Tom Peters, the Guru

  • Is it pain in the butt?
    You bet it is! Nobody said that power comes cheap!
  • Tear up the rule book, because everything has changed. So, ‘forget learning, learn forgetting!’
  • Technology will make many of the low-paying white-collared jobs redundant. So you really need to look to moving up the value chain.
  • The notion of existence in perpetuity is a horrible concept. I’d rather be the chairman of Netscape, which got born, changed the world and died within 48 months; and have that on my tombstone, than have, ‘he met his earnings target for 50 straight quarters’!
  • How long does it take to achieve excellence? May be less than a nano-second to attain it but a lifetime of passionate pursuit to maintain it!
  • The devil is in details!
    Dot the ‘i’s; cross the ‘t’s!
    Answer every phone call, every letter or e-mail!
    Nothing is unimportant!
  • When marketing a product, differentiate the intangibles; When marketing a service, differentiate the tangibles!
  • In 1970, it took 108 men five days to unload a ship at the London docks. Today, eight guys with computers do the same job in one day. The blue-collar world has been revolutionized. And the white-collar world is next up, thanks to the incredible leaps in technology!
  • In the next few years, 90 per cent of all white-collar jobs will either have vanished or changed beyond recognition.
  • Don’t bother with gradual change. Incrementalism is the worst enemy of innovation.
  • General Electric was begun by Edison as an entrepreneurial organization, and even at their bureaucratic worst, they had guys who actually ran things who never paid any attention to HQ!
  • The Afgan campaign of US was Napsterised in the battlefield by cutting out the middle managers: majors, colonels and generals. Result: frontline soldiers could talk directly to pilots. Earlier, a war could be over before any army request for air cover would result in air-force support!
  • The best leadership model is a general manager of a sports team who spends 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, 53 weeks a year in pursuit and retention of the best talent!
  • Many boards have members with an average age of 87.5 years and almost all of them are famous for having been famous some years ago!
  • Good CEO’s should redesignate themselves as ‘CDO’s, or, Chief Destruction officers! Because, they are essentially get paid for blowing up their business before the competition does!

One thought on “Tom Peters, the Guru

  1. Kiana Tom

    Hello…I Googled for tom peters, but found your page about ahma.com, the site on Art of successful living,Nuggets of Wisdom and Inspirational stuff!…and have to say thanks. nice read.

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