
C R
*Chief Revenue
O*
Officer
 19. Leaders
Are Not
COPYCATS.
“To grow, companies
need to break out of a
vicious cycle of
competitive
benchmarking and
imitation.” —W. Chan Kim & Renée
Mauborgne, “Think for Yourself —Stop Copying a Rival,”
Financial Times/08.11.03
“This is an essay about what it takes to create and sell something remarkable. It is a
plea for originality, passion, guts and daring. You can’t be remarkable by following
someone else who’s remarkable. One way to figure out a theory is to look at what’s
working in the real world and determine what the successes have in common. But
what could the Four Seasons and Motel 6 possibly have in common? Or Neiman-
Marcus and Wal*Mart? Or Nokia (bringing out new hardware every 30 days or so) and
Nintendo (marketing the same Game Boy 14 years in a row)? It’s like trying to drive

The thing that all these

looking in the rearview mirror.

companies have in common is that

they have nothing in common. They are
outliers. They’re on the fringes. Superfast or superslow. Very exclusive or very
cheap. Extremely big or extremely small. The reason it’s so hard to follow the leader
is this: The leader is the leader precisely because he did something remarkable. And
that remarkable thing is now taken—so it’s no longer remarkable when you decide to
do it.” —Seth Godin, Fast Company/02.2003
 20. Leaders
Relentlessly Pursue
DRAMATIC
DIFFERENCE!
 “Get better”
vs

“Get different”
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
 “Management has a lot to do with
answers. Leadership is a function of
questions. And the first question

‘Who
for a leader always is:

do we intend to
be?’ Not ‘What are we going to
do?’ but ‘Who do we intend to be?’”
—Max De Pree, Herman Miller
VI. Value
Added
 22. Leaders Push Their
W-a-y Up
Organizations
the Value-added/
Intellectual Capital
Chain
p, Up, Up, Up,Up
the Value-added Ladder.
 And the “M” Stands for … ?

“Systems Integrator
Gerstner’s IBM:

of choice.”/BW (“Lou, help us turn ‘all this’

into that long-promised ‘revolution.’ ” )

IBM Global Services* (*Integrated Systems Services Corporation) :

$55B
 Planetary Rainmaker-in-Chief!

“Palmisano’s strategy is to
expand tech’s borders by
pushing users—and entire
industries—toward radically
different business models. The payoff
for IBM would be access to an ocean of revenue—Palmisano
estimates it at $500 billion a year—that technology companies
have never been able to touch.” —Fortune
“Big Brown’s New Bag: UPS
Traffic
Aims to Be the
Manager for
Corporate
America” —Headline/BW/07.19.2004
“[Closing/selling Boeings 8,000-
person facility in Wichita] was an
important decision in moving
forward with Boeing’s
long-
term strategy of
becoming a large-scale
integrator.” —The Wichita Eagle/06.16.2005
“Instant Infrastructure:
GE Becomes a General
Store for Developing
Countries” —headline/
NYT/07.16.05
The Value-added Ladder/Stuff ‘n’ Things

Goods
Raw Materials
The Value-added Ladder/Stuff & Transactions

Services
Goods
Raw Materials
 The Value-added Ladder/Opportunity-seeking

Gamechanging Solutions /
Business Advantage
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
 23. Leaders Know that the
Value-added Revolution” rests
Emphasizing
upon:
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
$798
 Sales per Square Foot/Grocery

Albertson’s: $384
Wal*Mart: $415

Whole Foods: $798

 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
2/50
3Q04
 The “Experience Ladder”

Experiences
Services
Goods
Raw Materials
 One company’s answer:

C XO*
*Chief e Xperience Officer
24. Leaders Pursue
the “Big Two”
NEW MARKET
OPPORTUNITIES
Women!
Mal
“Women are
the majority
market” —Fara Warner/
The Power of the Purse
 ?????????
Home Furnishings … 94%
Vacations … 92% (Adventure Travel … 70%/ $55B travel equipment)
Houses … 91%
D.I.Y. (major “home projects”) … 80%
Consumer Electronics … 51% (66% home computers)
Cars … 68% (90%)
All consumer purchases … 83%
Bank Account … 89%
Household investment decisions … 67%
Small business loans/biz starts … 70%
Health Care … 80%
 USA/F.Stats: Short ’n (Very) Sweet
>50% of stock ownership, $13T total wealth (2X in 15 years)
>$7T consumer & biz spending (>50% GDP; > Japan GDP);
>80% consumer spdg (Consumer = 70% all spdg)
50% biz travel
57% BA degrees (2002); = ed & social strata, no wage gap
60% Internet users; >50% primary users of
electronic equipment
WimBiz: Employees > F500; 10M+: 33% all US Biz
60% work; 46M (divorced, widowed, never married)

Source: Fara Warner, The Power of the Purse

Thanks,
Marti
Barletta!
 The Perfect Answer

Jill and Jack buy

slacks in black…
1. Men and women are different.
2. Very different.
3. VERY, VERY DIFFERENT.
4. Women & Men have a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y
nothing in common.
5. Women buy lotsa stuff.
6. WOMEN BUY A-L-L THE STUFF.
7. Women’s Market = Opportunity No. 1.
8. Men are (STILL) in charge.
9. MEN ARE … TOTALLY, HOPELESSLY
CLUELESS ABOUT WOMEN.
10. Women’s Market = Opportunity No. 1.
 Good Thinking, Guys!
“Kodak Sharpens Digital
Focus On Its Best
Customers:

Women”
—Page 1 Headline/WSJ/07.2005
Boomers-
Geezers!
Just Say No. 18-
44
 2000-2010 Stats

18-44: -1%
55+: +21%
(55-64: +47%)
 44-65: “New
Customer
Majority” *
*45% larger than 18-43; 60% larger by 2010
Source: Ageless Marketing, David Wolfe & Robert Snyder
 “The New Customer
Majority is the only adult
market with realistic
prospects for significant
sales growth in dozens of
product lines for thousands
of companies.” —David Wolfe & Robert
Snyder, Ageless Marketing
 “LOVE T HOSE
BOOM ERS: Their
New Attitudes
and Lifes tyl es
Are a
Mar ket er ’s
Dream”
VII. Technology.
25. Leaders Bet
the Farm on the
New Technology!
We all live in
Dell-Wal*Mart-
eBay-Google
World!
 FedEx
“the

Economy”
—headline/New York Times/10.08.05
 “UPS used to be a trucking

company with technology. Now

it’s
a technology
company with
trucks.” —Forbes
Power Tools
for Power
Solutions/
Strategies!
—TP
 “Beware of the
tyranny of making Small
Changes to Small Things.
Rather, make Big
Changes to Big
Things.” —Roger Enrico, former Chairman, PepsiCo
26. Needed? Type IV
Leadership:
Technology
Dreamer-True
Believer
 The Golden Leadership
Quadrangle: (1) Talent
Fanatic … (2) Visionary …
(3) Inspired Profit Mechanic
… (4) Technology Dreamer-
True Believer
VIII. Talent.
27. When It Comes to
TALENT …
Leaders Always Go
Berserk!
 Bra nd
=
Talent.
“We believe companies can increase their market cap
50 percent in 3 years. Steve Macadam at Georgia-

changed 20 of his 40
Pacific

box plant managers to put

more talented, higher paid
managers in charge. He increased
profitability from $25 million to $80 million in 2 years.”
Ed Michaels, War for Talent
 Did We Say “Talent Matters”?
“The top software developers are more
productive than average software
developers not by a factor of 10X or 100X,
or even 1,000X,

but 10,000X.”
—Nathan Myhrvold, former Chief Scientist, Microsoft
 Our Mission
To develop and manage talent;
to apply that talent,
throughout the world,
for the benefit of clients;
to do so in partnership;
to do so with profit.
WPP
 “HR doesn’t tend to
hire a lot of
independent thinkers or
people who stand up as
moral compasses.” —Garold
Markle,
Shell Offshore HR Exec (FC/08.05)
DD$21M
 “Leaders
‘do’
people.
Period.”
—Anon.
 28. Leaders
Know …WOMEN
RULE.*
*Duh.
“AS LEADERS, WOMEN
RULE: New Studies find
that female managers
outshine their male
counterparts in almost every
measure”
Title, Special Report, Business Week
 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: Women Managers
 ????????

8/500
29. Leaders
Hire WEIRD
Employees: “Are there
enough weird
people in the lab
these days?”
V. Chmn., pharmaceutical house, to a lab director
 The Cracked Ones Let in the Light
“Our business needs a massive
transfusion
of talent, and talent, I believe, is most

non-
likely to be found among

conformists,
dissenters and
rebels.” —David Ogilvy
30. Leaders Strongly
Urge All Employees
Follow the “BRAND
YOU” ADVENTURE
 “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
 “ ‘Disintermediation’ is overrated. Those who
fear disintermediation should in fact be afraid of
disintermediation is
irrelevance—

just another way of saying

that you’ve become
irrelevant to your
customers.” —John Battelle/Point/Advertising Age/07.05
Distinct …
or … Extinct
 “You are the
storyteller of your
own life, and you
can create your own
legend or not.”
Isabel Allende
 New Work SurvivalKit2005
1. Mastery! (Best/Absurdly Good at Something!)
2. “Manage” to Legacy (All Work = “Memorable”/“Braggable” WOW
Projects!)
3. A “USP”/Unique Selling Proposition (R.POV8: Remarkable Point of
View … captured in 8 or less words)
4. Rolodex Obsession (From vertical/hierarchy/“suck up” loyalty to
horizontal/“colleague”/“mate” loyalty)
5. Entrepreneurial Instinct (A sleepless … Eye for Opportunity!
E.g.: Small Opp for Independent Action beats faceless part of
Monster Project)
6. CEO/Leader/Businessperson/Closer (CEO, Me Inc. Period! 24/7!)
7. Mistress of Improv (Play a dozen parts simultaneously, from
Chief Strategist to Chief Toilet Scrubber)
8. Sense of Humor (A willingness to Screw Up & Move On)
9. Comfortable with Your Skin (Bring “interesting you” to work!)
10. Intense Appetite for Technology (E.g.: How Cool-Active is your
Web site? Do you Blog?)
11. Embrace “Marketing” (Your own CSO/Chief Storytelling Officer)
12. Passion for Renewal (Your own CLO/Chief Learning Officer)
13. Execution Excellence! (Show up on time! Leave last!)
 The Rule of Positioning

“If you can’t describe

your position in
eight words or less,
you don’t have
a position.” — Jay Levinson and
Seth Godin, Get What You Deserve!
 Have you invested
as much this year*
in your career as in
your car?
*Absolute$$$, % of Asset Value
Source: Molly Sargent
31. Leaders Don’t
Create “Followers”:
THEY CREATE
LEADERS!
 “I start with the
premise that the
function of leadership
is to produce more
leaders, not more
followers.”—Ralph Nader
 “The Marine Corps
believes that all Marines
must learn to lead. In order
to survive the chaos and uncertainty of
war, a Marine is taught how to be
decisive, how to take care of others, and
how to take responsibility for her
actions.” —Leading from the Front, Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch
 32. Leaders Develop
Leadership Teams
that “Look Like the
Market”
Retail analyst Burt Flickinger on Albertsons’ “tragic flaw” pre-Larry

Johnston: “It was a bunch of old white

guys making erroneous
IX. Passion.
33. Leaders …
“Sell”

PASSION!
 “Create a
G.H.:
‘cause,’ not
a ‘business.’
”
 Charles Handy on the “Alchemists”:

“Passion was what drove

these people, passion for
their product or their
cause. If you care enough, you will find out what
you need to know. Or you will experiment and not worry if the
experiment goes wrong. Passion as the secret to learning
is an odd secret to propose, but I believe that it works at all
levels and at all ages. Sadly, passion is not a word often
heard in the elephant organizations, nor in schools,
where it can seem disruptive.”
34. Leaders Know:
ENTHUSIASM
BEGETS
ENTHUSIASM!
“Nothing is so
contagious as
enthusiasm.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Most important,
he upped the
energy level
at Motorola.”
—Fortune on Ed Zander/08.05
“Before you can inspire with
emotion, you must be
swamped with it yourself.
Before you can move their
tears, your own must flow.
To convince them, you must
yourself believe.” —Winston
Churchill
“A man without
a smiling face
must not open a
shop.” —Chinese Proverb*

*Courtesy Tom Morris, The Art of Achievement

35. Leaders Are …
in a Hurry
“We don’t sell insurance

We sell
anymore.

speed.”
Peter Lewis, Progressive
 36. Leaders
Focus on the
SOFT STUFF!
“Hard” Is “Soft”
“Soft” Is “Hard”
—In Search of Excellence
“If I could have chosen not to tackle the IBM culture head-on, I
probably wouldn’t have. My bias coming in was toward
strategy, analysis and measurement. In comparison, changing
the attitude and behaviors of hundreds of thousands of people

is very, very hard. [Yet] I came to see

in my time at IBM that
culture isn’t just one aspect
of the game—it is the
game.” —Lou Gerstner, Who Says Elephants Can’t
Dance
 “In the end,
management doesn’t
change culture.
Management invites
the workforce itself to
change the culture.”
—Lou Gerstner
 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.]
X. The “Job”
of Leading.
 37. Leaders Know It’s

ALL SALES ALL

THE TIME.
 If you don’t
TP:

LOVE SALES …
find another life.
(Don’t pretend you’re a “leader.”)
 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!
 Amen!

“What creates trust, in the

end, is the leader’s
manifest respect for the
followers.” — Jim O’Toole, Leading Change
 “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
a kind
in existence:
word and a
thoughtful
gesture.”
Ken Langone, CEO, Invemed Associates [from Ronna
Lichtenberg, It’s Not Business, It’s Personal]
41. Leaders … Are
The Brand
 “You must be
the change you
wish to see in the
world.” —Gandhi
 “You can’t lead a
cavalry charge if
you think you
look funny on a
horse.”—John Peers, President, Logical Machines Corporation
 42. Leaders …
GREAT
Have a
STORY!
 “Leaders don’t just make
products and make decisions.

Leaders make
meaning.”
– John Seely Brown
“A key – perhaps the
key – to leadership is
the effective
communication
of a story.”
—Howard Gardner/Leading Minds:
An Anatomy of Leadership
43. Leaders love the
word …

Excellence!
 Leader Job 1

Paint
Portraits of
Excellence!
XI. Introspection.
44. Leaders …
Enjoy Leading.
“Warren, I know
you want to ‘be’
president. But do
you want to ‘do’
president?”
 45. Leaders …
KNOW
THEMSELVES.
Step #1:
Buy a
Mirror!
 “The First step in a
‘dramatic’ ‘organizational
change program’ is obvious
—dramatic personal
change!” —RG
46. Leaders
LAUGH!
XII. The End
Game.
47. Great Leaders
Play Offense!
 “[Other]
Nelson’s secret:

admirals more
frightened of
losing than
anxious to win”
48. Great Leaders
Live on the
Edge!
 Kevin Roberts’ Credo
1. Ready. Fire! Aim.
2. If it ain’t broke ... Break it!
3. Hire crazies.
4. Ask dumb questions.
5. Pursue failure.
6. Lead, follow ... or get out of the way!
7. Spread confusion.
8. Ditch your office.
9. Read odd stuff.

10. Avoid moderation!

49. Leaders Free
the Lunatic
Within!
The greatest danger
for most of us
is not that our aim is
too high
and we miss it,
but that it is
too low
and we reach it.
Michelangelo
 “You can’t behave
in a calm, rational
manner. You’ve got
to be out there on
the lunatic fringe.” —
Jack Welch
50. Leaders (and Management Gurus)

KnowWHEN TO
LEAVE!
 “In classical times when
Cicero had finished
speaking, the people said,
‘How well he spoke,’ but
when Demosthenes had
finished speaking, they said,
‘Let us march.’” —
Adlai Stevenson
Let us
march !