Tom Peters’ X25* EXCELLENCE. ALWAYS. Microsoft/Redmond/13 September 2007 * In Search of Excellence 1982-2007

1. Tom Peters’ X25*EXCELLENCE. ALWAYS.Microsoft/Redmond/13 September 2007*In Search of Excellence 1982-2007

2. Slides at …tompeters.com

3. EXCELL-ENCE????

4. “I am often asked by would-be entrepreneurs seeking escape from life within huge corporate structures, ‘How do I build a small firm for myself?’ The answer seems obvious:Buy a very large one and just wait.”—Paul Ormerod, Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics

5. “Forbes100” from 1917 to 1987:39members of the Class of ’17 were alive in ’87; 18 in ’87 F100; 18 F100 “survivors” significantly underperformed the market; just 2 (2%), GE & Kodak, outperformed the market from 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

6. “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

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

8. “A pattern emphasized in the case studies in this book is the degree to which powerful competitors not only resist innovative threats, but actually resist all efforts to understand them, preferring to further their positions in older products. This results in a surge of productivity and performance that may take the old technology to unheard of heights. But in most cases this is a sign of impending death.”—Jim Utterback, Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation

9. Daimler. And Dumb. Both Start with “d.”

10. Mission impossible?$36B/’98minus $675M/‘07

11. $10,000,000/Day

12. DaimlerChrysler/’98-’07:Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh and … DuhManifoldSynergies/NoSevere Scale limits/YesCulture clashes/YesRushmorean ego issues/YesCustomer acceptance /No

13. Welcome to the “Club of Shattered Dreams”: Of Korea’s Top 100 companies in 1955, only 7 were still on the list in 2004. The 1997 crisis “destroyed halfof Korea’s 30 largest conglomerates.”Source: “KET Issue Report,” Kim Jong Nyun (14.05.2005)

14. BIAS.BUILT.TO.LAST.NOT.

15. The last word: There is no “last word.”

16. GM25/50-75: “Built to last”????

17. TP#1*:Netscape!*Where would you rather have worked for those 5 years, Netscape or IBM-HP-Microsoft-Oracle? (Where, 25 years from now, would you rather to be able to tell someone—e.g., grandchild—that you worked?)

18. Built to Last v. Built to Flip“The problem with Built to Last is that it’s a romantic notion. Large companies are incapable of ongoing innovation, of ongoing flexibility. … Increasingly, successful businesses will be ephemeral. They will be built to yield something of value – and once that value has been exhausted, they will vanish.”—Fast Company

19. Single greatest contemporary act of pure imagination

20. dubai

21. 24%

22. Basement Systems Inc.

23. *Basement Systems Inc.*Larry Janesky*Dry Basement Science(115,000!)*1993: $0; 2003: $12M; 2006: $50,000,000+

24. EXCELLENCE. INNOVATE. OR. DIE.

25. “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”—Charles Darwin

26. Hire Great People(Resilient, Passionate, Diverse)give ’em a lot of room(Decentralize)Try a Lot of Stuff(S.A.V./R.F.A.)Enjoy It While It Lasts

27. Life 101: A 40-year Meditation Go on offense. Give everybody a shot. Decentralize. Hire weird. Foster discomfort. Try a bunch of stuff. Make it up as you go along. Get some stuff wrong. Laugh a lot. Get some stuff right. Become a “success.” For a while. Extract “lessons learned” or “best practices.” Thicken the Book of Rules for Success. Become evermore serious. Enforce the rules to increasingly tight tolerances. Go on defense. Install walls. Protect-at-all-costs today’s franchise. QEPS > SCNP Centralize. Calcify. Install taller walls. Write more rules. Promote the CFO to CEO. Become irrelevant and-or die.

28. Sir Richard’s RulesFollow your passions.Keep it simple.Get the best people to help you.Re-create yourself.Play.Source: Fortune/10.03

29. C.E.O.to C.D.O.

30. Axiom: We have met the enemy and he is us.Axiom: The adaptive capabilities of big corporations taken as a whole is problematic [read: pathetic].Antidote: The answer is 75% internal. To sustain/win, we must first and foremost and in perpetuity beat back the forces of darkness—size and inertia and fear and timidity and over-complexity.

31. On NELSON:“[other] admirals more frightened of losing than anxious to win”

32. Forget the “external focus” crap. My only serious competition is internal.Me.

33. Forget the “external focus” crap. My only serious competition is my own conservatism.

34. Forget the “external focus” crap. My most serious impediment is my belief that I can “change the culture.”

35. InnoTacs

36. We become who we hang out with

37. “The Bottleneck Is at the Top of the Bottle”“Where are you likely to find people with the least diversity of experience, the largest investment in the past, and the greatest reverence for industry dogma:Atthetop!”— Gary Hamel/Harvard Business Review

38. Measure “Strangeness”/Portfolio QualityStaffConsultantsVendorsOut-sourcing Partners (#, Quality)Innovation Alliance PartnersCustomersCompetitors (who we “benchmark” against)Strategic Initiatives Product Portfolio (LineEx v. Leap)IS/IT ProjectsHQ LocationLunch MatesLanguageBoard

39. Women as innovation force!

40. “Women arethemajority market”—Fara Warner/The Power of the Purse

41. try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Screw it up. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it. Screw it up. it. Try it. Try it. try it. Try it.Screw it up. Try it. Try it. Try it.

42. What makes God laugh?

43. Peoplemakingplans!

44. do things.

45. “We have a ‘strategic plan.’ It’s called doing things.”— Herb Kelleher

46. “almost inhuman disinterestedness in … strategy”—Josiah Bunting on U.S. Grant (from Ulysses S. Grant)

47. drill.

48. “This is so simple it sounds stupid, but it is amazing how few oil people really understand that you only find oil if you drill wells.You may think you’re finding it when you’re drawing maps and studying logs, but you have to drill.” Source: The Hunters, by John Masters, Canadian O & G wildcatter

49. try things.

50. “We made mistakes, of course. Most of them were omissions we didn’t think of when we initially wrote the software. We fixed them by doing it over and over, again and again. We do the same today. While our competitors are still sucking their thumbs trying to make the design perfect, we’re already on prototype version#5.By the time our rivals are ready with wires and screws, we are on version #10.It gets back to planning versus acting: We act from day one; others plan how toplan—for months.”—Bloomberg by Bloomberg