This “What Would Tom Peters Do” is the first in a series of posts I will do to share about key organizational development frameworks. Sure, they are Old School ideas, but very solid and fully developed frameworks that are generally ignored.

I’m frustrated. And I have felt that way for a LONG time. In my early years, I had hope we could improve organizations through training and consulting but Gallup, Arbinger, Bersin and much other research clearly shows NOTHING has really improved.

I am waiting for AI to start culling the bad managers from the workplace after having read a LOT of different books about organizations and leadership and management over the past 50 years. We have the metrics, we just need some effective actions.

The Managing Excellence book by Peters and Waterman certainly stood out for me in the early 80s and I guess I have seen at least a dozen of Tom’s videos around people and performance.

And I had a brief text conversation with Mike Jones this morning where he asked about my frustration and I expanded on it was the impetus to get this moving.

And Peters’ works certainly still influence my thinking about people and performance when I first designed both the Square Wheels tools and my team building game, The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine. I love the ideas of Excellence!

We’ve been playing with Square Wheels since 1993 and it is about continuous continuous improvement.

Thus, I am going to start a series of blog posts around the “What Would (he or she) Do” framework using AI to help me summarize the thinking and using my tools to help light the way.

Based on the search results, here are some key strategies Tom Peters would recommend to improve corporate performance:

1. Make constant improvement a way of life — . Peters emphasizes the importance of systematic, continuous improvement at all levels of the organization.
2. Focus on small improvements — . Peters advocates for a “fetish for the small” – emphasizing that small, continuous improvements by everyone are more important than seeking big breakthroughs.
3. Remove fear of failure — . Create an environment where people feel safe to try new things and learn from failures. Peters suggests “Make failure a way of life” as a motto for continuous improvement.
4. Recognize and celebrate small wins — . Make recognition and celebration a regular part of the culture, focusing on small triumphs and useful failures.
5. Train employees extensively — . Provide training in both “hard” skills (statistics, economics, etc.) and “soft” skills (interpersonal dynamics, team leadership).
6. Emphasize team accomplishments — . Foster teamwork and group enthusiasm to build momentum for improvement.
7. Mandate involvement — . Eventually, participation in improvement efforts should become non-voluntary for all employees.
8. Set the tone from the top — . Leaders must visibly and passionately support improvement efforts, especially praising small beginnings.
9. Foster human connections — . Peters emphasizes the importance of leaders connecting with employees on a human level, such as through personal interactions and gestures like handwritten notes.
10. Focus on people development —Peters believes a leader’s primary job is to grow people and create an environment where employees can thrive personally and professionally.
11. Practice “Managing By Wandering Around” (MBWA) — . Leaders should spend time on the front lines, interacting with employees at all levels.
12. Hire for people skills — Peters stresses the importance of hiring people who genuinely care about others and can work well with people.
13. Allow for unscheduled time . Peters recommends leaders keep about 50% of their time unscheduled to allow for thinking and being available to others.

By implementing these strategies, Tom Peters believed that organizations could create a culture of excellence that drives improved performance over time. He spoke of a number of companies that had implemented many of these concepts and showed that these ideas really worked to impact profitability.

So, consider that things really work like this and that the ideas of Tom Peters
might be easy to get a grip on.

A favorite workshop quote that I have used over the years was attributed to him:

Other Tom Peters quotes that express similar ideas include:

• “Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast.”
• “The thing that keeps a business ahead of the competition is excellence in execution.”
• “If you’re not confused, you’re not paying attention.”
• “To meet the demands of the fast-changing competitive scene, we must simply learn to love change as much as we have hated it in the past.”

These quotes reflect Peters’ emphasis on adaptability, continuous continuous improvement, and staying ahead in a competitive environment.

A debriefing slide from our team building game, The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine.

I think that this is a good start for this series and the ideas are not novel and are backed up by the thinking of many experts. My plan is to add some frameworks from Peter Drucker and other critical thinkers on people, performance, leadership and other supportive ideas to move organizations forward and higher.