The “Top 27”: Twenty-seven Practical Ideas That Will Transform Every Organization Tom Peters/1204.08
1. Learn to thrive in unstable times— our lot (and our opportunity) for the foreseeable future. 2. Only putting people first wins in the long haul, good times and especially tough times. (No “cultural differences” on that one! Colombia = Germany = the USA.) 3. MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around. Stay in touch! 4. Call a customer today! 5. Train! Train! Train! (Growing people outperform stagnant people in terms of attitude and output—by a wide margin.) 6. “Putting people first” means making everyone successful at work (and at home).
7. Make “we care” a/the company motto—a moneymaker as well as a source of pride. 8. All around the world, women are an undervalued asset. 9. Diversity is a winning strategy, and not for reasons of social justice: The more different perspectives around the table, the better the thinking.) 10. Take a person in another function to lunch; friendships, lots of, are the best antidote to bad cross-functional task accomplishments. (Lousy cross-functional communication stops companies and armies alike.) 11. Transparency in all we do. (A must-must-must to reacting fast in unsettled times.) 12. Create an “Innovation Machine”—even in tough times. (Hint: Trying more stuff than the other guy is Tactic #1. Hiring enough malcontents is a close #2.)
13. We always underestimate the Innovation Advantage when 100% of people see themselves as “innovators.” (Hint: They are if only you’d bother to ask “What can we do better?”) 14. Get the damned Basics right—always Competitive Advantage #1. (Be relentless!) 15. Great Execution beats great strategy—99% of the time. (Make that 100% of the time.) 16. A “bias for action” is a “bias for success.” (Great hockey player Wayne Gretzky: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”) 17. No mistakes, no progress! A lot of fast mistakes, a lot of fast progress! (Australian businessman Phil Daniels: “Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.”) 18. Sometimes-often “little stuff” is more powerful than “big stuff” when it comes to change.
19. Keep it simple! (Making “it” “simple” is hard work! And pays off!) 20. Remember the “eternal truths” of leadership—constants over the centuries. (E.g., It’s often said that Nelson Mandela’s greatest asset was a magnificent smile—you couldn’t say no to him, not even his jailors could.) 21. Walk the talk. (“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”—Gandhi) 22. When it comes to leadership, character and people skills beat technical skills. (Emotional Intelligence beats, or at least ties, school intelligence.) 23. It’s always “the little things” when it comes to “people stuff.” (Learn to say “thank you” with great regularity. Learn to apologize when you’re wrong. Learn the Big Four words: “What do you think?” Learn to listen—it can be learned with lots and lots of practice.)
24. The “obvious” may be obvious, but “getting the obvious done” is harder said than done; the obvious is invariably what gets pushed off the agenda by the “urgent.” 25. Time micro-management is the only real “control” variable we have. (You = Your calendar. Calendars never lie.) 26. All managers have a professional obligation to their communities and their country as well as to the company and profit and themselves. (Forgetting this got the Americans into deep trouble.) 27. EXCELLENCE. ALWAYS. (What else?)