Leading in Totally Screwed Up Times Tom Peters Linkage/ (postponed)

prior 900 years 1900s: 1 st 20 years > 1800s 2000: 10 years for paradigm shift 21 st century: 1000X tech change than 20 th century (“the ‘Singularity,’ a merger between humans and computers that is so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history”) Ray Kurzweil, talk april2001

“Most of our predictions are based on very linear thinking. That’s why they will most likely be wrong.” Vinod Khosla, in “GIGATRENDS,” Wired 04.01

CEOs appointed after 1985 are 3X more likely to be fired than CEOs appointed before 1985 Warren Bennis, MIT Sloan Management Review

= Nuts !

1. Leadership Is a … Mutual Discovery Process.

The best leaders are the best discoverers.

“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!

2. Great Leaders on Snorting Steeds Are Important – but Great Managers (Type I Leadership) are the Bedrock of Organizations that Perform Over the Long Haul.

2A. “Just One”: Great Leading = Great Mentoring.

Priority #1.

3. But Then Again, There Are Times When This “Cult of Personality” (Type II Leadership) Stuff Actually Works!

4. Find the “Businesspeople”! (Type III Leadership)

I.P.M. (Inspired Profit Maniac)

4A. The Golden Leadership Triangle.

The Golden Leadership Triangle: (1) Creator- Inventor-Visionary … (2) Talent Fanatic … (3) Inspired Profit Mechanic.

Project Team Golden Triangle (1) Champion-Maniac. (2) Implementer-Pol. (3) Schedule & Budgets Fanatic.

5. 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.

7. Leaders LOVE the MESS!

7A. Leaders Groove on AMBIGUITY!

8. Leaders DO!

“We are in a brawl with no rules.” Paul Allaire

S.A.V.

The Kotler Doctrine: : R.A.F. (Ready.Aim.Fire.) : R.F.A. (Ready.Fire!Aim.) 1995-????: F.F.F. (Fire!Fire!Fire!)

“The leader who says ‘I don’t know’ essentially says that the group is facing a new ballgame where the old tools of logic may be its undoing rather than its salvation. To drop these tools is not to give up on finding a workable answer. It is only to give up on one means of answering that is ill-suited to the unstable, the unknowable, the unpredictable. To drop the heavy tools of rationality is to gain access to lightness in the form of intuitions, feelings, stories, experience, active listening, shared humanity, awareness in the moment, capability for fascination, awe, novel words and empathy.” - Karl Weick

[ ISOE #1: A Bias for Action]

9. Leaders DELIVER!

“Leaders don’t ‘want to’ win. Leaders ‘need to’ win.” #49

10. Leaders FOCUS!

“To Don’t ” List

11. Leaders Win Through LOGISTICS!

The “Gus” Imperative!

12. “Leaders” Know: ‘POWERLESS’ IS COOL!

“4Fs”: F ind a F ellow F reak F araway

World’s Biggest Waste … Selling “Up”

Heart of the Matter *Freak to Freak/Kook to Kook/ One at a Time/ Ready.Fire!Aim.

Opportunity ALWAYS Knocks VFCJ* “Strategy” *Volunteer For Crappy Jobs

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

Joe J. Jones 1942 – 2001 HE WOULDA DONE SOME REALLY COOL STUFF BUT … HIS BOSS WOULDN’T LET HIM!

12A. Leaders Seed & Pursue & Recognize (Weird) “Demos.”

L.B.I.W.D. (Leading By Inducing Weird Demos)

12B. Get ’Em Workin’ on Projects A.S.A.P.

Quests !

13. Leaders Understand the Ultimate Power of RELATIONSHIPS.

13A. Leaders Say “Thank You.”

“The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.” William James

14. Leaders Wire the Joint!

Winners wire. Losers are slaves to rank.

“Women speak and hear a language of connection and intimacy, and men speak and hear a language of status and independence. Men communicate to obtain information, establish their status, and show independence. Women communicate to create relationships, encourage interaction, and exchange feelings.” Judy Rosener, America’s Competitive Secret Judy Rosener

“TAKE THIS QUICK QUIZ: Who manages more things at once? Who puts more effort into their appearance? Who usually takes care of the details? Who finds it easier to meet new people? Who asks more questions in a conversation? Who is a better listener? Who has more interest in communication skills? Who is more inclined to get involved? Who encourages harmony and agreement? Who has better intuition? Who works with a longer ‘to do’ list? Who enjoys a recap to the day’s events? Who is better at keeping in touch with others?” Source: Selling Is a Woman’s Game: 15 Powerful Reasons Why Women Can Outsell Men, Nicki Joy & Susan Kane-Benson

15. Leadership Is Improv!

16. Leaders Trust in TRUST !

Credibility !

17. Leaders Are Natural EMPOWERMENT FREAKS!

“Empowerment” is an attitude.

WOMEN RULE !

“AS LEADERS, WOMEN RULE: New Studies find that female managers outshine their male counterparts on almost every measure” Title, Special Report, Business Week,

The New Economy … Shout goodbye to “command and control”! Shout goodbye to hierarchy! Shout goodbye to “knowing one’s place”!

Women’s Stuff = New Economy Match Improv skills Relationship-centric Less “rank consciousness” Self determined Trust sensitive Intuitive Natural “empowerment freaks” [less threatened by strong people] Intrinsic [motivation] > Extrinsic

Women’s Strengths: Link [rather than rank] workers; favor interactive-collaborative leadership style [empowerment > top-down decision making]; sustain fruitful collaborations; comfortable with sharing information; see redistribution of power as victory, not surrender; favor multi-dimensional feedback; value interpersonal & technical skills, group & individual 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

“Boys are trained in a way that will make them irrelevant.” Phil Slater

18. 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

Forbes100 from 1917 to 1987: 39 members of the Class of ’17 were alive in ’87; 18 are in ’87 F100; the 18 F100 “survivors” underperformed the market by 20%; just 2 (2%), GE & Kodak, outperformed the market from 1917 to 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 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

“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)

“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 (08.00)

The [New] G e Way DYB.com

The Gales of Creative Destruction +29M = -44M + 73M +4M = +4M - 0M

19. BUT … Leaders Have to Deliver, So They Worry About “Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater.” [Life’s a Bitch…]

“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)

20. Leaders … HONOR THE ASSASSINS … in Their Organizations!

Saviors-in-Waiting Disgruntled Customers Fringe Competitors Rogue Employees Edge Suppliers Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision: Beat the Competition by Focusing on Fringe Competitors, Lost Customers, and Rogue Employees

20A. Leaders … HIRE [a Critical Mass of] ASSASSINS!

QCC/Quick Culture Change Hire Weird Promote Deep Rule of Three (3 = Critical Mass)

Nasser’s Triad*: The Internet Is the New Job 1 Brian Kelley, 40, head of global sales and service (GE appliances); first non-“car guy” in the job Karen Francis, 38, eBusiness czar (Olds brand boss) Marv Adams, 43, CIO (Bank One’s IT infrastructure consolidator) * All three are “direct reports”

21. 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

“Are there enough weird people in the lab these days?” V. Chmn., pharmaceutical house, to a lab director (06.01)

Axiom: Never hire anyone without an aberration in their background!

Would Craig Venter (Luciano Benneton) come to work for us?

“I would like to think we could attract students with green hair. We will take pink and blue and orange hair, too.” Shirley Tilghman, Princeton

Message: TAKE SOMEONE NEW & WEIRD TO LUNCH TODAY OR TOMORROW. [Inundate yourself with weird.]

22. Leaders Make [Lotsa] Mistakes – and MAKE NO BONES ABOUT IT!

“Fail faster. Succeed sooner.” David Kelley/IDEO David Kelley

“Learn not to be careful.” Photographer Diane Arbus, to her students

Sam’s secret!

23. Leaders Set DESIGN SPECS.

Richard’s rules! (Innovative, high quality, affordable, cheeky)

23A. Leaders Revise Design Specs by Following Their Bliss, Expressing Their Anger, and Thence Riding the Hell Out of Hobby Horses.

Ridin’ with Roger: “What have you done to DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE quality in the last 90 days?”

24. Leaders Know When to CHALLENGE (BURN) Design Specs!

“The ‘chump-to- champ-to-chump cycle’ used to be three generations. Now it’s about five years.” Bill McGowan

25. Leaders Don’t Create “Followers”: THEY CREATE LEADERS!

Brand You, Big Time! I AM AN ARMY OF ONE

“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

Minimum New Work SurvivalSkillsKit2001 Mastery Rolodex Obsession (vert. to horiz. “loyalty”) Entrepreneurial Instinct CEO/Leader/Businessperson/Closer Mistress of Improv Sense of Humor Intense Appetite for Technology Groveling Before the Young Embracing “Marketing” Passion for Renewal

“The time seems appropriate to rethink the notions of self and identity in this rapidly changing age …” Tara Lemmey, Project LENS, past president Electronic Frontier Foundation

26. When It Comes to TALENT … Leaders Always Swing fore the Fences!

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 ( )Ed Michaels

Home Depot: 7 new growth initiatives ($20B to $100B in 5-7 years) Arthur Blank: BEST PERSON IN THE WORLD TO HEAD EACH INITIATIVE E.g.: COO of IKEA to head international expansion Ed Michaels, War for Talent ( )

“We believe companies can increase their market cap 50 percent in 3 years. Steve Macadam at Georgia-Pacific changed 20 of his 40 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 ( )

Message: Some people are better than other people. Some people are a helluva lot better than other people.

27. Leaders “Win Followers Over”

WHAT AN IDIOT: “Instead of employees being in the driver’s seat, now we’re in the driver’s seat.”

PJ: “Coaching is winning players over.”

28. Leaders have MENTORS. Leaders MENTOR.

29. Leaders LOVE RAINBOWS – for Pragmatic Reasons.

“Where do good new ideas come from? That’s simple! From differences. Creativity comes from unlikely juxtapositions. The best way to maximize differences is to mix ages, cultures and disciplines.” Nicholas Negroponte

“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

29A. Leaders Pursue Poets!

“Expose yourself to the best things humans have done, and then try to bring those things into what you’re doing.” Steve Jobs

Gardner’s MI7: Linguistic, Logical-mathematical, Spatial, Musical, Bodily-kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal.

30. Leaders “Manage” Their EVP.

MantraM3 Talent = Brand

“We have transitioned from an asset-based strategy to a talent-based strategy.” Jeff Skilling, CEO, Enron

What’s your company’s … EVP? Employee Value Proposition, per Ed Michaels et al., The War for Talent

EVP = Challenge, professional growth, respect, satisfaction, opportunity, reward Source: Ed Michaels et al., The War for Talent

Job1: TALENT !

31. Leaders Know “It’s My Fault.”

32. Leaders LOVE the New Technology!

“Believe in the Internet … MORE THAN EVER.” Andy Grove, Cover quote, Wired (June )

33. Leaders Out Their PASSION!

“A leader is a dealer in hope.” Napoleon

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

34. Leaders Know: ENERGY BEGETS ENERGY!

BZ: “I am a … DISPENSER OF ENTHUSIASM!”

“Entusiasmatore” Word invented by Silvio Berlusconi, meaning enthusiast-salesman

“It is impossible to claim that all good teachers use similar techniques: some lecture nonstop and others speak very little; some stay close to their material and others loose the imagination; some teach with the carrot and others with the stick. But in every instance, good teachers share one trait: a strong sense of personal identity infuses their work. ‘Dr. A is really there when he teaches.’ ‘Mr. B has such enthusiasm for his subject.’ ‘You can tell that this is really Prof. C’s life.’ ” Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach

35. Leaders Know It’s ALL SALES ALL THE TIME.

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 in great technology companies can affirmatively respond to the query in an HP banner ad: HAVE YOU CHANGED CIVILIZATION TODAY? 25. Keep your bloody PowerPoint slides simple!

36. 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

37. Leaders … SHOW UP!

“Leaders are living individuals whom employees smell, feel, touch their presence.” #49

38. Leadership Is a Performance. BELIEVE IT.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” --M.G.

39. 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

“He who has the best story wins.” Hopkins to Freeman

40. Leaders Create BUZZ!

41. Leaders Pursue DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE!

1 st Law Mktg Physics: OVERT BENEFIT (Focus: 1 or 2 > 3 or 4/“One Great Thing.” Source #1: Personal Passion) 2 ND Law: REAL REASON TO BELIEVE (Stand & Deliver!) 3 RD Law: DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE (Execs Don’t Get It: “intent to purchase” – 100%; “unique” – 0% to 5%) Source: Jump Start Your Business Brain, Doug Hall Doug Hall

42. Leaders Focus on the SOFT STUFF!

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.]

“Soft” Is “Hard”

43. Leaders KNOW They Can Make a Difference!

“A real superstar is mean in a particular way. He is Michael Jordan or Cal Ripken, greedy for records and history. Armored and self-contained, his inner core is a hard knot of physical talent and fierce will. Nothing penetrates that core, and anybody or anything that gets too close is out of his life.” Michael Sokolove, “The last Straw”

Hackneyed but none the less true: LEADERS SEE CUPS AS “HALF FULL.”

44. Leaders LISTEN!

See Stephen!

45. Leaders LOVE “POLITICS.”

46. Leaders SERVE.

Robert Greenleaf: Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness

47. Leaders KNOW THEMSELVES.

Individuals (would-be leaders) cannot engage in a liberating mutual discovery process unless they are comfortable with their own skin. (“Leaders” who are not comfortable with themselves become petty control freaks.)

47A. Leaders LAUGH!

48. Leaders Are Graceful.

“My favorite word is grace – whether it’s amazing grace, saving grace, grace under fire, Grace Kelly. How we live contributes to beauty – whether it’s how we treat other people or the environment.” Celeste Cooper, designer

49. Leaders ??? :

“LEADERS NEED TO BE THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR ON ROLLER BLADES”

“ ‘It’s only business, not personal’ … IT ALWAYS IS PERSONAL.”

“Hire smart – go bonkers – have grace – make mistakes – love technology – start all over again.”

“Leadership is the PROCESS of ENGAGING PEOPLE in CREATING a LEGACY of EXCELLENCE.”

50. Leaders Know WHEN TO LEAVE!