Excellence Always!

Zojuist de 2009 versie van Re-Imagine - Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age verslonden van the uber-guru (volgens The Economist) Tom Peters. Geen review hier, maar 3 picks.

Pick #1 - Too Much..., Not Enough... (John Bogle)

Too Much Cost, Not Enough Value... Too Much Speculation, Not Enough Investment... Too Much Complexity, Not enough Simplicity... Too Much Counting, Not Enough Trust... Too Much Business Conduct, Not Enough Professional Conduct... Too Much Salesmanship, Not Enough Stewardship... Too Much Focus on Things, Not Enough Focus on Commitment... Too Many Twenty-First-Century Values, Not Enough Eighteenth-Century Values... Too Much Success, Not Enough Character.

I can do no more than say "Amen".

Pick #2 - The 19 E's of Excellence

• Enthusiasm - Be an irresistible force of nature!
• Energy - Be fire! Light fires!
• Exuberance - Vibrate - cause earthquakes!
• Execution - Do it! Now! Get it done! Barriers are baloney! Excuses are for wimps! Accountability is gospel! Per American professional foortball coach Bill Parcels: Blame nobody! Expect Nothing! Do something!
• Empowerment - Respect and appreciation! Always ask: "What do you think?" Then: Listen! Liberate! Celebrate! 100% innovators or bust!
• Edginess - Perpetually dancing at the frontier, and a little or lot beyond.
• Enraged - Determined to challenge & change the status quo!
• Engaged - Addicted to MBWA/Managing by Wandering Around. In touch. Always!
• Electronic - Partners with the world 60/60/24/7 via electronic community building and entanglement of every sort. Crowdsourcing power rules!
• Encompassing - Relentlessly pursue diverse opinions - the more diversity the merrier! Diversity per se "works"!
• Emotion - The alpha. The omega. The esence of leadership. The essence of sales. The essence of marketing. The essence. Period. Acknowledge it.
• Empathy - Connect, connect, connect with others' reality and aspirations! Walk into the other person's shoes, until the soles have holes.
• Experience - Life is theater! Make every activity-contact, inside the firm or out, memorable! Standard: Insanely Great (Steve Jobs); Radically Thrilling (BMW).
• Eliminate - Keep it simple!
• Errorprone - Ready! Fire! Aim! Try a lot of stuff and make a lot of booboos. Then try some more stuff and make some more booboos - all of it at the speed of light!
• Evenhanded - Straight as an arrow! Fair to a fault! Honest as Abe!
• Expectations - Michelangelo: "The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it" Amen!
• Eudaimonia - Pursue the highest of human morale purpose - the core of Aristotle's philosophy. Be of service. Always!
• Excellence - The only standard! Never an exception! Start now! No excuses! If not excellence, what? If not excellence now, when?

Pick #3 - No strategy, please - we're McKinsey

For 7 years, I worked at McKinsey & Co. The firm has its flaws. (Big Flaws.) But for 70 years, it's been successful. (Astonishingly successful.) And one big reason for that success, I contend, is that while this renowned strategic consultancy has never had anything approaching a strategy (!) ...it has been absolutely obsessed with ...Talent... from Day One. As the saying goes: Watch what they do, not what they say.

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Lees vooral (ook) Tom's nieuwste boek: The Little BIG Things - 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence.

Click here to see this video.