Tom Peters’ Re-Imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age 07.21.2003

1. Tom Peters’ Re-Imagine!Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age07.21.2003

2. Slides at …tompeters.com

3. It is the foremost task—and responsibility—of our generation to re-imagine our enterprises, private and public —from the Foreword, Re-imagine

4. “Uncertainty is the only thing to be sure of.–Anthony Muh,head of investment in Asia, Citigroup Asset Management“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”—General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U. S. Army

5. “Uncertainty is the only thing to be sure of.”—Anthony Muh, head of investment in Asia, Citigroup Asset management (FT/03.27.2003)

6. “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”—General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U. S. Army

7. “Either we modernize or we will be modernized by the unremitting force of the markets.”—Gerhard Schroeder

8. You must become an ignorant man againAnd see the sun again with an ignorant eyeAnd see it clearly in the idea of it.--Wallace Stevens/“Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”

9. Sequenom/David Ewing Duncan/Wired11.02“Sequenom has industrialized the SNP [single nucleotide polymorphisms] identification process.” “This, I’m told, is the first time a healthy human has ever been screened for the full gamut of genetic-disease markers.” “On the horizon: multi-disease gene kits, available at Wal*Mart, as easy to use as home-pregnancy tests.” “You can’t look at humanity separate from machines; we’re so intertwined we’re almost the same species, and the difference is getting smaller.”

10. “Help! There’s nobody in the cockpit. In the future, will the airlines no longer need pilots?”Grumman Global Hawk/ 24 hours/ Edwards to South AustraliaSource: The Economist/12.21.2002

11. “There will be more confusion in the business world in the next decadethan in any decade in history. And the current pace of change will only accelerate.”Steve Case

12. “IT MAY SOMEDAY BE SAID THAT THE 21ST CENTURY BEGAN ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. …“Al-Qaeda represents a new and profoundly dangerous kind of organization—one that might be called a ‘virtual state.’ On September 11 a virtual state proved that modern societies are vulnerable as never before.”—Time/09.09.2002

13. “The deadliest strength of America’s new adversaries is their very fluidity, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld believes. Terrorist networks, unburdened by fixed borders, headquarters or conventional forces, are free to study the way this nation responds to threats and adapt themselves to prepare for what Mr. Rumsfeld is certain will be another attack. …“ ‘Business as usual won’t do it,’ he said. His answer is to develop swifter, more lethal ways to fight. ‘Big institutions aren’t swift on their feet in adapting but rather ponderous and clumsy and slow.’ ”—The New York Times/09.04.2002

14. From: Weapon v. WeaponTo:Org structure v. Org structure

15. “Our military structure today is essentially one developed and designed by Napoleon.”Admiral Bill Owens, former Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

16. “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 & René Tissen, Zero Space: Moving Beyond Organizational Limits.

17. “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)

18. “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

19. “The mechanical speed of combat vehicles has not increased since Rommel’s day, so the difference is all in the operational speed, faster communications and faster decisions.”—Edward Luttwak, on the unprecedented pace of the move toward Baghdad

20. “At Big Electronics Show, the Buzz Is All About Connections” —headline, New York Times/ 01.13.2003/ Consumer Electronics Show

21. “Our entire facility is digital. No paper, no film, no medical records. Nothing. And it’s all integrated—from the lab to X-ray to records to physician order entry. Patients don’t have to wait for anything. The information from the physician’s office is in registration and vice versa. The referring physician is immediately sent an email telling him his patient has shown up. … It’s wireless in-house. We have 800 notebook computers that are wireless. Physicians can walk around with a computer that’s pre-programmed. If the physician wants, we’ll go out and wire their house so they can sit on the couch and connect to the network. They can review a chart from 100 miles away.”—David Veillette, CEO, Indiana Heart Hospital (HealthLeaders/12.2002)

22. “If early soldiers idealized Napoleon or Patton, network-centric warriors admire Wal*Mart,where point-of-sale scanners share information on a near real-time basis with suppliers and also produce data that is mined to help leaders develop new strategic or tactical plans. Wal*Mart is an example of translating information into competitive advantage.”—Tom Stewart, Business 2.0

23. The New Infantry Battalion/New York Times/12.01.2002“Pentagon’s Urgent Search for Speed.” 270 soldiers (1/3rd normal complement); 140 robotic off-road armored trucks. “Every soldier is a sensor.” “Revolutionary capabilities.” Find-to-hit: 45 minutes to 15 minutes … in just one year.

24. Eric’s ArmyFlat.Fast.Agile.Adaptable.Light … But Lethal.Brand You/ Talent/ “I Am An ARMY Of One.”Info-intense.Network-centric.

25. “Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee.” —Ali

26. “We must not only transform our armed forces but the Defense Department that serves them—by encouraging a culture of creativity and intelligent risktaking. We must promote a more entrepreneurial approach: one that encourages people to be proactive, not reactive, and to behave less like bureaucrats and more like venture capitalists; one that does not wait for threats to emerge and be ‘validated,’ but rather anticipates them before they appear and develops new capabilities to dissuade them and deter them.” —Donald Rumsfeld, Foreign Affairs

27. I Believe …1. Change will accelerate. DRAMATICALLY.2. We will RE-INVENT THE WORLD IN THE NEXT TWO GENERATIONS.(Business … Health Care … Politics … War … Education … Fundamentals of Human Interaction.)3. OPPORTUNITIES are matchless.4. You are either …ON THE BUS … or … OFF THE BUS.5. I WANT TO PLAY! ANDYOU?

28. “How we feel about the evolving future tells us who we are as individuals and as a civilization: Do we search for stasis—a regulated, engineered world? Or do we embrace dynamism—a world of constant creation, discovery and competition? Do we value stability and control or evolution and learning? Do we think that progress requires a central blueprint, or do we see it as a decentralized, evolutionary process?? Do we see mistakes as permanent disasters, or the correctable byproducts of experimentation? Do we crave predictability or relish surprise? These two poles, stasis and dynamism, increasingly define our political, intellectual and cultural landscape.” —Virginia Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies

29. Successful Businesses’ Dozen Truths: TP’s 30 Year Perspective1. Insanely Great & Quirky Talent.2. Disrespect for Tradition.3. Totally Passionate (to the Point of Irrationality) Belief in What We Are Here to Do.4. Utter Disbelief at the Bullshit that Marks “Normal Industry Behavior.”5. A Maniacal Bias for Execution … and Utter Contempt for Those Who Don’t “Get It.”6. Speed Demons.7. Up or Out. (Meritocracy Is Thy Name. Sycophancy Is Thy Scourge.)8. Passionate Hatred of Bureaucracy.9. Willingness to Lead the Customer … and Take the Heat Associated Therewith. (Mantra: Satan Invented Focus Groups to Derail True Believers.)10. “Reward Excellent Failures. Punish Mediocre Successes.” 11. Courage to Stand Alone on One’s Record of Accomplishment Against All the Forces of Conventional Wisdom.12. A Crystal Clear Understanding of Brand Power.

30. I. NEW BUSINESS. NEW CONTEXT.

31. All Bets Are Off.

32. <1000A.D.: paradigm shift: 1000s of years1000: 100 years for paradigm shift1800s: > prior 900 years1900s: 1st 20 years > 1800s2000: 10 years for paradigm shift21st century: 1000Xtech change than 20th century (“the ‘Singularity,’ a merger between humans and computers that is so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history”)Ray Kurzweil

33. Vernor Vinge/Mr. Singularity“The transition time from human history to post-human singularity time, Vinge thinks, will be astonishingly short—maybe one hundred hours from the first moment of computer self-awareness to computer world conquest.”—Esquire/12.2002

34. “We are at a pivotal point in history. … We are at one of a half dozen turning points that have fundamentally changed the way societies are organized for governance.”—Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History

35. “There’s going to be a fundamental change in the global economy unlike anything we have hadsince the cavemen began bartering.”Arnold Baker, Chief Economist, Sandia National Laboratories

36. “In 25 years, you’ll probably be able to get the sum total of all human knowledge on a personal device.”Greg Blonder, VC [was Chief Technical Adviser for Corporate Strategy @ AT&T] [Barron’s 11.13.2000]

37. “I genuinely believe we are living through the greatest intellectual moment in history.”Matt Ridley, Genome

38. “We are in abrawl with no rules.”Paul Allaire

39. S.A.V.

40. “Strategy meetings held once or twice a year” to “Strategy meetings needed several times a week” Source: New York Times on Meg Whitman/eBay

41. 2. The Destruction Imperative.

42. “It is generally much easier to kill an organization than change it substantially.” Kevin Kelly, Out of Control

43. C.E.O.to C.D.O.

44. “Wealth in this new regime flows directly from innovation, not optimization. That is, wealth is not gained by perfecting the known, but by imperfectly seizing the unknown.”Kevin Kelly, New Rules for the New Economy

45. “Analysts said we don’t care about revenue, just give us the bottom line. They preferred cost cutting, as long as they could see 2 or 3 years of EPS growth. I preached revenue and the analysts’ eyes would glaze over. Now revenue is ‘in’ because so many got caught, and earnings went to hell. They said, ‘Oh my gosh, you need revenues to grow earnings over time.’ Well, Duh!”Dick Kovacevich, Wells Fargo (in ABA Banking Journal)

46. 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.S&P 500 from 1957 to 1997: 74 members of the Class of ’57 were alive in ’97; 12 (2.4%) of 500 outperformed the market from 1957 to 1997.Source: Dick Foster & Sarah Kaplan, Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market

47. “Mr. Foster and his McKinsey colleagues collected detailed performance data stretching back 40 years for 1,000 U.S. companies. They found that none of the long-term survivors managed to outperform the market. Worse, the longer companies had been in the database, the worse they did.”—Financial Times/11.28.2002

48. “It’s just a fact: Survivors underperform.”—Dick Foster

49. Rate of Leaving F5001970-1990: 4XSource: The Company, John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge (1974-200: One-half biggest 100 disappear)

50. “Far from being a source of comfort, bigness became a code for inflexibility.”—John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge, The Company