After years in the film industry, Stephanie Palmer thought she might know a thing or two about "taking a meeting." As a result, she started a coaching/consulting practice—see stephaniepalmer.com—and she wrote Good in a Room: How to Sell Yourself (and Your Ideas) and Win Over Any Audience. You can read her Cool Friends interview, or listen to it by using this link for an MP3 file. For a few short and quick tips, we also have available an MP3 titled "Three Things."

View our Archives for past interviews.

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blog archives

The Real Stunner!

I am not a golfer. But I am unabashedly mesmerized by Tiger Woods. (How the hell could anyone not be?) I was reading a David Brooks column (New York Times) on Mr Woods yesterday, and was reminded of what, to me, is the most astonishing part of the Woods story. Namely, that on two occasions Woods no less than "risked his career," per Brooks, re-tooling his (already amazing!!) swing—and then survived months and months of inconsistent performance to get into his new groove.

The principal reason, invariably, most "successful" giant companies rather quickly become also-rans, or just amorphous blobs on the competitive landscape, is their failure to re-tool in anything like a fundamental way. In fact, the worse things get, typically, the more they dig in their heels and defend yesterday's turf. Not Tiger Woods—with all the world's eyes on him all the time, he twice retreated and blew up the centerpiece of his game.

How do you get the nerve to do such a thing—or even admit that it needs to be done when you are sitting atop the personal or professional or corporate skyscraper? If you can answer that one, let me know!

Tom Peters posted this on 06/18.
Permalink | Comments (13) |

Eighty Percent of Success Is Showing Up

While editing and fact-checking my latest Master presentation, Cathy came across "90% of success is showing up"—and it didn't ring true. She checked and corrected it to 80%. Our exchange encouraged me to go Googling. I immediately confirmed that I was wrong and she was right—no surprise—but also came across a lovely little essay at PersistenceUnlimited.com:

"80 percent of success is just showing up" —Woody Allen

"I often think about that quotation. It may sound easy to shrug off, but not if you look a little deeper. It doesn't just mean show up for job interviews or to work for an 80% increase in success. Showing up also means ... starting.

"For instance, did you show up at the gym today? Just showing up means you're 80% of the way to a good workout. The hard part of fighting yourself to get dressed in workout gear, dealing with traffic and the worry about pain you might experience is over. Now all that is left is to just do the workout. Pretty simple, huh? Even a child could do it.

"Same thing with opportunity. It's easier to make significant progress on a project if you simply show up to do it. Candidly, one of my hardest tasks of the day is 'showing up' for development Visual Studio. It seems simple enough ... just double click on an icon. But if I think too much about the seemingly 10,000 things I have to do once I launch it, I am much more likely to 'accidentally' launch my web browser or fiddle with e-mail.

"But once I'm in there, the work is typically easy and fun. Some days I can knock out more tasks than I planned. And I feel like a success at the end of the day.

"You can be or do whatever you want just by showing up. If you want to be an author, show up to write your manuscript every day, show up to writing classes, show up to phone calls to editors. Doesn't it make sense that someone who arrives at the door of opportunity has more success than someone just sitting at home?

"So increase your chances by 80%. Show Up!"

Nice!

Tom Peters posted this on 06/18.
Permalink | Comments (6) |

100 Ways to Succeed #126:

Show Up!

Show up!

(E.g., the next time you email someone to say you can't do something, right before pushing the Send button, stop and push the Delete button—and do the thing.)

Tom Peters posted this on 06/18.
Permalink | Comments (5) |

A.SAD

Peony of light pink with white around the center

What could be a better welcome home (from Korea, Mexico, Croatia, Argentina) gift than Susan's Peonies in bloom.

But there's a catch—only in Vermont. (Or perhaps, also Nome, Alaska.) That is, I realized that this time next week the days will have begun to get shorter. Hence, I am suffering A.SAD. That is ... Anticipatory Seasonal Affective Disorder.

As I said, only in VT!

Tom Peters posted this on 06/16.
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All Together Now

We're part of a very cool effort by Cool Friend
Dave Balter—you might remember him as the
founder of BzzAgent. Today, around this time, 20 select blogs around the Web are together announcing the appearance of his new book, The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II. We'd like to point you to this link, where you can download it for free. The actual book is being offered for $45.00 and comes with a piece of original art by its illustrator, Seth B. Minkin. You can read more by Dave Balter about why he's distributing the book this way at HBSPress.com.

Good news for tompeters.com readers! We have a few copies to give away, and we're making it a contest. To win a book, go into the comments under this blog entry and post your best word-of-mouth story. The word limit is loose—100 words or thereabouts. We won't penalize you for going way over, but we'll be tempted to. Just between you and me, I got a strong sense of bias in favor of extreme brevity among the judges. (Full disclosure: I'm one of them.)

[To see the list of 19 others blogging this today, click on "read more" below.]

[read more]

Cathy Mosca posted this on 06/16.
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Cool Friend: Stephanie Palmer

Stephanie Palmer wants to help you find clients, increase revenue, and get financing for your ideas. After ten years in the film industry, including six as Director of Creative Affairs at MGM Pictures, Palmer founded a consultancy. Now she uses what she learned about being successful in meetings to coach business leaders, executives, and creative professionals on getting their ideas the attention they deserve and the financing they need. She presents this expertise in her book, Good in a Room: How to Sell Yourself (and Your Ideas) and Win Over Any Audience, which she discussed with Erik in her Cool Friends interview.

To hear the whole original conversation, you can download an MP3 by means of this link. For a few tips from Stephanie, we have available a shorter MP3 titled "Three Things."

You might also like to visit Stephanie Palmer's website, StephaniePalmer.com, or her book website, GoodinaRoom.com.

Cathy Mosca posted this on 06/13.
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Broken RSS (Temporarily)

We got RSS for the comments up and running, and, in the process, it seems we broke the RSS for our blog entries. We're working on fixing it, but it may be early next week before everything is working smoothly again. We apologize to everyone who has a problem with the RSS feed in the meantime, and we send thanks to two readers who sent emails alerting us.

Cathy Mosca posted this on 06/13.
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Tom's Tweets

There's a new way to experience Tom's Success Tips. We recently told you about the serialization services of DailyLit and that you can have a success tip delivered to your email inbox each day. Now they've expanded the format of their offerings to Twitter, the micro-blogging service. Tom's not planning to jump on the micro-blogging bandwagon anytime soon (limit Tom to 140 characters? I don't think so), so for now, this is the only way to get your Tom fix on Twitter. How does it work? Using your own Twitter account, you "follow" Tom's Success Tips. Each day, everyone in the world following Tom's Success Tips on Twitter will receive a "tweet" with a link to the same tip. Why sign up for this instead of the DailyLit email delivery? The email delivery is a personal subscription and will begin with the first tip the day you sign up. The Twitter offering is more like a global reading group with everyone receiving the same tip on the same day. Since Twitter can be used on a computer or a cell phone, it's fun to imagine the varied locations and circumstances of the folks who will be reading the tips at the same time. Get on board by June 16th to get the first tip along with the rest of the world's Twittering Tom fans.

Shelley Dolley posted this on 06/11.
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Messin' Around ...

I am preparing for a tough event in Buenos Aires. I may start with a PP that I call "The New Old Basics." I'm offering it to you here in two formats—PowerPoint and MSWord.

Another PP presentation is called "3H." The three Hs: Howard. Hilton. Herb.

Not clear? Check them out! (It still won't be clear—but it will be clear-er.)

Tom Peters posted this on 06/11.
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Event Slides

Tom presented to the top management meeting of Bunge, the agribusiness giant. They describe themselves this way: "Bunge is decentralized, yet integrated; it is a strong team driven by entrepreneurs. These seemingly contradictory ideas come together to form The Bunge Style, our unique way of working." Sounds like a good fit for Tom.

Let us hear from you in the comments if you attended the event, and if you'd like to download the slides, you can use this link:
Bunge, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Cathy Mosca posted this on 06/11.
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On the One Hand …

I heartily recommend, in the current (July) issue of Vanity Fair, "An Oral History of the Internet: How the Web Was Won." This is, in effect, yes, the Web's __ anniversary.

That is: 50th!!

In 1958, spooked by Russia's Sputnik, the Department of Defense created ARPA—the Advanced Research Projects Agency. ARPA, in turn, sired the Web, no ifs, ands, or buts. In this marvelous recounting, virtually all the key players have been tracked down—and contribute to what VF calls the first oral history of the Web.

(For those of us who are Avowed Capitalist Pigs, it's amusing to see that all the initial funding, decades' worth, for Web-related activities came from the Feds—so much for only-the-private-sector-matters!)

Tom Peters posted this on 06/10.
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On the Other Hand ...

The impact of the 50-year-old Web is staggering. But is it "more staggering" than, say, the arrival of railroads? I've been doing a bit of railway reading, and I think it's either a dead heat, or the railways may win by a nose.

Consider:

"[The railways] turned the known universe upside down. They made a greater and more immediate impact than any other innovation before or since. ... The shock was both sudden and universal ... With the railways came the development of modern capitalism, of modern nations, the creation of new regions from the American Midwest to Lake Victoria to the pampas in Argentina."—Nicholas Faith, The World the Railways Made

I like this one even better—written at the time of inception, 1844, and using extremist language of the sort that's also commonplace regarding the Web:

"... Time and space are annihilated by steam. ... Oh, this constant locomotion, my body & everything in motion. Steamboats, Cars, & hotels all crammed & crowded full the whole population seems in motion & in fact as I pass along with Lightening speed & cast my eye on the distant objects, they all seem in a whirl nothing appearing permanent even the trees are waltzing, the mind too goes with all this, it speculates, theorizes, & measures all things by locomotive speed, where will it end."—Asa Whitney, first to formally propose transcontinental railroad to Congress, diary entry, 1844, from David Haward Bain, Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad

"Time and space were annihilated"—that's the ticket.

No grand purpose here other than amusement—and a reminder that we've lived through and survived such "everything-has-changed" upheavals in the past. Just ask the spirit of your great great grandfather!

Tom Peters posted this on 06/10.
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The Train Keeps on Rolling ...

There's the "imminent" threat to American economic pre-eminence from China and India. There was a similar, "on our last legs" threat 25 years ago from Japan. And economist and former MIT biz-school dean Lester Thurow claimed a decade or so ago that Europe would eclipse us in the years (or was it weeks?) to come.

There were the all-important management pronouncements of Peter Drucker—peaking in the 60s or early 70s. There was Michael Porter, and perhaps yours truly, in the 80s and 90s. There was the Carter-Reagan recession. The Bush I recession. The Bush II recession. The Internet-new economy moment—and subsequent implosion. The savings and loan crisis, the sub-prime crisis. The Latin, and Asian, debt crises.

In the meantime, and despite the startling rise of others (Japan and Southeast Asia and Europe, now China and India and Eastern Europe), the Good Ole American Economy just seems to mimic the Energizer Bunny. In "The Future of American Power" (Foreign Affairs, vol. 87, no. 3, May/June 2008), Fareed Zakaria delivers these fascinating statistics on the United States' share of global output:

1913: 32%
1960: 26%
1980: 22%
2000: 27%
2007: 26%

Recession. Bubble. Drucker. Porter-Peters. Doesn't seem to matter much—the train just keeps on rolling. As I said or implied, pretty damned amazing that, as huge parts of the world have gotten wealthy, our overall share has not declined ...

Reasons?
Save that for another day.

The goal here: The world as "we" (Americans) know it ain't exactly coming to an end in the next few weeks—so, with good conscience, fill up the tank (ha!) and head to the beach, or at least the couch, for some old-fashioned summer relaxation and, uh, Kindle reading.

Tom Peters posted this on 06/10.
Permalink | Comments (20) |

Quote of the Day

From my fellow Baltimorean, H.L. Mencken: "There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong."

A good "Monday quote": Repeatedly remind yourself of this as you go through the week!!

Tom Peters posted this on 06/09.
Permalink | Comments (6) |

Seven Billion Experts—Waiting to Be Heard!

William Easterly wrote in the Financial Times on 29 May: "The report of the World Bank Growth Commission, led by Nobel laureate Michael Spence [former dean of the Stanford biz school—tp, you know my biases], was published last week. After two years of work by the commission of 21 world leaders, an 11-member working group, 300 academic experts, 12 workshops, 13 consultations, and a budget of $4 million, the experts' answer to the question of how to attain high growth was roughly: we do not know, but trust experts to figure it out."

You may recall my fawning review of Easterly's The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. He argues vehemently against stencils for development imposed from on high—and in favor of tailored approaches developed mainly by the locals—with the "experts" acting as counselors.

As you might then guess, I was thoroughly taken by the title of the FT article cited above:

"Trust the development experts—all seven billion of them."

Amen!

(Attached you'll find the Easterly PowerPoint, provided earlier as case #3 in a PowerPoint titled "Three Cases" of Implementation.)

Tom Peters posted this on 06/09.
Permalink | Comments (3) |

Meanwhile, Across the Road ...

At Southwest Airlines' annual meeting in its hometown of Dallas a couple of weeks ago, founder Herb Kelleher retired after 37 years. The day of the meeting, a full-page ad appeared in USA Today thanking Herb for his devotion—paid for by the pilots union.

Across town, the same day, another Dallas-based airline, American, had its annual meeting. It was picketed by a clutch of the selfsame pilots union members.

Asked repeatedly about his success secrets at SWA, Kelleher has always had the same and sole reply: "You have to treat your employees like customers."

As many point out, it's a little more complicated than that. I'd hardly disagree. On the other hand, I know Mr K reasonably well, and I am convinced that he is dead serious, and that the spirit encompassed by his one-line answer is, indeed, the airline's most prominent point of differentiation. I remain to this day repeatedly surprised by the regularity with which my typically businessclass-flying friends praise Southwest, starting always with employee attitude.

Three, or 37, hearty cheers for Herb Kelleher—and for the pilots union as well.

(I am directing you to another Special Presentation previously posted: "Putting The Customer Second." You may recall that we had a hot and heavy discussion when I took this topic on.)

Tom Peters posted this on 06/09.
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Mea Culpa!

There's a book I love—which Susan wishes had never been written, Roger Rosenblatt's delightful (I think) Rules for Aging. S's irritation stems from my penchant for referring to it again and again and then again—she's got a point, actually.

A couple of weeks ago, she and a few friends were uncharacteristically heading to a garden party—spring hats were more or less required. As she worried and worried about how her hat would be received, I "helped" by re-re-re-reading to her Rosenblatt's Rule #2, perhaps my favorite:

"Yes, I know that you are certain that your friends are becoming your enemies; that your grocer, garbageman, clergyman, sister-in-law, and your dog are all of the opinion that you have put on weight, that you have lost your touch, that you have lost your mind; furthermore you are convinced that everyone spends two-thirds of every day commenting on your disintegration, denigrating your work, plotting your assignation. I promise you: Nobody is thinking about you. They are thinking about themselves—just like you."

But, indeed, when the women gathered after the party they were abuzz about who had worn what—caustic opinions flew hot and heavy. Pointedly reminding me that Roger & I are men.

That is, the worried woman is right—others are indeed thinking about her and passing judgment thereupon.

Not so for us boys, mostly at least. (As Roger said. And I quote ...)

The above reminded me of something of paramount practical importance that's been on my mind for a while. I will make some profound pronouncement or other, during a speech, on, say, the all-important topic of "relationship management." It is, if I must say so myself, a real eye-opener.

To me and the boys in the room.

The women yawn, or buzz "At 65 he's discovered the power of relationships—bloody men."

My message here, boys, is one I'm working on assiduously, though the anecdote above would suggest, without much success. Namely, it is important that I pass many a remark through a "gender filter." Not for reasons of political correctness, God help me, but because my "brilliant (breakthrough?) generalization" may well be old-old-old-obvious-obvious-obvious news to the other gender—and implementation, the end point, will be profoundly affected by my faulty assertion—"they are thinking about themselves."

I'm not asking, guys, for revised behavior necessarily (ever so difficult to pull off), but I am urging vigilant thoughtfulness-awareness. The business-process project you are working on will be implemented in your 63-person unit by the staff of 30 boys and 33 girls (about right, statistically). It's possible that any number of your key assumptions will not hold water for the 33 women.

The obvious answer, for starters, is thoroughly mixed-gender teams with mixed-gender leadership—and explicit awareness of and discussion about the degree to which the disposition of the internal "customers" will be significantly affected by gender. (And design reflecting the above!)

Is "all this" totally obvious to everyone but me—and Roger Rosenblatt? Perhaps, but based on my dozen years of wrestling with the implication of gender differences, I doubt it.

Meanwhile, my "gender filter" remains firmly in place—and Roger Rosenblatt's book is well out of sight.

Tom Peters posted this on 06/09.
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PSFK in SF

Our friends over at PSFK always have their fingers on the pulse of trends. So they know who to feature at an event focused on trends, insight, creative ideas. They just threw one in New York, and now they're flipping coasts and hosting one in San Francisco on July 17th. To us, it sounds like a cool way to spend a day. If it does to you too, find out more here. And if you go, say hi to Piers for us.

Shelley Dolley posted this on 06/06.
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Get To (Serious!!) Work … On Your Presentation Skills!

Now!
Now!
Now!

CNN wire, afternoon, June 4: "He was an obscure state lawmaker. But after a 17-minute star-making turn as a keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and a scant two years in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama is on the verge of becoming his party's presidential nominee."

You can love or loathe Senator Obama, but you presumably will acknowledge the accuracy of the remark above!

Seventeen minutes!
Seventeen minutes!
Seventeen minutes!
Seventeen minutes!

(FYI, my First Post at tompeters.com was a rave review of Senator Obama's 2004 speech in Boston.)

Seventeen good minutes—and you, too, can have a 50-50 chance of occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!

Well, probably not, but you get my point—I've made it before, albeit without evidence that's this drop-dead compelling.

Fact, in "our" more modest worlds: Poor or average or even "okay" presentation skills trip up or hold back an incredible number of very talented people at all levels, including the highest in big orgs—and yet it is rare to see someone launch a martial-arts-training-like, no-bull, I'm-gonna-master-this-or-die-trying offensive on presentation skill improvement.

Why not?

Tom Peters posted this on 06/05.
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100 Ways to Succeed #124:

Get Serious ...

Please.
Do me a (personal) favor.

Consider ...
That's all ... "consider" ...

Consider an all-out fully professional-sustained attack on your presentation skills.

All out.
Fully professional.
Attack.

(With at least, for heaven's sake, the tenaciousness you'd evince if you were seriously taking up golf or tennis or fly fishing or gardening or chess or calligraphy or flower arranging.)

I'll look forward to the engraved invitation to your Inaugural Ball ...

Tom Peters posted this on 06/05.
Permalink | Comments (7) |

Event: Zagreb

Tom read the news about Obama on his way to Croatia, the site of his presentation of the day. He has a great many fans in Croatia; a translation of In Search of Excellence is about to be published there. I'd recommend a re-read in English, or any language.

We'd love to hear from anybody who saw Tom in Zagreb in the comments under this post. And if you'd like to download the slides, you can use these links:
Zagreb, Croatia, Part 1
Zagreb, Croatia, Part 2

Cathy Mosca posted this on 06/05.
Permalink | Comments (5) |

Yes, You Are in Sales!

No matter your job title, no matter your function within an organization, no matter your skills, you must also be a salesperson. Tom gives as an example a successful Hollywood producer who taught himself sales to pave his own path to big success. He continues on to say that if you want to get anything done [and implementaion is paramount to Tom], then you are in sales. Watch the video (3 minutes, 17 seconds) to hear the whole story from Tom himself.

Tom Peters on Yes, You Are in Sales! from Tom Peters on Vimeo.

[If you'd like a transcript of Tom's message, you can download a PDF here.]

Shelley Dolley posted this on 06/04.
Permalink | Comments (10) |

Good News! Everything Matters!

I am badly remiss for not heartily, vigorously, unabashedly endorsing for your immediate and intense attention the relatively new Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. I must admit I've been enamored of late with the following from former PepsiCo CEO Roger Enrico, "Beware of the tyranny of making Small Changes to Small Things. Rather, make Big Changes to Big Things." Which is odd, given that it goes against the grain of "look for the little levers," which was my signature approach to implementation for years and years—and the centerpiece of my 1977 dissertation.

Well, I've come full circle. The hell with the big stuff (most of which most of us can't do anyway), let's seek out the little levers—with very high impact. Now along comes Nudge (fabulous title), which chronicles such an approach, digesting in a readable (entertaining, actually) fashion three decades of research in what's called "behavioral economics." Don't be put off by the term that sounds like typical economists' gibberish. (To me, anyway.)

The point is that if you put the good stuff (fruit, say) before the bad stuff (high-carb goop) in a cafeteria display line, you'd be amazed at the impact—e.g., a hundred diet books' worth.

As Mssrs Thaler and Sunstein say, "everything matters"—and nothing is neutral. They even give a lovely, not-like-an-economist title for conscious practitioners of this art:

"Choice architects."

The book is loaded with practical examples of enormous behavioral changes that stem from subtle manipulation of wee levers. (I've long argued that the manipulation of physical configuration is the most powerful more or less invisible tool in a manager's arsenal—put the chief designer's office next to the CEO's office—and watch a thousand people become obsessed with design more or less overnight.)

It is indeed "manipulation" (the authors discuss this at length), but then everything a manager does is manipulative!

At any rate, the book is well worth a careful read. At one level its principal thesis is obvious (except, as the authors point out, for economists who are obsessed with the mythical "rational man," of which there is none on earth), but the power of the ceaseless examples is likely, I think and hope, to grab your attention.

(One powerful attraction, hinted at above, is that it empowers "lower level" managers—who in fact actually have a boatload/supertanker-full of "little levers" at their command—talk about empowering! It simultaneously deprives them of their standard "powerless" excuse.)

Tom Peters posted this on 06/04.
Permalink | Comments (19) |

Net Promoter Score

I urge you to read the cover story in the current Fortune Small Business: "Get Customers to Sell For You"

The article builds on the masterful work of Fred Reichheld, and features his invention, the "Net Promoter Score." There are numerous ways to measure it, but somehow one has to end up with a single number: NPS. In (very) short, the NPS is the percentage of customers who are wild about you (pretty damn happy or better) and would recommend you to others minus the percentage who are neutral or worse about you—and, hence, would not go out of their way to sing your praises to their pals.

There are a million twists—e.g., LearningRx, with 66 franchises, has developed an NPS for every employee—with high impact on their performance and pay.

Tom Peters posted this on 06/04.
Permalink | Comments (2) |