Tom Peters

[Author] Nick Taleb explained that if you are lucky enough to have been born of intelligent parents and if you work your ass off, you are statistically likely to have a pretty good career. If your career is any better than pretty good, it’s luck. There is no statement in life that I believe more than that. And the set of people on earth who … [ Read more ]

Tom Peters

Organizational restructuring is no longer the answer—if it ever was—to the most difficult problems of shifting organizational focus. Indeed, the shape of the organization chart is less and less relevant to their solution.

Tom Peters

Given a realistic commitment to implementation, structural reorganization along functional or divisional lines has worked out successfully in many companies. This is to be expected, since the concepts of functional dominance and product-line autonomy are fair approximations of what actually goes on in functional and divisional organizations respectively. Indeed, in the latter case the structure often fits the basic strategy like a glove; hence its … [ Read more ]

Tom Peters

If you’re a leader, your whole reason for living is to help human beings develop—to really develop people and make work a place that’s energetic and exciting and a growth opportunity … You’re in the people-development business. If you take a leadership job, you do people. Period. It’s what you do. It’s what you’re paid to do. People, period. Should you have a great strategy? … [ Read more ]

Tom Peters on Leading the 21st-Century Organization

Thirty years after leaving McKinsey, the prolific author returns to discuss tomorrow’s management challenges and the keys to organizational change and transformative leadership in any age.

Editor’s Note: I am not a big fan of Tom Peters and I find very little of real substance in this interview, but I’ll let you decide for yourself.

Beyond the Matrix Organization

In this Quarterly archive article (1979), Tom Peters examines the flaws of the matrix-organization design and explores several more effective approaches to implement no more than one or two essential corporate thrusts at a time.

111 Ridiculously Obvious Thoughts on Selling

Tom Peters offers a list of not-always-obvious tips that reminds us that every relationship is a sales relationship.

Bob Stone

Some people look for things that went wrong and try to fix them. I look for things that went right and try to build on them.

Max De Pree

Management has a lot to do with answers. Leadership is a function of questions. And the first question for a leader always is: ‘Who do we intend to be?’ Not ‘What are we going to do?’ but ‘Who do we intend to be?’

The Wow Project

In the new economy, all work is project work. And you are your projects! Here’s how to make them all go Wow!

Editor’s Note: despite the reference to the New economy and the fact that this was written in 1999, there is some good tidbits in this article of lasting value.

Tom Peters’s True Confessions

On the 20th anniversary of In “Search of Excellence,” Peters admits, “I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote ‘Search.'”

Leadership Is Confusing as Hell

“Think of pre-1990 as the Age of Sucking Up to the Hierarchy. The Age of the Promise ‘Em Everything Pitch lasted from 1995 to 2000. The next five years will be the Age of No-Bull Performance. Which means that we’re going to see leadership emerge as the most important element of business — the attribute that is highest in demand and shortest in supply. And … [ Read more ]

Business guru Tom Peters sees major e-commerce shakeout

The legendary business guru says over 85 percent of e-commerce-based companies will bite the big one and that the real issue is whether companies have the guts required to succeed.