Business guru Tom Peters is an interesting guy.
In 1982, he co-authored a book called “In Search of Excellence” that became a huge bestseller and was ranked by various groups and organizations as among the best business books of all time.
Since then, he’s written a string of bestsellers and become a high-powered consultant for major corporations.
I’ve read many of his books, and they were good. But I didn’t quite get his cultlike status until I saw him perform last week at a program in Lynnwood organized by the Snohomish County Workforce Development Council.
Peters is high-energy. He worked the room, parading, roaming and waving his arms while holding the crowd’s attention with jokes, great quotes and interesting stories to make his points.
Early on, Peters got everyone’s attention by saying he had tried to return his master’s in business administration degree to Stanford University because the dean of the business school had been a former chairman of Enron’s accounting committee and obviously had not held off the massive fraud that toppled the corporate giant.
And then there were statistics like these: Every 26 minutes, a new foreign-owned factory opens in China. And every 48 hours, a foreign-owned research and development facility opens its doors there.
That sure opened my eyes.
To make his point more clearly, he quoted Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard: “There’s no job that is America’s God-given right anymore.”
Let me say that again – “There’s no job that is America’s God-given right anymore.”
While lots of us would like to bury our heads in the sand and ignore all the chaos happening in the world today – companies shutting down, companies moving overseas or companies jettisoning our pension funds – that’s the reality.
The solution?
“There’s only one way out of the box,” Peters said. “Innovate more effectively, rapidly and dynamically than anybody else.”
That’s good advice for people on the job whether they’re 16 or 60. The successful people today are those who can focus on what needs to be done for their organizations to be successful, and to be willing to change that focus regularly.
Peters also suggested that people shouldn’t be afraid to try something new and make a mistake.
Actually, that’s my boring summary of what he said, which was, “I like freaks.”
Peters noted that what every organization needs is creative people who aren’t content with following the leader.
He told the story of an executive at a large pharmaceutical company where innovation seemed to be flagging. The executive asked his lab director, “Are there enough weird people in the labs these days?”
Weird people, Peters added, all tend to gravitate to the most interesting and innovative organizations.
And they often think of their work as a cause, not a business, which Peters said is also an important sign of success.
In honor of Peters, let’s make today Weird People Day.
If you are one, know that your organization should appreciate your creativity. If it doesn’t, there’s another one out there that will.
If you aren’t weird, let’s all try something different today:
* Hire someone a little crazy.
* Ditch your office.
* Read or listen to some odd stuff.
Who knows, you might enjoy it.
Mike Benbow: 425-339-3459; benbow@heraldnet.com.
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