The Challenge: To Create More Value in All Negotiations

1
ORGANIZATION STRATEGY THE GUERRILLA
ADVANTAGE Tom Peters/04August2006
2
I am often asked by would-be entrepreneurs
seeking escape from life within huge corporate
structures, How do I build a small firm for
myself? The answer seems obvious Buy a very
large one and just wait. Paul Ormerod, Why
Most Things Fail Evolution, Extinction and
Economics
3
New Era of War, and U.S. Isnt Ready Conflicts
of Future Nations vs. Networks Headline/p1/
International Herald Tribune /31.07.2006Opening
Pound for pound and pounding, the Israeli
military is one of the worlds finest. But
Hezbollah, with the discipline and ferocity of
its fighters and its ability to field advanced
weaponry, has taken Israel by surprise. Now that
surprise has rocketed back to Washington and
across the U.S. military.We are into the
first great war between nations and networks.
This proves the growing strength of networks as a
threat to American national security. John
Arguilla, USNPGS, from Net Warfare 101
4
Small units agile lethal invisible
guerrilla network warfare distributed
dispersed mobile .. Flat hierarchy
improvisational etc.
5
ORGANIZATION STRATEGY THE GUERILLA
ADVANTAGE Agile. (Sluggish.) Wily. (Big
footprint.) Always moving. (Seldom moving.)
Brownian motion per se bewilders the enemy.
(Blind despite NewTech.) Momentum comes from
small wins. (Small wins invisible, too small
scale to execute.) Goal is converts, not
territory. (Protect territory.) Offense.
(Defense.) Travel light very high tooth to
tail ratio. (Travel heavy, low tooth to tail.)
Live off the land. (Tortuous supply chain.)
UNPREDICTABLE BEHAVIOR NEARLY RANDOM. (VERY
PREDICTABLE LONG PLANNING CYCLE OBSERVABLE
FOOTPRINT.) Dug in but not dug in. (Dug in but
vulnerable.) No HQ floating HQ. (Big HQ at
home and away.) Few fixed assets. (Mostly
fixed assets.) Scroungers mentality.
(Methodical complex.) Mobile communications.
(Fixed communications.) Everything, including
people, disposable. (Tight asset management,
materials humans.) No fortress to guard.
(Big fortresses which must be guarded.)
Replaceable leaders. (Formal, rule-based
hierarchy.) Self-healing network, like
Internet. (Network far more fixed.) Hackers
mentality. (Planners mentality.)
DECENTRALIZED. (CENTRALIZED.) KIAs are
celebrated. (KIAs are the ultimate loss.)
Natural reorganizations following cell division
model. (Methodical, high-friction change.)
Few formal layers. (Lotsa formal layers.) Few
rules. (Lotsa rules.)
6
ORGANIZATION STRATEGY THE GUERILLA
ADVANTAGE Management By Vision. (Management
by law-rule books.) Miniaturized but deadly
weapons. (Fixed weapons.) Invent your own
arsenal. (Gazillion-year weapons acquisition
cycle.) Multiplier impact by spreading
confusion. (Need set-piece victories to satisfy
constituents.) Passion. (Supportive at the
level of car decals.) Little value on current
rules. (Value of life paramount.) Ad hoc RFA
or FFF. (R.A.F. / Ready. Aim. Aim. Aim. Fire.)
SIMPLE PHILOSOPHY THAT BINDS, FLEXIBLE ORG,
FLEXIBLE OPS. (COMPLEX PHILOSOPHY, INFLEXIBLE
ORG, INFLEXIBLE OPS.) Different time frame a
1,000 year conflict. (Need to show progress
daily.) Attract youth with more energy and zeal
than good sense. (Mature and inflexible and
cautious and methodical.) Minimum need to
spin as easy to spin a loss as a win. (Battle
plans designed distorted diluted to produce
spin per se.) Ad hoc. (Due process.)
Media looks for wins media values small wins.
(Media fixated by SNAFUs small wins beneath the
radar.) Win when enemy over-reacts. (Lose if
over-react.) Ubiquitous webs. (Ubiquitous
bureaucracy.) Recruit, support, impact follows
Virus Model recruit via Buzz. (All is formal.)
Value of conventional scale declining
exponentially. (Still citizens of a big is
beautiful age.) Virtually no way to lose a
loss is a win as much or more than a win is a
win. (Virtually no way to win a win is often a
loss as much as a loss is a loss.)
7
It is not the strongest of the species that
survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one
most responsive to change. Charles Darwin
8
Active mutators in placid times tend to die off.
They are selected against. Reluctant mutators in
quickly changing times are also selected
against.Carl Sagan Ann Druyan, Shadows of
Forgotten Ancestors
9
The most successful people are those who are
good at plan B. James Yorke, mathematician,
on chaos theory in The New Scientist
10
If things seem under control, youre just not
going fast enough. Mario Andretti
11
Ready.Fire.Aim.Ross Perot
12
Crazy Times Call for Crazy Organizations
Subtitle, The Tom Peters Seminar (1993)
13
Inflexibility and mass are favored in static
times. Flexible and ephemeral are favored in
chaotic times.
14
Stephen Jay Gould Bacteria rule! Sizeable cases
e.g. humans are virtually irrelevant anomalies.
15
False AttributionsGerman
citizenry low morale, no appetite for war3rd
Republic government rather well regardedFrench
Army in good shape, surprisingly well armed,
decent strategy (in dozens of simulations, French
usually win)Blitzkrieg not usedGermans very
vulnerableLousy French intelligence and luck
perhaps determinant (intelligence information
tends to be sifted to reinforce received ideas
rather than to overturn them)Many plausible
competing hypothesesSource Julian Jackson, The
Fall of France (cf Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled
by Randomness The Hidden Role of Chance in Life
and in the Markets.)
16
Operations is policy.Fred MalekAndy
Pearson. Al McDonald. Jack Welch(?). U.S. Grant.
Horatio Nelson.
17
Forbes100 from 1917 to 1987 39 members of the
Class of 17 were alive in 87 18 in 87 F100
18 F100 survivors underperformed the market by
20 just 2 (2), GE Kodak, outperformed the
market between 1917 and 1987.SP 500 from 1957
to 1997 74 members of the Class of 57 were
alive in 97 12 (2.4) of 500 outperformed the
market from 1957 to 1997.Source Dick Foster
Sarah Kaplan, Creative Destruction Why
Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the
Market
18
Sluggish Obese Unimaginative More Sluggish
More Obese More Unimaginative Even More
Sluggish Even More Obese Even More
Unimaginative Nissan Renault GM
Innovative Challenger for Toyota????
19
??????????????Crappy Management (GM)
Arrogant-Overstretched Management (Carlos G)
Great Management
20
How we feel about the evolving future tells us
who we are as individuals and as a civilization
Do we search for stasisa regulated, engineered
world? Or do we embrace dynamisma world of
constant creation, discovery and competition?
Do we value stability and control or evolution
and learning? Do we think that progress requires
a central blueprint, or do we see it as a
decentralized, evolutionary process?? Do we see
mistakes as permanent disasters, or the
correctable byproducts of experimentation? Do we
crave predictability or relish surprise? These
two poles, stasis and dynamism, increasingly
define our political, intellectual and cultural
landscape. Virginia Postrel, The Future and
Its Enemies
21
What We Know For Sure About InnovationBig
mergers by large dont workScale is
over-ratedStrategic planning is the last refuge
of scoundrelsFocus groups are counter-productive
Built to last is a chimera (stupid)Success
killsForgetting is impossibleRe-imagine is a
charming ideaOrderly innovation process is an
oxymoronic phrase ( Believed only by morons
with ox-like brains)Tipping points are easy to
identify long after they will do you any
goodFacts arentAll information making it to
the top is filtered to the point of danger and
hilaritySuccess stories are the illusions of
egomaniacs (and gurus)If you believe the
memoirs of CEOs you should be institutionalizedH
erd behavior (XYZ is hot) is ubiquitous and
amusingTop teams are DittoheadsCEOs have
little effect on performanceExpert prediction
is rarely better than rolling the dice
22
While many people big oil finds with big
companies, over the years about 80 percent of
the oil found in the United States has been
brought in by wildcatters such as Mr Findley,
says Larry Nation, spokesman for the American
Association of Petroleum Geologists. WSJ,
Wildcat Producer Sparks Oil Boom in Montana,
0405.2006
23
Blitzkrieg?
24
Case PerceivedRommel invents
Blitzkrieg.Krauts kick the crap out of the Frogs
in two weeks.Q.E.D.
25
Case Lesson LearnedPlanned innovation (P.I.,
not C.I.) is possible, is cool, is effective.
(Write it up. Publish.)
26
Case RealityGermans cross Meuse into France.
Whoops French intelligence completely drops the
ball. (Loses track of the Germansno
kidding.)Germans keep advancing outrun supply
lines no land-air co-ordination. Hitler orders
advance stopped.General never gets the word.
General marches to Paris, virtually
unopposed.Germans shocked.After the fact,
Germans label it Blitzkrieg.
27
Case Lesson LearnedDo something.Get lucky.
Attribute luck to superior planning.Get medals.
28
Smashing Conventional Wisdom Blitzkrieg in fact
emerged in a rather haphazard way from the
experience of the French campaign, whose success
surprised the Germans as much as the French. Why
otherwise did the High Command try on various
occasions, with Hitlers backing, to slow the
panzers down? The victory in France came about
partly because the German High Command
temporarily lost control of the battle. The
decisive moment in this process was Guderians
decision to move immediately westward on 14 May,
the day after the Meuse crossing, wrenching the
whole of the rest of the army along behind
him. messed up traffic, little close air
support, random heroics by some small bits of
Guderians forces, Guderian not a disciple of
the WWI-derived strategy of indirect
approach Source Julian Jackson, The Fall of
France