Corrections or additions?
This article by Kathleen McGinn Spring was prepared for the June
6, 2001
edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
WOW! Your Way Up the Ladder
Business guru Tom Peters’ writing style takes
some getting used to. A sample: How about a Renewal Buddy? (Spouse
is fine.) Work with him/her on a pretty explicit Growth/Learning Plan.
(Hey, pharmaceutical companies live . . . or die . . . from massive
injections of R&D. Obviously. You, too. Less obviously. Just as
surely.)
And that example is tame, minus the red letters, stretches of boldface
type, and strings of exclamation points that pepper much of his prose.
Peters is nothing if not enthusiastic. His first blockbuster book
was “In Search of Excellence,” and was aimed mostly at
managers
and owners. His latest series, on re-inventing work, speaks to cubicle
dwellers in short bursts, urging them to hop up and excel — at
everything. The new books are The Brand You50, The Project50, and
The Professional Service Firm50. The books preach the WOW! principle,
basically a form of knock-em-dead, but on steroids.
In addition to writing, Peters is a popular public speaker, and it
is easy to see why corporations are willing to shell out hundreds
of dollars a day to have their employees zapped by his enthusiasm.
For while he disparages loyalty to any particular company, he enobles
routine corporate tasks, telling office dwellers to make even their
most humble projects shout (what else?) WOW!
So much in demand is Peters that he has cloned himself, in a manner
of speaking, into the Tom Peters Company. Representatives of that
company speak on “The WOW! Projects” during a two-day workshop
beginning on Thursday, June 7, at 8 a.m. at Mercer County Community
College. Cost: $695. Call 609-586-4800.
In his new books, Peters, a graduate of Cornell who holds an MBA and
a Ph.D. from Stanford, breaks down his principles into 50 short
chapters,
and divides each of them into high-energy info-bites. Taken together,
the books add up to a credo, whose tenets include: The Work Can Be
Cool! Y-O-U Can Make a Difference and Rip Up Your Dilbert Cartoons!
Here are excerpts from the Brand You50:
Express Your Inner Martha Stewart. Most of us — saveMartha Stewart and a handful of others — don’t think of ourselvesas “a package.” Mistake! Everybody is a package. (“He’sa ball of fire.” “She’s a pistol.” “He’s the biggestbore I’ve ever met.”) The trick for Brand You is making sure youcontrol your package and the message it sends.Step No. 1: Go to the grocery. (No kidding.) Look at packages thatgrab — literally — your attention. And those that don’t. Theones that do (I bet) have: Energy! Vitality! Clarity! Economy!Surprise!Trustworthiness! Beauty and scintillating design! Not a bad set oftraits for thee or me/Brand You, eh?I can hear what you’re muttering: Flashy? Me? That’s not me! Whatam I supposed to do? See a surgeon? Get a personality transplant?No!Fact is . . . excuse the statement of the obvious . . . you have apersonality. (Ask your close friends!) One of the (big Brand Youwannabe)problems: Many/most of us suppress our personalities between nineand five. We’re afraid to show just how quirky we really are. So wesnuff out our spontaneity and eccentricities . . . and nurtureDilbert-esqueresentments toward the boss and/or our co-workers . . . that manifestthemselves as passive aggression. Like doing a half-ass job. Guesswho gets hurt the most? (Hint: It ain’t the boss.)Which brings me back to Packaging. Because Packaging is ExpressedPersonality. For Ford. For Fidelity. For Harvard. And Brown. AndMcDonald’s.And for me. And . . . for you.Embrace Crummy Jobs.Golden Rule: Any-Damn-Task-Can-Be-Turned-to-Gold . . . withImagination.(Don’t let on, but this is key: You don’t need the”great”/”big”project.) (Trust me. Please: In Search of Excellence emerged froma project in which no one put any faith . . . or initial resources.)It’s the “little,” “unwanted” job — SHAPE UP OURRELATIONSHIP WITH A FEW MINOR VENDORS WHO ARE OUT OF SORTS — thatcan literally unlock Pandora’s WOW!/Profitable Box.And the Seriously Cool Ones invariably start from Innocent/Small/WeeBeginnings. (Yes, invariably!) Papers to mark the hymns to be sungfell out of his hymnal. An itch (little) to be scratched. Voila (15or so years later): a billion $$$ Post-it product line for 3M.It’s all a matter of attitude. Crappy assignment? Or Opportunity No.1? (No one’s watching . . . precisely because it’s a “crappyassignment.”)Volunteer for Rotten Jobs!Next time a “crappy” “little” task pops up . . . takeit. Gleefully. Redefine it. Make it OH SO C-O-O-L. In fact, don’ waitfor a crappy little task to slither into your lap. Seek one out!Today!Clear the Decks for Work. Y-O-U A-R-E Y-O-U-RC-A-L-E-N-D-A-R!If Brand You is about your Signature WOW Projects . . and it is .. . then you must somehow (consult the Time Management gurus) weedout the 96(!) percent of distractions . . . andWork-the-Hell-Out-of-Your-SignatureWOW Project (come Bloody Hell and Bloody High Water). We all knowfolks who are going to . . . start a business . . . write a book .. . learn to skydive . . build a house . . . as soon as they “findthe time.” (expletive deleted) When you CARE you MAKE the time. . . and if that means saying “No!” to your friends, yourspouse, your kids (hey, I never said there would be no sacrifices),well, there it is!TIME!It’s hackneyed: But “it” is all we have. I went on someerrandsearly this morning. Two of the stores I stopped at were not open .. . though their published hours said they were supposed to be. Iwas furious. (Far more furious than the “little” lapsedemanded.)But I’m writing a damn book! (Actually . . . three.) T-I-M-E! It’sa-l-l I’ve got. (A-L-L: DO YOU UNDERSTAND?) Brand You = TimeConsciousness.Brand You = Time Fetish. Brand You = Obsession with Time.Sell yourself. Sure, I know a lot of fine/gifted/WOW-ingfolks aren’t great at sales . . . makes them uncomfortable as allget out. They hate the idea of “pushing” themselves. They’reshy, reticent, just want to concentrate on the work. All I can sayis: Ya gotta do it. (Sales, that is.)Create a Clean/Clear/Crisp/Compelling “SellingProposition.”(It’s as important for Mary Jones, accountant, as for Calvin Klein.)Do you “obsess” — right word! — on “Sales”?Please take this s-e-r-i-o-u-s-l-y. The Best “senior partners”at the Big Professional Service Firms are as Sales Oriented as DaGuy who sells Used Cars.SELL THE HELL OUT OF YOURSELF.It’s the gospel truth for accountants at Arthur Andersen . . . andfor software programmers at Oracle . . and, of course, for MarthaStewart.Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
