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THE UBER-GURU OF MANAGEMENT: There is little doubt that no one, with the exception of Peter Drucker, has had more influence in shaping the idea of modern management than Tom Peters. Peters still has the same vigor and enthusiasm he had when the classic In Search of Excellence was published in 1982. He does approximately 30 speaking events a year around the world and his site, tompeters.com, receives over 32,000 unique visitors (90,000 page views) per month.

THIS IS NOT YOUR AVERAGE BUSINESS BOOK: Unlike so many dry, boring books on business, Tom Peters has a compelling, in-your-face style that makes this book as fun to read as it is insightful. An enemy of conformist “suits,” mindless mega-mergers, and the status quo, Peters urges readers to embrace diversity, cherish weirdness, and manage by turning off the computer and hitting the streets.

WISDOM FOR US ALL: This is one of those rare business books that is as essential for the small business owner or freelancer as it is for the head of a major corporation. Beginning with a fiery call-to-arms to companies and businesspeople to get “back to basics,” this book is the guidebook on how to excel at the people side of business and a reminder to “never forget why you’re here.”

Some examples of Tom’s timeless wisdom:

LOVE YOUR COMPETITORS: “At the top of my business priority list is a desire for my overall market to grow by leaps and bounds. Sure… my market share will go down…But my revenue will also soar.”

LEAVE YOUR WALLET AT HOME: “Pay for your groceries with cash next time. Your car repair, too. The office supply bill? Ditto. By hook or by crook, bring Realism in the office door.”

APPOINT AN OMBUDSMAN FOR COMMON SENSE: “A lot of the giant financial-economic mess we’re in can be chalked up to a failure of common sense-sometimes, often actually, by the so-called bestest of the best and brightest… I suggest routinely running proposals or budgets, or whatever, minor as well as major, by a “common sense ombudsman.”

CUT RED TAPE: When a project is unusual-risky, never, ever waste time or capital going “up the chain of command.”… Be polite to your boss, but do not waste time on him!

Now more than ever, businesspeople need a voice of experience and wisdom to guide us through this time of financial uncertainty. Tom Peters is – as he always has been – just that voice.

“Tom Peters has probably done more than anyone else to shift the debate on management from the confines of boardrooms, academia, and consultancies to a broader, worldwide audience, where it has become the staple diet of the media and managers alike. Peter Drucker has written more and his ideas have withstood a longer test of time, but it is Peters—as consultant, writer, columnist, seminar lecturer, and stage performer—whose energy, style, influence, and ideas have shaped new management thinking.” —Movers and Shakers: The 100 Most Influential Figures in Modern Business

Tom Peters is the most influential business thinker of our age. He’s been hailed as the “uber guru” by the Economist and the “father of the post-modern corporation” by the Los Angeles Times. Fortune adds, “We live in a Tom Peters world.”

In Search of Excellence, Tom’s first book, coauthored with Robert Waterman, was published in 1982 and became an instant bestseller. In 1999 NPR named it one of the “Top Three Business Books of the Century.” He followed that with A Passion for Excellence, coauthored with Nancy Austin, and a further string of international bestsellers including Thriving on Chaos, Liberation Management, The Tom Peters Seminar, The Pursuit of WOW!, The Circle of Innovation, The Brand You50, The Project50, and The Professional Service Firm50. His book Re-imagine! has four topical companions, Leadership, Design, Trends, and Talent.

In addition to writing, Tom presents about 50 seminars a year all over the world. Tom is a graduate of Cornell and Stanford Universities, and he has worked as a senior White House drug abuse adviser, been a partner at McKinsey & Co., and spent four years on active duty in the U.S. Navy (including 2 tours in Vietnam). Tom and his family live on a farm in Vermont.

	Introduction - PDF	xix
	LITTLE
1	It’s All About the Restrooms!	1
2	“Small Stuff” Matters A Lot!	3
3	Flower Power!	3
4	Master the Fine Art of … Nudgery!	4
	EXCELLENCE
5	If Not Excellence, What? If Not Excellence Now, When?	10
6	Whither Excellence? Or: Asleep at the Wheel	13
7	“Quality”: You’ll Know It When You See It	14
8	Excellence Is …	15
	SPECIAL SECTION: Guru Gaffes	16
	CRISIS
9	That Which Goeth Up and Up and Up Doth Not Goeth More Up and More Up and More Up Forever and Ever and Ever	25
10	Good Things (Especially in Bad Times?) Come in Threes	28
11	Get China on Your Mind! Get India on Your Mind!	31
	OPPORTUNITY
12	Tough Times? Matchless Opportunity!	33
13	Boring Is Beautiful! (Or at Least It Can Be)	34
14	“Old” Rules (Yes, Even in the “Age of the Internet”)	37
15	Build Green Now (No Excuses!)	39
16	Bottom Line in Bad Times: Obsess Over the Top Line	42
	RESILIENCE
17	Swan Dive: A Guide to Getting On with Getting On	45
18	Lifetime Employment Is Dead Your Career Is Not	50
19	“Failure”—Celebrate It!	52
20	The World’s Worst Advice (Please Ignore It)	55
	SPECIAL SECTION: The Recession 46 Forty-Six “Secrets” and “Strategies” for Dealing with the Gut-Wrenching Downturn of 2007++
	SELF
21	You Are Your Product—Develop It	63
22	Job One: Amuse Yourself!	66
23	Fitness Power = Staying Power	68
24	Mental Gymnastics, Urgency Of	69
25	You Are Your Story! So Work on It!	70
26	Develop Your RPOV8—ASAP!	74
	OTHERS
27	Kindness Is Free!	77
28	Civil! Civil! Civil!	79
29	Listen to Ann—and “Act Accordingly”	82
30	“Being There” (Or: How I Learned First Principles from My Grandfather’s Last Rites)	83
31	Appreciating the Great Battle: A Case for Consideration	85
32	Thoughtfulness Is Free (or Close Thereto)	88
	CONNECTION
33	Only Connect …	93
34	They Liked Ike (Because Ike Liked Them)	95
35	Always Make It Personal	97
36	Commit “Acts of Deliberate Relationship Enhancement”	100
	ATTITUDE
37	Put the “Eye-Sparkle Factor” on Your Menu	103
38	Pleasant, Caring, Engaged—at 6 AM!	105
39	Hire “Cheerful”—Or: That Damned AV Guy!	107
40	Which “Flag” Are You Waving?	109
	PERFORMANCE
41	It’s Showtime! All the Time!	74
42	Work (Like a Demon) on Your First Impressions	113
43	Work (Like a Demon) on Your Last Impressions	119
44	Work on Your Presentation Skills (Or: 17 Minutes Can Change the World!)	121
	WORK
45	On Being a “Professional”	125
46	“Everything Passes Through Finance” (And So Should You)	126
47	What’s on the Agenda? Why Don’t You Decide?	128
48	We Are All in Sales Period	130
	INITIATIVE
49	Make That “Three-Minute Call”! Today! Now!	133
50	Show Up! (It’s a Start)	136
51	Get Up Earlier Than the Next (in This Case) Gal	138
52	Make an Insane Public Effort	139
	LEADERSHIP
53	To Lead Is to Measurably Help Others Succeed	143
54	At Their Service	145
55	Have You “Hosted” Any Good Employees Lately?	146
56	A Sacred Trust	147
57	Rat Psych Rules!—Or: Deploying Positive Reinforcement’s Incredible Potency	149
	WORDS
58	“What Do You Think?”	155
59	“Thank You”	156
60	“I’m Sorry”	157
61	Words of Truth—from a Fiction Writer	161
	NETWORKING
62	One Line of Code: The Shortest Distance Between “Critic” and “Champion”	163
63	“Suck Down” for Success	167
64	Formula for Success: C(I) > C(E)	169
65	How Does Your “Inside Game” Measure Up?	173
	LUNCH
66	Across the Board: Cross-Functional Collaboration Is Issue #1	177
67	Getting Along and Going to Lunch: Solving the Cross-Functional Cooperation Problem	178
61	SPECIAL SECTION: THE “EQUATIONS” An Engineer’s View of the … Secrets of Effective Implementation	181
	YES
68	Just Say Yes!—Or: A Lesson from My Mother-in-Law	189
69	For the Sheer Glorious 24/7 Fun of It!	190
	NO
70	“To-Don’ts” Are More Important Than “To-Dos”	195
71	Some Things Worth Doing Are Worth Doing Not Particularly Well	197
	CUSTOMERS
72	It’s 11 AM—Have You Called a Customer Today?	201
73	There’s Nothing But Nothing Better Than an Angry Customer!	203
74	What We Have Here Is a Failure to Overcommunicate	204
	ACTION
75	“Trying My Damnedest!” Wrong Answer!	207
76	It Is Not Enough to Care!	209
77	Captain “Day” and Captain “Night”: A Tale of Two Deployments And Two Suggestions	212
78	If You Want to Find Oil, You Must Drill Wells	215
	CHANGE
79	Zen and the Art of Achieving Change Where It Already Exists	219
80	The Way of the Demo	222
81	Big Change—All at Once!	224
82	Big Change—in a Short Time	228
83	Clever? Never!	230
	SPECIAL SECTION: You, Me, and Charlie Wilson’s War	235
	PASSION
84	I Second That Emotion!	247
85	One Rule! Much Gold!!	248
86	Seize the Moments	251
	PRESENCE
87	Managing By Wandering Around—It’s All Around You!	255
88	All Senses! Or Nonsense!	258
89	Leave Your Wallet (or Pocketbook) at Home	260
90	Get Down from Your Pedestal—and Beware the Sound of Laughter!	262
91	Big Plan? No, Small Steps (Steps on the Ground)	264
	TALENT
92	Hiring: Do You Approach It with Unabashed Fanaticism?	271
93	Promotion: Are You Building a “Two Per Year” Legacy?	272
94	Development: Are You Finding and Cultivating First-Rate (“Godlike”) First-Line Supervisors?	273
95	People Who Lead People: You = Your Development Track Record	277
	PEOPLE
96	It’s All (ALL!) About … the Quality of the Workforce	281
97	Up with People! Up Your People Budget!	286
98	Cherish the Last Two-Percenters	289
99	The Excitement Axiom—and the People Corollary	290
	GENDER
100	Pronoun Power!—Or: The Customer Is “She”	293
101	Women Lead! (Can Men Learn to Be Good Sports About It?)	295
102	Men, “Get the Facts”: Women Are Different	298
103	Dressed for Success? Or: What the History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement Taught Me About Hanging In and Hanging In	300
	INNOVATION
104	The Audacity of … Research!	307
105	Adhocracy—Love It or Leave It	309
106	Beyond Excellence: The “Berserk Standard”	311
107	Out of the Shadows: Skunkworks, Revisited	313
108	SAV (No, It’s Not a Kind of Truck)	316
109	What Have You Prototyped Lately?	318
110	Hell Hath No Fury: Celebrate “Disturbers of the Peace”	320
111	The Innovation15: What We Know So Far …	322
	LISTENING
112	Now Hear This! Listening Is the Ultimate “Core Competence”	327
113	Are You an “18-Second Manager”?	332
114	Get the Story Give the Respect	334
	SPECIAL SECTION: Quotations 34	338
	CURIOSITY
115	If You Have to Ask … Then Ask (and Ask and Ask)	345
116	Reward DNK (Do Not Know)	347
117	Work the Watercooler—Or: Are You Gossiping Enough?	348
	LEARNING
118	Making the Grade: Lifelong Learning Is a Mission-Statement Must	351
119	Out-Study ’Em!	353
120	Out-Read ’Em!	355
121	Out-Write ’Em!	356
122	Now Enrolling: “The People’s MBA”	358
	TIME
123	It Might Be Later Than You Think	363
124	Time Off for Smart Behavior	364
125	Time Out for … Daydreaming!	366
126	Master the Art of Milestoning	369
	DESIGN
127	Design Is … Everywhere!	373
128	Is It “Lickable”?	377
129	Design Sign: Can You Get There from Here?	378
130	Love + Hate = Design Power	382
	DETAILS
131	The Case of the Two-Cent Candy	385
132	If the Envelope Doesn’t Fit, Forget It!	389
133	It’s All About the Mud	391
134	Think Billboard Sign “We Care” “We Don’t Care”	394
	GRUNGE
135	The Enemy Within—Or: There Is No Cost Higher Than the Cost of Rigidity	397
136	Become a Decentralization Dervish!	400
137	Play the … Great Grunge Removal Game!	405
138	The 1 Percent Drill: Clearing Away a World of “Slop” in Just 45 Minutes	407
139	Goal: To Make “Common Sense” More Common	408
	ENTERPRISE
140	An Organization Is “People Serving People” (Period!)	411
141	The PSF Mandate: “Work Worth Paying For”	414
142	Don’t Let the “Enemy” Rule Your Life	416
143	Love Your Competitors	418
	SPECIAL SECTION: The Top 50 “Have-Yous”	421
	RE-IMAGINING	431
144	Create a “Cathedral”! (If Not, What?)	431
145	Enable Dreams (If Not, What?)	434
146	Launch “Project Ray”	436
147	Realism? Not on My Watch!	437
	WOW
148	If No WOW, Then … No Go	441
149	What Makes You So Special?—Or: “Only” Beats “Best”	443
150	Is It “Gaspworthy”?	447
151	Extremism in the Defense of WOW Is No Vice	450
	NOW
152	Welcome to the Age of Metabolic Management	453
153	Walls of “Yesterdays” Walls of “Tomorrows”	455
154	Pissing Away Your Life: Like It or Not, Work Is Life!	456
	IMPACT
155	Forget Longevity—Think “Dramatic Frenzy”	459
156	How About Replacing Your “Wish It Were” List with a “Do It Now” List?	463
	SPECIAL SECTION: The Heart of Business Strategy	465
	SUCCESS
157	The “3H Model” of Success	489
158	A 5-Word, 5-Point “Complete” “Excellence Manifesto”	491
159	The Full Nelson—Or: 13 Lessons on “Navigating” Excellence	493
160	A Cheat Sheet for Tough Times (and Other Times, Too)	498
	BIG
161	Retirement Sucks	501
162	Think Legacy!	503
163	Don’t Forget Why You’re Here!	505
	Dedication	509
	Acknowledgments	511
	Index	517

In Search of Excellence : Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies
Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution
Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age
Adhocracy