1. Leading in Totally Screwed Up Times Tom Peters Sapient/Houston/25 September 2001

2. “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

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

4. BmC: (1) Hierarchy vs. “Network organization
BmC: (1) Hierarchy vs. “Network organization.” (2) NWO = “Doctrine as center of gravity”/motivation, distributed support & decision-making, “outside the military sphere.”

5. “Our military structure today is essentially one developed and designed by Napoleon.” Admiral Bill Owens, former Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

6. “Most of our predictions are based on very linear thinking
“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

7. The Leadership50

8. 1. Leadership Is a … Mutual Discovery Process.

9. “I don’t know.”

10. Leaders-Teachers Do Not “Transform People”
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!

11. 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.

12. Model 24/7: Sports Franchise GM

13. P.S.: Jack didn’t have a vision!

14. 2A. “Just One”: Great Leading = Great Mentoring.

15. Goal of the Year No. 1. : Find-Develop-Mentor ONE Extraordinary Person
Goal of the Year No. 1*: Find-Develop-Mentor ONE Extraordinary Person. *CEO, large financial advisory firm, April 2001

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

17. “A leader is a dealer in hope.” Napoleon

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

19. I.P.M. (Inspired Profit Mechanic)

20. 4A. The Golden Leadership Triangle.

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

22. 5. Leadership Mantra #1: IT ALL DEPENDS!

23. Renaissance Men are … a snare, a myth, a delusion!

24. 6. The Leader Is Rarely/Never the Best Performer.

25. 33 Division Titles. 26 League Pennants. 14 World Series: Earl Weaver—0
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.

26. 7. Leaders LOVE the MESS!

27. 7A. Leadership Is Improv!

28. Rudy!

29. 8. Leaders DO!

30. [ ISOE #1: A Bias for Action]

31. The Kotler Doctrine: 1965-1980: R. A. F. (Ready. Aim. Fire
The Kotler Doctrine: : R.A.F. (Ready.Aim.Fire.) : R.F.A. (Ready.Fire!Aim.) 1995-????: F.F.F. (Fire!Fire!Fire!)

32. 8A. Leaders Re-do.

33. “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

34. 9. Leaders DELIVER!

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

36. 10. Leaders Trust in TRUST!

37. Credibility!

38. 11. Leaders FOCUS!

39. “To Don’t ” List

40. Leaders “dump the ones who brung ’em” —Nokia, HP, 3M, PerkinElmer, Corning, Enron, etc.

41. 12. Leaders Win Through LOGISTICS!

42. The “Gus Imperative”!

43. 13. Leaders Understand the Ultimate Power of RELATIONSHIPS.

44. 13A. Leaders Say “Thank You.”

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

46. 13B. Leaders Wire the Joint!

47. Winners wire. Losers are slaves to rank.

48. 14. Leaders Are Natural EMPOWERMENT FREAKS!

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

50. 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

51. 15. Leaders FORGET!/ Leaders DESTROY!

52. 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

53. 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

54. “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

55. 16. BUT … Leaders Have to Deliver, So They Worry About “Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater.”

56. “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)

57. 17. Leaders … HONOR THE USURPERS

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

59. 18. Leaders HANG OUT WITH FREAKS!

60. 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

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

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

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

64. Sam’s secret #1!

65. 20. Leaders Make BIG MISTAKES!

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

67. 21. Leaders Set DESIGN SPECS.

68. JackWorld/1@T: (1) Neutron Jack. (Banish bureaucracy
(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!

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

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

71. 23. Leaders Love to CREATE NEW MARKETS
23. Leaders Love to CREATE NEW MARKETS. Leaders Know that THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN “LINE EXTENSIONS.”

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

73. “Acquisitions are about buying market share
“Acquisitions are about buying market share. Our challenge is to create markets. There is a big difference.” Peter Job, CEO, Reuters

74. 24. Leaders Pursue DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE!

75. 1st Law Mktg Physics: OVERT BENEFIT (Focus: 1 or 2 > 3 or 4/“One Great Thing.” Source #1: Personal Passion) 2ND Law: REAL REASON TO BELIEVE (Stand & Deliver!) 3RD Law: DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE (Execs Don’t Get It: “intent to purchase” – 100%; “unique” – 0% to 5%) Source: Jump Start Your Business Brain, Doug Hall

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

77. 09.11.2000: HP bids $18,000,000,000 for PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting business!

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

79. HP … Sun … GE … IBM … UPS … UTC … General Mills … Springs … Anheuser-Busch … Carpet One … Delphi … Etc. … Etc.

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

81. “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)

82. Springs Collections. Flexible sourcing. Packaging. Merchandising
Springs Collections. Flexible sourcing. Packaging. Merchandising. Promotion. Design. Systems & Site mgt. = Turnkey.

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

84. I AM AN ARMY OF ONE

85. 27. When It Comes to TALENT … Leaders Always Swing for the Fences!

86. 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 ( )

87. “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 ( )

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

89. 28. Leaders “Win Followers Over”

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

91. PJ: “Coaching is winning players over.”

92. 29. Leaders have MENTORS.

93. The Gospel According to TP: Upon having the Leadership Mantle placed upon thine head, thou shalt never hear the unvarnished truth again!* (*Therefore, thy needs one faithful compatriot to lay it on with no jelly.)

94. 30. Leaders LOVE RAINBOWS – for Pragmatic Reasons.

95. “Diversity defines the health and wealth of nations in a new century
“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

96. 31. Leaders “Manage” Their EVP.

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

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

99. 32. Leaders Know “It’s My Fault.”

100. 33. Leaders LOVE the New Technology!

101. Dell’s OptiPlex Facility Big Job: 6 to 8 hours
Dell’s OptiPlex Facility Big Job: 6 to 8 hours. (20,000 per day) Parts Inventory: 2 hours, 100 square feet. (Overall, 5 days vs. 50 to 90 days; target is 2.5 days)

102. “There’s no use trying,” said Alice
“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

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

104. WebWorld = Everything Web as a way to run your business’ 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

105. Message: There is no such thing as an effective B2B or Internet-supply chain strategy in a low-trust, bottlenecked-communication, six-layer organization.

106. “Ebusiness is about rebuilding the organization from the ground up
“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

107. 34. Leaders Out Their PASSION!

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

109. 35. Leaders Know: ENTHUSIASM BEGETS ENTHUSIASM!

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

111. 36. Leaders Know It’s ALL SALES ALL THE TIME.

112. 37. Leaders LOVE “POLITICS.”

113. TP: If you don’t LOVE POLITICS … find another life
TP: If you don’t LOVE POLITICS … find another life. (Don’t pretend you’re a “leader.”)

114. 38. Leaders Give … RESPECT!

115. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, 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
Army General Melvin Zais said it, in the most moving speech I’ve ever listened to: YOU MUST CARE.
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’s book … RESPECT … is superb. Yet … THIS ONE THING … particularly stuck with me. You want to … MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Your ideas are wild. You buy my act: Recruit A Freak. Fine!
But you … MUST CARE. Your FF [First Freak] is going out on a limb to support you. She will do so … ONLY … if you accord her your utmost respect.
#1: HEY, WE’RE CHANGING THE WORLD HERE. #2: HEY, THIS STUFF IS PERSONAL … ABOUT WHO YOU AND I ARE AS HUMAN BEINGS.
Please: Re-read the text of the slide.

116. 39. Leaders … SHOW UP!

117. Rudy!

118. 40. Leadership Is a Performance. BELIEVE IT.

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

120. 41. Leaders Have a GREAT STORY!

121. “A key – perhaps the key – to leadership is the effective communication of a story.” Howard Gardner Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership

122. 42. Leaders Create BUZZ!

123. Leaders aimed on changing their world identify palpable heroes, who executed palpable projects—they point to these people and say to the masses, “See, here it is, done by one of your own.” (And then they “deep-dip” a few of those heroes to demo their seriousness.)

124. 42A. Leaders Seed & Pursue & Recognize (Weird) “Demos.”

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

126. 43. Leaders Focus on the SOFT STUFF!

127. “Soft” Is “Hard”

128. Message: Leadership is all about love
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.]

129. 44. Leaders KNOW They Can Make a Difference!

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

131. 45. Leaders LISTEN!

132. See Stephen!

133. 46. Leaders SERVE.

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

135. 47. Leaders KNOW THEMSELVES.

136. 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.)

137. 48. Leaders Are Graceful.

138. “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

139. 49. Leaders ???:

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

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

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

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

144. 50. Leaders Know WHEN TO LEAVE!

145. Thank You!