Evolution of Management Thinking and Practices – TOM PETERS – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #920

Evolution of Management Thinking and Practices – TOM PETERS – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #920

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The Book

Tom Peters

Book Title

Book Title

Podcast

The purpose of this series is to show how major changes evolved in the management thinking and practices.  I understand it is presenting a very large subject in a digest form, but it is particularly for those who believe in understanding management, practicing it, and experimenting to develop new ideas for better performance.

Tom Peters (b. 1942)

Tom Peters was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He received a Bachelor in civil engineering from Cornell University in 1966. He did MBA from Stanford Graduate Business School, followed by PhD in 1977. Between 1966 and 1970, he served in the United States Navy, making two deployments to Vietnam. 

From 1974 to 1981, Peters worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. In 1981, he left McKinsey to become an independent consultant.

Tom Peters is credited with authoring eighteen books, neumerous articles, and has made many speeches. His most acclaimed book is “In Search of Excellence’, co-authored with Robert Waterman, and published in 1982.

Peters is a major advocate for business excellence, consequently making this his hallmark; it has indeed become the central theme of all his work.

Published in 1982, this work quickly became one of the best-selling business books ever; though, its authors were far from imagining such success. With their academic background and consulting training, Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman did not necessarily match the general profile of renowned authors in the field. The two were working for McKinsey & Company in San Francisco when they were tasked with a project study on the organization of America’s best performing companies. Ironically enough, management considered this project to simply be the offshoot of another strategy-focused endeavor, assigned to consultants at the New York headquarters.

The study nevertheless allowed Peters and Waterman to conduct in-depth interviews with the executives of 42 companies and reveal the 8 common principles of the most successful companies.

1. Action is the main priority

2. Listen to the customer

3. Promote autonomy and innovation

4. Productivity relies on team motivation

5. Central values are highly important

6. Focus on the business the company knows best

7. Keep a simple form and few layers of management

8. Blend flexibility and discipline

In the early 90s, new concepts developed by Tom Peters were introduced in the revolutionary work Liberation Management, which advocated for the dismantling of company hierarchy and encouraged a more horizontal approach. A veritable model of the liberated company, these ideas have been copied by many and are today implemented all over Europe.

Jeanne Bliss talked to Tom Peters and presented 5 takeaways from that discussion.

1. The Tone for Enabling People to Rise and Show Grace is Set at the Top of the Organization.

Are you giving your people the ability to deliver grace? When employees are enabled to support each other and customers, it’s usually because the tone for this behavior has been set from the top. Peters shared an anecdote about the CEO of Campbell Soup who sent over 30,000 handwritten thank you notes to employees as a way to demonstrate his care.

2. Diversity in Leadership is Necessary.

Having more women as leaders affects the company in several positive ways. By having more women in top positions, there will be an improvement in sales, leadership, and negotiations.

3. People, First!

People are important. The business should be about “people serving people; it’s leaders serving their frontline employees who in turn serve their customers.” Tom shares the importance of hiring people for their people skills and we’ve got to change the way we look at “soft skills,” as these attributes end up being important for teamwork and success.

4. Innovation Doesn’t Have to be Complicated

“Forget the breakthroughs; the small stuff is more important than the big stuff,” says Tom when it comes to innovation. He goes on to say, “Whoever tries the most stuff wins. What you have to do with innovation is to quit treating it as some esoteric thing.” Tom shares the importance of always trying to come up with a new or better way to do something even on a small scale. Don’t believe the hype that innovation has to be created by someone with a Ph.D.

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Give Things Away

Tom gives away a lot of free resources on his site, TomPeters.com. You can find slides to some of his presentations that he also encourages folks to share with other people. The idea behind this is that it never hurts to give, you don’t lose out on anything. If or when people are ready to work with you in a capacity that requires them to pay for your services, they’d be more willing to do so because you’ve already shown your value.

Note: Virtually all of Tom’s written and speech material covering the last 20+ years is available—free to download—at tompeters.com and excellencenow.com.

Tom Peters has been criticized for selling hype over substance after his first, and most popular book, In Search of Excellence. It is alleged he never got out of that the Excellence thing, as the titles of his subsequent books suggest. 

He did change course. After trying for several years to transform organizations, and not succeeding the way he expected, he shifted focus to transformation of individuals. In pursuit of individual excellence, he bombarded white collar workers with exclamation marks and one-liners (“There is no future for the person whose identity is Desk 163”). 

Another criticism is that Tom Peters does not have an all embracing theory of mangement. It is not necessarily a flaw. Most of the issues businesses face are so specific to the company, sector, or geography, that theories do not help. Peters recognized that the long-term strategic plans so beloved of corporate America in 1970s and 1980s, were not very relevant; he advocared long-term thinking instead. He insists on listening to customers. 

Some Insights from Tom Peters

“The essence of strategy is not the structure of a company’s products or markets, but the dynamics of its behaviour.”

“Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.”

“Make it happen. Action counts. No one ever sat their way to success.”

“There is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity.”

“The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.”

“We must simply learn to love change as much as we have hated it in the past.”

“Excellence is not an aspiration. Excellence is what you do in the next five minutes.”

Concluded.

Disclaimers: Pictures in these blogs are taken from free resources at Pexels, Pixabay, and Google. Credit is given where available. If a copyright claim is lodged, we shall remove the picture with appropriate regrets.

For most blogs, I research from several sources which are open to public. Their links are mentioned under references. There is no intention to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights. If, however, it happens unintentionally, I offer my sincere regrets.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Peters 

https://tompeters.com/about/toms-bio/#:~:text=In%20the%20U.S.%20Navy%20from,then%20worked%20at%20McKinsey%20%26%20Co.

https://www.crossknowledge.com/blog/excellence-according-to-tom-peters/

https://www.customerbliss.com/podcasts/5-takeaways-tom-peters/ 

https://www.managementtoday.co.uk/management-thinkers-why-tom-peters-matters/management-thinkers/article/1824527