Tom Peters

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Tom Peters EXCELLENCE. ALWAYS.The
Basics.03 October 2008
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NOTE To appreciate this presentation and
ensure that it is not a mess, you need Microsoft
fonts Showcard Gothic, Ravie, Chiller
and Verdana
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L(21) L(-21)

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Leadership(21A.D.) Leadership(21B.C.)

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walk
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Sunday Drive By The CEO of a very successful
mid-sized bank, in the Mid-west, attended a
seminar of mine in Northern California in the
mid-80sbut I remember the following as if it
were yesterday. Ive forgotten the specific
context, but I recall him saying to me, pretty
much word for word, Tom let me tell you the
definition of a good lending officer. After
church on Sunday, on the way home with his
family, he takes a little detour to drive by the
factory he just lent money to. Doesnt go in or
any such thing, just drives by and takes a
sniff.
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Thank you Ben Norm, Ike , Gust, David,
Mark, Muhammad, Nelson, Ben II and Delaware
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L(21) L(-21)

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Leadership(21A.D.) Leadership(21B.C.)

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Give good tea!
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Allied commands depend on mutual confidence
and this confidence is gained, above all
through the development of friendships.
General D.D. Eisenhower, Armchair General
(05.08)Perhaps his most outstanding ability
at West Point was the ease with which he made
friends and earned the trust of fellow cadets
who came from widely varied backgrounds it was
a quality that would pay great dividends during
his future coalition command.
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George Crile (Charlie Wilsons War) on Gust
Avrakotos strategy He had become something
of a legend with these people who manned the
underbelly of the Agency CIA.
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General David Petraeus White lines along
the road Secure and serve the population.
Live among the people. Promote reconciliation.
Move mounted, work dismounted situational
awareness can only be achieved by operating
face-to-face, not separated by ballistic
glass. Walk. David Petraeus, Mens Journal
(06.08) I love that last one for its
simplicity. DP
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3K/5M
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5,000 miles for a 5-minute face-to-face
meeting Mark McCormack, super-agent
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MBWA, Grameen Style!Conventional banks ask
their clients to come to their office. Its a
terrifying place for the poor and illiterate.
The entire Grameen Bank system runs on the
principle that people should not come to the
bank, the bank should go to the people. If any
staff member is seen in the office, it should be
taken as a violation of the rules of the Grameen
Bank. It is essential that those setting up a
new village Branch have no office and no place
to stay. The reason is to make us as different as
possible from government officials. Source
Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor
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?
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I am a dispenser of enthusiasm. Ben Zander
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eighty percent of success is showing up.
Woody Allen
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The Real Worlds Little Rule Book Ben/tea Norm
/tea DDE/make friends WFBuckley/make friends-help
friends Gust/Suck down Charlie/poker
pal-BOF Eddie VII/dance-flatter-mingle-learn the
language Vlad/birthday party of outgroup guys
wife CIO/finance network ERP installer/consult-on
e line of code GE Energy/make friends risk
assessment GWB/put Jim on the invitation
list GHWB/T-notes Hank/60 calls MarkM/5K-5M Delawa
re/show up Oppy/snub Lewis Strauss NM/smile -4.3T
/tin ear TP/3M, Im sorry tp.com/Big 4-What do
you think? Women/genes Banker/after church Total
Bloody Mess/Can they pay back the loan?
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walk
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1982
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Excellence1982 The Bedrock Eight
Basics 1. A Bias for Action 2. Close to the
Customer 3. Autonomy and Entrepreneurship 4.
Productivity Through People 5. Hands On,
Value-Driven 6. Stick to the Knitting 7. Simple
Form, Lean Staff 8. Simultaneous Loose-Tight
Properties
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Breakthrough 82 People! Customers! Action!
Values! In Search of Excellence
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Hard Is SoftSoft Is Hard
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Hard Is Soft (Plans, s)Soft Is Hard (people,
customers, values, relationships))
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Thank you ,Herb and Robert
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You have to treat your employees like
customers. Herb Kelleher, complete answer, upon
being asked his secrets to success Source
Joe Nocera, NYT, Parting Words of an Airline
Pioneer, on the occasion of Herb Kellehers
retirement after 37 years at Southwest Airlines
(SWAs pilots union took out a full-page ad in
USA Today thanking HK for all he had done across
the way in Dallas American Airlines pilots were
picketing the Annual Meeting)
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The role of the Director is to create a space
where the actors and actresses can become more
than theyve ever been before, more than theyve
dreamed of being. Robert Altman, Oscar
acceptance speech
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Thank you ,Siberia and A.I.M.
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Why in the World did you go to Siberia?
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Enterprise (at its best) An emotional,
vital, innovative, joyful, creative,
entrepreneurial endeavor that elicits maximum
concerted human
potential in the wholehearted service of
others.Employees, Customers, Suppliers,
Communities, Owners, Temporary partners
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no less than Cathedrals in which the full and
awesome power of the Imagination and Spirit and
native Entrepreneurial flair of diverse
individuals is unleashed in passionate pursuit of
Excellence.
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Thank you , 7-11
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TP How to flush 500,000 down the toilet in
one easy lesson!!
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lt CAPEXgt People!
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Diverse groups of problem solversgroups of
people with diverse toolsconsistently
outperformed groups of the best and the
brightest. If I formed two groups, one random
(and therefore diverse) and one consisting of the
best individual performers, the first group
almost always did better. Diversity trumped
ability. Scott Page, The Difference How the
Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms,
Schools, and Societies Diversity
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Leaders do people. Period. Anon.
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The leaders of Great Groups love talent and
know where to find it. They revel in the talent
of others. Warren Bennis Patricia Ward
Biederman, Organizing Genius
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Brand Talent.
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Our MissionTo develop and manage talentto
apply that talent,throughout the world, for the
benefit of clientsto do so in partnership to
do so with profit.WPP
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1/100 Best Companies to Work for/2005
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Wegmans
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The Dream Manager Matthew KellyAn
organization can only become the-best-version-of-i
tself to the extent that the people who drive
that organization are striving to become
better-versions-of-themselves. A companys
purpose is to become the-best-version-of-itself.
The question is What is an employees purpose?
Most would say, to help the company achieve its
purposebut they would be wrong. That is
certainly part of the employees role, but an
employees primary purpose is to become
the-best-version-of-himself or herself. When a
company forgets that it exists to serve
customers, it quickly goes out of business. Our
employees are our first customers, and our most
important customers.
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1 cause ofDis-satisfaction?
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2/year legacy.
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53 53
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Thank you , Clyde, Michael and Sally
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One of the defining characteristics of the
change is that it will be less driven by
countries or corporations and more driven by real
people. It will unleash unprecedented
creativity, advancement of knowledge, and
economic development. But at the same time, it
will tend to undermine safety net systems and
penalize the unskilled. Clyde Prestowitz, Three
Billion New Capitalists
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If there is nothing very special about your
work, no matter how hard you apply yourself you
wont get noticed, and that increasingly means
you wont get paid much either. Michael
Goldhaber, Wired
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BRAND YOU.NO OPTION.
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Distinct or Extinct
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New Work
SurvivalKit.2008 1. MASTERY! (Best/Absurdly Good
at Something!)2. Manage to Legacy (All Work
Memorable/Braggable WOW Projects!) 3. A
USP/UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION 4. Rolodex
Obsession (From vertical/hierarchy/suck up
loyalty to horizontal/colleague/mate
loyalty)5. ENTREPRENEURIAL INSTINCT (A sleepless
Eye for Opportunity! 6.CEO/LEADER/BUSINESSPERSO
N/CLOSER (CEO, Me Inc. 24/7!)7. Master of
Improv (Play a dozen parts simultaneously, from
Chief Strategist to Chief Toilet Scrubber)8.
Sense of Humor (A willingness to Screw Up Move
On) 9. Comfortable with Your Skin (Bring
interesting you to work!)10. Intense Appetite
for Technology (E.g. How Cool-Active is your
Web site? Do you Blog?)11. EMBRACE MARKETING
(Your own CSO/Chief Storytelling Officer)12.
PASSION FOR RENEWAL (Your own CLO/Chief Learning
Officer) 13. EXECUTION EXCELLENCE! (Show up on
time! Leave last!)
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The only thing you have power over is to get
good at what you do. Thats all there is there
aint no more! Sally Field
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Thank you ,Conrad and Fred
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Conrad Hilton, at a gala celebrating his life,
was asked, What was the most important lesson
youve learned in you long and distinguished
career? His immediate answer
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Conrad Hilton, at a gala celebrating his life,
was asked, What was the most important lesson
youve learned in you long and distinguished
career? His immediate answer remember to
tuck the shower curtain inside the bathtub
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Execution is strategy. Fred Malek
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Thank you ,Rich
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Mapping your competitive position or
Rich DAveni/HBR
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The Have you 50See Appendix One
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While waiting last week early December 2007 in
the Albany airport to board a Southwest Airlines
flight to Reagan, I happened across the latest
Harvard Business Review, on the cover of which
was a yellow sticker. The sticker had on it the
words Mapping your competitive position. It
referred to a feature article by my friend Rich
DAveni. His work is uniformly goodand I have
said as much publicly on several occasions dating
back 15 years. Im sure this article is good,
toothough I didnt read it. In fact it triggered
a furious negative Tom reaction as my wife
calls it. Of course I believe you should worry
about your competitive position. But instead of
obsessing on competitive position and other
abstractions, as the B-schools and consultants
would always have us do, I instead wondered about
some practical stuff which I believe is more
important to the short- and long-term health of
the enterprise, tiny or enormous.
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1. Have you in the last 10 days
visited a customer?2. Have you called a
customer TODAY?


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1. Have you in the last 10 days visited a
customer? 2. Have you called a customer
TODAY? 3. Have you in the last 60-90 days had
a seminar in which several folks from the
customers operation (different levels, different
functions, different divisions) interacted, via
facilitator, with various of your folks? 4. Have
you thanked a front-line employee for a small act
of helpfulness in the last three days? 5. Have
you thanked a front-line employee for a small act
of helpfulness in the last three hours? 6.
Have you thanked a frontline employee for
carrying around a great attitude today? 7. Have
you in the last week recognizedpubliclyone of
your folks for a small act of cross-functional
co-operation? 8. Have you in the last week
recognizedpubliclyone of their folks (another
function) for a small act of cross-functional
co-operation? 9. Have you invited in the last
month a leader of another function to your weekly
team priorities meeting? 10. Have you personally
in the last week-month called-visited an internal
or external customer to sort out, inquire, or
apologize for some little or big thing that went
awry? (No reason for doing so? If truein your
mindthen youre more out of touch than I dared
imagine.)
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The XF-50 50 Ways to Enhance Cross-Functional
Effectiveness and Deliver Speed, Service
Excellence and Value-added Customer
SolutionsEntire XF-50 List is an
Appendix to the LONG version of this
presentation, posted at tompeters.com
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X XFXExcellence Cross-functional
Excellence
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GSK/CEDDConoco/geologists-geophysicistsFlag
requirement/joint staffStanford/X-disc
1Dartmouth-Hitchcock/micro-systems3M
Austin/physical
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Never waste a lunch!
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???? XF lunches Measure!
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Thank you , Richard , Dennis and Marcus
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I used to have a rule for myself that at any
point in time I wanted to have in mind as it so
happens, also in writing, on a little card I
carried around with me the three big things I
was trying to get done. Three. Not two. Not
four. Not five.Not ten.Three. Richard
Haass, The Power to Persuade
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Dennis, you need a To-dont List !
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The one thing you need to know about sustained
individual success Discover what you dont like
doing and stop doing it. Marcus
Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know
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You Your calendarCalendars never lie
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Thank you Dr. Groopman
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In How Doctors Think, Harvard Med doc Jerome
Groopman tells us that the best way to get a fix
on what ails a patient is to get the patient
talking openly about his-her problem. Great. But
the research shows that docs, on average, leap
to a conclusion and interrupt their patients
after 18 seconds. (Docs are hardly alone. This
is a disease present in almost all specialists
and professionals. Listening for a professional
invariably means talking.)
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Thank you ,Dave
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The four most important words in any
organization are What do you think?
Source courtesy Dave Wheeler, posted at
tompeters.com, source of original unknown
(0609.08)
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Relationships (of all varieties) THERE ONCE WAS
A TIME WHEN A THREE-MINUTE PHONE CALL WOULD HAVE
AVOIDED SETTING OFF THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL THAT
RESULTED IN A COMPLETE RUPTURE.

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THE PROBLEM IS RARELY/NEVER THE PROBLEM. THE
RESPONSE TO THE PROBLEM INVARIABLY ENDS UP BEING
THE REAL PROBLEM. Watergate, M Stewart,
BR And PERCEPTION IS ALL THERE IS!

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Success Consult everyone on everythingThank
you note carpet bombingSource Roger
Rosenblatt, Rules for Aging
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The four most important words in any
organization are What do you think?
Source courtesy Dave Wheeler, posted at
tompeters.com, source of original unknown
(0609.08)
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Buy in- Ownership-Authorial bragging
rights-Born again Champion One Line of Code!
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TP People are always ready to tell their
story!See also The story leaners edge
(Steve Farber) The dream manager (Matthew
Kelly)
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Thank you ,Walter
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???????Success doesnt depend on the number of
people you know it depends on the number of
people you know in high places!or Success
doesnt depend on the number of people you know
it depends on the number of people you know in
low places!
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Loser Hes such a suck-up!Winner
Hes such a suck-down.
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C(I) gt C(E)
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Thank you, Henry
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Courtesies of a small and trivial character are
the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and
appreciating heart. Henry Clay
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Kindness is free
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Press Ganey Assoc 139,380 former patients from
225 hospitalsnone of THE top 15 factors
determining Patient Satisfaction referred to
patients health outcomePS directly related to
Staff InteractionPS directly correlated with
Employee Satisfaction Source Putting Patients
First, Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick
Charmel
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There is a misconception that supportive
interactions require more staff or more time and
are therefore more costly. Although labor costs
are a substantial part of any hospital budget,
the interactions themselves add nothing to the
budget. Kindness is free. Listening to patients
or answering their questions costs nothing. It
can be argued that negative interactionsalienatin
g patients, being non-responsive to their needs
or limiting their sense of controlcan be very
costly. Angry, frustrated or frightened
patients may be combative, withdrawn and less
cooperativerequiring far more time than it
would have taken to interact with them initially
in a positive way. Putting Patients First,
Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
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Thank you to the 3H Club
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HowardHiltonHerb
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25
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Conrad Hilton, at a gala celebrating his life,
was asked, What was the most important lesson
youve learned in you long and distinguished
career? His immediate answer remember to
tuck the shower curtain inside the bathtub
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You have to treat your employees like
customers. Herb Kelleher, upon being asked his
secret to successSource Joe Nocera, NYT,
Parting Words of an Airline Pioneer, on the
occasion of Herb Kellehers retirement after 37
years at Southwest Airlines (SWAs pilots union
took out a full-page ad in USA Today thanking HK
for all he had done across the way in Dallas
American Airlines pilots were picketing the
Annual Meeting)
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3H Howard, Hilton, Herb
Stay in touch!Sweat the details!Its
the people, stupid!
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Thank you Larry and Jim
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Basement Systems Inc.
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Basement Systems Inc.Larry JaneskyDry
Basement Science (115,000!)1990 0 2003
13M 2007 62,000,000
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Jims Group
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Jims Mowing Canada Jims Mowing UK Jims
Antennas Jims Bookkeeping Jims Building
Maintenance Jims Carpet Cleaning Jims Car
Cleaning Jims Computer Services Jims Dog
Wash Jims Driving School Jims Fencing Jims
Floors Jims Painting Jims Paving Jims Pergolas
gazebos Jims Pool Care Jims Pressure
Cleaning Jims Roofing Jims Security Doors Jims
Trees Jims Window Cleaning Jims
Windscreens Note Download, free, Jim Penmans
book What Will They Franchise Next? The Story
of Jims Group
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Jims Group Jim Penman. 1984 Jims Mowing.
2006 Jims Group. 2,600 franchisees (Australia,
NZ, UK). Cleaning. Dog washing. Handyman.
Fencing. Paving. Pool care. Etc.People
first. Private. Small staff. Franchisees can
leave at will. 0-1 complaint per year is norm
cut bad ones quickly.Ph.D. cross-cultural
anthropology mowing on the sideSource
MT/Management Today (Australia), Jan-Feb 2006
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Lived in same town all adult lifeFirst
generation thats wealthy/ no parental
supportDont look like millionaires, dont
dress like millionaires, dont eat like
millionaires, dont act like millionairesMany
of the types of businesses they are in could
be classified as dull- normal. They are
welding contractors, auctioneers, scrap-metal
dealers, lessors of portable toilets, dry
cleaners, re-builders of diesel engines, paving
contractors Source The Millionaire Next
Door, Thomas Stanley William Danko
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Thank you,Heather
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Forget China, India and the Internet Economic
Growth Is Driven by Women. Headline, Economist,
April 15, 2006, Leader, page 14
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AS LEADERS, WOMEN RULE New Studies find that
female managers outshine their male counterparts
in almost every measure TITLE/ Special
Report/ BusinessWeek
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10 UNASSAILABLE REASONS WOMEN
RULE Women make all the financial
decisions.Women control all the wealth. Women
substantially outlive men. Women start most of
the new businesses. Womens work force
participation rates have soared
worldwide. Women are closing in on same pay for
same job. Women are penetrating senior
ranks rapidly even if the pace is slow for
the corner office per se. Womens
leadership strengths are exceptionally well
aligned with new organizational effectiveness
imperatives. Women are better salespersons than
men. Women buy almost everythingcommercial
as well as consumer goods. So what exactly is
the point of men?
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Thank you, John
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1/40
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This is so simple it sounds stupid, but it is
amazing how few oil people really understand that
you only find oil if you drill wells. You may
think youre finding it when youre drawing maps
and studying logs, but you have to drill.
Source The Hunters, by John Masters, Canadian
O G wildcatter
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We have a strategic plan. Its called doing
things. Herb Kelleher
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We made mistakes, of course. Most of them were
omissions we didnt think of when we initially
wrote the software. We fixed them by doing it
over and over, again and again. We do the same
today. While our competitors are still sucking
their thumbs trying to make the design perfect,
were already on prototype version 5. By the
time our rivals are ready with wires and screws,
we are on version 10. It gets back to planning
versus acting We act from day one others plan
how to planfor months. Bloomberg by Bloomberg
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Culture of PrototypingEffective prototyping
may be the most valuable core competence an
innovative organization can hope to have.
Michael Schrage

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Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre
successes.Phil Daniels, Sydney exec
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FAIL, FAIL AGAIN. FAIL BETTER. Samuel Beckett
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The secret of fast progress is inefficiency,
fast and furious and numerous failures.Kevin
Kelly
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Thank you, Eleanor, Kevin, Jay and Bill
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Do one thing every day that scares you.
Eleanor Roosevelt
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Kevin Roberts Credo1. Ready.
Fire! Aim.2. If it aint broke ... Break it!3.
Hire crazies.4. Ask dumb questions.5. Pursue
failure.6. Lead, follow ... or get out of the
way!7. Spread confusion.8. Ditch your
office.9. Read odd stuff.10. Avoid moderation!
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Im not comfortable unless Im
uncomfortable.Jay Chiat
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"Life is not a journey to the grave with the
intention of arriving safely in one pretty and
well preserved piece, but to skid across the line
broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking
oil, shouting GERONIMO! Bill McKenna,
professional motorcycle racer (Cycle magazine
02.1982)
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Good luck
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walk