Tom Peters’
!
Excellence
Dignity Health
2017 Operations COO/CEO Retreat
09 May/San Francisco
tompeters.com;
also see our annotated 23-part Monster-Master at excellencenow.com)
(This presentation/10+ years of presentation slides at
Tom Peters’
Excellence:
!
Hello humankindness
Dignity Health
2017 Operations COO/CEO Retreat
09 May/San Francisco
tompeters.com;
also see our annotated 23-part Monster-Master at excellencenow.com)
(This presentation/10+ years of presentation slides at
Happy National
Nurses Week
2017!*
*H-in-C [Healer-in-Chief]
Kingfisher Air
Location: Approach to New Delhi
Conveyance:
“May I
clean your
glasses, sir?”
“Courtesies of a small and
trivial character are the
ones which strike deepest
in the grateful and
appreciating heart.” —Henry Clay
"Let's not forget that small
emotions are the great
captains of our lives." –—van Gogh
/80*
*Post-interview “Thank you” notes
!!!!!!
Small
>>>
Big
EXCELLENCE!
Joe J. Jones
1/3/39 – 3/23/17
Net Worth
$21,543,672.48*
(*When the NYSE closed on 3/22/17)
“In a way, the world is a great liar.
It shows you it worships and admires money,
but at the end of the day it doesn’t. It says it
adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn’t, not
really. The world admires, and wants to hold
on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires
virtue. At the end it gives its greatest
tributes to generosity, honesty, courage,
mercy, talents well used, talents that,
brought into the world, make it better. That’s
what it really admires. That’s what we talk
about in eulogies, because that’s what’s
important. We don’t say, ‘The thing about Joe
was he was rich!’ We say, if we can …
“ … We say, if we can …
‘The thing about
Joe was he took
good care of
people.’”
—Peggy Noonan, “A Life’s Lesson,” on the astounding response to the passing of
journalist Tim Russert, The Wall Street Journal, June 21-22, 2008
EXCELLENCE is not a “long-term”
"aspiration.”
EXCELLENCE is the ultimate shortterm strategy. EXCELLENCE is …
THE
NEXT
5
MINUTES.*
(*Or NOT.)
EXCELLENCE is not an "aspiration."
EXCELLENCE is … THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
EXCELLENCE
Or not.
is your next conversation.
is your next meeting.
is shutting up and listening—really listening.
is your next customer contact.
is saying “Thank you” for something “small.”
is the next time you shoulder responsibility and apologize.
is waaay over-reacting to a screw-up.
is the flowers you brought to work today.
is lending a hand to an “outsider” who’s fallen behind schedule.
is bothering to learn the way folks in finance [or IS or HR] think.
is waaay “over”-preparing for a 3-minute presentation.
is turning “insignificant” tasks into models of … EXCELLENCE.
Step Up To
Creating/
Living/
Maintaining a
Vibrant Culture
“What matters
most to a company over time?
Strategy or culture?”
Wall Street Journal:
Dominic Barton, Managing director,
McKinsey:
“Culture.”
“Culture eats
strategy for
breakfast.”
Ed Schein, MIT:
“If I could have chosen not to tackle the IBM culture head-on,
I probably wouldn’t have. My bias coming in was toward
strategy, analysis and measurement. In comparison, changing
the attitude and behaviors of hundreds of thousands of people
Yet I came to see in
my time at IBM that culture
isn’t just one aspect of the
is very, very hard.
game
—IT IS THE
GAME.”
—Lou Gerstner, Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance
“What’s remarkable
is how fast a culture
can be torn apart.”
—top 3M scientist
Source: “3M’s Innovation Crisis: How
SixSigma Almost Smothered Its Idea
Culture,” Cover story, BusinessWeek
“Starbucks had become
operationally driven,
about efficiency as
opposed to the romance.
We’d lost the soul
of the company.”
—Howard Schultz on Starbucks’ problems which caused
Him to reclaim the CEO job (Shultz calls his association
with Starbucks “a love story.”)
“Shareholders very seldom love the brands
they have invested in. And the
last thing they want is an intimate
relationship. They want measurability,
increasing returns (always) and no
surprises (ever). Imagine a relationship
with someone like that!
“No wonder so many brands lost the
emotional thread that had led them to
their extraordinary success and turned
them instead into metric-munchers of the
lowest kind. Watch for the sign: ‘Heads,
not hearts, at work here.’ ”
Source: Kevin Roberts, Saatchi & Saatchi,
Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands
“The notion that corporate law
requires directors, executives, and
employees to maximize shareholder
wealth simply is not true. There is no
solid legal support for the claim that
directors and executives in U.S.
public corporations have an
enforceable legal duty to maximize
shareholder wealth.
fable.”
The idea is
—Lynn Stout, professor of corporate and business
law, Cornell Law school, in The Shareholder Value Myth: How Putting
Shareholders First Harms Investors, Corporations, and the Public
“On the face of it,
shareholder value is the
dumbest idea in the world.
Shareholder value is a result,
not a strategy. … Your main
constituencies are your
employees, your customers
and your products.”
—Jack Welch, FT, 0313.09, page 1
Under-emphasizing the Soft Edge
“Far too many companies invest too little time
and money in their soft-edge excellence. … The
three main reasons for this mistake are:
“1. The hard edge is easier to quantify.
“2. Successful hard-edge investment
provides a faster return on investment.
“3. CEOs, CFO, chief operating officers,
boards of directors, and shareholders
speak the language of finance.”
Source:
The Soft Edge, Rich Karlgaard
Soft-Edge Advantages
“1. Soft-edge strength leads to greater
brand recognition, higher profit
margins, … [It] is the ticket out of
Commodityville.
“2. Companies strong in the soft edge are
better prepared to survive a big
strategic mistake or cataclysmic
disruption …
“3. Hard-edge strength is absolutely
necessary to compete, but it
provides only a fleeting advantage.”
Source:
The Soft Edge, Rich Karlgaard
"When I was in medical school, I spent
hundreds of hours looking into a
microscope—a skill I never needed to
Yet I didn't
have a single class that
taught me communication
or teamwork skills—
something I need every day
I walk into the hospital.”
know or ever use.
—Peter Pronovost, Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals
(Pronovost is the principal instigator of the checklist movement.
FYI: Checklists virtually useless without massive culture change.)
Putting People
[REALLY] First/
People Before
Strategy
“PEOPLE
BEFORE
STRATEGY”
—Lead article, Harvard Business Review. July-August 2015, by
McKinnsey MD Dominic Barton, Ram Charan, and Dennis Carey
“You have to treat your employees
like customers.”
—Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines, upon being asked his “secret to success”
“If you want staff to give great
service, give great service to staff.”
—Ari Weinzweig, Zingerman’s, in Bo Burlingham’s Small Giants:
Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big
“What employees experience, Customers will. The best marketing
YOUR CUSTOMERS
WILL NEVER BE ANY HAPPIER THAN
YOUR EMPLOYEES.”
is happy, engaged employees.
—John DiJulius, The Customer Service
Revolution: Overthrow Conventional Business, Inspire Employees, and Change the World
“Nobody comes home after a surgery saying, ‘Man, that
was the best suturing I’ve ever seen!’ or ‘Sweet, they
Instead, we talk
about the people who took care
of us, the ones who co-ordinated
the whole procedure—everyone
from the receptionist to the nurses
to the surgeon. And we don’t just tell stories
took out the correct kidney!’
around the dinner table. We share our experiences
through conversations with friends and colleagues and
via social media sites.”
PATIENTS COME
SECOND: Leading Change By Changing
the Way You Lead
— Paul Spiegelman and Britt Berrett,
139,380 former
patients from 225 hospitals:
Press Ganey Assoc:
NONE
OF THE TOP 15 FACTORS
DETERMINING PATIENT SATISFACTION
REFERRED TO PATIENT’S HEALTH
OUTCOME
Staff Interaction
PSat directly correlated with Employee
Satisfaction
PSat
directly related to
Source: Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
“It may sound radical, unconventional, and
bordering on being a crazy business idea.
However— as ridiculous as it sounds—joy is the
core belief of our workplace.
Joy
is the reason my company,
Menlo Innovations, a customer software design
and development firm in Ann Arbor, exists. It
defines what we do and how we do it. It is the
single shared belief of our entire team.”
Joy, Inc.: How We Built a
Workplace People Love
—Richard Sheridan,
Hiring
Southwest Airlines
Location: Albany, NY;
boarding flight to BWI
Conveyance:
1/9,000 (!)
“May I help
you down the
jetway. …”
“We look for ...
listening, caring,
smiling, saying
‘Thank you,’ being
warm.”
— Colleen Barrett, former President, Southwest Airlines
“The ultimate filter we use
[in the hiring process] is
that we only hire nice
people. … When we finish assessing skills,
we do something called ‘running the gauntlet.’ We have
them interact with 15 or 20 people, and everyone of them
have what I call a ‘blackball vote,’ which means they
can say if we should not hire that person. I believe in
culture so strongly and that one bad apple can spoil the
bunch. There are enough really talented people
out there who are nice, you don’t really need to
put up with people who act like jerks.”
—Peter Miller, CEO Optinose (pharmaceuticals)
Observed closely: The use of
“I”
or
“We”
during a
job interview.
Source: Leonard Berry & Kent Seltman, chapter 6, “Hiring for Values,”
Management Lessons From Mayo Clinic
“I am hundreds
of times better
here
[than in my prior hospital assignment]
because of the support system.
It’s like you were working in an
organism; you are not a single
cell when you are out there
practicing.’”
—quote from Dr. Nina Schwenk, in Chapter 3, “Practicing Team Medicine,”
from Leonard Berry & Kent Seltman, from Management Lessons From Mayo Clinic
"The personnel committees on all
three campuses have become
aggressive in addressing the issue
of physicians who are not living the
Mayo value of exhibiting respectful,
collegial behavior to all team
members. Some physicians
have been suspended
without pay or terminated.”
—Leonard Barry & Kent Seltman,
Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic
Leading
“The role of the Director is to
create a space where the actors
become
more than they’ve ever
been before,
more than they’ve
dreamed of being.”
and actresses can
—Robert Altman, Oscar acceptance speech
WINNERS & LOSERS
AND THE
WINNERS
AREN’T/ARE
“Mr. Foster and his McKinsey colleagues collected
detailed performance data stretching back
years for
1,000
found that
U.S. companies.
40
They
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
WINNERS & LOSERS
AND THE
WINNERS
AREN’T/ARE
“AMERICA’S
BEST
RESTROOM”
—Sixth Annual competition sponsored by Cintas Corporation,
a supplier of restroom cleaning and hygiene products; from
Retail Superstars: Inside the 25 Best Independent Stores in
America, by George Whalin
“WE WANT THEM IN OUR STORES.”
7X.
7:30A-8:00P. Fri/12A.
7:30AM = 7:15AM.
8:00PM = 8:15PM.
(+2,000,000 dog biscuits)
Source: Source: Fans! Not Customers. How to Create Growth Companies in a
No Growth World, Vernon Hill with Bob Andelman
2,000,000
YESBANK*
*Commerce Bank
“YESBANK”: “When we had a processing
problem with MasterCard, it came to our
attention that a customer couldn’t pay for
their airline flights. A Metro Bank team
She put the
customer’s flights on her
personal credit card so that the
member stepped in.
customer could still take advantage of a
good deal, and later—with their permission,
of course— transferred the money
from their account.”
Source: Fans! Not Customers. How to Create Growth Companies
in a No Growth World, Vernon Hill with Bob Andelman
The Commerce/Metro Bank Model
“COST CUTTING IS
A DEATH SPIRAL.”
“OUR WHOLE STORY IS
GROWING REVENUE.”
Source: Fans! Not Customers. How to Create Growth Companies
in a No Growth World, Vernon Hill with Bob Andelman
The Commerce/Metro Bank Model
“ARE YOU GOING TO COST
CUT YOUR WAY TO
PROSPERITY?
OR …
ARE YOU GOING TO
SPEND YOUR WAY TO
PROSPERITY?”
Source: Fans! Not Customers. How to Create Growth Companies
in a No Growth World, Vernon Hill with Bob Andelman
“OVER-INVEST IN OUR
PEOPLE,
OVER-INVEST IN OUR
FACILITIES.”
Michael Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed: THE THREE RULES:
How Exceptional Companies Think*:
1. Better before cheaper.
2. Revenue before cost.
3. There are no other rules.
(*From a database of over 25,000 companies from hundreds of industries covering 45 years, they
uncovered 344 companies that qualified as statistically “exceptional.”)
Jeff Colvin, Fortune: “The Economy Is Scary … But Smart
Companies Can Dominate”:
They manage for value—not for EPS.
They get radically customer-centric.
THEY KEEP DEVELOPING HUMAN CAPITAL.
Social Business/
Customer Engagement/
Customer Control/
“Brand Ambassadors”/
“Brand Assassins”/
Tweeting CEOs/
Etc./Etc. …
Welcome to the Age of Social Media
“The customer is in complete control
of communication.”
“What used to be “word of mouth” is now
“word of mouse.” You are either creating
brand ambassadors or brand terrorists
doing brand assassination.”
“IT TAKES 20 YEARS TO
BUILD A REPUTATION AND
5 MINUTES TO RUIN IT.”
Source: John DiJulius, The Customer Service Revolution
“Customer engagement is
moving from relatively
isolated market transactions
to deeply connected and
sustained social
relationships. This basic change in
how we do business will make an impact
on just about everything we do.”
Social Business By Design: Transformative Social Media Strategies
For the Connected Company —Dion Hinchcliffe & Peter Kim
“I would rather engage in a
Twitter conversation with a
single customer than see our
company attempt to attract the
attention of millions in a coveted
Super Bowl commercial.
Why? Because having
people discuss your brand directly with you, actually connecting one-to-one, is far
more valuable—not to mention far cheaper!. …
“Consumers want to discuss what they like, the companies they support, and the
organizations and leaders they resent. They want a community. They want to be heard.
“[I]f we engage employees, customers, and prospective customers in meaningful
dialogue about their lives, challenges, interests, and concerns, we can build a
community of trust, loyalty, and—possibly over time—help them become advocates
and champions for the brand.”
Tangerine
—Peter Aceto, CEO,
(from the Foreword to A World Gone Social,
by Ted Coine & Mark Babbit) (FYI: See Peter Aceto’s book Weology.)
Going “Social”: Location/Size Independent
River Pools and Spas/$5M/Warsaw VA
“Today, despite the fact that we’re just a little swimming
most
trafficked swimming pool
website in the world. Five years ago, if
pool company in Virginia
[Warsaw, VA],
we have the
you’d asked me and my business partners what we do, the
answer would have been simple, ‘We build in-ground
‘We are
the best teachers … in the
world … on the subject of fiberglass swimming pools,
fiberglass swimming pools.’ Now we say,
and we also happen to build them.’” (Mktg: $250K-$20K)
—Marcus
Sheridan, in Jay Baer, Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is About Help, Not Hype
D-Day/Design Day
10 August 2011:
Apple > Exxon
!
“We don’t have a good language to talk
about this kind of thing. In most people’s
vocabularies, design means veneer. … But
to me, nothing could be further from the
DESIGN IS
THE FUNDAMENTAL
SOUL OF A MANMADE CREATION.”
meaning of design.
—Steve Jobs
“Steve and Jony
would discuss
corners for hours
and hours.”
—Laurene Powell Jobs
“[Nest founder Tony Fadell] admitted, ‘Every business
school in the world would flunk you if you came out
with a business plan that said, Oh, by the way, we’re
going to design and fabricate our own screws at an
exponentially higher cost than it would cost to buy
But these aren’t just screws. Like
the thermometer itself, they’re better
screws, epic screws, screws with,
dare I say it, deeper meaning. Functionally,
them.
they utilize a specific thread pattern that allows them
to go into any surface, from wood to plaster to thin
sheet metal. And the [custom] screwdriver feels
balanced to the hand; it has the Nest logo on it and
looks ‘Nest-y,’ just like everything from Apple looks
‘Apple-y.’”
—Rich Karlgaard, The Soft Edge
“As a marketing executive, I view business as
one of the greatest adventures of the human
enterprise—if not the greatest. But I am not just a
businessman: I am also an unapologetic
romantic. I believe the world would be a better
place if we had more romance in our lives.
I believe that promise trumps fulfillment.
I believe that emotion eats
reason for breakfast. I am not a
daydreamer, idealist, or social activist. I am a
business romantic.”
—Tim Lebrecht, The Business Romantic: Give Everything, Quantify
Nothing, and Create Something Greater Than Yourself
LEADERSHIP
“SOME STUFF”
MBWA 25*
*Managing by Wandering Around
“I’m always stopping by our
at least
a week.
stores—
25
I’m also in other
places: Home Depot, Whole Foods,
Crate & Barrel. I try to be a sponge to
pick up as much as I can.” —Howard Schultz
Source: Fortune, “Secrets of Greatness”
FUN
1 Mouth,
Ears
“The doctor
interrupts
after …*
*Source: Jerome Groopman, How Doctors Think
18 …
18 …
seconds!
[An obsession with] Listening is ... the ultimate mark
of
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
is
is
is
is
is
is
is
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Listening
Listening
Listening
Listening
is
is
is
is
...
...
...
...
Respect
.
the heart and soul of Engagement.
the heart and soul of Kindness.
the heart and soul of Thoughtfulness.
the basis for true Collaboration.
the basis for true Partnership.
a Team Sport.
a Developable Individual Skill.* (*Though women
are far better at it than men.)
the
the
the
the
basis for Community.
bedrock of Joint Ventures that work.
bedrock of Joint Ventures that grow.
core of effective Cross-functional
Communication*
(*Which is in turn Attribute #1 of
organization effectiveness.)
Suggested
Core Value
#1: “
We are Effective
Listeners—we treat Listening
EXCELLENCE as the
Centerpiece of our
Commitment to Respect and
Engagement and Community
and Growth.”
Part ONE:
LISTEN*
(pp11-116, of 364)
*“The key to every one of our [eight] leadership
attributes was the vital importance of a leader’s
ability to listen.” (One of Branson’s personal keys to listening
is notetaking—he has hundreds of notebooks.)
Source:
Richard Branson, The Virgin Way: How to Listen, Learn, Laugh, and Lead
Acknowledgement
“The deepest urge
in human nature
is the desire to be
important.”
—John Dewey
“The deepest principle
in human nature is
the craving to be
appreciated.”
—William James
“Employees who
don't feel significant
rarely make
significant
contributions.”
—Mark Sanborn
2(A)
“Little” >> “Big”
“THANK
YOU”
CEO Doug Conant
30,000
handwritten
sent
‘Thank you’ notes to
employees during the 10
years
he ran
Campbell Soup.
[approx 10/day]
Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek
2(B)
“I’M
SORRY”
*******************
THE PROBLEM IS
RARELY/NEVER THE
PROBLEM. THE
RESPONSE TO THE
PROBLEM INVARIABLY
ENDS UP BEING THE
REAL PROBLEM.*
*PERCEPTION IS ALL THERE IS!
Toro, the lawn mower folks,
reduced the average cost of settling a claim from
With a new and forthcoming policy on apologies …
$115,000 in 1991 to $35,000 in 2008—
and the company hasn’t been to trial in the last
15 years!
The VA hospital in Lexington, Massachusetts, developed an approach, totally uncharacteristic
In
2000, the systemic mean VA hospital malpractice settlement
in healthcare, to apologizing for errors—even when no patient request or claim was made.
throughout the United States was
$413,000; the
Lexington VA hospital settlement number was
$36,000
Source: John Kador,
—and there were far fewer per patient claims to begin with.)
Effective Apology
K=R=P
(Kindness = Repeat business = Profit)
(EXCELLENCE: Hard is soft. Soft is hard.)
“There is a misconception that supportive interactions
require more staff or more time and are therefore more
costly. Although labor costs are a substantial part of any
hospital budget, the interactions themselves add nothing to
KINDNESS
IS FREE.
the budget.
Listening to patients
or answering their questions costs nothing. It can be argued
that negative interactions—alienating patients, being nonresponsive to their needs or limiting their sense of control—
can be very costly. … Angry, frustrated or frightened
patients may be combative, withdrawn and less
cooperative—requiring far more time than it would have
taken to interact with them initially in a positive way.”
—Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
(Griffin Hospital/Derby CT/Planetree Alliance)
K = R = P/Kindness = Repeat business = Profit
Understands that
kindness to staff
breeds kindness to
others/outsiders.
BONUS
The local plumber or electrician does not provide a
“commodity service” …
if
if
if
if
if
if
if
he knows his job
he is learning new tricks all the time
he has a good disposition
he shows up on time
he is neatly dressed
he has s spiffy truck
he cleans up so that the client could “eat off the floor” after
he leaves
if
he volunteers to do a few tiny tasks outside the one at
hand—gratis
If
he even goes so far as to create a blog with occasional posts
featuring practical tips for his clientele—e.g., a tiny Virginia
swimming pool company became a literal worldbeater adopting
this social-media strategy
10-Person BOARD OF DIRECTORS/Fit for the 2017
**AT LEAST TWO MEMBERS UNDER AGE 30. (Youth must be
served/guide us at-the-top circa 2017—this is rare!!)
**AT LEAST THREE WOMEN. (Boards with F-M balance lead to very
high relative performance.)
**ONE IT/DATA ANALYTICS/SOCIAL MEDIA SUPERSTAR. (Not an
“IT representative,” but a Certified “Waterwalker” from, say, Google.)
**ONE OR TWO ENTREPRENEURS—AND PERHAPS A VC.
(The entrepreneurial bent must directly infiltrate the board.)
**ONE PERSON OF STATURE WITH A “WEIRD” BACKGROUND—
ARTIST, MUSICIAN, SHAMAN, ETC. (We need regular uncomfortable
oddball challenges.)
**A CERTIFIED “DESIGN GURU.” (Design presence at Board level is
simply a must in my scheme of things.)
**NO MORE THAN ONE-TWO OVER 60. (Too many Oldie Boards!
Stop. NOW.)
**NO MORE THAN THREE WITH MBAs. (Why? The necessity of
moving beyond the emphases of the MBA-standard-predictable-linearanalytic-certified-vanilla model.)
(Partial inspiration for this: Cybernetics pioneer W. ROSS ASHBY’S “LAW OF REQUISITE VARIETY.” The diversity of
the Board should more or less match [be consistent with] the diversity [madness/2017] of the context/environment.)
“If I had to pick one failing of
they
don’t read
enough.”
CEOs, it’s that …