Tom’s 25TIBs*

*TIB = This I Believe

IBM/Ninth House/Tom Peters Company/09.24.2002

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like

irrelevance even less.” —General Eric Shinseki, Chief

of Staff, U. S. Army

1. TECHNICOLOR RULES! (Passion Moves Mountains!)

!

“Don’t rebuild. Reimagine.”

The New York Times Magazine on the future of the WTC space in Lower Manhattan/09.08.2002

2. “Kaizen” (Continuous Improvement) Is VDS/

Very … Dangerous … Stuff.

Just Say No …

“I don’t intend to be known as the ‘King of

the Tinkerers.’ ”CEO, large financial services company

(New York, 5-99)

“Incrementalism is innovation’s worst enemy.”

Nicholas Negroponte

Characteristics of the “Also rans”*

“Minimize risk”“Respect the chain of

command”“Support the boss”

“Make budget”*Fortune, article on

“Most Admired Global Corporations”

“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder,

bloodshed—and produced Michelangelo, da Vinci and the

Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce

—the cuckoo clock.”Orson Welles, as Harry Lime, in “The Third Man”

3. “Permanence” Is a Snare & a Delusion.

(Forget “Built to Last.” It’s Yesterday’s

Idea.)

Jim & Tom. Joined at the

hip. Not.

“The corporation as we know it, which is now 120 years old, is not likely to survive the next 25 years. Legally and

financially, yes, but not structurally and economically.”

Peter Drucker, Business 2.0 (08.00)

4. DESTRUCTION RULES!

Forbes100 from 1917 to 1987: 39 members of the Class of ’17 were alive

in ’87; 18 in ’87 F100; 18 F100 “survivors” underperformed the market

by 20%; just 2 (2%), GE & Kodak, outperformed the market 1917 to 1987.

Source: Dick Foster & Sarah Kaplan, Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market

“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

5. Forget It! (“Learning” = Easy. “Forgetting” =

Nigh on Impossible.)

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

6. Innovation Is Easy: Hang Out with Freaks.

(Employees, Board Members, Customers,

Suppliers, Alliance Partners, Consultants.)

Saviors-in-Waiting

Disgruntled CustomersUpstart CompetitorsRogue EmployeesFringe Suppliers

Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision

7. Action … ALWAYS … Takes Precedence.

“Reward excellent

failures. Punish mediocre successes.”

Phil Daniels, Sydney exec (and, de facto, Jack)

“If it works, it’s

obsolete.”

—Marshall McLuhan

8. TALENT TIME! (He/She Who Has the Best “Roster” Rules!)

From “1, 2 or you’re out” [JW] to …

“Best Talent in each industry segment to build

best proprietary intangibles” [EM]

Source: Ed Michaels, War for Talent (05.17.00)

25/8/53*(*Damn it!)

9. Diversity’s Hour Is Now!

“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

10. SHE … Is the Best Leader!

“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 Match New Economy Imperatives: Link [rather than rank] workers;

favor interactive-collaborative leadership style [empowerment beats top-down decision making]; sustain fruitful collaborations; comfortable with sharing information; see redistribution of power

as victory, not surrender; favor multi-dimensional feedback; value technical & interpersonal skills, individual & group 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:Women Managers

11. WHAT ARE WE SELLING? “Experiences”

& “Solutions” > “Quality” & “Satisfaction.” (The

Traditional Value-added Equation Is Being Set on

Its Ear.)

“We want to be the air traffic

controllers of electrons.”

Bob Nardelli, GE Power Systems

WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?

Gerstner’s IBM: Systems Integrator of

choice. Global Services:

$35B. Pledge/’99: Business Partner Charter. 72 strategic partners,

aim for 200. Drop many in-house programs/products. (BW/12.01).

12. DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE =

Only Difference.

13. WHAT MATTERS IS STUFF THAT MATTERS.

(Query #1: “Are You Proud of It?”)

“The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of similar companies, employing similar people, with similar

educational backgrounds, coming up with similar ideas, producing

similar things, with similar prices and similar quality.”

Kjell Nordström and Jonas Ridderstråle, Funky Business

“The Internet is the most effective profit-killer on earth … it stimulates a TRUE

FREE MARKET; and a real free market is the most dangerous of marketplaces for

companies selling the SAME OLD STUFF. To those with COURAGE, free markets are

great—they help kill off the deadwood competitors who don’t have the courage

to change—making way for them to LEVERAGE their DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE

into profitable growth.”—Doug Hall

“I never, ever thought of myself as a businessman. I was

interested in creating things I would be

proud of.” —Richard Branson

14. eALL. (IS/IT: Half-way = No Way.)

15. DREAM … Big! DREAM … Enormous! DREAM …

Gargantuan! (These Are XXX Times.)

Message: THE NEXT SLIDE IS THE MOST

IMPORTANT SLIDE IN THIS PRESENTATION.

“Dawn Meyerreicks, CTO of the Defense Intelligence Systems Agency, made one of the most fateful military calls of the 21st century. After 9/11 … her office

quickly leased all the available transponders covering Central Asia. The implications should change everything about U.S. military thinking in the

years ahead.

“The U.S. Air Force had kicked off its fight against the Taliban with an ineffective bombing campaign, and Washington was anguishing over whether to send in a few Army divisions. Donald Rumsfeld told Gen. Tommy Franks to

give the initiative to 250 Special Forces already on the ground. They used satellite phones, Predator surveillance drones, and GPS- and laser-based

targeting systems to make the air strikes brutally effective.

“In effect, they ‘Napsterized’ the battlefield by cutting out the middlemen (much of the military’s command and control) and working directly with the

real players. … The data came in so fast that HQ revised operating procedures to allow intelligence analysts and attack planners to work directly

together. Their favorite tool, incidentally, was instant messaging over a secure network.”—Ned Desmond/“Broadband’s New Killer App”/Business

2.0/ OCT2002

“There’s no use trying,” said Alice. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was

your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve

believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Lewis Carroll

I’net …

… allows you to dream dreams

you could never have dreamed

before!

16. There Is Only … ONE BIG ISSUE:

(Crappy) Cross-functional

Communication.

“The organizations we created have become tyrants. They have taken

control, holding us fettered, creating barriers that hinder rather than help our businesses. The lines that we drew on our neat organizational diagrams have turned into walls

that no one can scale or penetrate or even peer over.” —Frank Lekanne Deprez &

Rene Tissen, Zero Space: Moving Beyond Organizational Limits.

17. The … WHITE-COLLAR REVOLUTION … Will

Devour Everything in Its Path.

18. Take Charge of Your Destiny! BrandYou Moment! DISTINCT … OR EXTINCT!

E.g. …

Jeff Immelt: 75% of “admin, back room, finance” “digitalized” in

3 years.

Source: BW (01.28.02)

“Unless mankind redesigns itself by changing our DNA through altering our genetic

makeup, computer-generated robots will take

over the world.” – Stephen Hawking, in the German magazine Focus

“If there is nothing very special about

your work, no matter how hard you apply yourself, you won’t get noticed, and that

increasingly means you won’t get paid much either.”

Michael Goldhaber, Wired

Bill Parcells’ World/ Brand You World!

BLAME NOBODY!EXPECT NOTHING!DO SOMETHING!

NY Post (9/99)

“Nobody gives you power. You just take it.”—Roseanne

Brand You, Big Time!

I AM AN ARMY OF

ONE

19. YOUR CALENDAR KNOWS ALL. (You =

Calendar.)

“To Don’t ” List

“You must be the change you

wish to see in the world.”

Gandhi

20. Management Role 1: GET OUT OF THE WAY.

(Clear the Way.) (“Manager” = Hurdle

Removal Professional.)

“Ninety percent of what we call ‘management’ consists of making it

difficult for people to get things done.” – P.D.

21. AVOID THE: Epitaph from Hell!

Joe J. Jones Joe J. Jones 1942 – 2002 1942 – 2002

HE WOULDA DONE SOME HE WOULDA DONE SOME REALLY COOL STUFF REALLY COOL STUFF

BUT …BUT … HIS BOSS WOULDN’T LET HIM! HIS BOSS WOULDN’T LET HIM!

22. 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

23. “Thank You” Trumps All!

“The two most powerful things

in existence: a kind word and a thoughtful gesture.”

Ken Langone, CEO, Invemed Associates [from Ronna Lichtenberg, It’s Not Business, It’s Personal]

24. SOFT IS HARD. HARD IS SOFT. (Numbers Are

Soft. People Are Not.)

“Soft” Is “Hard”

- ISOE

25. DISPENSE

ENTHUSIASM!

BZ: “I am a … Dispenser of Enthusiasm!”