tom peters’ revgov2001* *revolutionary government/11.15.2001
TRANSCRIPT
Tom Peters’
RevGov2001*
*Revolutionary Government/11.15.2001
WE NEED …
IDEAS!
“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
“In an era when terrorists use satellite
phones and encrypted email, US gatekeepers stand armed against them with pencils
and paperwork, and archaic computer systems that don’t
talk to each other.”Boston Globe (09.30.2001)
From: Weapon v. Weapon
To: Org structure v. Org structure
Ideas > Leadership
NO: “Good gov’t”
YES: EFFECTIVE Gov’t (in altered/ambiguous
times)
A Plea for “virtual
[RESPONSIVE] government”
Agile.
WALLS MUST FALL!
The W.O.G. (Work-of-
Government): Insta- Targeted
WPTs (WOW (B.H.A.G.)
Project Teams (with
clout) )
Experiments rule!
Failures rule!
Talent matters!
New Heroes/Hall of Fame
IS/IT to the Max!
Streamlined
procurement (esp. IS/IT)
Tomorrow’s Organizations:
Itinerant Potential Machines
TALENT POOL TO DIE FOR. Youthful. Insanely energetic. Value creativity. Risk taking is
routine. Failing is normal … if you’re stretching. Want to ‘make their bones” in “the
revolution.”Love the new technologies. Well rewarded. Don’t plan to be around 10 years from
now.
TALENT POOL PLUS. Seek out and work with “world’s best” as needed (it’s often needed). “We
aim to change the world, and we need gifted colleagues—who well may not be on our
payroll.”
BRASSY-BUT-GROUNDED-LEADERSHIP. Say “I don’t know”—and then unleash the TALENT.
Have a vision to be DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT—but don’t expect the co. to be around forever. Will scrap pet projects, and change course 180
degrees—and take a big write-off in the process. NO REGRETS FROM SCREW-UPS WHOSE TIME
HAS NOT-YET-COME. GREAT REGRETS AT TIME & $$$ WASTED ON “ME TOO” PRODUCTS
AND PROJECTS.
BRASSY-BUT-GROUNDED-LEADERSHIP. (Cont.) “Visionary” leaders matched by leaders with
shrewd business sense: “HOW DO WE TURN A PROFIT ON THIS GORGEOUS IDEA?”
Appreciate “market creation” as much as or more than “market share growth.” ARE
INSANELY AWARE THAT MARKET LEADERS ARE ALWAYS IN PRECARIOUS POSITIONS,
AND THAT MARKET SHARE WILL NOT PROTECT US, IN TODAY’S VOLATILE WORLD,
FROM THE NEXT KILLER IDEA AND KILLER ENTREPRENEUR. (Gates. Ellison. Venter.
McNealy. Walton. Skilling. Case. Etc.)
ALLIANCE MANIACS. Don’t assume that “the best resides within.” WORK WITH A SHIFTING ARRAY OF STATE-OF-THE-ART PARTNERS
FROM ONE END OF THE “SUPPLY CHAIN” TO THE OTHER. Including vendors and
consultants and … especially … PIONEERING CUSTOMERS … who will “pull us into the
future.”
TECHNOLOGY-NETWORK FANATICS. Run the whole-damn-company, and relations with all
outsiders, on the Internet … at Internet speed. Reluctant to work with those who don’t share
this (radical) vision.
POTENTIAL MACHINES-ORGANISMS. Don’t know what’s coming next. But are ready to jump at opportunities, especially those that challenge-overturn our own “way of doing
things.”
P.S.: The CONSTITUTION matters! (Life, liberty & the pursuit of
happiness—and the Bill of Rights)
REPRESENTATIVE GOV’T matters. (Filter the worst of mass
sentiments—Hobbes rules)
Case: Bill Owens … Lifting the Fog
of War
“The 1990s was a decade of multiple revolutions—political, economic, technological—that
changed so thoroughly the way we live that the past no longer seems a good guide to the future (in fact the past seems precisely the wrong
guide). So it is in the world of military affairs. The RMA is our opportunity to use the new information technology to change the very nature of the military—in a way that could
reinvigorate American political, diplomatic and economic leadership in the world for decades to
come.” –Bill Owens, Lifting the Fog of War
“Our military is very good at doing things as they are supposed to be done, but it is not always good at changing the way things ought to be done. Highly
professional militaries can be very good at maintaining the institution’s traditions, mores and
cultures in the face of rapid and important change. … Equating professionalism with automatically defending the status quo can be disastrous.
This is the mindset that drives service loyalties toward narrow parochialism, and congeals organizations into brittle shells. We end up
ignoring opportunities that could actually offer higher military effectiveness.” –Bill Owens,
Lifting the Fog of War
“How dare you. If you don’t support us, our opponents will take
advantage and use this to cut the force.” –CNO staffer
[Flag officer] to Bill Owens, 6th Fleet Commander
“Mike [Boorda’s] self-avowed priority was to preserve and protect the size, budget and
structure of the U.S. Navy—his Navy—irrespective of any other consideration—
because he deeply believed that the Navy was the core of America’s military capability. My
view over the years had shifted toward the conviction that we in the Navy need to implement major changes in order to
become more joint—to work better and more closely with the other services.”
–Bill Owens, Lifting the Fog of War
“Many flaws remained—flaws not from poor performance, but from an ingrained command
hierarchy and an outmoded concept of war that had taken root during World War II and then during the cold war. Desert Storm was a joint
military operation in name rather than in fact. … The battlefield was divided among service components. …
The fiefdoms existed not only because of tradition, service rivalry and the egos of the commanders; they were also there because of technological limitations.
We did not have the communications capability to do it differently.” –Bill Owens, Lifting the Fog of War
“Once devised in Riyadh, the tasking order took hours to get to the Navy’s six aircraft carriers—because the
Navy had failed years earlier to procure the proper communications gear that would have connected the
Navy with its Air Force counterparts. … To compensate for the lack of communications capability, the Navy was forced to fly a daily cargo mission from
the Persian Gulf and Red Sea to Riyadh in order to pick up a computer printout of the air mission tasking
order, then fly back to the carriers, run photocopy machines at full tilt, and distribute the documents to the air wing squadrons that were planning the next
strike.” –Bill Owens, Lifting the Fog of War
“By combining powerful computer technology and other
modern information-based systems we could make a
revitalized, leaner military force that is designed to outsee,
outmaneuver and outfight any foe.” --Bill Owens, Lifting the Fog of War
RMA: (1) Battlespace awareness. (2) C4I.
(Command, control, communications, computers &
intelligence.) (3) Precision force use.
“[The RMA] means creating a synergy in new weapons, sensors and communications that is made
possible by the successful melding of the technological
applications with an information-age military organization.” –Bill Owens,
Lifting the Fog of War