Tom Peters’ Re-imagine! 50 Rules for Leading in Totally Screwed-Up Times Palacio Das Artes/Belo Horizonte/28-29May2003

Slides at … tompeters.com

“Uncertainty is the only thing to be sure of.” —Anthony Muh, head of investment in Asia, Citigroup Asset management (FT/ )

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” —General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U. S. Army

The Context.

The Leadership 50

The Basic Premise.

1. Leadership Is a … Mutual Discovery Process.

“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!

1A. Leaders Try … Not to Screw Things Up

“ Ninety percent of what we call ‘management’ consists of making it difficult for people to get things done.” – P.D.

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.

25/8/53

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) Visionary … (2) Talent Fanatic … (3) Inspired Profit Mechanic.

5A. 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.

The Leadership Dance.

7. Leaders … SHOW UP!

Rudy!

8. Leaders … LOVE the MESS!

“If things seem under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” Mario Andretti

9. Leaders DO!

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

9A. Leaders Re -do.

“If Microsoft is good at anything, it’s avoiding the trap of worrying about criticism. Microsoft fails constantly. They’re eviscerated in public for lousy products. Yet they persist, through version after version, until they get something good enough. Then they leverage the power they’ve gained in other markets to enforce their standard.” Seth Godin, Zooming Seth Godin

10. BUT … Leaders Know When to Wait.

Tex Schramm: The “too hard” box!

11. Leaders KNOW They Can Make a Difference!

“It is no use saying ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.” — WSC

11A. Leaders Are … Optimists.

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

12. BUT … Leaders Are Realists/Leaders Win Through LOGISTICS!

The “Gus [Pagonis] Imperative”!

13. Leaders FOCUS!

“To Don’t ” List

13A. Leaders … Set CLEAR DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS.

JackWorld/ : (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!

Danger: S.I.O. (Strategic Initiative Overload)

It’s Relationships, Stupid.

14. Leaders Trust in TRUST !

Credibility !

15. Leaders Know … Women Roar/ Women Rule.

“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

If It Ain’t Broke … Break It.

16. 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

The [New] G e Way DYB.com

17. 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)

18. Leaders … HONOR THE USURPERS.

Saviors-in-Waiting Disgruntled Customers Upstart Competitors Rogue Employees Fringe Suppliers Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision

18A. 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

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

Fail. Forward. Fast. –High-tech Exec

19A. Leaders Make … BIG MISTAKES!

“Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.” Phil Daniels, Sydney exec (and, de facto, Jack)

Create.

20. Leaders Know that THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN “LINE EXTENSIONS.”

No one ever made it into the Business Hall of Fame on a record of “line extensions.”

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

New Model.

22. Leaders … Understand the Enormity of the White Collar Revolution.

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

E.g. … Jeff Immelt: 75% of “admin, back room, finance” “digitalized” in 3 years. Source: BW ( )

IBM’s Project eLiza!* * “Self-bootstrapping”/ “Artilects”

23. Leaders … Turn All Departments into “PSFs.”

Every job done in W.C.W. is also done “outside” …for profit!

Answer: PSF! [Professional Service Firm] Department Head to … Managing Partner, HR [IS, etc.] Inc.

24. Leaders Push Their Organizations W-a-y Up the Value-added/ Intellectual Capital Chain

Gerstner’s IBM: Systems Integrator of choice. Global Services: $35B. Pledge/’99: Business Partner Charter. 72 strategic partners, aim for 200. Drop many in-house programs/products. (BW/12.01).

“You are headed for commodity hell if you don’t have services.” —Lou Gerstner on IBM’s coming revolution (1997)

“No longer are we only an insurance provider. Today, we also offer our customers the products and services that help them achieve their dreams, whether it’s financial security, buying a car, paying for home repairs, or even taking a dream vacation.” —Martin Feinstein, CEO, Farmers Group

25. Leaders … Demolish Stovepipes!

“The organizations we created have become tyrants. They have taken control, holding us fettered, creating barriers that hinder rather than help our businesses. The lines that we drew on our neat organizational diagrams have turned into walls that no one can scale or penetrate or even peer over.” —Frank Lekanne Deprez & René Tissen, Zero Space: Moving Beyond Organizational Limits.

26. Leaders Know that the “HVA/Solutions Revolution” rests upon: Experiences … Dream Fulfillment … Design.

A World of Scintillating/ Awesome/ WOW “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

“Club Med is more than just a ‘resort’; it’s a means of rediscovering oneself, of inventing an entirely new ‘me.’ ” Source: Jean-Marie Dru, Disruption

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

Experiences+: Embracing the “Dream Business.”

DREAM: “A dream is a complete moment in the life of a client. Important experiences that tempt the client to commit substantial resources. The essence of the desires of the consumer. The opportunity to help clients become what they want to be.” —Gian Luigi Longinotti-Buitoni

The marketing of Dreams (Dreamketing) Dreamketing: Touching the clients’ dreams. Dreamketing: The art of telling stories and entertaining. Dreamketing: Promote the dream, not the product. Dreamketing: Build the brand around the main dream. Dreamketing: Build the “buzz,” the “hype,” the “cult.” Source: Gian Luigi Longinotti-Buitoni

The [Mostly Ignored] “Soul” of “Experiences”: Design Rules!

All Equal Except … “At Sony we assume that all products of our competitors have basically the same technology, price, performance and features. Design is the only thing that differentiates one product from another in the marketplace.” Norio Ohga

Technology.

27. Leaders LOVE the New Technology!

WebWorld = Everything Web as a way to run your business’s innards Web as connector for your entire supply-demand chain Web as “spider’s web” which re-conceives the industry Web/B2B as ultimate wake-up call to “commodity producers” Web as the scourge of slack, inefficiency, sloth, bureaucracy, poor customer data Web as an Encompassing Way of Life Web = Everything (P.D. to after-sales) Web forces you to focus on what you do best Web as entrée, at any size, to World’s Best at Everything as next door neighbor

“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

“There’s 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

I’net … … allows you to dream dreams you could never have dreamed before!

28. Needed? Type IV Leadership: Technology Dreamer-True Believer

The Golden Leadership Quadrangle: (1) Visionary … (2) Talent Fanatic … (3) Inspired Profit Mechanic. (4) Technology Dreamer-True Believer

Talent.

29. When It Comes to TALENT … Leaders Always Go for Broke!

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

MantraM3 Talent = Brand

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

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

31. Leaders “Win Followers Over”

PJ: “Coaching is winning players over.”

32. Leaders “Manage” Their EVP/ Internal Brand Promise.

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

33. Leaders LOVE KIDS.

“Why focus on these late teens and twenty- somethings? Because they are the first young who are both in a position to change the world, and are actually doing so. … For the first time in history, children are more comfortable, knowledgeable and literate than their parents about an innovation central to society. … The Internet has triggered the first industrial revolution in history to be led by the young.” The Economist [12/2000]

Passion.

34. Leaders … Out Their PASSION!

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

35. Leaders Know: ENTHUSIASM BEGETS ENTHUSIASM!

BZ: “I am a … Dispenser of Enthusiasm!”

36. Leaders Focus on the SOFT STUFF!

“Soft” Is “Hard ” - ISOE

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.]

The “Job” of Leading.

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

TP: If you don’t LOVE SALES … find another life. (Don’t pretend you’re a “leader.”) (See TP’s The Project50.)

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!

“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 in existence: a kind word and a thoughtful gesture.” Ken Langone, CEO, Invemed Associates [from Ronna Lichtenberg, It’s Not Business, It’s Personal]

41. Leaders Are … Curious.

TP/ : The Three Most Important Letters … WHY?

42. Leadership Is a … Performance.

“It is necessary for the President to be the nation’s No. 1 actor.” FDR

43. Leaders … Are The Brand

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi

44. 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

Introspection.

46. Leaders … Enjoy Leading.

“Warren, I know you want to ‘be’ president. But do you want to ‘do’ president?”

47. Leaders Know … “It’s My Fault.”

You recruited ’em. You hired ’em. You trained ’em. You evaluated ’em. You “motivated” ’em.

48. Leaders … Take Breaks.

Zombie! Zombie!

The End Game.

49. Leaders ??? :

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

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

50. Leaders … Aim High!

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