Tom Peters by Re-Imagine

Author:Re-Imagine
Language: eng
Format: epub

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denigrate “useful deliverables.” (Just like my support of “exceeds expectations.”) Itʼs just that thereʼs just so much more to life—especial y in wild and wacky times.

Management guru Jim Col ins coined the phrase BHAG, or…Big Hairy Audacious Goal.

(Hurray.) Steve Jobsʼ mantra is…Insanely Great. (Hurray again.) I began this treatise (point No. 1!) extol ing…Technicolor. Very near the heart of the Technicolor spirit is…Technicolor Language. Its conscious use makes an enormous difference in how we live and how we work.

35. What matters is…Stuff That Matters.

I was writing a long article on leadership some time back, and I felt some nagging discomfort. I had offered a decent enough list of leadership “tools” and “strategies.” And yet I felt as if something was missing. Final y, I had a…Big Whoops Moment. “Everything” was there but

“It.” It = Why the Hel Are We Doing “It” in the First Place?

Virgin Group boss Richard Branson sums “It” up bril iantly: “I never, ever thought of myself as a businessman. I was interested in creating things I would be proud of.” Former Herman Mil er chief Max De Pree puts it this way: “Management has a lot to do with answers. Leadership is a function of questions. And the first question for a leader always is ʻWho do we intend to be?ʼ”

Strategy guru Gary Hamel turns al this into a commandment for future enterprise success in todayʼs confusing and uncomfortable world. He argues that new success means “creating a

ʻcause,ʼ not a ʻbusiness.ʼ”

Consider: “proud of”…“intend to be”…“cause.” ( = Nice. Nice. Nice.)

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One evening, after a desultory session with some very senior executives whom I found most uninspiring, I went on to a meeting with high school and university students who had been picked to attend the affair on the basis of their leadership potential. What a time I had! Again and again they put me on the spot, asking irritating questions such as, “Whatʼs your evidence that youʼve made the world a better place in the 20 years since In Search of Excel ence?” Wow!

Alas, it struck me (after being dumbstruck) that it is so rare for someone over, say, 25 or 35

to ask fundamental questions like that.

Most business language is: dry…unemotional…

stilted…formal. And yet…business…at its best…

is the opposite of all these things.

We either lose our nerve, or politely sweep the True Basics under the carpet.

Perhaps every board needs 20-year-olds who ask embarrassing-but-fundamental questions.

In any event, al of us need to constantly keep the “only stuff that matters” issue front and center.

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

Iʼm no lad, not by a long shot. But I have a ladʼs love. For the new technologies. They “change everything.” For the better? Not always, of course. Nothing with so monumental an impact

comes without monumental baggage as wel .

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Please donʼt be afraid; PASS THIS ALONG to as many people as you want!

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The IS/IT revolution was noisy in the ʼ90s. Itʼs mostly quiet in the ʼ00s.

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