Tom Peters' Excellence Insights

LONG
Tom Peters’

Re-Imagine

EXCELLENCE
World Business Forum
Milano/05 November 2013
( Also see our 23-part Master Presentation at
excellencenow.com)

!

“ Train
Passenger s Too
Distracted By
Phones to
Notice Gunman”
—Headline, Huf fingtonPost, 1009.13

CONRAD HILTON ,

at a gala

celebrating
his career, was called to the podium and

“W hat were the
most impor tant
lessons you
lear ned in your
long and
distinguished

asked,

“ Remember

to tuck the
shower
cur tain inside
the bathtub .”

“ EXECUTION

IS

STRATEGY.”
—Fred Malek

“ In real life, strate gy
is actually ver y
straightforwar d.
Pick a general

and
im p lement
like hell .”
direction

…

—Jack

Welch

“ EXECUTION

IS THE JOB
OF THE
BUSINESS
LEADER .”
— Lar r y

Bossidy &

Ram Char an/ Execution: T he Discipline of Getting
T hings Done

“ The art of war does not
require complicated
maneuvers; the simplest
are the best and common
sense is fundamental. From
which one might wonder
how it is generals make
blunders; it

is because the y tr y
to be clever .”
—Napoleon

“ … almost
inhuman
disinterestednes
s in str ate g y”
Bunting on

U.S. Gr ant
Grant )

—Josiah

(from Ulysses S.

“ W hen assessing candidates, the

fir st thing I looked for was energy
and enthusiasm for execution.

Does she talk about
the thrill of g ettin g
thin g s done, the
obstacles overcome,
the role her p eo p le
p la y ed —or does she keep
wandering back to strate gy or
philosophy?” —Lar r y Bossidy, Execution

WOW !!
Observed closely: The use of

“I”

or

“We”

during a
job interview.

Source: Leonard Berry & Kent Seltman, chapter 6, “Hiring for Values,”
Management Lessons From Mayo Clinic

G
R
I
N

enetics

obotics

nfor matics

anotechnolog y*

*Decision
it?

#1 : GRIN and BEAR it? GRIN and SAVOR

“ Human level
capability has not
turned out to be a
special stopping
point from an
engineering
perspective. ….”

“ The root of our problem is not
that we’re in a Great Recession
or a Great Stagnation, but rather
that we are in the early

Great
Restructurin
g
throes of a

. Our technologies are racing
ahead,
but our skills and organizations

China

too/Foxconn:

1,000,000

robots in next
3 years
Source: Race AGAINST the Machine, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee

Legal industry/Pattern Recognition/
Discovery (e-discovery algorithms):

500

lawyers to …

ONE

“Algorithms have already written symphonies
as moving as those composed by

Beethoven, picked through legalese with
the deftness of a senior law partner,
diagnosed patients with more accuracy than a

doctor, written news articles with the
smooth hand of a seasoned reporter, and
driven vehicles on urban highways with far
better control than a human

driver.”

Automate This: How
Algorithms Came to Rule the World
—Christopher Steiner,

“ Meet Your
Next Surgeon:
Dr. Robot”
Source: Feature/ Fortune /15 JAN 2013/on Intuitive
Surgical’s

da Vinci

/multiple bypass heart-

surgery robot

Robot War s!

“T he combination of
new mar ket r ules and
new technology was
tur ning the stock
mar ket into, in ef fect,

a war of
robots .”

—Michael Lewis,

“Golman’s Geek Tr a gedy,” Vanity Fair , 09.13

Post-Great Recession:

Equipment
expenditures +26%

Payrolls flat


Cir ca 3013: And YOUTH Shall Lead Us …

60 IS THE NEW 40!
70 IS THE NEW 50!
And/Or …

35 IS THE NEW 65 ?

*

* Pace of obsolescence STAGGERING / ACCELERATING

“ Human
creativity
is the ultimate
economic
resource.”

—Richard Florida

Social Business
& Customer
Engagement

“ Customer engagement is
moving from relatively
isolated market transactions
to deeply connected and
sustained social
relationships. This basic
chan g e in how we do
business will make an
im p act on j ust about
ever y thin g we do .”
Social Business By Design: Transformative Social Media

Marbles, a Ball and Social Employees ay IBM

“ Picture a ball and a bag of marbles side by
side. The two items might have the same volume
—that is, if you dropped them into a bucket,
they would sisplace the same amount of water.
The difference, however, lies in the surface
area, Because a ba g of marbles is

com p rised of several individual p ieces,
the combined surface area of all the
marbles far outstri p s the surface area
of a sin g le ball . The expanded surface area

represents a social brand’s increased diversity.
These surfaces connect and interact with each
other in unique ways, offering customers and
employees alike a variety of paths toward a
myriad of solutions. If none of the paths prove
to be suitable, social employees can carve out
new paths on their own.” —Ethan McCarty, Director of
Enterprise Social Strategy, IBM (from Cheryl Burgess & Mark Burgess,

Social Employee

The

IBM Social Business Markers/2005-2012

*433,000 employees on IBM
Connection
*26,000 individual blogs
*91,000 communities
*62, ooo wikis
*50,000,000 IMs/day
*200,000 employees on Facebook
*295, 000 employees/800,000
followers
of the brand
*35,000 on Twitter

SB/SE
> SM*

*“Social BUSINESS ”/“Social EMPLOYEE ”/“Social
Media”

“ Gamification
”:
Ultimate
ENGAGEMENT
Tool

Gamification

“Gamification
presents the best

tools humanit y
has ever had to

create and sustain
engagement in
people.”
Sour ce: Gabe Zicher mann & Joselin Linder, Gamification: How

It Ain’t About the Ws and Ls!

“ Fun from games arises out of

master y . It arises out of
com p rehension . It is
the

act of

solvin g

p uzzles that makes games
fun. In other words, with

learnin g

games,
is the drug.”

—Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun For Game

“ Predictions
based on
correlations
lie at the
heart of big
data.”
Source: Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We
Live, Work, and Think, by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and

“ Flash forward to dystopia. You work in a
chic cubicle, sucking chicken-flavor
sustenance from
a tube. You’re furiously maneuvering with
a joystick … Your boss stops by and gives
you a look. ‘We need to talk about your

The
organization you work for
has deduced that you are
considering quitting. It
predicts your plans and
intentions, p ossibl y before
y ou have even conceived
them .”
Predictive Analytics:
loyalty to this company.’

—Eric Siegel,
The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die (based on a real case,

The Crowd Sourced Performance Review

“ By harnessing the ‘wisdom of
crowds,’ many subjective
observations taken together provide
a more objective and accurate
picture of an employee’s
performance than a single
subjective judgement. It averages
out prejudice or baggage on the
part of both manager and
employee.” —
The Crowd Sourced Performance
Eric Mosley,

Review

Our Judgement Is Usuall y … Sub-par

“There is now [1996] a meta-analysis
of studies of the comparative
ef ficacy of clinical judgment and
actuarial prediction methods. … Of
136 research studies from a wide
variet y of p redictive domains, not
more than

5

p ercent show the

clinician’s p redictive p rocedure to
be more accurate than a statistical
one .”
Sour ce: Paul Meehl, Clinical ver sus Statistical Pr ediction ;
from Daniel Kahneman, T hinking, Fast and Slow (1/25)

Excellence1982: The Bedrock “Ei g ht Basics

1. A Bias for Action
2. Close to the Customer
3. Autonom y and
Entre p reneurshi p
4. Productivity Through Peo p le
5. Hands On , Value-Driven
6. Stick to the Knitting
7. Sim p le Form, Lean Staff
8. Simultaneous Loose-Tight
Properties

“ Breakthrough” 82*

People!
Customers
!
Action!
Values !

“Why in the
World did you
go to
Siberia ?”

An emotional ,
vital , innovative , jo y ful , creative ,
entre p reneurial endeavor that elicits
maximum
Enterprise * (*at its best):

concerted human
potential in the
wholehearted pursuit
of EXCELLENCE in
service of others.**
others
**Employees, Customers, Suppliers, Communities, Owners, Temporary partners

“ In a world where customers wake up
every morning asking, ‘What’s new,
what’s different, what’s amazing?’

success de p ends on a
com p an y ’s abilit y to
unleash initiative,
ima g ination and p assion
of em p lo y ees at all levels

—and this can only happen if all those
folks are connected heart and soul to
their work [their ‘calling’], their
company and their mission.” —John Mackey
and Raj Sisoda, Conscious Capitalism:
Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business

“ If I could have chosen not to tackle the IBM culture
head-on,
I probably wouldn’t have. My bias coming in was
toward strategy, analysis and measurement. In
comparison, changing the attitude and behaviors of
hundreds of thousands of people is very, very hard.

Yet I came to see in my
time at IBM that culture
isn’t just one aspect of

— IT IS
THE G AME .”
the game

— Lou Gerstner, Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance

“What matters
most to a company over
time? Strategy or
culture?
WSJ/0910.13:

Dominic Barton, MD, McKinsey & Co.:

“Culture.

“ Mr. Watson, how
long does it take
to achieve
Excellence?”

“Most managers spend a great deal of time thinking about what they plan to do, but relatively little time thinking about what
they plan not to do. As a result, they become so caught up … in fighting the fires of the moment that they cannot really
attend to the long-term threats and risks facing the organization. So the first soft skill of leadership the hard way is to
cultivate the perspective of Marcus Aurelius: avoid busyness, free up your time, stay focused on what really matters.

Let me put it bluntly: every leader
should routinely keep a substantial
portion of his or her time—I would

say as much as

50

percent—unscheduled .

… Only when you have substantial ‘slop’ in your

schedule—unscheduled time—will you have the space to reflect on what you are doing, learn from experience, and recover
from your inevitable mistakes. Leaders without such free time end up tackling issues only when there is an immediate or
visible problem. Managers’ typical response to my argument about free time is, ‘That’s all well and good, but there are things

Yet we waste so much time in un p roductive activit y— it
takes an enormous effort on the p art of the leader to kee p free
time for the trul y im p ortant thin g s .”
I have to do.’

—Dov

Frohman (& Robert Howard), Leadership The Hard Way: Why Leadership Can’t Be Taught—
Howard),

You =
Your
calendar *
*T he calendar

NEVER

Don’t >
Do*
* “Don’t-ing” must be systematic
> WILLPOWER

“ If there is any

one

‘secret’ to effectiveness, it is
concentration. Effective
executives do first things first
…

and the y do

one

thin g at
a time .”
—Peter Drucker

“ It’s

alwa y s

showtime.”
—

“ You must

be

the

change you wish
to see in the
wor ld.”
Gandhi

“ I am a

dispenser of
enthusiasm.
”
—Ben Zander

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

“ T he leader must have
infectious optimism. …
T he final test of a leader
is the feeling you have
when you leave his
presence after a
conference. Have y ou a
feelin g of u pl ift and
confidence ?”
—Field Mar shall Ber nar d
Montgomer y

“ If I had to pick
one failing of
CEOs, it’s that
they don’t read
enough.”

—Co-founder of one of the

largest investment services firms in the USA/world

“ Mapping your
competitive
position”

or …

1. Have you in the
last 10 days …

VISITED

a

customer?
2. Have you called a

?

customer …

TODAY

FORTY-FOUR “SECRETS”
AND “CLEVER
STRATEGIES” FOR
DEALING WITH THE
RECESSION OF 2008XXXX

Dealing with the Recession of 2008-XXXX
You come earlier.
You leave later.
You work harder.
You may well work for less; and, if so,
you
adapt to the untoward circumstances
with a
smile—even if it kills you inside.
You volunteer to do more.
You dig deep and always bring a good
attitude
to work.
You fake it if your good attitude flags.
You literally practice your "game face" in
the
mirror in the morning, and in the loo
mid-morning.
You give new meaning to the idea and

44 “Secrets” and “Clever Strategies” For
Dealing with the Recession of 2008-XXXX
You give new meaning to the word
"thoughtful.“
You don’t put limits on the flowers budget—
“ bright and colorful” works marvels.
You redouble, re-triple your efforts to "walk
in
your customer's shoes." (Especially if the
shoes smell.)
You mind your manners—and accept others’
lack of manners in the face of their
strains.
You are kind to all mankind.
You keep your shoes shined.
You leave the blame game at the office
door.

“The

4 most

important
words in any

organization are …

THE FOUR MOST IMPORTANT WORDS IN ANY
ORGANIZATION

“WHAT
DO YOU
THINK?”
ARE …

Source: courtesy Dave Wheeler, posted at tompeters.com

“ Yes, but
…”
“ Yes, and
…”

“ T he deepest
principle in human
nature is the

craving * to
be appreciated.”
—W illiam James

* “Cr aving,” not “wish” or “desir e” or
“longing”/Dale Car ne gie, How to W in Friends and
Influence People (“T he BIG Secr et of Dealing

“ T he deepest
human need is
the need to be
appreciated.”
W illiam James

“Employees who
don't feel significant
rarely make
significant
contributions.”

—Mark Sanborn

“Acknowledge” …
perhaps the most
powerful word (and
idea) in the English
language—and
manager’s tool kit!

Meetings =

#1 leadership
opportunity

Every meeting that
does not stir the imagination
and curiosity of attendees and
increase bonding and cooperation and engagement
and sense of worth and
motivate rapid action and
enhance enthusiasm is a
permanently lost opportunity.
Meeting:

“ The doctor
interrupts
after …*
*Source: Jerome Groopman, How Doctors Think

[An obsession with] Listening is ... the ultimate mark
of

Respect

Listening is ... the heart and soul of Engagement.
Listening is ... the heart and soul of Kindness.
Listening is ... the heart and soul of Thoughtfulness.
Listening is ... the basis for true Collaboration.
Listening is ... the basis for true Partnership.
Listening is ... a Team Sport.
Listening is ... a Developable Individual Skill.* (*Though women
are far better at it than men.)

Listening is ... the basis for Community.
Listening is ... the bedrock of Joint Ventures that work.
Listening is ... the bedrock of Joint Ventures that grow.
Listening is ... the core of effective Cross-functional
Communication* (*Which is in turn Attribute #1 of
organization effectiveness.)

[cont.]

.

*8 of 10 sales presentations
fail
*50% failed sales

talking
“at” befor e
listening!
presentations …

—Susan Scott, “Let Silence Do the Heavy Listening,” chapter title,
Fierce Conver sations: Achieving Success at Wor k and in Life,
One Conver sation at a Time

*Listening is of the

utmost … STRATEGIC
impor tance!

*Listening is a proper …

CORE VALUE !

*Listening is …

TRAINABLE !
*Listening is a …

PROFESSION !

“ Cour tesies of a small
and trivial char acter are
the ones which strike
deepest in the gr ateful
and appreciating hear t.”
—Henr y Clay

139,380 for mer
patients from 225 hospitals:

Pr ess Ganey Assoc :

NONE

of THE top 15

factors deter mining

S atisfaction

P atient

refer red to patient’s
health outcome .

Instead: directl y related to Staf f
Interaction; directl y cor related with
Emplo y ee Satisfaction
Source: Putting Patients Fir st , Susan Fr ampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick

“ T her e is a misconception that suppor tive
inter actions requir e mor e staf f or more time and
ar e ther efore mor e costl y. Although labor costs are
a substantial par t of any hospital budget, the
inter actions themselves add nothing to the budget.

KINDNESS
IS FREE .

Listening to

patients or answering their questions costs nothing.
It can be ar gued that ne gative inter actions—
alienating patients, being non-responsive to their
needs or limiting their sense of control—can be
ver y costl y. … Ang r y, fr ustr ated or frightened
patients may be combative, withdr awn and less
cooper ative—r equiring far mor e time than it would
have taken to inter act with them initiall y in a
positive way.”
—Putting Patients First , Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Char mel
(Grif fin Hospital/Derby CT; Plantree Alliance)

Kindness =
Repeat Business
=
Profit.

Responsivenes
s/
Apology/
“ I’m sorry!”

“ I regard a p olo g izin g as
the most magical,
healing, restorative
gesture human beings
can make. It is the

center p iece of

my work with executives
who want to get better.”
— Marshall Goldsmith , What Got You Here Won’t Get You There:
How Successful People Become Even More Successful.

THERE
ONCE WAS A TIME WHEN A

Relationships

(of all varieties) :

THREE - MINUTE
PHONE CALL
WOULD HAVE AVOIDED
SETTING OFF THE DOWNWARD
SPIRAL THAT RESULTED IN A
COMPLETE RUPTURE. *

*divorce, loss of a BILLION $$$ aircraft sale, etc., etc.

THE PROBLEM IS
RARELY/NEVER THE
PROBLEM. THE

RESPONSE TO THE
PROBLEM INVARIABLY
ENDS UP BEING THE
REAL PROBLEM.*
PROBLEM
*PERCEPTION IS ALL THERE IS!

Comeback

[big, quick response]

>>
Perfection

Acquire vs. maintain:

5X *

*Hence: Service >> Sales (!!)

XFX =
#1 *
*Cross-Functional eXcellence

XFX/Typical Social Accelerators
1. EVERYONE’s [more or less] JOB #1: Make friends in other
functions! (Purposefully. Consistently. Measurably.)
2. “Do lunch” with people in other functions!! Frequently!!
(Minimum 10% to 25% for everyone? Measured.)
3. Ask peers in other functions for references so you can
become conversant in their world. (It’s one helluva sign of ...
GIVE-A-DAMN-ism.)
4. Religiously invite counterparts in other functions to your
team meetings. Ask them to present “cool stuff” from “their
world” to your group. (Useful. Mark of respect.)

PROACTIVELY SEEK EXAMPLES OF
“TINY” ACTS OF “XFX” TO
ACKNOWLEDGE—PRIVATELY AND
PUBLICALLY. (Bosses: ONCE A DAY …
make a short call or visit or send an
email of “Thanks” for some sort of XFX
gesture by your folks and some other
function’s folks.)
5.

6. Present counterparts in other functions awards for service
to your group. Tiny awards at least weekly; and an “Annual
All-Star Supporters [from other groups] Banquet” modeled
after superstar salesperson banquets.

THE WHOLE POINT HERE IS THAT

“XFX”

IS ALMOST CERTAINLY THE #1
OPPORTUNITY FOR STRATEGIC
DIFFERENTIATION. WHILE MANY WOULD
LIKELY AGREE, IN OUR MOMENT-TOMOMENT AFFAIRS, XFX PER SE IS NOT
SO OFTEN VISIBLY & PERPETUALLY AT
THE TOP OF EVERY AGENDA. I ARGUE
HERE FOR NO LESS THAN …

VISIBLE.
CONSTANT.
OBSESSION.

Teva Canada: Su pp l y chain
excellence achieved. SharePoint/ troubleshooting/StrategyNets/ hooked to other functions;
Moxie social tools, document
editing, etc.
Social Business By Design: Transformative Social
Media Strategies For the Connected Company —Dion
Hinchcliffe & Peter Kim

Business
Has to Give
People
Enriching,
Rewarding
Lives

1/4,096:

1/4,096: excellencenow.com

“ Business has to give people

or
it's sim p l y
not worth
doin g.”

enriching, rewarding lives …

— Richard Branson

B(I) >
B(O)
Explanation: B(O) = Brand Outside; B(I) =

INSIDE

Brand

“You have to
treat your
employees like
customers.”
—Herb

Kelleher, upon being asked his “secret to success”

Source: Joe Nocera, NYT , “Parting Words of an Airline Pioneer,”
on the occasion of Herb Kelleher’s retirement after 37 years at
Southwest Airlines (SWA’s pilots union took out a full-page ad in
USA Today
thanking HK for all he had done) ; across the way in Dallas,

A 15-Point Human Capital Development
Manifesto
1.

Corporate social responsibility” starts at home
—i.e., inside the enterprise! MAXIMIZING
GDD/Gross Domestic Development of the
workforce is the primary source of mid-term and
beyond growth and profitability—and maximizes
national productivity and wealth.

2.

Regardless of the transient external situation,
development of “human capital” is always the #1
priority. This is true in general, in particular in
difficult times which demand resilience—and
uniquely true in this age in which IMAGINATIVE
brainwork is de facto the only plausible survival
strategy for higher wage nations. ( Generic
“brainwork,” traditional and dominant “whitecollar activities, is increasin g l y b ein g p erformed
b y exponentiall y enhanced artificial
intelli g ence .)

Source: A 15-Point Human Capital Asset Development Manifesto/

"When I hire
someone,
that's when I

go
for

to work
them .”

—John

DiJulius, "What's the Secret to Providing a World-class Customer
Experience"

… NO LESS THAN

CATHEDRALS

IN
WHICH THE FULL AND
AWESOME POWER OF THE
IMAGINATION AND SPIRIT
AND NATIVE
ENTREPRENEURIAL FLAIR
OF DIVERSE INDIVIDUALS IS
UNLEASHED IN PASSIONATE
PURSUIT OF … EXCELLENCE .

Our goal is to serve our customers brilliantly and profitably
over
the long haul.
Serving our customers brilliantly and profitably over the long
haul is a product of brilliantly serving, over the long haul, the
people who serve the customer.

Hence, our job as leaders—the alpha and the
omega and
everything in between—is abetting the sustained
growth
and success and engagement and enthusiasm
and
commitment to Excellence of those, one at a
time, who
directly or indirectly serve the ultimate
customer.
We—leaders of every stripe—are in the “Human Growth and
Development and Success and Aspiration to Excellence
business.”
“ We” [leaders] only grow when “they” [each and every one of our colleagues] are
growing.
“ We” [leaders] only succeed when “they” [each and every one of our colleagues]
are succeeding.
“ We” [leaders] only energetically march toward Excellence when

“ The role of the Director is
to create a space where the
actors and actresses can

become more than
the y ’ve ever been
before,
more than the y’ ve
dreamed of bein g.”
— Robert Altman, Oscar acceptance speech

“ I star t with the
premise that the
function of leader ship

p roduce
more leader s ,
is to

not more follower s.”
Ralph Nader

—

Our Mission

TO DEVELOP AND MANAGE
TALENT;

TO APPLY THAT TALENT,
THROUGHOUT THE WORLD,
FOR THE BENEFIT OF CLIENTS;
TO DO SO IN PARTNERSHIP;
TO DO SO WITH PROFIT.
WPP

“ LEADERS

‘ DO ’

PEOPLE.”

“ LEADERS

‘ DO ’

PEOPLE.
PERIOD.”

—Anon.

"Leadership is a
gift. It's given by
those who follow.
You have to be
worthy of it.”
— General Mark Welsh, Commander, U.S. Air Forces
Europe

You CHOSE to
be a boss/leader.
Hence you CHOSE
to devote the rest of
your professional
career to

REMEMBER:

DEVELOPING
PEOPLE .

From
sweaters to
people!*

Les Wexner :

*Limited Brands founder Les Wexner queried on
astounding longterm success—said, in effect, it
happened because he got
as excited about developing people as he had been

to

stellar accomplishments inside or
outside
the company.

The (no more than) two or three people you developed who
went on to
create stellar institutions of their own.
The long shots (people with “a certain something”) you bet
on who
surprised themselves— and your peers.

The people of all stripes who 2/5/10/20
years
later say “You made a difference in my
life,”
“ Your belief in me changed
everything.”
The sort of/character of people you hired in general. ( And the
bad
apples you chucked out despite some stellar traits.)
A handful of projects (a half dozen at most) you doggedly
pursued that
still make you smile and which fundamentally changed the
way

Promotion Decisions

“life and
death
decisions”
Source: Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management

“ A man should never
be promoted to a
managerial position if
his vision focuses on
people’s weaknesses
rather than on their
strengths .”
—Peter Dr ucker, T he Pr actice of Management

EVALUATING

#1

PEOPLE =
DIFFERENTIATO
R
Sour ce: Jack Welch, now Jef f Immelt on
GE’s top strate gic skill (

!!!!)

People ar e NOT
“Standar dized.”
T heir
evaluations
should NOT be
standar dized.
EVER .

“ To develop
other s, star t
with
y our self .”
—Mar shall Goldsmith

“ Being aware of
your self and how y ou
af fect ever y one
around y ou is what
distin g uishes a
superior leader.”
—Edie Seashor e ( Str ategy + Business #45)

“ The biggest
problem I shall
ever face: the
management of
Dale Carnegie.”
— Dale Carnegie, diary of

“ development can help g reat

but if
I had a dollar to spend,
people be even better—

I’d spend

70

cents getting the
right per son in the
door.”

— Paul Russell, Dir ector, Leader ship and

Development, Google

the
most important
aspect of business
and yet remains woefully
misunderstood.”
“In short, hiring is

Source: Wall Street Journal , 10.29.08,
review of Who: The A Method for Hiring,

Geoff Smart and Randy Street

“ We live with a value system that I call the Extrovert Ideal—the
omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and
comfortable in the spotlight. The archetypal extrovert prefers
action to contemplation, risk-taking to heed-taking, certainty
to doubt. … We think that we value individuality, but all too
often we admire one type of individual … Introversion is now a
second-class personality trait. … The Extrovert Ideal has

been documented in many studies. Talkative
people, for example, are rated as smarter, better
looking, more interesting, and more desirable as
friends. Velocity of speech counts as well as
volume: We rank fast talkers as more competent
and likeable than slow ones. But we make a grave
mistake to embrace the Extrovert Ideal so
unthinkingly. … As the science journalist Winifred Gallagher
writes, ‘The glory of the disposition that stops to consider
stimuli rather than rushing to engage with them is its long
association with intellectual and artistic achievement. Neither
E = mc squared or Paradise Lost was dashed off by a party
animal.’ Even in less obviously introverted occupations, like
finance, politics, and activism, some of the greatest leaps
forward were made by introverts … figures like Eleanor
Roosevelt, Warren Buffett and Gandhi achieved what they did
not in spite of but because of their introversion.” — Susan Cain,
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

“ If you are a manager, remember that one third to
one half of your workforce is probably introverted,
whether they appear that way or not. Think twice
about how you design your organization’s office
space. Don’t expect introverts to get jazzed up
about open office plans or, for that matter,
lunchtime birthday parties or teambuilding retreats.
Make the most of introverts’ strengths— these

are the p eo p le who can hel p you
think dee p ly, strate g ize, solve
com p lex p roblems, and s p ot canaries
in y our coal mine .

“ Also remember the dangers of the new groupthink.
If it’s creativity you’re after, ask your employees to
solve problems alone before sharing their ideas …
Don’t mistake assertiveness or elegance for good
ideas. If you have a proactive workforce (and I hope
you do), remember that they may perform better
under an introverted leader than under an
extroverted or charismatic one.” — Susan Cain,

“ The next time you see a
person with a composed
face and a soft voice,
remember that inside her
mind she might be solving
an equation, composing a
sonnet, designing a hat.
She might, that is, be
deploying the power of
quiet.”
— Susan Cain,

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

If the regimental commander lost most of
his 2nd lieutenants and 1st lieutenants
and captains and majors, it would be a

If he lost his
ser g eants it would
be a catastro p he .
tragedy.

The Army and the Navy are fully aware
that success on the battlefield is
dependent to an extraordinary degree on
its Sergeants and Chief Petty Officers.
Does industry have the same awareness?

“ People
leave
mana g ers
not
companies.”

E.g.: Do you have the ...

ABSOLUTE BEST
TRAINING &
DEVELOPMENT
PROGRAMS
IN THE INDUSTRY ...
(or some subset thereof)
for first-line supervisors?

In the Army, 3 - star
g enerals worry
about training. In
most businesses,
it's a “ho hum”
mid-level staff
function.

I would hazard a
guess that most
CEOs see IT
investments as a
“strategic
necessity,” but see
training expenses as
“a necessary evil.”

3.

Three-star generals and admirals (and
symphony conductors and sports
coaches and police chiefs and fire
chiefs) OBSESS about training. Why is it
likely (Dead certain?) that in a random
30-minute interview you are unlikely to
hear a CEO touch upon this topic? ( I
would hazard a guess that most CEOs
see IT investments as a “strategic
necessity,” but see training expenses as
“a necessary evil.”)

4. Proposition/axiom: The CTO/Chief
TRAINING Officer is arguably the #1
staff job in the enterprise, at least on a
par with, say, the CFO or CIO or head of
R&D. (Again, external circumstances—
see immediately above—are forcing our
hand.)

(1) Training merits
“ C-level” status!
(2) Top trainers should
be paid a king’s
ransom —and be of
the same caliber
as
top marketers or
researchers.

Container Store

270 /16
10/>100

11. The national education infrastructure
—from kindergarten to continuing adult
education—may well be National Priority
#1. Moreover, the educational
infrastructure must be altered radically to
underpin support for the creative jobs that
will be more or less the sole basis of
future employment and national growth
and wealth creation.

Source: A 15-Point Human Capital Asset Development Manifesto/
World Strategy Forum/The New Rules: Reframing Capitalism/Seoul/0615.12

“ Ever y child is
bor n an ar tist.
T he trick is to
remain an
ar tist .”
—Picasso

Muhammad Yunus:

“All

human beings are
entrepreneurs. When we

were in the caves we were all self-employed .
. . finding our food, feeding ourselves. That’s
where human history began . . . As
civilization came we suppressed it. We
became labor because they stamped us, ‘You
are labor.’ We forgot that we are
entrepreneurs.” —Muhammad Yunus/
The News Hour/PBS/1122.2006

USA 1996-2007

Highest rate
entr epreneurial
activity (fir ms
founded):
Ages

55-64

Lowest r ate: Ages 2034

Reductionist
(!!) Leadership
Training

Are you a
“professional”
when it comes
to Strate g ic
Listenin g?

Are you a
“pr ofessional” w hen
it comes to Usin g
meetin g s as a
p rimar y leader shi p
tool ?

Are you a
“professional”
when it comes
to Of ferin g
hel p?

Reductionist Leadership Training
“ Aggressive ‘professional’ listener.”
Expert at questioning. (Questioning “professional.”)
Meetings as leadership opportunity #1.
Creating a “civil society.”
Expert at “helping.” (Helping “professional.”)
Expert at holding productive conversations.
Fanatic about clear communications.
Fanatic about training.
Master of appreciation/acknowledgement.
Effective at apology.
Creating a culture of automatic helpfulness by all to all.
Presentation excellence.
Conscious master of body language.
Master of hiring. (Hiring “professional”)
Master of evaluating people.
Time manager par excellence.
Avid practitioner of MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around.
Avid student of the process of influencing others per se.
Student of decision-making and devastating impact of irrational
aspects thereof.
Brilliantly schooled student of negotiation.
Creating a no-nonsense execution culture.
Meticulous about employee development/100% of staff.
Student of the power of “d”iversity (all flavors of difference).
Aggressive in pursuing gender balance.
Making team-building excellence everyone’s daily priority.
Understanding value of matchless 1st-line management.
Instilling “business sense” in one and all.

WHOEVER
TRIES
THE
MOST
STUFF
WINS

READY.
FIRE!
AIM.
H. Ross Perot (vs “Aim! Aim! Aim!” /EDS vs GM/1985)

“We made mistakes, of course. Most of them were
omissions we didn’t think of when we initially wrote the
software. We fixed them by doing it over and over,
again and again. We do the same today. While our
competitors are still sucking their thumbs trying to
make the design perfect, we’re already on prototype

#5.
# 10 . It g ets back to

version

By the time our rivals are ready

with wires and screws, we are on version

p lannin g versus actin g: We
act from day one ; others
p lan how to p lan — for
months .”

Culture of Prototyping

“Effective prototyping may
be THE

MOST
VALUABLE CORE
COMPETENCE an

innovative organization can
hope to have.” —Michael Schr a ge

“ T he dif ference between Bach and his for gotten
peers isn’t necessaril y that he had a better r atio of
peer s
hits to misses. T he dif ference is that the mediocre
might have a dozen ideas, w hile Bach, in his
lifetime, created more than a thousand full-fledged
musical compositions. A genius is a genius,
psychologist Paul Simonton maintains, because he
can put together such a staggering number of
insights, ideas, theories, r andom obser vations, and
unexpected connections that he almost inevitably
ends up with something great.

‘ Quality,’

‘is a
probabilistic function
of quantity.’”
Simonton writes,

—Malcolm Gladwell, “Creation Myth,” New Yor ker , 0516.11

“ FAIL.
FORWARD.
FAST.”
High Tech CEO, Pennsylvania

“ REWARD

excellent failures.

PUNISH

mediocre
successes.”
—Phil Daniels, Sydney exec

“ T he secret of fast
progress is
inef ficiency ,
fast and furious
and numerous
failures.”
—Kevin Kell y

“T he Silicon Valley
of today is built
less atop the spires
of ear lier triumphs
than upon the
r ubble of ear lier
debacles.” —Paul Saf fo

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

“The essence
of capitalism is
encouraging
failure, not
rewarding
success.”

—Nassim Nicholas Taleb/Reason

TV/0124.13

W heels Rarely
Need To Be
Re-invented

“ W her e p lanner s

* r aise high
expectations but take no r esponsibility for
meeting them, sear cher s pr efer to
wor k case-by-case, using trial and er r or to
tailor solutions to individual pr oblems,
fully awar e that most remedies must be
home g rown.” — WSJ , 0822.06 (on malaria eradication,
and hedge fund manager Lance Laifer)

[*“Planner s [WHO, Wor ld Bank, etc] see pover ty as a
technical engineering pr oblem that their
answer s will solve.” —W illiam Easter l y ]
“All sor ts of appr oaches need to be
tried and we need feedback.” —Roger Bate

“ Somewhere in your
organization, groups of
people are alread y

doin g thin g s
differentl y and better.
To create lasting change,
find these areas of
positive deviance and fan
the flames .”
—Richard Pascale & Jerry
Sternin,
“Your Company’s Secret Change Agents,” HBR

“ Some people look
for things that went
wrong and try to fix
them. I look for
thin g s that went
ri g ht , and try to build
off them.”
—Bob Stone (Mr ReGo)

1/5,000

“YOU MISS

100 %

OF
THE SHOTS YOU
NEVER TAKE.”
—Wayne Gr etzk y

“ WE HAVE A
‘STRATEGIC
PLAN.’ IT’S
CALLED DOING
THINGS .”

— Herb Kelleher

Fragile: Breaks easily.
Resilient: Bounces back.

Get jazzed by
and progress/innovate
as a result of being
knocked about.

Antifragile:

— With credit to Nassim Nicholas Taleb
( Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder )

“ You will become
like the five
people you
associate with the
most—this can be
either a blessing
or a curse.”
—Billy Cox

T he “We are what we eat”/
“We are who we hang out with”
Axiom: At its core, every (!!!)
relationship-partnership decision
(employee, vendor, customer, etc.,
etc.) is a strategic decision about:

“Innovate,
‘ Yes ’ or ‘No’
”

Measure/Manage: Portfolio “Strangeness”/
“Quality”
1. Customers
2. Vendors
3. Out-sourcing Partners
4. Acquisitions
5. Purposeful “Theft”
6. Diversity/“d”iversity
7. Diversity/Crowd-sourcing
8. Diversity/Weird
9. Diversity/Curiosity
10. Benchmarks
11. Calendar
12. MBWA
13. Lunch/General
14. Lunch/Other functions
15. Location/Internal
16. Location/HQ
17. Top team
18. Board

WE ARE THE
COMPANY
WE KEEP!

MANAGE IT!

“ DON’T
BENCHMARK,
FUTURE
MARK!”
Impetus: “T he future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed” —W illiam
Gibson

“ DON’T
BENCHMARK,
‘OTHER’
MARK ! ”

60 IS THE NEW 40!
70 IS THE NEW 50!

35 IS THE NEW 65

?

“ Why Minecraft Is More Than Just Another Video
Game”

“ We had discussions about
Boolean logic
which is a pretty advanced
concept to be talking to a
9-year-old about.”
[AND/OR/NOT, etc.],

— Andrew

News Magazine)

Weekes (from BBC

We Are W hat
We Eat: T he
“Fred Smith
Question”

“ Who’s the most
interesting person
you’ve met in the
last 90 days? How
do I get in touch
with them?”
—Fred Smith

“What is your most
marked characteristic?”

Vanity Fair:

Mike Bloomberg:

“ Curiosity.”

“ T he Bottleneck is at the
…
“W here are you likely to find people
with the least diver sit y of
ex p erience , the lar g est investment
in the p ast ,
and the g reatest reverence for
industr y do g ma …

Top of the
Bottle”

Innovation Index : How

many of your Top 5
Str ate gic
Initiatives/Key Pr ojects
scor e 8 or higher [out of
10] on a

“Weir d” / “Profound” /
“Wow” / “Gamechanger” Scale? (At

Ir on Innovation Equality Law:

The quality and
quantity and
imaginativeness
of innovation shall be
the same in all
functions —e.g., in HR and

purchasing as much as in marketing or
product development.*

2X:

“When Friedman

slightly
curved

the right angle of an

entrance corridor to one property, he
was ‘amazed at the magnitude of change
in pedestrians’ behavior’—the percentage

onethird to nearly two-thirds.”
who entered increased from

— Natasha Dow Schull, Addiction By Design: Machine Gambling in Las
Vegas

Glaring Eyes:

-62%

Source: PLOS ONE (via The Atlantic CITIES /0429.13)

<TGW
<TG
and …

>TG R
[T hings Gone

WRONG -Things Gone RIGHT ]

(1) Amenable to rapid
experimentation/
failure “free” (PR,
$$)
(2) Quick to
implement/
Quick to Roll out
(3) Inexpensive to
implement/Roll out
(4) Huge multiplier

Conveyance: Kingfisher Air
Location: A ppr oach to New
Delhi

“ May I
clean your
glasses,
sir?”

It

BEGINS
(and

ENDS )
the …

in

Customers describing their
service experience as “superior”:

8%

Com p anies describing
the service experience they
provide as

“ superior”:

80 %

TGR S .
MANAGE ’EM.
MEASURE
’EM. *

C

X O*

*Chief e

X perience Of ficer

Design Rules !

APPLE mar ket
cap
> Exxon Mobil*
*August 2011

“Design is

treated like
a religion at
BMW.”* —For tune

* APPLE mar ket cap > Exxon Mobil (August
2011)

DESIGN is
the p rinci p al
dif ference

Hypothesis:

love
hate!*

between
and

C

D O*

*Chief

D esign Of ficer

Fir st Steps: “Beauty Contest”!

1. Select one for m/document:
invoice, airbill, sick leave
policy, customer retur ns claim
for m.
2. Rate the selected doc on a
scale of 1 to 10 [1 =
Bureaucratica
Obscuranta/Sucks; 10 = Wor k
of Ar t] on four dimensions:

Beaut y. Grace .
Clarit y. Simplicit y.

3. Re-invent!
4. Repeat, with a new selection,

Systems: Must

have. Must
hate. / Must
design. Must …
un -design.

Ar chitect Rem Koolhaas on his drive for

“Often
my job is to
undo things.”
clarity-simplicity:

Sour ce: New Yor ker

“ Only one company
can be the
cheapest. All
other s must use
design.”
—Rodney Fitch, Fitch & Co.

Source: Insights , definitions of design, the Design Council [UK]

Initiate a …
“ Design
Review”
Today
(Of Everything)

H yp othesis : Men

cannot
design for
women’s

needs

!!??

“ INSANELY

GREAT”

STEVE JOBS

“RADICALLY
THRILLING”
BMW

Zappos 10 Corporate Values

Deliver

“WOW!”

service.
Embrace and drive change.
Create fun and a little weirdness.
Be adventurous, creative and open-minded.
Pursue growth and learning.
Build open and honest relationships with
communication.
Build a positive team and family spirit.
Do more with less.
Be passionate and determined.
Be humble.
Source: Delivering Happiness , Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com

through

“… this will
be the
woman’s
century …”

“I speak to you with a feminine voice.
It’s the voice of democracy, of equality.

that
this will be
the woman’s
century.
I am certain, ladies and gentlemen,

In the Portuguese language,

words such as life, soul, and hope are of the feminine

gender, as are other words like courage and sincerity.”
— President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil , 1st woman to
keynote the United Nations General Assembly (2011)

“ Forget CHINA,
INDIA and the
INTERNET:
Economic Growth
Is Driven by

WOMEN .”
Source: Headline, Economist

W >

2X (C +
I)*

* “Women now drive the global economy. Globally, they control
about $20 trillion in consumer spending, and that figure could

climb as high as

$28 trillion

in

the next five years. Their $13 trillion in total yearly earnings
could reach $18 trillion in the same period. In aggregate, women represent a

growth market bigger than China and India combined—more than twice as big in fact. Given those numbers, it would
be foolish to ignore or underestimate the female consumer. And yet many companies do just that—even ones that

“ Women are

THE

majority
mar ket”
—Far a War ner/ T he Power of the Pur se

Women as …

55%
Purchasing managers: 42%
Wholesale/retail buyers: 52%
Purchasing agents:

Employee health-benefit
plans:

60%

Source: Martha Barletta/TrendSight Group/0517.11

Sales/Aftersales Process
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Kick-off – women
Research – women
Purchase – men
Ownership – women
Word-of-mouth – wome

Source: Marti Barletta

The Perfect Answer
Jill and Jack buy
slacks in black…

“ Women don’t ‘buy’

T he y
‘j oin’
them .”

br ands.

—Faith Popcor n, EVEolution

THE
TRANSACTION MODEL
Selling to men:

THE
RELATIONAL MODEL
Selling to Women:

Source: Selling to Men, Selling to Women , Jeffery Tobias Halter

Pur chasing Patter ns

Harder to convince;
more loyal once convinced.
Women :

Men :

Snap decision; fickle.

Sour ce: Mar tha Bar letta, Mar keting to Women

AGE
3 DAYS ,
BABY GIRLS
2X EYE
CONTACT.
“People powered”:

Source: Martha Barletta, Marketing to Women

“ AS
LEADERS,
WOMEN
RULE :

New Studies find

that female manager s outshine their
male counter par ts in almost ever y
measure”

TITLE/ Special Repor t/ BusinessWeek

Women’s Strengths Match New
Economy Imperatives : Link [rather

than rank] workers; favor interactivecollaborative leadership style [empowerment
beats top-down decision making]; sustain
fruitful collaborations; comfortable with
sharing information; see redistribution of
power as victory, not surrender; favor multidimensional feedback; value technical &
interpersonal skills, individual & group
contributions equally; readily accept
ambiguity; honor intuition as well as pure
“rationality”; inherently flexible; appreciate
cultural diversity.
Sour ce: Judy B . Rosener, America’s Competitive Secr et: Women
Mana ger s

“ Research
suggests that to
succeed, start by
promoting
women.”

—Nicholas Kristof, “Twitter, Women,

and Power,” NYTimes , 1024.13

“ McKinsey & Company found
that the international
companies with more women
on their corporate boards

far outperformed

the
average company in return
on equity and other
measures. Operating profit
was 56 percent higher.”
—Nicholas

Kristof, “Twitter, Women, and Power,” NYTimes , 1024.13

“ Headline 2020:

Hold

Women

80

Per cent of
Management and
Pr ofessional
Jobs”

F:M Bachelor s
de g rees
g r anted:

140:10
0

War ren Buf fett
Invests Like a
Gir l: And W hy You
Should Too
—Louann Lofton

C M O/Mar keting
C X O/eXperience
C N O/eNga gement

“ Customer engagement is
moving from relatively
isolated market transactions
to deeply connected and
sustained social
relationships. This basic
change in how we do
business will make an
impact on just about
everything we do.”
Social Business By Design: Transformative Social Media

Social Survival Manifesto*
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Hiding is not an option.
Face it, you are outnumbered. (“level playing field, arrogance
denied”)
You no longer control the message.
Try acting like … a human being.
Learn to listen, or else. (“REALLY listening to others a must”)
Admit that you don’t have all the answers.
Speak plainly and seek to inform.

8.

Quit being a monolith.

9.

Try being less evil.

(“Your employees,
speaking online as individuals, are a
crucial resource … can be managed
through frameworks that ENCOURAGE
participation”)

(“Internet culture largely
built on the principal of the Gift Economy
… give value away to your online
communities”)

10. Pay it forward, now.

Seven Characteristics of the Social
Employee

1. Engaged
2. Expects Integration of the
Personal and Professional
3. Buys Into the Brand’s Story
4. Born Collaborator
5. Listens
6. Customer-Centric
7. Empowered Change Agent
Source: Cheryl Burgess & Mark Burgess,

The Social Employee

“ Success” >>
“Satisfaction”

“Lou, Your mission
is to break the
company up and
release hidden
value!”

$55B*
*IBM Global Ser vices/
“Systems inte grator of choice”

“Never mind computers
and tech services.
IBM’s radical new focus
is on revamping
customers’ operations
—and running them.”
—Headline/ BW

“You are headed
for commodity
hell if you don’t
have services.”
—Lou Ger stner, on IBM’s coming r evolution
(1997)

Huge: “Customer
Satisfaction with
product/Ser vice”
to

“CUSTOMER
SUCCESS ”

“ THE GIANT STALKING BIG
OIL: How

Schlumber g er

Is

Rewriting the Rules of the
Energy Game.”: “IPM [Integrated
Project Management] strays from
[Schlumberger’s] traditional role
as a service provider and moves
deeper into areas once dominated
by the majors.”
Source: BusinessWeek cover story, January 2008

“We’ll do
just about anything
an oilfield owner
would want, from
drilling to
production.”

IPM’s Chief:

I. LAN Installation Co.
II. Geek Squad.

(3%)

(30%.)

III. Acquired by Best Buy.
IV. FLAGSHIP OF BEST BUY
WHOLESALE
“SOLUTIONS”
STRATEGY MAKEOVER.

Univer sal Value Added:

T he

PSF
Solution
(or bust)

“ ‘ Disinter mediation’ is over rated. T hose who fear disinter mediationoutsourcing
should in fact be afraid of ir relevance; ‘outsourcing’ is just another

you’ve
become ir relevant
to your customer s.”
way of saying that …

—John Battelle/ Point/Adver tising Age

“A bureaucrat is an
expensive
microchip.”
—Dan Sullivan, consultant and executive coach

“ I believe that ninety
percent of white-collar
jobs in the U.S. will be
either destroyed or
altered beyond
recognition in the next
10 to 15 years.” (22 May
2000/cover/ Time magazine)

Sar ah:

“ Mom, what
do you do?”

“ I’m ‘overhead’—the
‘bureaucrat’ who runs the
‘cost center’ called
‘Human Resources.”
Mom :

Depar tment Head/“Cost center”/“Overhead” to
…

Managin g
Par tner ,
HR
Inc .
[IS, R&D, etc.]

Are you/your gang the …

“ Princi p al
En g ine of
Value
Added”

Big Idea:

“Cor por ation” as

MEGA-“PS
F”

Ever y “PSF”
must have a
for mal &
for midable
R&D budget.
PERIOD .

The Professional Service Firm50: Fifty Ways to
Transform Your “Department” into a Professional
Service Firm Whose Trademarks Are Passion and
Innovation!

“ I am often asked by
would-be
entrepreneur s seeking
escape from life within
huge cor porate
str uctures, ‘How do I
build a small fir m for
myself ?’ T he answer
seems obvious …

“I am often asked by would-be entrepreneurs seeking
escape from life within huge corporate structures, ‘How
do I build a small firm for myself ?’ The answer seems

Bu y a ver y
lar g e
one and j ust
wait .”

obvious :

—Paul Or mer od, W hy Most

T hings Fail:
Evolution, Extinction and Economics

“ Mr. Foster and his McKinsey colleagues
collected detailed perfor mance data
stretching back

40 year s for 1,000

U.S. companies.

T he y found that

NONE

of

the lon g -ter m sur vivor s
mana g ed to out p erfor m the
mar ket. Wor se, the lon g er
com p anies had been in the
database, the wor se the y did .”
—Financial Times

“When asked to name just one big
merger that had lived up to
expectations, Leon Cooperman, former
cochairman of Goldman Sachs’
Investment Policy Committee,

I’M SURE THERE
ARE SUCCESS STORIES
OUT THERE, BUT AT
THIS MOMENT I DRAW A
BLANK.”
answered:

—Mar k Sir ower, T he Syner g y Tr ap

“NOT A SINGLE COMPANY THAT
QUALIFIED AS HAVING MADE A
SUSTAINED TRANSFORMATION
IGNITED ITS LEAP WITH A BIG
ACQUISITION OR MERGER .

Moreover, comparison companies—those
that failed to make a leap or, if they did,
failed to sustain it—often tried to make
themselves great with a big acquisition
or mer ger. T hey failed to g rasp the simple
tr uth that while you can buy your way to
g rowth, YOU CANNOT BUY YOUR

WAY TO GREATNESS.”
—Jim Collins/ Time

“Data drawn from the real world
attest to a fact that is beyond
our control:

EVERYTHING IN
EXISTENCE TENDS
TO DETERIORATE.”
—Norber to Odebr echt, Education T hrough Wor k

Big STINKS !

Midsize
Super star s /
Enter :

T he Master s of

**

MITTELSTAND *

* “agile creatures darting between the legs
of
the multinational monsters” ( Bloomberg BusinessWeek,
10.10)

**E.g. Goldmann Produktion

THE RED
CARPET
STORE
(Joel Resnick/Flemington NJ)

Retail Superstars:
Inside the 25 Best
Independent
Stores
in America
—by George Whalin

Jungle Jim’s International Market, Fairfield , Ohio :

‘

“An adventure in sho pp ertainment ,’ as
Jungle Jim’s calls it, begins in the parking lot
and goes on to 1,600 cheeses and, yes,

1,400 varieties of hot sauce —not to
mention 12,000 wines priced from $8
to $8,000 a bottle; all this is brought to you by
4,000 vendors . Customers come from every
corner of the globe.”

Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland, Frankenmuth ,

98,000-square-foot
“shop” features the likes of 6,000
Christmas ornaments, 50,000 trims ,
Michi g an , pop 5,000:

and anything else you can name if it pertains to
Christmas.
Source: George Whalin, Retail Superstars

“ BE THE BEST.
IT’S THE ONLY
MARKET THAT’S
NOT CROWDED.”
From: Retail Superstars: Inside the 25 Best
Independent Stores in America, George Whalin

Small Giants:
Companies That Choose to
Be Great Instead of Big

Small Giants: Companies that Chose to
Be Great Instead of Big (Bo
Burlingham)
“ THEY CULTIVATED EXCEPTIONALLY INTIMATE
RELATIONSHIPS WITH CUSTOMERS AND SUPPLIERS ,
based on personal contact, one-on-one interaction,
and mutual commitment to delivering on promises.
“E ACH COMPANY HAD AN EXTRAORDINARILY
INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LOCAL CITY,
TOWN, OR COUNTY in which it did business -- a
relationship that went well beyond the usual concept
of `giving back.’
“ The companies had what struck me as UNUSUALLY
INTIMATE WORKPLACES .
“ I noticed the PASSION that the leaders brought to
what the company did. THEY LOVED THE SUBJECT
MATTER , whether it be music, safety lighting, food,
special effects, constant torque hinges, beer, records

Motueka, New Zealand

Coppins Sea
Anchors*
* PSA/Para-sea

anchors

Source: Kia Ora /Air New Zealand magazine

“ You do not merel y want
to be the best of the

You want to
be considered
the only ones
who do what you
do .”
best.

—Jer r y Gar cia

Big STINKS !

New
Jer sey’s 14year-old
Proustian
Super star
Enter :

“ We are in no danger
of running out of
new combinations
try. Even
if technology froze today, we have
more possible ways of configuring
the different applications,
machines, tasks, and distribution
channels to create new processes
and products than we could ever
exhaust.” — Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee , Race
Against the Machine: How the Digital
Innovation, Driving Productivity and
Employment and the

Revolution Is Accelerating
Irreversibly Transforming
Economy

“The prospect of contracting a gofer on an a

For instance, wouldn’t it
be convenient if I could outsource someone
to write a paragraph here, explaining the
history of outsourcing in America? Good idea! I
la carte basis is enticing.

went ahead and commissioned just such a paragraph from
Get Friday, a ‘virtual personal assistant- firm based in
Bangalore. … The paragraph arrived in my in-box ten days
after I ordered it. It was 1,356 words. There is a bibliography
with eleven sources. … At $14 an hour for seven hours of
work, the cost came to $98. …” —Patricia Marx, “Outsource
Yourself,” The New Yorker, 01.14.2013 (Marx describes in detail contracting
out everything associated with hosting her book club —including the

provision of “witty” comments on Proust, since she hadn’t had time to

the
writer/contractor turned out to be
a 14- y ear-old g irl from New Jerse y .)

read the book—excellent comments only set her back $5;

“ The ecosystem used to
funnel lots of talented
people into a few clear
winners. Now it’s

funnelin g lots of
talented p eo p le
into lots of
ex p eriments .”

“Bay Watched:
How San Francisco’s New Entrepreneurial Culture Is
— Tyler Willis, business developer, to Nathan Heller in

USA 1996-2007

Highest r ate
entr epreneurial
activity (fir ms
founded):
Ages 55-64
Lowest r ate: Ages 2034

14,000/ e Bay
20,000/Amazon
30 /Cr aigslist

“We are crazy. We should do
something when people say

If people
say something is
‘good’, it means
someone else is
already doing it.”
it is ‘crazy.’

—Hajime Mitar ai, Canon

“ We all agree
your theory is
crazy. The
q uestion, which
divides us, is
whether it is
craz y enou g h .”

—Niels

Where’s
your “Craig’s
List

Every project:

[WOW!]
option” ?

Kevin Rober ts’ Credo

1. Ready. Fire! Aim.

2. If it ain’t broke ... Break it!
3. Hire crazies.
4. Ask dumb questions.
5. Pursue failure.
6. Lead, follow ... or get out of the way!
7. Spread confusion.
8. Ditch your office.
9. Read odd stuff.

AVOID
MODERATION !
10.

Innovation Index : How

many of your Top 5 Strategic
Initiatives/Key Projects scor e
8 or higher [out of 10] on a
“Weir d” / “Pr ofound” /
“Wow” / “Game-changer”
Scale?

“ Excellence can be obtained if you:
... care more than others think is
wise;
... risk more than others think is
safe;
... dream more than others think
is practical;
... expect more than others think
is possible.”
Source: Anon. (Posted @ tompeters.com by
K.Sriram, November 27, 2006 1:17 AM)

EXCELLENCE is
not an
"aspiration.”
EXCELLENCE is …
THE NEXT FIVE
MINUTES .

Excellence is the next five
minutes …

OR NOT.

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

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