Content area
Full Text
TOM PETERS IS STORMING ACROSS the stage, accusing his audience of about 3000 association executives of same-ole-thing management. They hate it. He is ticking off examples of traditional ways of work that are either changing dramatically or destroying corporations -- taking with them the chief executives. They get it. He is describing the people he thinks most likely to save today's organisations from demise: kooks and weirdos. They love it. As the comments of Curtis Deane reveal, Peters can pull a listener in different directions. Here's what Deane, managing director of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Washington, DC, had to say at the end of Peters's keynote presentation at ASAE's 73rd Annual Meeting & Exposition in August 1993: "Since Tom Peters's purpose is to shock, I guess the fact that I hated his speech shows that I got his point."
Expressing how underwhelmed he is with corporate management and association management for not embracing the latest and craziest and most essential in organisational leadership, Peters angered his session attendees. And he charmed them at the same time He screamed at them. And enlightened them. And motivated. And disturbed. With his hilarious, thunderous, nerve-wracking warning about the future for unwacky change-resisters, provocative Peters no doubt lit a fire under many seats in the house.
DIAL-A-GURU
On the telephone earlier, Peters's manner was somewhat more subdued. But his unshakeable belief still came across crystal clear: "These are crazy times; and crazy times call for crazy organisations."
That's the main message of his latest book, Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganisation for the Nano-second Nineties, which calls for "revolutionary restructuring" and for putting "zanies" in charge. This book comes 10 years after Peters's blockbuster first book, In Search of Excellence, which he co-authored with Robert Waterman, and became his fourth to make The New York Times non-fiction list. His other two books were A Passion for Excellence (with Nancy...