Uncomfortable Truths2001 Tom Peters SDRC/Orlando/

1. The Performance of Big Companies Stinks!

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

“When asked to name just one big merger that had lived up to expectations, Leon Cooperman, former cochairman of Goldman Sachs’ Investment Policy Committee, answered: I’m sure there are success stories out there, but at this moment I draw a blank.” Mark Sirower, The Synergy Trap

2. The Web: 100% or Don’t Bother!

“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

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

3. Get a [NEW] Metabolism/Life!

“We don’t sell insurance anymore. We sell speed.” Peter Lewis, Progressive

Enron = 1000X in 12 months.

4. Web-driven White Collar Roadkill Will Amount to about 100%

108 X 5 vs. 8 X 1* * 540 vs. 8 (-98.5%)

90+% of White Collar Jobs Will Be Destroyed or Re-configured Beyond Recognition in the Next 10 Years.

5. All Are in Desperate Pursuit of New Sources of Value Added

11 September 2000

: HP bids $18,000,000,000 for PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting business!

[“These days, building the best server isn’t enough. That’s the price of entry.” Ann Livermore, Hewlett-Packard]

“We want to be the air traffic controllers of electrons.” Bob Nardelli, GE Power Systems

“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)

GE … IBM … UPS … Springs … General Mills … Anheuser-Busch … Carpet One … Etc. … Etc.

6. Learn Not to Be Careful

“Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.” Phil Daniels, Sydney exec

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

“Learn not to be careful.” Photographer Diane Arbus to her students (Careful = The sidelines, per Harriet Rubin in The Princessa)Harriet Rubin

“There is no use trying,” said Alice. “One can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Lewis Carroll

Internet … … allows you to dream dreams you could never have dreamed before!

7. Pursue Radical Simplicity!

“Revenues on the Web are determined almost completely by usability.” Jakob Nielsen (The Economist )

8. Systems Must be Designed to Cope with & Exploit Ambiguity

“There will be more confusion in the business world in the next decade than in any decade in history. And the current pace of change will only accelerate.” Steve Case

“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)

Think Organization & Systems Design that Promotes … Agility … Plasticity … Impermanence.

9. (Change-the- World) Project Management Is Politics! (Period.)

Message: eBusiness 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 eBusiness/B2B/Internet- supply chain strategy in a low-trust, bottlenecked- communication, six-layer organization.

People. Politics. Trust.

10. Talent!

“When land was the productive asset, nations battled over it. The same is happening now for talented people.” Stan Davis & Christopher Meyer, futureWEALTH

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

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

Enron COO: Louise Kitchen, F, 29; created EnronOnline as “Skunkworks”

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

“Collaboration” is a BIG Word. Hint: Women Collaborate & Connect. Men Posture &Fight.

“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

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

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”

11. THE PRODUCT [Still] MATTERS!

“Companies have defined so much ‘best practice’ that they are now more or less identical.” Jesper Kunde, A Unique Moment Jesper Kunde

“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

“We make over three new product announcements a day. Can you remember them? Our customers can’t!” Carly Fiorina

12. Pursue & Engage Freaks!

“Our strategies must be tied to leading edge customers on the attack. If we focus on the defensive customers, we will also become defensive.” John Roth, CEO, Nortel

“The highest performing companies have well-developed systems for killing ideas their customers don’t want. As a result, these companies find it very difficult to invest adequate resources in disruptive technologies—lower margin opportunities that their customers don’t want—until they want them. And by then it’s too late.” Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma

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

13. To Lead Is to Inflame!

“Create a Cause, not a ‘business.’ ” Gary Hamel, Fortune (06.00), on re-inventing a company (Exemplar #1: Charles Schwab)

“Let’s make a dent in the universe.” Steve Jobs