TOM PETERS ; ANIVERSARIO

Tom Peters Times for October 2007

Happy Anniversary, In Search of Excellence!   Tom called from the road to tell us this story. He's celebrating an anniversary. On the 15th of October, 1982, he received a small package from New York at his Palo Alto office. When he returned from a meeting in mid-afternoon and opened the package - there it was - two copies of his first book, from an initial print run of 5,000. Beside himself with delight, Tom fondled the book - and headed off to Cupertino with the second copy to give it to a senior executive at Apple, a little computer company with about 200 employees. And now, exactly 25 years later, Tom is still out on the road, "spreading the word" about "MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around," "A Bias for Action," and other more or less eternal truths. On this 25th anniversary to the day, Tom is making the 10,000-plus-mile trip to Seoul, where he will present, along with General Powell and the President of Korea, among others, at a major event aimed at vaulting Korea's innovation skills to another level. Happy Anniversary! to Tom and In Search of Excellence. - Posted at our blog on October 15, 2007, by Cathy Mosca

Brand You Road Trip FYI - The Brand You public workshop that was scheduled for October 9, 2007, at SMU in Dallas was postponed until the spring. The new date is TBD. We will keep you posted. Additionally, the next installment of the Brand You tour will be on November 1, 2007, in Burlington, MA, presented in partnership with Northeastern University. For registration information, click here. For more information on bringing Brand You to your area, contact Shannon Sullivan at 617-242-5522 or shannonsullivan@tompeters.com.

Succession Planning in a YouTube World On this 25th anniversary of In Search of Excellence, I'd like to pose this question: What do YOU believe is the most dramatic change in the business world since its publication? We believe, as Tom Peters charged back in 1982, that the most successful companies are those that have made long-term investments in their employees. By investing time and money in developing talent, when critical talent retires, organizations are able to seamlessly transition the new talent to take the reins. In today's highly competitive war for talent, attracting talent is the first step. The talent pool has matured in a virtually socialized YouTube kind of world. Talented people today require a different business model and play by different rules. If success cannot be found within traditional businesses, they will not sign on. One bright young woman reported, "If I don't fit into GE or Ford or IBM, that's not my problem ... that's their problem." This is 50% of the workforce. Who can afford that? Rather than fight corporate professional development systems, the next generations of talent are simply going to dismiss the system. And they are very open about the fact that if they cannot find what they want in an organization, they will simply build their own companies. This younger talent is liberated - not intimidated by precedent and not constrained by covention. This talent must feel the freedom to create the career they want. The strategic challenge facing leaders today is not only developing and retaining this talent, but also developing and implementing an effective succession planning process. Take a step back. For the first time in modern history, today's businesses are suffering from a dramatic loss of their most experienced and high powered intellectual capital members, while at the same time facing a huge deficit in hiring skilled employees. WOW! Is this the new "downsizing"? How will leaders keep the business engines whirling? We shout crisis!! Get a P&L leader's attention and give them these BOLD facts: 1. The convergence of various trends - changing workforce demographics, retiring baby boomers, and lack of skilled workers - will produce a job surplus in the next two years. 2. 168 million jobs will be created by the year 2010, but the labor force will reach only 158 million, resulting in 10 million unfilled positions. 3. Demand for quality workers is far outpacing supply, fueling a "talent crisis" that will directly affect organizations across a wide range of industries. Manufacturing, health care, and technical fields are already grappling with a scarcity of skilled, educated workers. High demand fields, including IT and engineering, as well as specialized industries such as utilities, energy, and transportation, are right behind them. When executed as part of an overall strategic initiative, succession planning enables organizations to identify their needs and align their talent accordingly. Here are some solutions that should be considered: Create career options within the organization. Provide planning tools to allow individuals to achieve their own professional goals. Encourage job mobility to engage talent. Focus on critical positions. Life Sciences: research and development staff; Utilities: field service workers who are critical to service delivery; Health Care: nursing care professionals. Integrate succession planning with strategic objectives by linking an employee's career development plans with the organization's overall strategic plans. Define only actionable development plans. Ask the talent what they want. What do they need to do next? Provide opportunities that increase their readiness for future positions. By letting the talent discover how they can take ownership for their own development, leaders can create a distinctive culture that will have a positive impact on the availability of talent to meet future requirements. Do not waste time with a new web-based package. Leaders must take the time to talk to their employees, showing them that they do care about them. When the leader's corporate agenda is attending to talent development today, organizations are laying a solid foundation for smooth talent transitions in the future. For succession planning to truly succeed, however, leaders must empower their talent to own their career development. It is urgent! Move quickly or face a talent crisis. Juli Ann Reynolds President and CEO Tom Peters Company

The Future Shape of the Winner We're in the midst of what Tom Peters calls a White Collar Revolution, and there's every sign that organizations are struggling to handle the resulting sophistication and complexity. Customers are becoming increasingly demanding, and more resistant to being "processed" by a system. We are well and truly in the age of the never satified customer! Competition is fierce, with ferocious, fast moving, and energetic entrants into traditional markets who are no respecters of tradition or geography. Technology is enabling a completely different way of approaching work and reaching customers, forcing us to completely re-think things such as working hours, opening hours, work places, time off, and many other universal truths of the past. This hyper-connectivity has thrown organizations into confusion when it comes to how they manage data - no longer can the internal thought police determine what gets around the grapevine network. Word can, and does, travel like wildfire! And finally, the folks we need to do the work are getting choosier and choosier about where and how they spend their time. No longer do we live with a generation of employees that "musn't complain" as their parents did. They have a point of view and want it accommodated! These are the very people we need contributing their energy, creativity, and free will to our enterprises. Tom Peters shorthands the solution to the crisis as PSF - the Professional Service Firm approach. Doubtless you'll have read about this, if you've ever picked up one of his recent books. In working with our clients to use the PSF thinking in their organizations, we've been able, in Tom Peters Company, to create a model that helps our clients to focus on what must be different for the future, and to create clarity around the various elements that will influence that change. We call it the Future Shape of the Winner, and you can read more about it on our NEW website: www.tompeters.co.uk. We are convinced that organizations in years to come will look very different form those that are showcased in Business Schools today. There is a new world of work being invented out there, and those who want to be players can have a field day. Take a look at our new website, and see what you think. What kind of shape is your organization in? Are you up for (even more) change? Madeleine McGrath Managing Director, International Tom Peters Company

5 Questions ... for Tom Peters On September 30, USA Today posted a short 5 question interview with Tom. It's a quick read. You can find it here.

Cool Friend Alex Kjerulf According to our new Cool Friend Alex Kjerulf, the Scandinavian languages have a word, arbejdsglæde, that means "work happiness" whereas the Japanese have the word karoshi, meaning "death by overwork" (We're hoping you feel particularly Scandinavian today). Alex is the author of Happy Hour is 9 to 5: How to Love Your Job, Love Your Life, and Kick Butt at Work and he spoke with Erik Hansen about why happy workers are better for a company's bottom line. He mentioned strategies for leaders who want to create a happier workplace as well as things we can all do to make ourselves happier. Read the Cool Friends interview or visit Alex's blog, PositiveSharing.com.

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