Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism

For the sake of the company, community, customer, and planet, Tom Peters wants every leader, everywhere, to—finally—put people first. He prods, provokes, cajoles, and charms his way through catchy examples and practical action steps that offer a path to sustainable excellence.

—Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School professor, Author of Think Outside the Building

Although Tom Peters writes with a sense of urgency, savor his insights about what it takes to nurture our companies—in his words, ‘full-fledged breathing communities,’ and ensure business plays the role it must in building the world we all deserve.

—Linda A. Hill, Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School; Faculty Chair, Leadership Initiative; Author of Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation

Tom’s brilliant OPUS should not only be read and reread but tucked under your pillow at night, so these ideas seep in and guide our every behavior throughout our lives.

—Jeanne Bliss, Bestselling Author and Customer Experience Expert

"If you don’t have people as your true north before you read Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism—you will at the end. Tom gives us a master class in the ‘soft stuff’ – what really matters today."

—Tiffani Bova, Growth Evangelist, Salesforce; WSJ Bestselling Author: Growth IQ; Thinkers50

"Tom Peters is the Gandalf of business. Human potential is infinite magic, but most organizations blindly pursue mindless mechanical contributions. Teams change the world, leaders serve teams—and there’s no such thing as over-serving! If you want the secret of the quest, Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism is a must read and a must often reread."

—Linda Holliday, CEO and Founder of Citia

Excellence Now:

Extreme Humanism

by Tom Peters

Print: 978-1-944027-94-0

eBook: 978-1-944027-93-3

Copyright ©2021 by Tom Peters.

www.networlding.com

Permissions

Grateful acknowledgement is made at the following link for permission to reprint previously published material:

TomPeters.com/writing/books/excellence-now-extreme-humanism/permissions

Designed by Donovan/Green.

Dedication

Robbin Reynolds, who by happenstance read an article of mine that appeared in Business Week, in July 1980, sent me unbidden a letter with a Harper & Row book contract attached, and commanded, There’s a book in that article. Hence, with a few steps in between, In Search of Excellence.

Nancy Austin, business partner and colleague, who said In Search of Excellence was missing action items and needed more energy; and thus became my inspiring co-author of A Passion for Excellence—and the primary source of my extreme use of italics, bold typeface, and, above all, Red Exclamation Marks!

Heather Shea, former president of my training company, The Tom Peters Company, who informed me one afternoon over a glass of chardonnay that I knew nothing about the puny representation and underutilized potential of women in leadership roles in business. She then convened a meeting of (very) powerful women and ordered me to be there; whence those women at Heather’s command lectured me nonstop for three intense hours on my deficiencies—thereby launching my 25-year (1996-2021) obsession with women’s market power and demonstrated leadership excellence.

Sally Helgesen, whose book The Female Advantage was my number one tutorial on women’s issues in business. It, and Sally’s subsequent work and good counsel, re-engineered many of my neural pathways—my life has never been the same.

Susan Cain. Seldom does a single book flip one’s life upside down. Ms. Cain’s 2013 book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, did just that. It is my easy pick as most impactful new business book of the century to date. Susan told me, personally and pointedly, or so it felt, that I was a hotshot business guru / thought leader who had effectively ignored half the working population, those introverts, whose contributions as leaders, for example, typically outshine the noisy buggers. Head bowed, I am forever in her debt.

Marianne Lewis, Dean of the Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Lewis is using her tenure to re-invent business school education (so desperately in need of wholesale re-invention), putting the horribly misnamed soft stuff first—leadership, people, community, moral behavior, and excellence.

Susan Sargent, tapestry artist, home accessories designer-business owner whose approach to color changed an entire industry; and community organizer extraordinaire (conservation, climate change, the arts). Whose energy level makes the Energizer Bunny a snail by comparison—and my wife, colleague, and best friend for more than a quarter of a century.

Julie Anixter, Nancye Green, Melissa Wilson, and Shelley Dolley, for their tireless efforts to make this book, my summa, the best it can possibly be—that is, excellent! Their professional contributions were exceptional and then some; at least as important, they became full partners and collaborators in this effort.

Note: This is not a dedication to the women in my life. This is a dedication to eleven of the extraordinary professional women who have shaped my views about effective, diverse, humane, and morally-focused enterprises.

Foreword

by Vala Afshar

How can you focus on excellence after living through 2020, a year which brought the worst healthcare, economic, climate, racial and equality injustice, and large-scale dissemination of misinformation crises in a lifetime? Tom Peters’ answer is to actively engage and to serve our employees, our communities, and the planet, to aim for no less than the betterment of society. And do it with all your heart and all your soul and all your energy.

When business leaders’ conversations turn to excellence, they most often think of Tom Peters and In Search of Excellence, a book I first read in graduate school, which is widely considered to be one of the most influential management books of all time. Over the last 40+ years since that book, Tom has traveled to 50 states and 63 countries, presenting to over five million people. And now comes his 19th and, according to him, last book, Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism.

It is a book for today. Tom may have been around for quite a while, but there is no grass growing under his feet. He has taken to the digital age with a vengeance. His abundant daily engagements on Twitter are an example of constant excellence in advocacy for living and leading a commendable life. He has tweeted more than 125,000 times and earned over 170,000 followers. He is the principal reason I fell in love with Twitter. I first corresponded with Peters on Twitter, and he instantly became my mentor from afar. He is radically transparent and generous, willing to engage with everyone. The wisdom of Tom Peters, especially evident on Twitter, is knowing that everyone you meet knows more than you about something.

Adhering to core values is my North Star as a leader. But my never-ending struggle is how to move from defining my values to delivering on my values, day in and day out. And how to inspire my colleagues to do the same. Where could I turn for guidance? Who could I trust? Was I alone on this journey? Amid asking for answers, I discovered Tom Peters, who would change my life personally and professionally. His message about the lifelong pursuit of excellence and moral behavior quieted the noise around me and helped me to know I wasn’t alone. And you aren’t either. That’s why Tom wrote this book.

The first time I met Tom Peters in person was when he visited our Salesforce Boston office for a video interview. I greeted him in our lobby, expecting to see Peters and his entourage. He was alone, wearing a backpack and a sweater that I’d seen when watching his extensive library of leadership videos. He surprised me by pulling from his backpack my book, The Pursuit of Social Business Excellence. He has a wonderful way of showing appreciation and making people feel better about themselves.

In final preparation for our live interview, I saw Tom reviewing a thick folder of material covering a diverse set of topics including the importance of emotional intelligence, the benefits of promoting more women leaders, and the impact of artificial intelligence on the future of work. His excellent preparation led to a brilliant exchange. I have interviewed over 900 business leaders since 2013. The two that were most watched, approaching 300,000 views, are the pair of discussions with Tom Peters. What was even more remarkable was that Tom spent over two hours after our formal interview meeting with my colleagues, signing books, listening with interest, and answering hundreds of questions; then he quietly said goodbye and left. He inspired a dozen senior executives with humility, grace, and a spirit of generosity that was truly uplifting.

Why is Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism arguably Peters’ most important contribution in his illustrious career? Forcefully, Tom says, What you are doing right now will be the hallmark of your entire career. There are no truer words. In his book, Tom powerfully articulates how excellence in leadership is achieved by singularly focusing on helping others grow. Peters has long and passionately said that the job of a leader is not to gain more followers, but rather to develop more leaders.

Excellence Now is a must read for college students wanting to learn about how to succeed in business, for small business owners who deeply care about their employees and customers and communities, for middle managers, the most strategically important people in any businesses, and senior executives like me (in my case, working at the most successful and fastest growing technology company in the world), who understand the critical need to cultivate and maintain a culture of trust, personal growth, innovation, and true equality.

Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism is a beautiful reminder of what matters most as you pursue life and career goals. Putting people first by deeply and passionately caring about and abetting their holistic development and success; creating uplifting products and services that bring no less than joy into our lives; paying unstinting attention to details, knowing that small and continuous incremental improvements can add up to game-changing moments; recognizing the power of emotional intelligence and that the soft skills are the hardest skills to develop and the most important skills over the long haul. Peters also reminds us to have an unmistakable sense of urgency about big issues like the pressing need to for gender equality, the impact of climate change, and affordable and accessible education.

How long are you willing to wait to become the excellent leader you aspire to be? Communities, companies, and countries are in search of excellence now more than ever before as they wrestle with monumental dislocations of every sort. The question is whether you are the leader who will rise to the occasion and answer the call, who will commit to lead with integrity and humane values, regardless of the surrounding chaos and pressure.

Your true legacy is what people say about you when you are not in the room. How will you be remembered? Will you be described as kind, caring, patient, forgiving, present, and positive? In Excellence Now, Peters teaches us about the leadership characteristics that matter most at difficult times.

One of the most profound lessons I learned from Tom is that excellence, as he sees it, is not a long-term plan, not a mountain to climb. Excellence is the next conversation, the next meeting, or the next presentation. Excellence is the next five minutes, says Peters, or it is nothing at all.

I believe Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism is Tom Peters’ best work, a culmination of four decades of data-driven research, collaborating with some of the most accomplished business and management leaders around the globe. I for one, plan to follow in his footsteps and learn as much as I can from a trailblazer like no other in the field of humanities, leadership, business, excellence, and life.

Vala Afshar, Chief Digital Evangelist, Salesforce

Author of The Pursuit of Social Business Excellence

Co-founder and co-host of the weekly podcast DisrupTV

Epigraphs

Business exists to enhance human well-being.

—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Good Business

If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.

—Margaret Thatcher

Creating excellence is not a job. Creating excellence is a moral act.

—Hugh MacLeod, gapingvoid

People and Community First

Products and Services

That Serve Humanity

The Moral Responsibility

of Enterprise

Now Far More Than Ever

Serendipity—perhaps a word used too often, but, in a strange way, the correct word in this instance.

March 2019: Start work on my final book, summarizing forty-plus years of searching for excellence. Aim to make one last noisy plea for people and community first.

February 2020: More or less complete draft goes to colleagues for comments.

March 2020: COVID-19 shuts down the US and much of the world. Accompanying the pandemic earthquake, unemployment rolls in the U.S. alone increase by many millions.

June 2020: Civil unrest sweeps the country. Protests over longstanding racial, political, and economic injustice and inequity portend a long and loud and extraordinarily important and overdue struggle.

Autumn 2020: Most rancorous U.S. Presidential election in more than half a century—ever deeper fractures in society surface, with inequality at the head of the parade (wake?); no abatement in sight.

Autumn-Winter 2020-2021: COVID-19 continues and—to use an overused term I dislike but that in this instance is apt—tumult settles in as the new normal.

As to that serendipity, the multidimensional upheavals, piled on top of the AI job-destruction tsunami-in-progress and accelerating, makes this book’s message far more timely, far more powerful, far more pertinent, and far more urgent than I could have imagined.

Leading amidst chaos. Leading amidst the personal and economic anguish brought on by COVID-19. Leading amidst the social pain symbolized by loud, angry, renewed awareness of immense racial inequities. Leading amidst political rancor that threatens the very roots of our democracy. Leading amidst an unmistakable truth that the staggering impact of climate change is not coming—it has arrived. How do leaders cope—and perhaps even thrive—as they move forward their efforts to serve their team members, the communities in which they are embedded, and the planet itself amidst this madness?

I reiterate for the umpteenth time, but with more urgency than ever before:

People’s engagement and growth really first.

Community engagement really first.

Planet Earth really first.

Products and services that are not lookalikes-but-a-little-bit-cheaper, but that serve humanity and engender pride

in our craft.

Leaders who put creating and maintaining