Paul Omerod:

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Paul Omerod 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 obvious

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Tom Peters Excellence. NOW. Innovate. Or
Die. Tecnológico de Monterrey El Paso/18 May
2012 (Slides at tompeters.com/Also see
excellencenow.com)
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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 obvious Buy a very
large one and just wait. Paul Ormerod, Why
Most Things Fail Evolution, Extinction and
Economics
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Mr. Foster and his McKinsey colleagues collected
detailed performance data stretching back 40
years for 1,000 U.S. companies. They found that
none of the long-term survivors managed to
outperform the market. Worse, the longer
companies had been in the database, the worse
they did. Financial Times
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Data drawn from the real world attest to a fact
that is beyond our control Everything in
existence tends to deteriorate. Norberto
Odebrecht, Education Through Work
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The Innovate or Die 20
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1
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try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it.
Try it. Try it. Screw it up. Try it. Try it. Try
it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Screw it up.
it. Try it. Try it. try it. Try it. Screw it up.
Try it. Try it. Try it.
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We have a strategic plan. Its called doing
things. Herb Kelleher
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This is so simple it sounds stupid, but it is
amazing how few oil people really understand that
you only find oil if you drill wells. You may
think youre finding it when youre drawing maps
and studying logs, but you have to drill. John
Masters, Canadian O G wildcatter
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We made mistakes, of course. Most of them were
omissions we didnt 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,
were already on prototype version 5. By the
time our rivals are ready with wires and screws,
we are on version 10. It gets back to planning
versus acting We act from day one others plan
how to planfor months. Bloomberg by Bloomberg
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Culture of PrototypingEffective prototyping
may be the most valuable core competence an
innovative organization can hope to have.
Michael Schrage

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Think about It!?Innovation Reaction to the
PrototypeSource Michael Schrage
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READY.FIRE!AIM.Ross Perot (vs Aim! Aim!
Aim! /EDS vs GM/1985)
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1A
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Fail . Forward. Fast.High Tech CEO,
Pennsylvania
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In business, you reward people for taking risks.
When it doesnt work out you promote them-because
they were willing to try new things. If people
tell me they skied all day and never fell down,
I tell them to try a different mountain.
Michael Bloomberg (BW/0625.07)
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The secret of fast progress is inefficiency,
fast and furious and numerous failures.Kevin
Kelly
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Success 101 Whoever tries the most stuff and
screws the most stuff up and most rapidly
launches the next try wins. Failures are not to
be tolerated, they are to be celebrated.
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It is not the strongest of the species that
survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one
most responsive to change. Charles Darwin
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1B
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1/4,096
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You miss 100 of the shots you never take.
Wayne Gretzky
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2
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The Parallel Universe Axiom
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the 1 solutionSource Scott
Bedbury/Starbucks (Others 3M, Google)
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SkunkWorks/ Skunks (!!!)
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Somewhere in your organization, groups of people
are already doing things differently and better.
To create lasting change, find these areas of
positive deviance and fan the flames. Richard
Pascale Jerry Sternin, Your Companys Secret
Change Agents, HBR
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Demos! Heroes! Stories!
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3
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Strategic Thrust Overlay
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GEInflationRD/Business
DevelopmentRisk managementWorkoutVA/Ser
viceSix Sigma
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GBTD TacticsSmall but
powerful Central Staff Line-likeSenior
Homegrown Boss StaffEnormous Incentives
/EvalLine Accountability Not Matrix
Demo-led Emergent MethodologyTour of
External ExcellenceBlitz TrainingCentral
Unit/Finite LifeSpeed!Goal Culture Change!
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Little BIGThank you, Mr. Prime Minister
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Big carts 1.5X Source WalMart
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Bag sizes New markets B Source
PepsiCo
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Socks 10,000
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see green recover 20 faster
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5
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XFX 1
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Never waste a lunch!
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???? XF lunches Measure! Monthly! Part of
evaluation! The PAs Club.
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XFX Social Accelerators. 1.
EVERYONEs 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. (Its one helluva sign
of ... GIVE-A-DAMN-ism.) 4. Invite counterparts
in other functions to your team meetings.
Religiously. Ask them to present cool stuff
from their world to your group. (B-I-G deal
useful and respectful.) 5. PROACTIVELY SEEK
EXAMPLES OF TINY ACTS OF XFX TO
ACKNOWLEDGEPRIVATELY 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 functions
folks.) 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. 7.
DiscussA SEPARATE AGENDA ITEMgood and
problematic acts of cross-functional co-operation
at every Team Meeting.
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THE WHOLE POINT HERE IS THAT XFX IS ALMOST
CERTAINALY THE 1 OPPORTUNITY FOR STRATEGIC
DIFFERENTIATION. WHILE MANY WOULD LIKELY AGREE,
IN OUR MOMENT-TO-MOMENT 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.
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Decentralization is not a piece of paper. Its
not me. Its either in your heart, or not.
Brian Joffe/BIDvest
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The True Logic of Decentralization6 divisions
6 tries6 divisions 6 DIFFERENT leaders
6 INDEPENDENT tries Max probability of
win6 divisions 6 very DIFFERENT leaders 6
very INDEPENDENT tries Max probability of
far out/3-sigma winDriver Law of
Large s
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Enemy 1I.C.D.Note 1 Inherent/Inevitable/Imm
utable Centralist DriftNote 2 Jim Burkes
1-word vocabulary No.
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7
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Mittelstand!
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Small Giants Companies That Choose to Be Great
Instead of Big
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Retail Superstars Inside the 25 Best Independent
Stores in America by George Whalin
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Be the best. Its the only market thats not
crowded. From Retail Superstars Inside the 25
Best Independent Stores in America, George Whalin
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The Red Carpet Store (Joel Resnick/Flemington NJ)
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We are the company we keep
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You will become like the five people you
associate with the mostthis can be either a
blessing or a curse. Billy Cox
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The We are what we eat axiom At its core,
every (!!!) relationship-partnership decision
(employee, vendor, customer, etc) is a strategic
decision about Innovate, Yes or No
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Measure Strangeness/Portfolio
QualityStaffConsultantsVendorsOut-sourcing
Partners (, Quality)Innovation Alliance
PartnersCustomersCompetitors (who we
benchmark against) Strategic Initiatives
Product Portfolio (LineEx v. Leap)IS/IT
ProjectsHQ LocationLunch MatesLanguageBoard
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CEO A.G. Lafley has shifted PGs focus on
inventing all its own products to developing
others inventions at least half the time. One
successful example, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser,
based on a product found in an Osaka market.
Fortune
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Dont benchmark, futuremark! Impetus The
future is already here its just not evenly
distributed William Gibson
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Whos the most interesting person youve met in
the last 90 days? How do I get in touch with
them? Fred Smith
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Freak Fridays once a month invite somebody
interesting, in any field, to have lunch with
your gang
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Normal o for 800
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Do one thing every day that scares you.
Eleanor Roosevelt
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Vanity Fair What is your most marked
characteristic? Mike Bloomberg Curiosity.
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10
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Diversity Per Se!Diverse groups of problem
solversgroups of people with diverse
toolsconsistently outperformed groups of the
best and the brightest. If I formed two groups,
one random (and therefore diverse) and one
consisting of the best individual performers, the
first group almost always did better. Diversity
trumped ability. Scott Page, The
Difference How the Power of Diversity Creates
Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies
Diversity
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The Bottleneck
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The Bottleneck Is at the Top of the
BottleWhere are you likely to find people
with the least diversity of experience, the
largest investment in the past, and the greatest
reverence for industry dogma At the top!
Gary Hamel/Harvard Business Review
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Rob McEwen/CEO/Goldcorp Inc./Red Lake
goldSource Wikinomics How Mass Collaboration
Changes Everything, Don Tapscott Anthony
Williams
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(No Transcript)
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The doctor interrupts after Source
Jerome Groopman, How Doctors Think
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18 seconds
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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 last. Listening is ... the
core of effective Cross-functional
Communication (Which is in turn
Attribute 1 of
organizational effectiveness.) cont.
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Listening is of the utmost strategic
importance!Listening is a proper core
value ! Listening is trainable !
Listening is a profession !
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The four most important words in any
organization are
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The four most important words in any
organization are What do you think?
Source courtesy Dave Wheeler, posted at
tompeters.com
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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.
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Iron 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.
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Conveyance Kingfisher Air Location Approach to
New Delhi
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May I clean your glasses, sir?Kingfisher
Air
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2,000,000
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ltTGWand gtTGRThings Gone WRONG-Things
Gone RIGHT
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Experiences are as distinct from services as
services are from goods. Joe Pine Jim
Gilmore, The Experience Economy Work Is Theatre
Every Business a Stage
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Starbucks Shaper of Culture At our core,
were a coffee company, but the opportunity we
have to extend the brand is beyond coffee its
entertainment. Howard Schultz (The Starbucks
Aesthetic, NYT, 10.22.06)
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CXOChief eXperience Officer
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Design is treated like a religion at BMW.
Fortune
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We dont have a good language to talk about
this kind of thing. In most peoples
vocabularies, design means veneer. But to me,
nothing could be further from the meaning of
design. Design is the fundamental soul of a
man-made creation. Steve Jobs
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You know a design is good when you want to lick
it. Steve Jobs Source Design Intelligence
Made Visible, Stephen Bayley Terence Conran
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Hypothesis DESIGN is the principal difference
between love and hate!
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CDOChief Design Officer
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Message (?????) Men cannot design for womens
needs.
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• W gt 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 combinedmore 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 thateven ones that
  are confidant that they have a winning strategy
  when it comes to women. Consider Dells
• Source Michael Silverstein and Kate Sayre, The
  Female Economy, HBR, 09.09

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Women are the majority market Fara
Warner/The Power of the Purse
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Forget China, India and the Internet Economic
Growth Is Driven by Women. Source Headline,
Economist
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Cases! Cases! Cases!McDonalds
(mom-centered to majority consumer not via
kids)Home Depot (Do it everything!
Herself)PG (more than house cleaner)
DeBeers (right-hand rings/4B)AXA
FinancialKodak (women emotional centers of
the household)Nike (gt jock endorsements new
def sports majority consumer)AvonBratz (young
girls want friends, not a blond
stereotype)Source Fara Warner/The Power of the
Purse
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The Perfect Answer
Jill and Jack buy slacks in black
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(No Transcript)
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Women dont buy brands. They join
them.Faith Popcorn, EVEolution
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2.6 vs. 21
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Can you pass the Squint test?
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Tweet 10.05.10 Word "commodity" obscene!
"Commodity" state of mind! ANYTHING ... can be
differentiated numerous wayslogistics, quality
of relationship, co-development of new use ...
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50BIBM Global Services/Systems
integrator of choice
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Planetary Rainmaker-in-Chief!Palmisanos
strategy is to expand techs borders by pushing
usersand entire industriestoward radically
different business models. The payoff for IBM
would be access to an ocean of revenuePalmisano
estimates it at 500 billion a year that
technology companies have never been able to
touch. Fortune
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Big Browns New Bag UPS Aims to Be the Traffic
Manager for Corporate America Headline/BW
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 (E.g., UPS Logistics manages the
logistics of 4.5M Ford vehicles, from 21 mfg.
sites to 6,000 NA dealers)
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THE GIANT STALKING BIG OIL How Schlumberger Is
Rewriting the Rules of the Energy Game. IPM
Integrated Project Management strays from
Schlumbergers traditional role as a service
provider and moves deeper into areas once
dominated by the majors. Source BusinessWeek
cover story, January 2008
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Era 1/Obvious Value Our it works, is
delivered on time (Close)Era 2/Augmented
Value How our it can add valuea useful it
(Solve)Era 3/Complex Value Networks How
our system can change you and deliver business
advantage (Culture-Strategic
change)Source Jeff Thull, The Prime Solution
Close the Value Gap, Increase Margins, and Win
the Complex Sale
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We are crazy. We should do something when
people say it is crazy. If people say something
is good, it means someone else is already doing
it.Hajime Mitarai, Canon
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Insanely Great Steve Jobs
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Radically thrilling BMW
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EXCELLENCE. BEDROCK.LEADERSHIP.9Ps.
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PURPOSE.PASSION.Potential.Presence.Personal.P
ERSISTENCE.PEOPLE. Potent.Positive.
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PURPOSE.PASSION.Potential.Presence.Personal.P
ERSISTENCE.PEOPLE. Potent.Positive.
127
People want to be part of something larger than
themselves. They want to be part of something
theyre really proud of, that theyll fight for,
sacrifice for , trust. Howard Schultz,
Starbucks (IBD/09.05)
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Management has a lot to do with answers.
Leadership is a function of questions. And the
first question for a leader always is Who do we
intend to be? Not What are we going to do? but
Who do we intend to be? Max De Pree, Herman
Miller
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PURPOSE.PASSION.Potential.Presence.Personal.P
ERSISTENCE.PEOPLE. Potent.Positive.
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Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Whenever anything is being accomplished, I have
learned, it is being done by a monomaniac with a
mission. Peter Drucker
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PURPOSE.PASSION.Potential.Presence.Personal.P
ERSISTENCE.PEOPLE. Potent.Positive.
133
The role of the Director is to create a space
where the actors and actresses can become more
than theyve ever been before, more than theyve
dreamed of being. Robert Altman, Oscar
acceptance speech
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PURPOSE.PASSION.Potential.Presence.Personal.P
ERSISTENCE.PEOPLE. Potent.Positive.
135
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PURPOSE.PASSION.Potential.Presence.Personal.P
ERSISTENCE.PEOPLE. Potent.Positive.
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You must be the change you wish to see in the
world.Gandhi
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To develop others, start with yourself.
Marshall Goldsmith
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"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no
one thinks of changing himself" Leo Tolstoy
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PURPOSE.PASSION.Potential.Presence.Personal.P
ERSISTENCE.PEOPLE. Potent.Positive.
141
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world.
The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt
the world to himself. Therefore, all progress
depends upon the unreasonable man. GB Shaw,
Man and Superman The Revolutionists'
Handbook.
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Success seems to be largely a matter of
hanging on after others have let go. William
Feather, author
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The most successful people are those who are
good at plan B. James Yorke, mathematician,
on chaos theory, in The New Scientist
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PURPOSE.PASSION.Potential.Presence.Personal.P
ERSISTENCE.PEOPLE. Potent.Positive.
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Leaders do people. Period. Anon.
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PURPOSE.PASSION.Potential.Presence.Personal.P
ERSISTENCE.PEOPLE. Potent.Positive.
147
Kevin Roberts Credo1.
Ready. Fire! Aim.2. If it aint 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.10. Avoid moderation!
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PURPOSE.PASSION.Potential.Presence.Personal.P
ERSISTENCE.PEOPLE. Potent.Positive.
149
On NELSON other admirals more frightened of
losing than anxious to win
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PURPOSE.PASSION.Potential.Presence.Personal.P
ERSISTENCE.PEOPLE. Potent.Positive.
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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 _at_ tompeters.com
by K. Sriram, November 27, 2006 117 AM)
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Epigraph/s Business has to give people
enriching, rewarding lives or it's simply not
worth doing. Richard Branson We have a
strategic plan. Its called doing things.
Herb Kelleher Execution is strategy. Fred
Malek There is absolutely nothing that beats
hard work. Sallie Krawcheck Courtesies of a
small and trivial character are the ones which
strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating
heart. Henry Clay Avoid moderation. Kevin
Roberts You know a design is cool when you
want to lick it. Steve Jobs This will be
the womens century. Dilma Rousseff Be the
best. Its the only market thats not crowded.
George Whalin