Archives: February 2015

Getting Things (That Matter) Done

In 2013 I wrote a paper titled “Getting Things (THAT MATTER) Done Against the Odds and in the Inky-black Shadow Cast by the Guardians of the Status Quo.” It is based on my personal experience with big change projects such as the McKinsey project that led to In Search of Excellence, which “rebranded McKinsey” according to the book The Firm, and now accounts for a very sizeable share of McK’s revenue. Blended in are my observations from dealing with big organizations and big change leaders over the last 35 or so years.

In any event, after my recent Auckland Business School activities, I decided to update and upgrade the 2013 piece. The result is attached.

Lemme know how you like it via twitter: @tom_peters

FYI: I’ve also tossed in, w/o updating, my 2013 paper “Presentation EXCELLENCE,” which I’m sending on to my Auckland b-school mates as well.

Resurrection
(And Irritation)
(And Bewilderment)
(And Fervent Belief)
(And Prayer)

I can hardly complain about my book sales—from 1982 to the present. But there is one of my books that has, in my opinion, been wildly under-appreciated. Namely my 1999 The Professional Service Firm50. It was part of a 3-book series that we called “The Work Matters”:

The Professional Service Firm50: Fifty Ways to Transform Your “Department” into a Professional Service Firm Whose Trademarks are Passion and Innovation!

The Project50: Fifty Ways to Transform Every “Task” into a Project That Matters!

The Brand You50: Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an “Employee” into a Brand That Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion!

The Brand You50 took off like a jackrabbit—and continues to be front-page news 16 years later. I am, of course, delighted.

But the real powerhouse, I believe, is The Professional Service Firm50. To cut to the chase, I believe that transforming pretty much any work group into something resembling a Professional Service Firm based 100% on growing intellectual capital—that’s all there is—is a de facto singular path to adding corporate value and saving and enhancing the “worker’s” security, and even job satisfaction. (At my most arrogant, I say, “What else is there to do?”)

Also, as I said in 1999, the good news is we do not have to invent anything new. Though keeping up is nightmarishly difficult for everyone in 2015, the professional services format is tried-and-true and has been around for decades. (E.g., my former employer, McKinsey & Co. has been successfully at it since 1926—89 years; see the recent book The Firm for the more or less full story.)

So why did so few take to this notion? I have an answer: I have no bloody idea.

I got some superlative feedback, including a heroic tale from a senior Walmart exec. But by and large I was greeted by stony silence—i.e., disinterest. In fact, my Tom Peters Company colleagues in the UK created a training product around The PSF50, that worked very well with a handful of clients—but was dropped in response to disinterest in the marketplace as a whole.

To be sure, the transformation suggested is 10X times harder than it looks—e.g., a true PSF “culture” is a long way from most departmental charters. Just ask the leaders of the firms noted at the beginning of the presentation—e.g., Rolls-Royce aircraft engines, IBM, UPS—who have made “services added” (a surrogate for “PSF-ing,” by my lights) transformation.

But even with success tales from the likes of IBM, the surface was barely scratched—and as a result 10s of millions of largely salvageable (in my opinion) white-collar jobs have gone bye-bye, and the trend is wildly accelerating as, to quote Marc Andreessen on the incursion of high-end artificial intelligence, “Software is eating the world.” (And no, I am not so arrogant as to suggest The PSF50 could have saved 100,000,000 jobs; but I am arrogant enough to think such a methodology, especially if adopted a decade ago, could have made a positive contribution.)

At any rate, a recent event at the Auckland Business School launched me on a crusade to resurrect the “PSF” concept. You will see the first result here, a more or less fully annotated PowerPoint presentation titled “The (Imperative) PSF++ Solution.” The ++ in the title refers to adding in the Project50 and Brand You50 ideas.

“Bottom line”: [tweetable]PSF (Professional Service Firm) + BY (Brand You) + WP (WOW Projects) + E (Excellence) = UVA (Unassailable Value-Added)[/tweetable]

P-L-E-A-S-E take a look!
(AND … let me know what you think via twitter: @tom_peters.)

Muffed Answer Leads to Rethink

After a recent presentation at the Auckland Business School, I was asked a pointed question—and flubbed the answer. I was asked if my emphasis on “people-development-first” amounted to keeping unnecessary workers on the payroll.

I said of course not—and stopped there.

Whoops.

But that stopping point (no “make work”) has in fact been my starting point since 1999, when I published a 3-book series that we called “The Work Matters”:

The Professional Service Firm50: Fifty Ways to Transform Your “Department” into a Professional Service Firm Whose Trademarks are Passion and Innovation!

The Project50: Fifty Ways to Transform Every “Task” into a Project That Matters!

The Brand You50: Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an “Employee” into a Brand That Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion!

At about the same time (actually Y2K), I had audaciously written in a Time magazine cover story, “I believe that ninety percent of white-collar jobs in the U.S. will be either destroyed or altered beyond recognition in the next 10 to 15 years.”

That “absurd” prediction doesn’t look so outrageous today. E.g., consider this headline from the 11 November 2014 Telegraph (UK), “Ten Million Jobs at Risk from Advancing Technology: Up to 35% of Britain’s jobs will be eliminated by new computing and robotics technology over the next 20 years, say experts from Deloitte and Oxford University.”

So the idea, then, in an oversimplified nutshell, is to avoid organizational and professional extinction—and in fact pursue growth—by vaulting up the value added chain. In my shorthand: Become a remarkable “brand you” performing 100% value-added “wow projects” in an organizational unit transformed into an innovative “professional service firm”—e.g., devoted to applying intellectual capital to the organization’s products and services. (The overall “home” organization, per my model, seeks differentiation by becoming a de facto “collection of integrated professional service firms.”)

As you will see in the attached presentation, “The PSF++ Solution,” many are on this road. Consider this, for example, from a recent Economist story: “Rolls-Royce now earns more from tasks such as managing clients’ overall procurement strategies and maintaining aerospace engines it sells than it does from making them.”

There is more than one path to salvation in the face of exponential technology change—but whatever the path, it will in some form or other require adding new value through “soft services”—and transforming oneself into a distinguishable (specialist/brand you/growth-obsessed) professional.

Or so I believe. (Wish I’d said all that in the first place.)

Auckland Business School

Taking a break from his New Zealand “timeout on the beach” (TP: “Sorry! What else can I say to my VERY snowed-in New England neighbors and colleagues?”), Tom is spending two days at the Auckland Business School. Among other things, he is giving two formal lectures. The first—titled “Necessary Revolution: Re-Imagine EXCELLENCE!”—is to alums and community members. The second—“Leadership Excellence in the ‘Real (Non-linear) World’: The Mess Is the Message!”—is to students.

[Addition of February 22: Tom sent along a Master presentation for the Auckland Business School, a longer, all-inclusive PPT for the occasion. Download it here.]

Coppins Para Sea Anchors

Bill and Ryan Coppins with Tom

The Coppins Para Sea Anchors story is one of Tom’s favorite Mittelstand models. Founded by W.A. Coppins in 1928, the company has a contract with no less than the U.S. Navy as well as the Norwegian Coastal Administration (Coast Guard). Being located close to Tom’s winter haven, they invited him to come see the operation. Above are Bill, the director, grandson of the founder, and Ryan, his son, who oversees the manufacturing, all done on site in tiny Motueka, NZ.

More:
Their story
An interview with Bill

Thought Leaders 2014

GDI/Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, a Swiss think tank, and MIT teamed up to create “Thought Leaders 2014: The Most Influential Thinkers,” a just-released, algorithmically determined list of “Who is influencing what we think today? Whose ideas are influencing ours?” Engagement in the “blogosphere,” “twittersphere,” and Wikipedia page citations across languages were among the many variables considered.

Nos. 1 and 2 on the list are Pope Francis and Tim Berners-Lee. The top ten also includes Muhammad Yunus, Jane Goodall, and Mario Vargas Llosa—an eclectic list indeed. [tweetable]Tom says he was “astonished, amazed, gobsmacked,” to be included among such notables.[/tweetable] He placed at No 32.

A few others: Garry Kasparov, No. 11; Stephen Hawking, No. 14; Tom’s intelectual hero, Daniel Kahneman, No. 17; Steven Pinker and Jaron Lanier, right after Tom at Nos. 33 and 34; E.O. Wilson, No. 41; Tom’s pal Guy Kawasaki at No. 43; Paul Krugman, No. 50; Michael Porter, No. 53; another of Tom’s intellectual heroes, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, No. 65; Thomas Friedman, No. 72; Francis Fukuyama, No. 91. I’d say Tom’s in good company!