Tom Peters WOWs India

Management guru Tom Peters was in India on October 29 and 30th 2002 for the Indiatimes Strategy Summit. He wowed the audiences with his innovative ideas, quotable quotes and interesting quips. The auditorium was packed with bigwigs and the who's who of the Indian corporate world.

Tom Peters has authored several management best sellers including In Search of Excellence and The Pursuit of WOW. The latest to stem from his pen is the The Reinventing Work series - a collection of five books each containing 50 essential ideas for re-inventing the workplace.


During the summit, Tom Peters touched upon topics like strategizing in unfamiliar times, creating wow-centers in your organization, and strategizing for the future. But perhaps you could associate him best with his brushing aside the rulebook (because things are always changing) and remember him by his memorable quote - "Forget learning, learn forgetting."

Quotable quotes from Tom Peters, gleaned during the seminars.


Bangalore: Fifteen years ago, not one in 1,000 Americans could spot Bangalore on the map. Today, six out of seven think Bangalore is the only city in India. They basically believe one billion people live in Bangalore.

Silicon Valley: The secret of the valley's success is that we have an unfair share of demented dreamers. Of course, there are a lot of Indians. If they all left, we'd have to turn off the lights.


General Electric: It's the only survivor from the Forbes 100 list of 1917 which has outperformed the market. And its single most striking attribute is that it's the least organized company. Those guys couldn't spell synergy if you spotted them all the letters. It was begun by Edison as an entrepreneurial organization, and even at their bureaucratic worst, they had guys who actually ran things who never paid any attention to HQ.

American boards: They've got an average age of 87.5 years and all the members are famous for having been famous years ago.


Leadership models: The best model is either the general manager of a sports team or a venture capitalist. The sports manager spends 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, 53 weeks a year in the pursuit and retention of the best talent. VCs basically make bets on people with ideas.

Afghan campaign: They Napsterised the battlefield by cutting out the middle managers: majors, colonels and generals. Frontline soldiers could talk directly to pilots. Earlier, a war could be over before an army request would result in air-force support.