Tom Peters on His Compact Guide to Excellence – New Book

Episode page with transcript, video, and more

My guest for Episode #465 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is the legendary (my word, not his) author, consultant, and speaker — Tom Peters. His new book is Tom Peters's Compact Guide to Excellence.

Click here to enter to win a paperback copy (through December 20).

He was previously a guest in Episode 382 of this podcast and My Favorite Mistake Episode 58. See previous blog posts about Tom and his ideas.

Today, Tom and I talk about some core concepts from his book, but we also weave through many topics including leadership that demonstrates “extreme humanism” (and leaders who do not, such as Elon Musk). As always, it's a fun, free-wheeling, and thought-provoking conversation when Tom is involved.

Note: Tom says he swears like a sailor… there are a few occasional mild curse words, so please be warned about that.

Questions, Notes, and highlights:

• The moral bankruptcy of “maximizing shareholder value” — are we really moving away from that? Getting lip service from the Conference Board and others?
• “People got ‘the brand called you' all wrong — it's not about self-marketing”
• “Being good is good business. When you take the high moral ground it is difficult for anyone to object without sounding like a complete fool.”
• Caring about people… Reminds me of Paul O'Neill saying nobody should ever get hurt at work (Alcoa) — “habitual excellence“
• The HP Way – Management By Wandering Around (MBWA) is an “intimate act”
• Following up on our Aug 2020 discussion about leading during Covid… how is MBZA (management by zooming around) working out?
• You've been very active on Twitter — still there? Should we still be using Twitter, even the free service?

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