Tom Peters’ Leadership2002
Leading in Totally Screwed
Up Times09.27.2002
Slides:
tompeters.com
The
Leadership40
The Basic Premise.
1. 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 in ’87 F100; 18 F100 “survivors” underperformed the market
by 20%; just 2 (2%), GE & Kodak, outperformed the market 1917 to 1987.
Source: Dick Foster & Sarah Kaplan, Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market
“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)
“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 Leadership
Types.
2. In “Screwed Up Times,” Leaders Must
Provide Beacons of Hope (Type I Leadership).
“A leader is a dealer in hope.”
Napoleon
(+TP’s writing room pics)
3. Great Leaders on Snorting
Steeds Are Important – but
Great Talent Developers (Type II
Leadership) are the Bedrock of Organizations that Perform Over
the Long Haul.
Whoops: Jack didn’t have a vision!
25/8/53*(*Damn it!)
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) Creator-
Visionary … (2) Talent Fanatic … (3) Inspired
Profit Mechanic.
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:
1965-1980: R.A.F.(Ready.Aim.Fire.)
1980-1995: R.F.A.(Ready.Fire!Aim.)
1995-????: F.F.F.(Fire!Fire!Fire!)
10. BUT … Leaders
Know When to Wait.
Tex Schramm: The
“too hard” box!
11. Leaders …
DELIVER!
“It is no use saying ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing
what is necessary.” —WSC
12. Leaders Are …
Optimists.
Hackneyed but none the less
true: LEADERS SEE CUPS AS “HALF
FULL.”
Half-full Cups: “[Ronald Reagan] radiated an almost transcendent
happiness.”Lou Cannon, George (08.2000)
13. Leaders
FOCUS!
“To Don’t ” List
If It Ain’t Broke … Break It.
14. Leaders …
HONOR THE USURPERS.
Saviors-in-Waiting
Disgruntled CustomersUpstart CompetitorsRogue EmployeesFringe Suppliers
Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision
CUSTOMERS: “Future-defining customers may
account for only 2% to 3% of your total, but they represent a crucial
window on the future.”Adrian Slywotzky, Mercer Consultants
COMPETITORS: “The best swordsman in the world doesn’t need to fear
the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a
sword in his hand before; he doesn’t do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn’t
prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do and often it catches the expert out and
ends him on the spot.”
Mark Twain
Employees: “Are there enough weird
people in the lab these days?”
V. Chmn., pharmaceutical house, to a lab director (06.01)
Suppliers: There is an ominous downside to strategic supplier
relationships. An SSR supplier is not likely to function as any more than a mirror to your organization. Fringe suppliers that offer innovative business practices need
not apply.”
Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision: Beat the Competition by Focusing on Fringe Competitors, Lost Customers, and Rogue Employees
15. Leaders Make [Lotsa] Mistakes
– and MAKE NO BONES ABOUT IT!
Sam’s
Secret #1!
“Fail faster. Succeed sooner.”
David Kelley/IDEO
16. Leaders Make …
BIG MISTAKES!
“Reward excellent
failures. Punish mediocre successes.”
Phil Daniels, Sydney exec (and, de facto, Jack)
Create.
17. Leaders Pursue
DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE!
“The Internet is the most effective profit-killer on earth … it stimulates a TRUE
FREE MARKET; and a real free market is the most dangerous of marketplaces for
companies selling the SAME OLD STUFF. To those with COURAGE, free markets are
great—they help kill off the deadwood competitors who don’t have the courage
to change—making way for them to LEVERAGE their DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE
into profitable growth.”—Doug Hall
“I don’t intend to be known as the ‘King of
the Tinkerers.’ ”CEO, large financial services company
“Incrementalism is innovation’s worst enemy.”
Nicholas Negroponte
“Don’t rebuild. Reimagine.”
The New York Times Magazine on the future of the WTC space in Lower Manhattan/09.08.2002
18. 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
The greatest dangerfor most of us
is not that our aim istoo high
and we miss it,but that it is
too lowand we reach it.
Michelangelo
19. Leaders Push Their
Organizations W-a-y Up the Value-added/
Intellectual Capital Chain
WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?
“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
20. 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 & Rene Tissen, Zero Space: Moving Beyond Organization Limits.
“Dawn Meyerreicks, CTO of the Defense Intelligence Systems Agency, made one of the most fateful military calls of the 21st century. After 9/11 … her office
quickly leased all the available transponders covering Central Asia. The implications should change everything about U.S. military thinking in the
years ahead.
“The U.S. Air Force had kicked off its fight against the Taliban with an ineffective bombing campaign, and Washington was anguishing over whether to send in a few Army divisions. Donald Rumsfeld told Gen. Tommy Franks to
give the initiative to 250 Special Forces already on the ground. They used satellite phones, Predator surveillance drones, and GPS- and laser-based
targeting systems to make the air strikes brutally effective.
“In effect, they ‘Napsterized’ the battlefield by cutting out the middlemen (much of the military’s command and control) and working directly with the
real players. … The data came in so fast that HQ revised operating procedures to allow intelligence analysts and attack planners to work directly
together. Their favorite tool, incidentally, was instant messaging over a secure network.”—Ned Desmond/“Broadband’s New Killer App”/Business
2.0/ OCT2002
21. Leaders
LOVE the New Technology!
100 square feet
“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!
Talent.
22. When It Comes to
TALENT … Leaders Always Swing
for 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 (05.17.00)
23. Leaders Don’t Create “Followers”:
THEY CREATE LEADERS!
Brand You, Big Time!
I AM AN ARMY OF
ONE
24. Leaders …
Cede Control.
“I don’t know.”
25. Leadership Is a
… Mutual Discovery Process.
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!
26. 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.
Passion.
27. Leaders …
Out Their
PASSION!
G.H.: “Create a ‘cause,’ not a ‘business.’ ”
28. Leaders Know: ENTHUSIASM
BEGETS ENTHUSIASM!
BZ: “I am a … Dispenser of Enthusiasm!”
29. 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
30. Leaders Focus on the
SOFT STUFF!
“Soft” Is “Hard”
- ISOE
The “Job” of Leading.
31. 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.)
32. Leaders
LOVE “POLITICS.”
TP: If you don’t LOVE POLITICS … find
another life. (Don’t pretend
you’re a “leader.”)
33. But … Leaders Also
Break a Lot of China
Characteristics of the “Also rans”*
“Minimize risk”“Respect the chain of
command”“Support the boss”
“Make budget”
*Fortune, article on “Most Admired Global Corporations”
Joe J. Jones Joe J. Jones 1942 – 2002 1942 – 2002
HE WOULDA DONE SOME HE WOULDA DONE SOME
REALLY COOL STUFF REALLY COOL STUFF
BUT …BUT …
HIS BOSS WOULDN’T LET HIM! HIS BOSS WOULDN’T LET HIM!
34. 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
35. 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]
36. 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
Rodale’s on “Grace” …
elegance … charm … loveliness … poetry in motion … kindliness ..
benevolence … benefaction … compassion … beauty
Introspection.
37. Leaders …
Enjoy Leading.
“Warren, I know you want to ‘be’
president. But do you want to ‘do’
president?”
“[Bertelsman’s Reinhard] Mohn wasn’t a creative type. What got him juiced was the
art of running an organization and motivating the people who work there.”
—Fortune/05.27.2002
38. Leaders … Take Breaks.
Zombie!Zombie!Zombie!Zombie!
The End Game.
39. 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”
40. Leaders Know
WHEN TO LEAVE!
Thank You!