Dont Confuse Value with Profit: Tom Peters

For a guru of excellence, 2009 is hair shirt year for Tom Peters. "I had the chance and I remained silent – I could have screamed a lot louder than I did," says the co-author of the best-selling 'In Search of Excellence' and a dozen more. "What was going on around us was a level of wretched excess which in hindsight, one can say, 'I should have been blowing whistles'."

This criticism of unfettered capitalism seems particularly pointed coming from a man regarded as one of the world's leading business thinkers – and a prescient one at that. In his book on leadership published in 2005, he wrote: "We fall back, in these crazy and chaotic times on the command-and-control model of leadership, a model that no longer accords with how dynamic leaders actually operate." He has also written many times that we live in an age where businesses confuse 'value' with 'profit'.

We are all to blame....
Is he being too harsh with himself for not speaking out against the greed of the Big Money Corp? "In a court of law I can trot out the right words to be declared 'Not Guilty' but I find myself, and my fellow 'gurus' must share some of the blame, as must the business schools. Though we can't be held responsible for man's greed gene which has been evolving for tens of thousands of years, those of us who have pulpits should speak out." In these turbulent times, Peters thinks it ever more important to hammer home the fundamentals of business, that never change. This, he says, is despite the revolution in networking communications. "The five-year-olds who are growing up with social networking tools as second nature may change the whole business game in 20-25 years. At 66, I am definitely an old 'old guy' but these days you are an old guy at 25!"

Servant leadership
Being in his seventh decade has not stopped Peters thinking new thoughts. Many of these came out of an invitation to be the keynote speaker at the commemoration on the life and work of Peter Drucker a few years back. "One of the many things I came across was Greenleaf's book on Servant Leadership which I had first seen 25 years ago but hadn't really taken on board. In the situation we are now facing, the notion of an organisation which exists only to serve and a leader who exists only to serve those in that organisation is a damned good starting point. I use that fundamental idea around which to weave my current presentations."
Blanchard's notion of corporate worth extends far beyond stark profit and asset value. "Leadership should take into account the needs and concerns of everyone in the business and not just think that profit is a worthwhile goal," he says. Indeed, he has often suggested that profit should be viewed as the reward that organisations receive for being a good corporate citizen in the community.

Peters, the realist, recognises that many successful business leaders haven't yet got the point about their true servant role. He describes - in an unprintable way - the nature of those who abandon their organisations in these times, lured by promises of fat golden hellos and seven-figure bonus packages. "Leadership is a sacred trust – that is not extreme language. Leadership should be seen as an honour – you have an astonishing responsibility to those in your care." When he sees leaders abandon that trust – by quitting, retiring or making large-scale redundancies, Peters feels that they have failed in their duty.

Leading through the recession
These are times, he says, to try the souls of businesses. "To state the obvious, one's mettle is tested in difficult times. But I want to avoid like the plague that motivational speaker's nostrum: 'This is a time of great opportunity – get on your feet!' There is a strong bullshit part of this but I do believe you can treat this recession as one to be gotten through and one in which you can dig deep and think about the people to whom you are responsible. It is a chance to inaugurate a period of significant renewal. It is bloody immoral if you don't."

Peters calculates that few leaders under the age of 50 will have experienced a tough recession like this one. Despite this, he is optimistic that change will come - "I find that people are more open now to new thinking in running business," - and he feels that acceptance of the new regulatory regime agreed at the recent G20 summit is a key indicator of this sea change in the way we operate the capitalist system.

So who are the businesses and leaders who we should be using as role models? Are there any out there we should be watching? "There are indeed, but you and I have probably never heard of them. They are the guys leading small organisations who are getting through this crisis. They get up in the morning, go to their hardware store, restaurant or brokerage, help their clients, serve their community and help those seven people who work for them.

"Richard Branson and Jack Welch may have a lot to teach us, but there are an enormous number of effective and humane [he emphasises this word] leaders operating small organisations. 99% of them never make it to your website or the pages of my books."