Tom Peters’ Re-Imagine!
Ok, I finished THE book. Tom Peters new book. WOW [Period!], to use is notation. It added a lot of stuff to my quotes list. I have to admit though that the book is a little bit on the long side, and Tom keeps to repeating himself a little bit too much from time to time. But possibly this is what more settled managers need. He’s also overdoing the Talent bit. How to I come to this conclusion? Read The Talent Myth form Malcolm Gladwell to get an idea how Talent contributed to the downfall of Enron. There, Talent could really do anything. The ones presumed to be talented could do any mistake, loose millions. That’s overdoing the talent myth.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully buy the talent bit. You need to get good people and to get the truely great you will have to move beyond simply good pay. You need to have a wonderful working environment, allow for controlled mistakes, tinkering, prototypes. Just letting talent roam freely is too much.
He also has lots of cool examples. Wal-Mart for example had a contest internally that was not for good ideas but the “stupidest thing we do around here.” Great!
He also puts Branding very simply, and it resonates with me in terms of blogging, wiki’s, open book accounting, zero budgeting, lots of stuff. He says it’s about answering a few simple questions:
\- Who are you?
\- Why are you here?
\- How are you unique?
\- How can you make a dramatic difference?
\- Who cares?
I love simple things. Page 160 has a brand exercise that you can try out yourself. Also great, the quote by Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead: “You do not merely want to be considered the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.”
A big part of his book goes about the power of women in our economy. A great list about differences of men and women in business is on page 174 from several different sources:
\- Men want to get away from authority and family. Women want to connect.
\- Men are self-oriented. Women are other-oriented.
\- Men are rights-oriented. Women are responsibility-oriented.
\- Men have an “individual perspective” (The “core unit is ‘me.’”) Women have a “group perspective.” (The “core unit is ‘we.’”)
\- Men take “pride in self-reliance.” Women take “pride in team accomplishment.”
\- Vision: Men, focused. Women, peripheral
\- Hearing: Women’s discomfort level is half that of men’s.
\- Smell: Women, sensitive. Men, relatively insensitive.
\- Touch: The most sensitive man is less sensitive to touch than the least sensitive woman.
\- People orientation: By age three days, baby girls exhibit to touch than the least sensitive woman.
I could go on with a ton of comments from the book but it would probably get too long. It’s a great energizing read and a totally different design. It’s a great package. Go read!