Table Of Contentpeters -
“In no small part, what American
corporations have become is what Peters has
encouraged them to be.”
Business Excellence.in a Disrupe
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Re-imagine!
Re-imagine!
Tom Peters
“Uncertainty is the only thing
to be sure of.”
—Anthony Muh, Citigroup, head of
investment in Asia
“If you don’t like change, you’re
going to like irrelevance even less.’ ’
—General Eric Shinseki, Chief of
otath, Urs. Army
=)
Reader’s Guide ...
1. ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK ...
LONDON, NEW YORK, MUNICH, The book is divided into what we call Main Text and
MELBOURNE, AND DELHI
Sidebars. The Main Text is the logical nub of our Exclamation mark: Generally
argument in each chapter. The Sidebars provide a brief story that supports
examples and pointed observations that flesh out the and often adds to a point in
Main Text. Dive into them as you wish. (Hint: | like the Main Text. Other times
the Sidebars better than the Main Text ... but, then, it's a standalone example of
I'm a non-linear guy.) the chapter argument.
6699
For Susan
2. ICONS ...
Quotation marks: A cool
You'll notice icons in a red band at the top of some of
quote from someone in
the sidebars. See right for a brief guide to these icons.
the world of business—or
Editor Michael Slind elsewhere!
Project Art Editor Jason Godfrey at Godfrey Design
Project Editor Nicky Munro 3. BEYOND THIS TEXT ...
Production Controller Heather Hughes The times are crazy. And with this book we've tried to
Managing Editor Adele Hayward
provoke re-imaginings. We've pushed as hard as we
Managing Art Editor Karen Self Book: Buy the book! Read it!
can, and then some. The book is definitely not the last
Category Publisher Stephanie Jackson It has influenced me; it
Art Director Peter Luff word, and we hope you'll be engaged enough, perhaps might influence you.
enraged enough, to react. To ... JOIN IN A DIALOGUE.
First published in the USA and Great Britain
Our device:
in 2003 by Dorling Kindersley Limited, tompeters.com/reimagine
80 Strand, London WC2R ORL
Left-pointing hand:
First published in paperback in Great Britain in 2004
Reminder of a point
First published in paperback in the USA in 2006 Please get in touch and stay in touch! Please rant. (Or
previously discussed.
rave.) Please share your victories and defeats. In short,
A Penguin Company we are going to discuss—no holds barred—every
24681097531 damn topic in this book.
Copyright © 2003
Dorling Kindersley Limited Right-pointing hand: Preview
Text copyright © 2003 Tom Peters 4. FOR THE CURIOUS ...
of a point to be discussed
Also at tompeters.com you'll find detailed source notes
later at more length.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored (tompeters.com/reimagine/notes) on the stories and
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the data in this book. And at the site’s Cool Friends
prior written permission of the copyright owner.
(tompeters.com/coolfriends) board you'll encounter
A Cataloging-in-Publication record in-depth interviews with many of the people | quote
for this book is available Hands pointing at each
in the book. To keep abreast of my latest ramblings
from the Library of Congress.
other: We've placed this
and re-imaginings, you can review or download the
(US) ISBN-13: 978-07566-1746-2 PowerPoint slides | post (tompeters.com/slides) icon at the top of short
(US) ISBN-10: 0-7566-1746-4
summaries. The text beneath
immediately following each of the 80 or so speeches
A CIP catalog record for this book is | give every year. is a recap of what has gone
available from the British Library.
on earlier; it also serves
(UK) ISBN-13: 978-1-40531-395-7 as a departure point for
(UK) ISBN-10: 1-4053-1395-1
what lies ahead.
Reproduced by GRB Editrice s.r.l.
Printed and bound by
Star Standard in Singapore
See our complete catalogue at
Www. d k -cOomM
Contents
Foreword: I’m Mad as Hell
Introduction: New War New Business
Part I. NEW BUSINESS NEW CONTEXT
Chapter 1. Re-imagining the World: All Bets Are Off
Chapter 2. Control Alt Delete: The Destruction Imperative
Part Il. NEW BUSINESS NEW TECHNOLOGY
Chapter 3. In the Crosshairs: White-Collar Cataclysm
Chapter 4. InfoTech Changes Everything: “On the Bus” or ... “Off the Bus”?
Part Ill. NEW BUSINESS NEW VALUE
Chapter 5. From “Cost Center” to Stardom: The PSF/Professional Service Firm Transformation
Chapter 6. PSFs Mean Business: The Solutions Imperative
Chapter 7. Welcome to XF/Cross-Functional World: The Solutions50
Part IV. NEW BUSINESS NEW BRAND
Chapter 8. Beyond Solutions: Providing Memorable “Experiences”
Chapter 9. ExperiencesPlus: Embracing the “Dream Business”
Chapter 10. Design: The “Soul” of New Enterprise
Chapter 11. Design’s Long Coattails: Beautiful Systems
Chapter 12. The Ultimate Value Proposition: The Heart of Branding
Part V. NEW BUSINESS NEW MARKETS
Chapter 13. Trends Worth Trillion$$$ I: Women Roar
Chapter 14. Trends Worth Trillion$$$ Il: Boomer Bonanza
Part VI. NEW BUSINESS NEW WORK
Chapter 15. Making Work Matter: The WOW Project!
Chapter 16. No Limits: WOW Projects for the “Powerless”
Chapter 17. Boss Work: Heroes, Demos, Stories
Chapter 18. Bringing WOW Work to Fruition: The Sales25
Part Vil. NEW BUSINESS NEW PEOPLE
Chapter 19. Re-imagining the Individual: Life in a Brand You World
Chapter 20. Boss Job One: The Talent25
Chapter 21. Meet the New Boss: Women Rule
Chapter 22. Getting It Right at the Start: Education for a Creative & Self-Reliant Age
Part VIII. NEW BUSINESS NEW MANDATE
Chapter 23. Think Weird: The High Value-Added Bedrock
Chapter 24. In Search of Excellence: A Three-Generation Report Card
Chapter 25. Pursuing Excellence in a Disruptive Age: The Leadership50
Index
Acknowledgments
Author's Biography
Foreword: I’m Mad as Hell
The Dean’s Dissembling
In 2002, I tried (without success) to induce Stanford University to retract my MBA.
Here’s why: The dean of the business school when I got my degree there was Robert
Jaedicke. He was also an accounting professor, and I took his advanced accounting course
while I was a student. I last saw Jaedicke, 30 years later, on TV. He was testifying about his
involvement in the Enron fiasco. Not only was he an Enron board member—he was chairman
of the board’s Audit Committee. Yet he claimed he had no clue about the truckload of peculiar
transactions that brought the company down!
When a guy who served as Enron’s audit boss ... the last bastion of bean counting ...
invokes the “clueless” defense, it makes you wonder: Did he have any clue as to the usefulness
of the curriculum at the school where he’d been a dean? Did he have any clue as to what
lessons I'd extract from his “advanced” accounting course?
Needless to say, my view of MBAs and of traditional business education soured even
more than it already had. (Which is saying a lot.) The same goes for my view of “accepted
business practices” in general.
You see, this is personal to me. But, then, business is personal ... not an abstraction.
THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS BOOK!
I’m Mad as Hell!
I’m 60 years old as I write. I’ve been doing my “thing” for well over a quarter of a century. I’ve
achieved some degree of acclaim. At this point, I don’t have to write a book. My speaking and
consulting gigs keep me busy to the breaking point and beyond. So why am I sitting inside,
scrunched over a makeshift writing desk ... on a gorgeous July day on Martha’s Vineyard ...
cranking out Book Number 11?
Because I’m pissed off.
I happen to believe that all innovation comes, not from market research or carefully
crafted focus groups, but from pissed-off people. People who just can’t stand the opacity of
current financial reports. People who are enraged when the CIA database doesn’t connect to
the FBI database. People who throw their hands up in frustration at the little slips of paper
that fall out of their hymnals (and who thence proceed to invent Post-it Notes).
My old friend Bob Waterman, co-author of In Search of Excellence, once told a reporter,
“Tom’s not happy unless he’s madder than hell about something.”
True enough. And right now I am precisely that—madder than hell. ’'m mad that I (and
a lot of people far more clever than I) have been screaming and yelling and shouting about
bankrupt business practices for 25 or 30 years ... mostly to no avail.
Every chapter in this book starts off with a “Rant.”
My overall rant, in brief: People ... in enterprise, in government ... are by and large well
intentioned. They'd like to get things done. To be of service to others. But they're thwarted ...
at every step of ‘the way ... by absurd organizational barriers ... and by the egos of petty
tyrants (be they corporate middle managers, or army colonels, or school superintendents).
An eloquent expression of that message appears in Zero Space: Moving Beyond
Organizational Limits, by Frank Lekanne Deprez & Rene Tissen:
“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.”
Yes. Walls. Barriers. eee
Can we regain control. .
But | (We) Don’t Have to Take It Anymore
A lot of yogurt has hit the fan. Security concerns (global terrorism, including the potential use
of weapons of mass destruction) unsettle us all. Globalization has turned out to be a mixed
blessing—a worthy end point, but messy and uneven to the extreme in its immediate impact.
Tsunamis of technology change engulf us—and confuse us. CEOs are falling like flies—not
because of lousy strategic plans, but because of malfeasance. A lot of people have gotten
screwed, including, to cite one particularly nasty example, thousands who trusted the
company’s board and had Enron “assets” locked into their 401K pension plans.
And yet there is a New Economy. ~
Would you change places with your grandfather? Would you want to work 11 brutal
hours a day ... in yesterday’s Bethlehem Steel mill, a Ford Motor Company factory circa 1935?
Not me. Nor would I change places with my father ... who labored in a white-collar
sweatshop, at the same company, in the same building, for 41 l-o-n-g years.
A workplace revolution is under way. No sensible person expects to spend a lifetime in a
single corporation anymore. Some call this shift the “end of corporate responsibility.” I call it
.. the Beginning of Renewed Individual Responsibility. An extraordinary opportunity to take
charge of our own lives.
We need radically different public policies to make this new opportunity viable. For
example, healthcare benefits that are universal and not attached to the company. Hearty and
perpetual retraining opportunities, supported in part by the government. Pensions that are
self-managed and independent of one’s employer.
But most of all, we need the will and the passion and the know-how to take on the
responsibility that is falling to us—whether we welcome it or not.
Put me in charge! Make me Chairman &@ CEO & President @ COO of Tom Inc. That’s
what I ask! (Beg, in fact.)
I love business at its best. When it aims to foster growth and deliver exciting services to its
clients and exciting opportunities to its employees. I especially love business at this moment of
flux. This truly magical, albeit in many ways terrifying, moment.
Cool Business: Not Optional
I’m no Poilyanna. ’ve been around. (And then around.) The rose-colored dines were long.
ago ground to powder by brutal reality.
Yet | am hopeful. Not hopeful that human beings will pakoue more benign. .. or that evil |
will evaporate. .. or that greed will be regulated out of existence. But I am hopeful that in the :
New Economy people will see the power that comes from taking responsibility fort :
