—the cuckoo clock.”

1. World Innovation Forum*(*Modesty is everything)EVERYTHING YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW ABOUT INNOVATION IS WRONG*(*Except, of course, what the other presenters have said/will say)Tom Peters/New York/0524.2006

2. “In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed—and produced Michelangelo, da Vinci and the Renaissance.In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce—Source: Orson Welles, as Harry Lime, in The Third Man

3. —the cuckoo clock.”

4. PREVIEW.

5. “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”—General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff. U. S. Army

6. “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”—Charles Darwin

7. “The most successful people are those who are good at plan B.”—James Yorke, mathematician, on chaos theory in The New Scientist

8. “We are in a brawl with no rules.”—Paul Allaire

9. S.A.V.

10. Sam’s Secret #1!

11. “Rewardexcellent failures. Punishmediocre successes.”Phil Daniels, Sydney exec

12. “In Tom’s world, it’s always better to try a swan dive and deliver a colossal belly flop than to step timidly off the board while holding your nose.”—Fast Company /October2003

13. Nelson’s secret:“[Other] admirals more frightened of losing than anxious to win”

14. Inno.0524.06

15. What “We” Know “For Sure” About InnovationBig mergers [by & large] don’t workScale is over-ratedStrategic planning is the last refuge of scoundrelsFocus groups are counter-productive“Built to last” is a chimera (stupid)Success kills“Forgetting” is impossibleRe-imagine is a charming idea“Orderly 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 good“Facts” aren’tAll information making it to the top is filtered to the point of danger and hilarity“Success stories” are the illusions of egomaniacs (and “gurus”)If you believe the “cause & effect” memoirs of CEOs you should be institutionalized“Herd behavior” (XYZ is “hot”) is ubiquitous … and amusing“Top teams” are “Dittoheads”Statistically,CEOs have little effect on performance“Expert” prediction is rarely better than rolling the dice

16. Blitzkrieg?

17. 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 Hitler’s 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 Guderian’s 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 Guderian’s forces, Guderian not a disciple of the WWI-derived “strategy of indirect approach” Source: Julian Jackson, The Fall of France

18. 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.)

19. First-level Scientific SuccessThe smartest guy in the room wins”Or …

20. First-level Scientific SuccessFanaticismPersistence-Dogged TenacityPatience (long haul/decades)-Impatience (in a hurry/”do it yesterday”)PassionEnergyRelentlessness (Grant-ian) EnthusiasmDriven (nuts!) (Brutal?) CompetitivenessEntrepreneurialPragmatic (R.F!A.)Scrounge (“gets” the logistics-infrastructure bit)Master of Politics (internal-external)Tactical GeniusPursuit of (Oceanic) Excellence!High EQ/Skillful in Attracting + Keeping Talent/MagneticProlific (“ground up more pig brains”)EgocentricSense of History-DestinyFuturistic-In the MomentMono-dimensional (“Work-life balance”? Ha!)Exceptionally IntelligentExceptionally Clever (methodological shortcuts/methodological genius)Luck

21. Containerization**Malcom McLean

22. LessonsNeed-drivenA thousand “parents”MessyEvolutionary“Trivial”Experimentationtrial & ERRORLoooong time for systemic adaptation/s(many innovations) (bill of lading, standard time)Not …“Plan-driven”The product of “Strategic Thinking/Planning”The product of “focus groups”

23. Innovation’s “Secrets” Revealed: Get mad. Do something about it. Now.

24. EXCELLENCE. PREVIEW.

25. SynonymsPurityTranscendenceVirtueEleganceMajesty

26. SynonymsPurityTranscendenceVirtueEleganceMajestyAntonym/sMediocritySynonymsPurityTranscendenceVirtueEleganceMajestyAntonym/sMediocrity

27. Antonym/sMediocrity

28. Whoops!

29. Franchise Lost!TP:“How many of you[600]reallycravea new Chevy?”NYC/IIR/061205

30. “Deutsche Bank Moves Half of Its Back-office Jobs to India”/ headline/FT/0327; 500 of 900 Research; JPMorgan Chase—30% back-office by 12.31.07

31. New Economy?!Genentech09, Amgen09 > Merck09 (70K-3/394B-5)

32. New Economy?!Sergey + Larry > Harvard/370

33. Pathetic!

34. “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 1917 to 1987.S&P 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

35. “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

36. “A pattern emphasized in the case studies in this book is the degree to which powerful competitors not only resist innovative threats, but actually resist all efforts to understand them, preferring to further their positions in older products. This results in a surge of productivity and performance that may take the old technology to unheard of heights. But in most cases this is a sign of impending death.” —Jim Utterback, Mastering the Art of Innovation

37. Forget>“Learn”“The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out.”—Dee Hock

38. “The difficulties arise from the inherent conflict between the need to control existing operations and the need to create the kind of environment that will permit new ideas to flourish—and old ones to die a timely death. …We believe that most corporations will find it impossible to match or outperform the market without abandoning the assumption of continuity.… The current apocalypse—the transition from a state of continuity to state of discontinuity—has the same suddenness as the trauma that beset civilization in 1000 A.D.” Richard Foster & Sarah Kaplan, “Creative Destruction” (The McKinsey Quarterly)

39. “But what if [former head of strategic planning at Royal Dutch Shell] Arie De Geus is wrong in suggesting, in The Living Company, that firms should aspire to live forever? Greatness is fleeting and, for corporations, it will become ever more fleeting.The ultimate aim of a business organization, an artist, an athlete or a stockbroker may be to explode in a dramatic frenzy of value creation during a short space of time, rather than to live forever.”—Kjell Nordström and Jonas Ridderstråle, Funky Business

40. F500 Exodus1970-1990: 4XSource: The Company, John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge (1974-2000: One-half biggest 100 disappear)

41. Exit, Stage Right …CEO “departure” rate, 1995-2004:+300%Source: Booz Allen Hamilton

42. “The Bottleneck Is at the Top of the Bottle”“Where are you likely to find people with the least diversity of experience, the largest investment in the past, and the greatest reverence for industry dogma:Atthetop!”— Gary Hamel/Harvard Business Review

43. “When asked to name just one big merger that had lived up to expectations, Leon Cooperman, former cochairman of Goldman Sachs’ Investment Policy Committee, answered:I’m sure there are success stories out there, but at this moment I draw a blank.”—Mark Sirower, The Synergy Trap

44. “Not a single company that qualified as having made a sustained transformation ignited its leap with a big acquisition or merger.Moreover, comparison companies—those that failed to make a leap or, if they did, failed to sustain it—often tried to make themselves great with a big acquisition or merger. They failed to grasp the simple truth that while you can buy your way to growth, you cannot buy your way to greatness.”—Jim Collins/Time/2004

45. Spinoffsperform better than IPOs … track record, profits … “freed from the confines of the parent … more entrepreneurial, more nimble”—Jerry Knight/Washington Post/08.05

46. Market Share, Anyone?240 industries: Market-share leader is ROA leader 29% of the timeSource: Donald V. Potter, Wall Street Journal

47. Market Share, Anyone?— 240 industries: Market- share leader is ROA leader29% of the time — Profit /ROA leaders:“aggressively weed out customers who generate low returns”Source: Donald V. Potter, Wall Street Journal

48. “I don’t believe in economies of scale.You don’t get better by being bigger. You get worse.”—Dick Kovacevich/Wells Fargo/Forbes/08.04 (ROA: Wells, 1.7%; Citi, 1.5%; BofA, 1.3%; J.P. Morgan Chase, 0.9%)

49. Scale?“Microsoft’s Struggle With Scale”—Headline, FT, 09.2005“TroublingExits at Microsoft” —Cover Story, BW, 09.2005“Too Big to Move Fast?”—Headline, BW, 09.2005

50. “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