Leading in Totally Screwed Up Times:
The Leadership50Tom Peters/Linkage/01November 2001
All Slides Available at …
tompeters.comNote: Lavender text in this file is a link.
“There will be more
confusion in the business world in the next decade than in any decade in history. And the
current pace of change will only accelerate.”
Steve Case
Uncertainty: We don’t know when things will get back
to normal.
Ambiguity: We no longer know what “normal”
means.
BMcC: (1) Hierarchy vs. “Network organization.” (2)
NWO = “Doctrine as center of gravity”/source of motivation;
distributed support & decision-making;largely self-organizing; “outside the military sphere.”
“Our military structure today is essentially one
developed and designed by Napoleon.”
Admiral Bill Owens, former Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
From: Weapon v. Weapon
To: Org structure v. Org structure
The Leadership50
1. Leaders Cede Control.
“I don’t know.”
Leaders-Teachers Do Not “Transform People”!
Instead leaders-mentors-teachers (1) provide a context which is marked by (2) access to a luxuriant portfolio of meaningful opportunities (projects) which
(3) allow people to fully (and safely, mostly—caveat: “they”
don’t engage unless they’re “mad about something”) express their innate curiosity and (4) engage in a vigorous
discovery voyage (alone and in small teams, assisted by an
extensive self-constructed network) by which those people (5) go to-create places they (and their mentors-teachers-
leaders) had never dreamed existed—and then the leaders-mentors-teachers (6) applaud like hell, stage
“photo-ops,” and ring the church bells 100 times to commemorate the bravery of their
“followers’ ” explorations!
2. Great Leaders on Snorting
Steeds Are Important – but
Great Talent Developers (Type I
Leadership) are the Bedrock of Organizations that Perform Over
the Long Haul.
Model24/7: Sports Franchise GM
P.S.: Jack didn’t have a vision!
3. But Then Again, There Are Times When This “Cult of Personality”
(Type II Leadership) Stuff Actually Works!
“A leader is a dealer in hope.”
Napoleon
4. Find the “Businesspeople”!
(Type III Leadership)
I.P.M. (Inspired Profit
Mechanic)
5. Leadership Mantra
#1: IT ALL DEPENDS!
Renaissance Men are … a snare, a
myth, a delusion!
6. The Leader Is Rarely/Never the Best Performer.
33 Division Titles. 26 League Pennants. 14
World Series: Earl Weaver—0. Tom Kelly—0. Jim Leyland—0.
Walter Alston—1AB. Tony LaRussa—132 games, 6 seasons. Tommy Lasorda—P, 26 games. Sparky
Anderson—1 season.
7. Leaders LOVE the
MESS!
“If things seem under control, you’re just not
going fast enough.”
Mario Andretti
8. Leaders
DO!
The Kotler Doctrine:
1965-1980: R.A.F.(Ready.Aim.Fire.)
1980-1995: R.F.A.(Ready.Fire!Aim.)
1995-????: F.F.F.(Fire!Fire!Fire!)
9. BUT … Leaders
Know When to Wait.
Tex Schramm: The “too hard”
box!
10. Leaders Are
Optimists.
Half-full Cups: “[Ronald Reagan] radiated an almost transcendent
happiness.”Lou Cannon, George (08.2000)
11. BUT … Leaders Are
Realists/Leaders Win Through LOGISTICS!
The “Gus Imperative”!
12. Leaders
FOCUS!
“To Don’t ” List
13. Leaders Trust in
TRUST!
Credibility!
14. Leaders Know …
Women Roar/ Women Rule.
“AS LEADERS, WOMEN RULE: New Studies find that female managers
outshine their male counterparts in almost
every measure”Title, Special Report, Business Week, 11.20.00
Women’s Strengths: Link [rather than rank] workers; favor interactive-collaborative
leadership style [empowerment > top-down decision making]; sustain fruitful collaborations;
comfortable with sharing information; see redistribution of power as victory, not surrender;
favor multi-dimensional feedback; value interpersonal & technical skills, group &
individual contributions equally; readily accept ambiguity; honor intuition as well as pure
“rationality”; inherently flexible; appreciate cultural diversity
Source: Judy B. Rosener, America’s Competitive Secret
“Boys are trained in a way that will make
them irrelevant.”Phil Slater
15. Leaders LOVE RAINBOWS – for Pragmatic Reasons.
“Diversity defines the health and wealth of nations in a new century.
Mighty is the mongrel. … The hybrid is hip. The impure, the mélange, the adulterated, the
blemished, the rough, the black-and-blue, the mix-and-match – these people are inheriting
the earth. Mixing is the new norm. Mixing trumps isolation. It spawns creativity,
nourishes the human spirit, spurs economic growth
and empowers nations.”
G. Pascal Zachary, The Global Me: New Cosmopolitans and the Competitive Edge
16. Leaders FORGET!/
Leaders DESTROY!
Forget>“Learn”
“The problem is never how to get new, innovative
thoughts into your mind,
but how to get the old ones out.”
Dee Hock
“Good management was the most powerful reason [leading firms] failed to
stay atop their industries. Precisely because these firms listened to their customers, invested aggressively in technologies that would
provide their customers more and better products of the sort they wanted, and because
they carefully studied market trends and systematically allocated investment capital to
innovations that promised the best returns, they lost their positions of leadership.”
Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma
17. BUT … Leaders Have to Deliver, So They Worry About “Throwing the Baby Out with the
Bathwater.”
“Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t, Just Plain
Damned”Subtitle in the chapter, “Own Up to the Great Paradox: Success
Is the Product of Deep Grooves/ Deep Grooves Destroy Adaptivity,” Liberation Management (1992)
18. Leaders …
HONOR THE USURPERS.
Saviors-in-Waiting
Disgruntled CustomersUpstart CompetitorsRogue EmployeesFringe Suppliers
Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision: Beat the Competition by Focusing on Fringe Competitors, Lost
Customers, and Rogue Employees
19. Leaders
HANG OUT WITH
FREAKS!
“Are there enough weird people in the lab
these days?”V. Chmn., pharmaceutical house, to a lab director (06.01)
20. Leaders Make [Lotsa] Mistakes
– and MAKE NO BONES ABOUT IT!
“Fail faster. Succeed sooner.”
David Kelley/IDEO
21. Leaders Make BIG MISTAKES!
“Reward excellent
failures. Punish mediocre successes.”
Phil Daniels, Sydney exec (and, de facto, Jack)
22. Leaders Set DESIGN SPECS.
JackWorld/1@T: (1) Neutron Jack. (Banish bureaucracy.) (2) “1, 2 or out” Jack. (Lead or leave.) (3)
“Workout” Jack. (Empowerment,
GE style.) (4) 6-Sigma Jack. (5)
Internet Jack. (Throughout)
TALENT JACK!
23. Leaders Send V-E-R-Y Clear Signals About Design Specs!
Ridin’ with Roger: “What have you done to
DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE quality in the
last 90 days?”
24. Leaders Know that
THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN “LINE EXTENSIONS.” Leaders Love to CREATE NEW
MARKETS.
No one ever made it into the Business Hall of Fame on a record of
“line extensions.”
“Acquisitions are about
buying market share. Our challenge is to create markets.
There is a big difference.” Peter Job, CEO, Reuters
25. Leaders Make Their Mark / Leaders Do
Stuff That Matters
The greatest dangerfor most of us
is not that our aim istoo high
and we miss it,but that it is
too lowand we reach it.
Michelangelo
26. Leaders Push Their
Organizations W-a-y Up the Value-added/
Intellectual Capital Chain
09.11.2000: HP bids
$18,000,000,000for
PricewaterhouseCoopersConsulting business!
[“These days, building the best server isn’t enough. That’s the
price of entry.”
Ann Livermore, Hewlett-Packard]
27. Leaders
LOVE the New Technology!
100 square feet
I’net …
… allows you to dream dreams
you could never have dreamed
before!
28. Needed? Type IV Leadership: Technology
Dreamer-True Believer
The Golden Leadership Quadrangle: (1) Creator-Inventor-Visionary … (2)
Talent Fanatic … (3) Inspired Profit Mechanic. (4) Technology Dreamer-
True Believer
29. When It Comes to
TALENT … Leaders Always Swing
for the Fences!
Message: Some people are better than other
people. Some people are a helluva lot better than other
people.
“We believe companies can increase their market cap 50 percent in 3 years. Steve
Macadam at Georgia-Pacific changed 20 of his 40 box plant managers to put
more talented, higher paid managers in charge. He increased
profitability from $25 million to $80 million in 2 years.”
Ed Michaels, War for Talent (05.17.00)
30. Leaders “Win Followers Over”
WHAT AN IDIOT: “Instead of employees being in the driver’s
seat, now we’re in the driver’s seat.”
PJ: “Coaching is winning
players over.”
31. Leaders “Manage” Their
Internal Brand Promise.
MantraM3
Talent = Brand
32. Leaders Know “It’s My Fault.”
You recruited ’em.You hired ’em.
You trained ’em. You evaluated ’em.
You “motivated” ’em.
33. Leaders have MENTORS.
The Gospel According to TP: Upon having the Leadership
Mantle placed upon thine head, thou shalt never hear the unvarnished
truth again!* (*Therefore, thy needs one faithful
compatriot to lay it on with no jelly.)
34. Leaders Out
Their
PASSION!
“Let’s make a dent in the universe.”
Steve Jobs
G.H.: “Create a ‘cause,’ not a ‘business.’ ”
35. Leaders Know: ENTHUSIASM
BEGETS ENTHUSIASM!
BZ: “I am a … DISPENSER
OF ENTHUSIASM!
”
36. Leaders Know It’s ALL SALES ALL THE
TIME.
TP: If you don’t LOVE SALES … find
another life. (Don’t pretend
you’re a “leader.”)
37. Leaders
LOVE “POLITICS.”
TP: If you don’t LOVE POLITICS … find
another life. (Don’t pretend
you’re a “leader.”)
38. But … Leaders Also
Break a Lot of China
If you’re not pissing people off, you’re not making
a difference!
Characteristics of the “Also rans”*
“Minimize risk”“Respect the chain of
command”“Support the boss”
“Make budget”
*Fortune, article on “Most Admired Global Corporations”
39. Leaders
Give … RESPECT!
“It was much later that I realized Dad’s secret. He gained respect by giving it. He
talked and listened to the fourth-grade kids in Spring Valley who shined shoes the same way he talked and listened to a
bishop or a college president. He was seriously interested in who you were and what you had to say.”
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Respect
40. Leaders Say
“Thank You.”
“The deepest human need is the
need to be appreciated.”
William James
41. Leaders …
SHOW UP!
Rudy!
42. Leadership Is a Performance.
BELIEVE IT.
“It is necessary for the President to be the
nation’s No. 1 actor.”FDR
43. Leaders Have
a GREAT STORY!
“A key – perhaps the key – to leadership is the effective
communication of a story.”
Howard Gardner Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership
44. Leaders Seed & Pursue &
Recognize (Weird) “Demos.”
L.B.I.W.D. (Leading
By Inducing Weird Demos)
Leaders aimed on changing their
world identify palpable heroes, who executed palpable projects—they
point to these people and say to the masses, “See, here it is, done by one of your own.” (And then they
“deep-dip” a few of those heroes to demo their seriousness.)
45. Leaders Focus on the
SOFT STUFF!
“Soft” Is “Hard”
Message: Leadership is all about love! [Passion, Enthusiasms, Appetite for Life,
Engagement, Commitment, Great Causes & Determination to Make a
Damn Difference, Shared Adventures, Bizarre Failures, Growth, Insatiable
Appetite for Change.] [Otherwise, why bother? Just read Dilbert. TP’s final words: CYNICISM SUCKS.]
46. Leaders …
SERVE.
Robert Greenleaf: Servant Leadership
47. Leaders KNOW THEMSELVES.
Individuals (would-be leaders) cannot engage in a
liberating mutual discovery process unless they are comfortable with their own skin. (“Leaders” who are not comfortable with themselves become petty
control freaks.)
48. Leaders Are
Graceful.
“My favorite word is grace –
whether it’s amazing grace,
saving grace, grace under
fire, Grace Kelly. How we live contributes to beauty – whether it’s how we treat other people or
the environment.”
Celeste Cooper, designer
Rodale’s on “Grace” …
elegance … charm … loveliness … poetry in motion … kindliness ..
benevolence … benefaction … compassion … beauty
49.
Leaders ???:
“LEADERS NEED TO BE THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR ON
ROLLER BLADES”
“Hire smart – go bonkers – have grace – make mistakes – love technology – start all
over again.”
50. Leaders Know
WHEN TO LEAVE!
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