Tom Peters

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Tom Peters EXCELLENCE. ALWAYS.London
Business Forum03 September 2009Morning/HR
Professionals
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NOTE To appreciate this presentation and
ensure that it is not a mess, you need Microsoft
fonts Showcard Gothic, Ravie, Chiller
and Verdana
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Slides at tompeters.com
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Inno8
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1
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Little BIG
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Big carts 1.5X Source WalMart
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Socks 10,000
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see green recover 20 faster
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6.5 feet Away -63 Seconds
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(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 (5) An Attitude (6) Dont need
to be a Big Boss
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• Half-day/25 ideas
• One week/5 experiments
• (3) One month/Select best 2
• (4) 60-90 days/Roll out

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Design is everything. Everything is
design. We are all designers. Inspiration
The Power of Design A Force for Transforming
Everything, Richard Farson
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2
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1/40
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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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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.
Source The Hunters, by 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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Experiment fearlesslySource BW0821.06, Type
A Organization Strategies/ How to Hit a Moving
TargetTactic 1
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We ground up more pig brains!
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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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3
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Fail . Forward. Fast.High Tech CEO,
Pennsylvania
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Fail faster. Succeed Sooner.David
Kelley/IDEO
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Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre
successes.Phil Daniels, Sydney exec
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Read This!Richard Farson Ralph Keyes Whoever
Makes the Most Mistakes Wins The Paradox of
Innovation
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It is not enough to tolerate failureyou must
celebrate failure. Richard Farson (Whoever
Makes the Most Mistakes Wins)
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4
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Some people look for things that went wrong and
try to fix them. I look for things that went
right, and try to build off them. Bob Stone (Mr
ReGo)
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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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Where planners raise high expectations but
take no responsibility for meeting them,
searchers prefer to work case-by-case, using
trial and error to tailor solutions to individual
problems, fully aware that most remedies must be
homegrown. WSJ, 0822.06 (on malaria
eradication, and hedge fund manager Lance
Laifer)Planners WHO, World Bank, etc see
poverty as a technical engineering problem that
their answers will solve. William Easterly
All sorts of approaches need to be tried and we
need feedback. Roger Bate
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Never doubt that a small group of committed
people can change the world. Indeed it is the
only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead
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5
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Playmate!Playpen!Prototype!Can be Client,
supplier as well as Insider
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Where to look for Playmates F.F.F.F. (Find
a Fellow Freak Faraway)
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6
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Parallel Universe China!!!!!!!
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Build a School on top of a school (The Parallel
Universe Strategy)
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SkunkWorks/ ParallelUniversethe 1
solutionSource Scott Bedbury (Others 3M,
Google, Shell, NAVFAC)
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SkunkWorks/ Skunks (!!!)
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7
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We are the company we keep
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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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The Billion-man Research Team Companies
offering work to online communities are reaping
the benefits of crowdsourcing. Headline,
FT, 0110.07
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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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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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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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8
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X XFXExcellence Cross-functional
Excellence
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Never waste a lunch!
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???? XF lunches Measure!
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(Way) Underutilized LeverSpace!Space!Space!Sp
ace!
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Geologists Geophysicists A little bit of
love Oil
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gt100 feet 100 miles
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Lunch Proximity gt SAP/Oracle
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people power The talent 30
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Organizations exist to serve. Period. Leaders
live to serve. Period.
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I have always believed that the purpose of the
corporation is to be a blessing to the
employees. Boyd Clarke
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Cause (worthy of commitment)Space (room
for/encouragement
for initiative) Decency (respect,
humane)
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Cause (worthy of commitment)Space (room
for/encouragement for initiative-adventures)
Decency (respect, grace, integrity, humane)
service (worthy of our clients extended

familys continuing custom)excellence (period)
servant leadership
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Cause Space Decency serviceexcellence
servant leadership
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Leaders SERVE people. Period. inspired by
Robert Greenleaf
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1. people! People!
people! People!
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The most important decisions businesspeople make
are not what decisions but who decisions.
Jim Collins, Good to Great
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TP How to flush 500,000 down the toilet in
one easy lesson!!
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lt CAPEXgt People!
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Wegmans
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2. The Customer is Job
1!
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And that principal customer is
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You have to treat your employees like
customers. Herb Kelleher, complete answer, upon
being asked his secrets to success Source
Joe Nocera, NYT, Parting Words of an Airline
Pioneer, on the occasion of Herb Kellehers
retirement after 37 years at Southwest Airlines
(SWAs pilots union took out a full-page ad in
USA Today thanking HK for all he had done across
the way in Dallas American Airlines pilots were
picketing the Annual Meeting)
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The Customer Comes Second Hal Rosenbluth
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3. Soft Is Hard.
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Excellence1982 The Bedrock Eight
Basics 1. A Bias for Action 2. Close to the
Customer 3. Autonomy and Entrepreneurship 4.
Productivity Through People 5. Hands On,
Value-Driven 6. Stick to the Knitting 7. Simple
Form, Lean Staff 8. Simultaneous Loose-Tight
Properties
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Breakthrough 82 People! Customers! Action!
Values! In Search of Excellence
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Hard Is SoftSoft Is Hard
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Hard Is Soft (Plans, s)Soft Is Hard
(people, customers, values, relationships)
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4. The Find em
obsession Biz Strategic Priority 1 ?!.
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Development can help great people be even
better but if I had a dollar to spend, Id spend
70 cents getting the right person in the door.
Paul Russell, Director, Leadership
Development, Google
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CtaOChief talent acquisition Officer
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1.Strategic.Priority.Period.
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5. Focus on the 1
determinant of employee satisfaction (or the lack
thereof)
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Employee retention satisfaction
Overwhelmingly, based on the first-line
manager!Source Marcus Buckingham Curt
Coffman, First, Break All the Rules What the
Worlds Greatest Managers Do Differently
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6. Legacy 10!
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2/year legacy.
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Big ThreeRecruit-Hire.1st line
supervisors.Promotion decisions.And?????
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7. Talent Excellence
Stretches Far Beyond Our Borders.
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We are the company we keep
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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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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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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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8. Expand the definition of
our talent pool Master Crowd-sourcing,
Wikiworld!
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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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The Billion-man Research Team Companies
offering work to online communities are reaping
the benefits of crowdsourcing. Headline,
FT, 0110.07
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Technology massively multiplies soft
powerparticularly video technology, and
particularly in the hands of non-state actors.
The power and distinction of a governments voice
is lost in the competing chatter, and in some
ways it becomes the least compelling simply
because its the least novel. Its not just words
competing against words. Images are now competing
against images. People are visual creatures, and
they tend to respond to videos and pictures on a
much less rational and much more visceral level.
YouTube (and whatever follows it) will soon
have greater global influence over narratives
about international events (if it doesnt
already) than any government information source
could hope to have. Foreign Policy, Nov-Dec
2008
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obama vs McCain
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We ARE NAKED. The entire distributed community
is part of our corporate culture. The entire
distributed community is part of our Brand.
We are accountable to the entire distributed
community. Our power can multiply overnight.
Our power can dissipate in a click.
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9. Diversity of every
sort!
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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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Carnegie Mellon Prof Richard Florida on Creative
Capital You cannot get a technologically
innovative place unless its open to weirdness,
eccentricity and difference.Source New York
Times
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10. Women Dominate
Economics!
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Forget China, India and the Internet Economic
Growth Is Driven by Women. Headline,
Economist, April 15, 2006, Leader, page 14
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One thing is certain Womens rise to power,
which is linked to the increase in wealth per
capita, is happening in all domains and at all
levels of society. Women are no longer content to
provide efficient labor or to be consumers with
rising budgets and more autonomy to spend.
This is just the beginning. The phenomenon will
only grow as girls prove to be more successful
than boys in the school system. For a number of
observers, we have already entered the age of
womenomics, the economy as thought out and
practiced by a woman. Aude Zieseniss de Thuin,
Financial Times
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11. Talent Masters Focus on Talents Intangibles.
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EMPHASIZE THE SOFT SKILLS.
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12. Hire enthusiasm!
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Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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13. Hire for _____!
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?
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14. Embrace the action
Faction!
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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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15. Cheer and promote for!
the worthy failures!
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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. Mike
Bloomberg
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16. Exalt the dull Doers!!
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eighty percent of success is showing up.
Woody Allen
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17. Hire and Promote for relationship
excellence.
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Highest R.O.I.R. Wins!
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Return on investment in relationships
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18. HR Sits at The Head
Table.
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A review of Jack and Suzy Welchs Winning
claims there are but two key differentiators that
set GE culture apart from the
herd Separating financial forecasting and
performance measurement. Performance measurement
based, as it usually is, on budgeting leads to an
epidemic of gaming the system. GEs performance
measurement is divorced from budgetingand
instead reflects how you do relative to your past
performance and relative to competitors
performance i.e., its about how you actually do
in the context of what happened in the real
world, not as compared to a gamed-abstract plan
developed last year. Putting HR on a par with
finance and marketing.
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19. Goal Amazing quests!
Life Success! Dreams Come true! for everyone
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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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We are a Life Success Company.Dave Liniger,
founder, RE/MAX
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We All Have Dreams!Collective Dream Fulfillment
Business Performance EXCELLENCEWhat is an
employees purpose? Most would say, to help the
company achieve its purposebut they would be
wrong. That is certainly part of the employees
role, but an employees primary purpose is to
become the-best-version-of-himself or herself.
Matthew Kelly, The Dream Manager
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20. Re-name HR.
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Talent Department
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Dream Realization Department
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21. Training I Train!
Train! Train!
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26.3HPY
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Its a numbers game! (mostly)
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22. Training II MBAS
relevant to GTD! Getting things Done
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The GTD MBA Getting Things Done
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Core Managing people I, II, III, IV Creating
and managing systems with high
impact Leadership I, II Servant
leadership Execution I, II, III Creating a Try
it now-Fail Forward Fast-Ready. Fire. Aim.
culture Maximizing ROIR Return On Investment
in Relationships Sales I, II, III,
IV Service basics I, II Creating incredible
customer experiences
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Core The art and science of influence I,
II Crucial conversations-Crucial
confrontations Accounting I, II acctg., not
finance Accountability I, II Calendar
mastery/Mastering to dont MBWA I,
II Nurturing and harvesting curiosity in one
and all Giving great presentations I, II Active
listening I, II Excellence as aspiration,
Excellence everywhere, Excellence all the time
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Other Recruiting top talent for 100 of
enterprise jobs Recruiting for smiles,
enthusiasm, energy Nurturing top
talent Helping people (employees, customers,
vendors, communities) grow and realize their
dreams The promotion decision Women as
pre-eminent leaders The power of
decentralizationand the barriers thereto
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Other The art of finding and loving
freaks Creating an environment of respect and
decency The pre-eminent role of emotion in
everything Saying thank you I, II Aggressive
apologizing Giving good phone, working the
phones Creating and nurturing lasting win-win
alliances The real stuff-basics of cross-
functional excellence
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Other The Art of the Nudge Rapid prototyping
of everything, and the Art of Serious
Play Rewarding failures Increasing a businesss
metabolic rate Diversity power everywhere The
power of universal transparency
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23. Training III The
REAL Bedrock of the Talent Thing.
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My wife and I went to a kindergarten
parent-teacher conference and were informed that
our budding refrigerator artist, Christopher,
would be receiving a grade of Unsatisfactory in
art. We were shocked. How could any childlet
alone our childreceive a poor grade in art at
such a young age? His teacher informed us that
he had refused to color within the lines, which
was a state requirement for demonstrating
grade-level motor skills. Jordan Ayan, AHA!
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24. Re-spect!
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• It was much later that I realized Dads 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

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25. Encourage Dis-respect!
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All You Need to Know About Sources of
Innovation Angry people! angry with the
status quo
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26. Talent Excellence!
Leaders who ask! Leaders who listen!
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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, source of original unknown
(0609.08)
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27. Thank You!
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The deepest human need is the need to be
appreciated.William James
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28. We Are All Unique.

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The key difference between checkers and chess
is that in checkers the pieces all move the same
way, whereas in chess all the pieces move
differently. Discover what is unique about each
person and capitalize on it. Marcus
Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know
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The mediocre manager believes that most things
are learnable and therefore that the essence of
management is to identify ach persons weaker
areas and eradicate them. The great manager
believes the opposite. He believes that the most
influential qualities of a person are innate and
therefore that the essence of management is to
deploy these innate qualities as effectively as
possible and so drive performance. Marcus
Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know
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29. Talent Brand.
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Our MissionTo develop and manage talentto
apply that talent,throughout the world, for the
benefit of clientsto do so in partnership to
do so with profit.WPP
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Brand Talent.
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30. excellence.
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The greatest dangerfor most of usis not that
our aim istoo highand we miss it,but that it
istoo lowand we reach it.Michelangelo