A leader needs to be prepared to be available. That means not overbooking themselves with meetings, burning out, and being unable to think creatively. To author and columnist Tom Peters, empathy is the most important skill a leader can have.

In May 1986, Tom wrote about having only five levels of management, even in big multinationals. In ‘88, he wrote Stuff the Bureaucrats, Embrace the Customer, Listen to the Workers, and since the ‘90s has been speaking on the importance of having women in leadership positions.

Tom’s COVID-19 Leadership Seven

• Be kind
• Be caring
• Be patient
• Be forgiving
• Be present
• Be positive
• Walk in the other person's shoes

Links

• Connect with Tom on LinkedIn
• Tom Peters’ Compact Guide to Excellence
• Leadership the Hard Way, by Dov Frohman and Robert Howard
• What Google learned from its quest to build the perfect team
• The Customer Comes Second: Put Your People First and Watch 'em Kick Butt, by Hal Rosenbluth and Diane McFerrin Peters
• Resume vs eulogy virtues
• Kindness in Leadership, edited by Gay Haskins, Mike Thomas, and Lalit Johri

This is the first episode of the Happy Manifesto Podcast.

I'm Henry Stewart, Chief Happiness Officer at Happy.

I'm Maureen.

I am a senior facilitator and chief confidence activator.

Did you know that Henry?

I'm a chief activator?

That's an exciting one.

Yes.

What does that involve?

So basically I know that part of my strengths of when I'm training, facilitating is to activate people's confidence because when they feel good about themselves, they tend to to to have a go.

And it's also means helping people feel more supported.

Okay, grand.

And on this first episode, we have one of my top management gurus.

Who is it, Maureen?

It's Tom Peters.

I know I was cheering inside Henry.

He's so awesome.

He is, isn't he?

He's amazing.

But before that, what has brought you joy at work

it was my birthday not so long ago and at Happy is that they acknowledged our birthday by giving us that day.

So, for my day, I decided it's all about wellbeing and I took myself off to the spa, spent the day in the spa, all by myself, celebrating me, and, it was fantastic.

It was fantastic.

It's the best thing that you can do.

When you feel good about yourself, then you give the best of yourself.

So, thank you.

Happy for my birthday day off.

Ah, that's grand.

I went to hear, a group of alumni from Unison who've been on our level five apprenticeship program, and it was fabulous to hear them.

They were talking about how, one of them talked about how's the best course they'd ever been on, and they'd done a degree and a PGCE, and how it had, uh, enabled them to get a job in the Welch government, shadowing.

They'll come back to Unison again, but they're shadowing.

Uh, there was somebody else who talked about how they used preapproval, which is how you, Instead of approving something at the end, you approve it before.

And how they, they deliver that to their, their people and said, Look, whatever you do, as long as you work within these guidelines, whatever you do in terms of the industrial dispute you're involved in, I will bat you.

And I that, that was great to hear.

It was great to hear.

Oh, that's fabulous.

It's so good when you hear the success stories of those, you know, who've worked hard on these apprenticeships.

haven't they?

They have, absolutely.

And my happy tip, um, which is a bit similar to yours in a way, is, at Happy we have a fully paid sabbatical, One month after 12 years, two months after 20 years a month, again after 25 and two months after 30.

So I am going Interrailing.

Interrailing.

Where are you going, Henry?

I am going to Luxemburg, Switzerland, Italy, Sarajevo, Slovenia, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, all over the place for six weeks without a laptop, without an email, I will be completely cut off.

How will you cope?

I will count fine.

you're gonna have a fabulous time.

I am.

I am jealous.

I will say I am jealous.

I wish I was going with you, but that sounds

that would be that.

I would love to have you come with us

Maybe we should take the podcast on the trip with you.

Absolutely we could do.

And your happy tip?

So my happy tip is, um, well, is I'll be at work.

So it's gonna be a work based happy tip.

So my happy tip is around, it's something that Tom Peter shared in sense of keep 50% of your time, unscheduled.

Yes.

for, for me, 50% is a bit difficult.

And with anything, I was always say adapted to how it fits you.

So for me at this time, what I've done is now unskilled two hours at the beginning of the day.

So the first two hours of my day is for me, and that's to take time to check in what I need to do, understand what is I want to achieve, what are my objectives, and check in with people.

You know, cause sometimes we don't schedule that time.

You know, we might do one to ones, but actually take time out just to check in on, on our people.

So the first two hours is about me.

They're blocked out in my calendar.

No one can interrupt me and that's it.

Absolutely.

That's, that's similar to Bruce Daisy's monk mode Morning, where at least two or three days a week you have no email and no meetings before 11 o'clock.

Yeah.

No, definitely.

Definitely.

And I'll, I'll keep you guys updated to see how it goes because it's so easy to go off track.

But I would love to hear anybody else who's tried this, you know, and what other tips they can help me, keep me on track.

Okay folks, Now over to Tom Peters.

When I started Happy 34 years ago, Tom was a big person for me.

He was writing in the Observer.

I remember reading Liberation Management.

Back in May, 1986, he wrote about having only five levels of management even in a big multinational.

In 88, he wrote snuff the bureaucrats, embrace the customer, listen to the workers.

And back in the nineties, I remember hearing him talking about the importance of having women in your leadership positions, which have been something he's been talking about for that time, and we're talking today about his new book, Tom Peters' Compact Guide to Excellence.

Oh my gosh.

I mean, I couldn't believe this.

So Tom, this is my first book reading of your book, and I smiled all the way through it.

I just couldn't believe the great ideas and lessons that you have in this book.

And I just was trying to imagine if we had organizations that implemented, you know, even half of what you put in this book, what would the world look like?

those are incredibly kind words.

And when one is uh, reasonably close to book launch, lovely words to hear.

So I'm delighted at work for you.

It did.

It did.

Yeah.

I really loved it.

So this is why I'm excited to hear firsthand, questions that we can ask you from ideas from your book.

So, um, Happy Strapline is creating Joy at Work and you quote Anita Roddick saying, My passionate belief is that business can be fun, it can be conducted with love and a powerful force for good.

Tell us more about that.

Well, I became a great pal of Anitas for Starter.

Oh really?

And yeah, I was a huge fan and was desolate when she passed away at a very young age.

I guess, here's my simple logic.

, unless you were born with a silver spoon, and I assume that, I don't know whether we got it from the Brits, of the Brits got it from us, but I presume it carries across the Atlantic.

Unless you were born with a silver spoon.

You will spend more of your waking life at work than even with your family if you adore your family.

That's so, the way I put it in very crude language is if you piss away your days at work, You piss away your life.

And you know, and you know, I'm trained as an engineer mathematically I'm right.

You know, you can love your, love your kids to death and love your spouse to death and so on.

But statistically, unless you were born rich, you're gonna spend more time.

And so the translation then is, good heavens.

I mean, the simple translation is, good heavens, let's make it a pleasant place to be.

And then you absolutely go through all the rest of the rift that this happens to be an incredible way to make money and so on, which I'm, you know, more than happy to do because I'm dealing with business audiences.

But it's, it is and you know this better than I because of what you do.

It's just, criminal to me.

. To have decency, thoughtfulness, kindness cetera.

and so, I mean, I, I just, you know, I'm an incredibly old man now.

It's like, Jesus, why do I have to keep saying this?

This is obvious as the end of your nose.

And again, and I'm not sure what the, whether the English translation is accurate, but what I've.

In the United States, we go to school at roughly the age of six, and we go to the first grade, second grade, third grade.

And so you're an eight year old.

Yeah.

And you're in the third grade.

And my one liner is, I am a very sophisticated person with several degrees in technical subjects.

If you want to understand my work, you must present to me a signed certificate of Complet.

Of the third grade.

Literally no other, no more sophisticated, intellectual.

Well let's se, here's one of my favorite stories.

It's, in the uh, in the new book.

Teacher stands in a to a classroom as the kids come in in the morning.

He just nods and he's got a smile on his face and he says, Morning Dave.

Good morning.

Judy whatever, whatever, whatever.

And that's it.

A smile, a personal greeting.

Disciplinary problems fall through the floor, Academic work goes through the ceiling.

I mean, all it is, is recognizing you as an individual, as a human being and doing so with a little bit of a smile and you turn the world upside.

And anybody who doesn't think that experience with a seven year old doesn't translate into a workplace with 37 year olds is just, is nuts.

It's a fundamental human thing.

Yeah.

I mean, just to add to that you had the seven commandments.

Be kind, be caring, be patient, be forgiving, be present, be positive, Walk in the other person's shoes.

And that is just so simple to change a dynamic and the way people will be in the workplace with each other.

Yeah.

As you said, we spent so many hours together.

Well, I, I did that little list of seven things.

I called it the Covid 19 leadership seven, because mm-hmm.

,, when the pandemic started.

My wife was heavily involved with things in the community and I said to myself at one point, what the hell are you doing sitting here on your buns when the world is going to hell?

And so, you know, we had done a bunch of podcasts and so on, and I asked my colleagues to see if anybody would like me to talk about leadership in the times of a pandemic.

Which is a pretty, you know, it's an arrogant thing to do, but whatever.

And so we did and that was the list.

And uh, people responded to it, you know, ex exceedingly Well, I, my summary, I said, listen, if those seven words are, are too much for you, let me translate it into plain English.

Don't be a jerk.

And, well, I here, here's the, here's the example I gain.

Judy is working for me.

We have three or four Zoom meetings a week.

Judy is always on time and she is always prepared, and so I'm sitting down to her to do kind of an assessment thing and I say, Judy, I'm gonna give you some points off.

Let me tell you why.

I'm gonna give you some points off.

I happen to know that you've got a mother in an extended care facility.

I know that you have a five year old and a seven year old, and I want you to be late and I want you to take care of your family.

Wow.

And I want you to be less productive.

This, this is not the time for productivity maximization.

It's time for human decency, taking care of our loved ones and neighbors and so on.

And I said, You're the greatest person in the world, but you know, I really mean it.

Be late.

And that would be my pitch.

Moving on other bits of the book, you were very busy and so you reckon that Lee should keep 50% of their time as unscheduled, which Maureen has just said she's gonna do.

Why do you think that?

Well, it's not me.

It came from a book called Leadership the Hard Way, co-written by game guy by the name of Dov Frohman, who was a very senior officer at Intel and ran Intel's facilities in Israel during one of the many wars that took place over there, et cetera, et cetera.

But what he was saying again was pretty straightforward in simple language.

The ideal leadership is to be prepared, to be available, uh, it's not to go to 17 meetings in a row, one after another, you lose your humanity.

Your mind is just not working creatively, and, you know, I would not expect that many leaders would pass Mr.

Frohman's 50% level, but most of the leaders I've seen are more like 3% If.

And so my practical point is you nudge it up there, get it to 10% or 20% or 25% and just be available.

You know, it's just being available.

You know, there was, we stole this thing way back in we were doing our search of excellence research in 1979.

From Huett Packard, m b manage by wandering around.

And I remember my favorite, one of my favorite things I heard was from a hospital administrator, and he had an open door policy, and to prove it, he took his door on the ceiling above the outside of his office door.

Well, I, I wanna say some Slightly tougher minded things too in this regard.

empathy as a literal, serious part of hiring criteria for a hundred percent of jobs, in my opinion.

And you've gotta have empathy cubed relative to promotion to the first level of management.

Right.

You know, the statistics are clear.

The first line leader drives everything, and there's hard nose research that says quality, profitability, innovation, it's all driven by that collection of first line leaders.

And the magic of leadership is empathy.

You know, there was a guy who I quoted, he ran a very successful, runs, a very successful biotech firm, and he said, We only hire nice people.

Yeah.

And the point is, which he said, you can't even understand the name of half of the jobs of my scientists because it's so sophisticated.

But he said, I figured this thing out.

Give the most sophisticated degree in the world, and actually there are a lot of nice people who have that degree.

Don't hire the jerks.

And Google did this thing, which we, it was reported somewhere else.

I reported on the report.

They studied their best employees and their most innovative teams, and you probably saw it, there were eight attributes of the best individuals and seven of them were soft stuff.

Yeah.

Like listening, care, respect.

And that's from Google.

And the last one on the list of eight was the, you know, was the, was stem.

But the first seven were being human.

And you know, I've been around software firms.

I lived in the Silicon Valley for 30 years.

One of the ones with the most innovative teams was no bullying.

Mm-hmm.

When you get 23 year old stanford and MIT computer science graduates together asking for no bullying is like asking the son to rise in the west, but it's but they're doing it and it works.

That was Project Aristotle, wasn't it?

It was and it was where the best scientists didn't get the best results.

It was where the, it was the, you said the B team's got the best results.

Cause they.

Yeah.

Bks, because they cooperated, they listened, They were interested in diverse points of view.

I mean, the A teams were basically to be slightly unfair filled with 17 people, all of whom knew they were the smartest human beings God ever put on earth.

Why the hell should I listen to your crap?

That's, That's being unfair.

But having lived in Silicon Valley with those people for a long time,

Really.

Okay, so I'm gonna just take it, Sorry else cuz I, when I was reading the book, yeah, there was an acronym that you used and it just made me think about being human is actually acknowledging that we make mistakes and at happy we have a principle where we celebrate our mistakes.

So the acronym that you had.

WTTMSW.

Of course, I don't see why I should have to explain it.

WTTMSW.

And then you extended it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The extension, right.

all so, So to me,

extension, the big extension was whoever tries the most things and makes the most mistakes the fastest wins.

Yeah.

Got

extension was Then you added up screwups.

Who does the most screwups and who screws up the most wins the fastest.

Yeah.

Well, my, my real favorite for that was I was giving a speech many, many years ago in Sydney, Australia, and there was this business person in my office who in my audience who had a biggest middle size successful business, and he said, My success is due to six words, reward, excellent failures.

Punish mediocre successes.

Whoa.

And you know, you've not, you've got, you're all, you're both incredibly bright and so on and so forth, but you've gotta read it about a, you know, 20 times to really let it sink in.

The thing that screws up.

But there was this magnificent thing that you tried that's worth its weight in gold.

The success that's 1.236% better.

The last round is uh, you know, not gonna get you into heaven.

No, and I really love that because I train with apprentices and one of the things is to get them to unlearn, to get them to understand that making mistakes is one of the best things that you can do.

And I suppose part of the reason why I want to ask this question, what's that?

What if the screw up is that big?

Cause that's what people are afraid of,

I remember, I don't remember the company talking to the guy who ran half of a big, I think it was a consumer goods company.

And when he sat, the first thing he related to people was his giant mistake.

When we spent three years on the XYZ product and the market share was zero, 18 months later.

But from that, we got a feeling for this and a feeling for that.

And the guy who used to run PepsiCo, who I knew a little bit said, You know, all of our successes have come from embarrassing mistakes along, Oh really?

Not little tickle bickle mistakes, but you know, things that really embarrass the living daylights out of you.

And, you know, again, that makes perfect sense to me.

It makes sense.

It's logical.

It's not, you know, you don't, we're not going out into Lala land.

That is a logical conclusion.

And the research is clear.

Oh there's another one.

Oh, I, My memory isn't that good.

There's a wonderfully sophisticated one that came from some Nobel laureate about, we think your idea.

Is silly, but we really don't think it's silly enough.

Well, it says let's do this little twist.

And golly, that sounds great.

I wanna hear something makes me go, Oh my God, you know, Oh my God, this is amazing.

Or oh my God, how could you be that stupid?

And that starts a useful discussion.

Absolutely.

Tom, I wanted to ask you about strategy.

Now, when you were at McKinsey's, strategy was a big deal.

But here you quote lots of people, quote, Herb Kellerher, founder of Southwest Airlines, and several others are saying strategy is actually just getting stuff done.

Is that right?

I have not got a problem with strategy, you'd be an idiot to do that.

But life is execution for God's sakes.

, my favorite.

My favorite one liner that I used actually came from the commander of US forces at Dday General Omar Bradley.

And the Bradley quote was amateurs talk about strategy, professionals talk about logistics, and you know the question for General Eisenhower on Dday was not that he picked the best landing place, but were the damn bullets in the same place that the guns were . You know, that's, that's the story.

And the, you know, the dday success had to do with how well they had mapped the bottom of the sea so that when in fact the amphibious landing ships came into shore, all the people on 'em wouldn't drown.

I mean, that's the success seeker.

And you know, so.

Sure strategy.

Sure.

Think about what you're doing, but let's get,

And again, it goes, you know, it's tied to the last thing that you guys were talking to me about.

If you wait forever for the perfect strategy, then you're not making the interesting mistakes.

You know, you just gotta get in there.

But you know, my favorite personal example is I am told that I give pretty good speeches.

But I don't give pretty good speeches if I miss the plane.

And so I am nauseating back in my credible days, Nauseatingly fanatic about having the flight and having the backup to the flight and having the backup to the back to the flight.

I more time on, you know, what happens when the airlines do this or when they do that, or what have you, or what do you do when there's an unexpected squall that comes into Heathrow and 75,000 bags are lost and I end up at the place where I'm speaking without anything to wear.

That's what you gotta be ready for.

But fortunately I was in India where you can find a tailor who will make you an entire three piece suit overnight or by the end of the afternoon.

We're not a perfect fit, but you can't have everything

. Maureen: That's amazing that it makes so much sense.

You know, Logistics, logistics,

logistics, logistics, Logistics.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

well, but see, all these damn things are not 180 degrees, but 179 degrees from what business schools.

I had I, McKinsey has not fallen on hard times, but has misbehaved in ways that are disgusting in recent years.

And the FT asked me to write a piece about it.

And in the piece, I don't remember exactly the words, but I said the most significant thing we can do to avoid this sort of thing is to close every business school on earth.

And of course, I don't mean it, but I do mean it directionally.

You know, because this, the joy stuff, the people stuff, the execution stuff, that ain't the business school curriculum.

Yeah.

You learn the accounting, you learn the strategy, you learn the marketing none of which are unimportant, but they aren't the essence of success in life.

I remember.

asking a question of the Deans of business schools.

And I said, why do you focus so much on strategy and finance when people are the most important thing?

And I think it was Roger Martin who answered me, and he said, well, we do the easy stuff.

Yeah.

And Roger is the perfect example of a guy who tried to do it the other way.

And at the Rotman School, at the University of Toronto, he made a big difference that way.

it goes on for me now cause it is about the people.

And again, one of the quotes that you've put in your book is that if you want the staff to give great service to customers, the leaders have to give great service to the staff.

And that was a great, a big wow for me.

Because Yeah.

Well there even a couple books out that, you know, there was a guy I knew who ran a big travel agency, and turned it around and grew it into something magnificent and so on.

And the title of his book was Putting the Customer Second.

And then a very successful hospital administrator did the same thing and had a book title, Putting the Patient Second.

You know, you're gonna treat the patient well if the, you know, the staff is in the right place, in the right mood, etc.

That was Hal Rosenbluth, wasn't it that did the Put the customer second.

Yeah.

One of the classic books I read when I started.

Happy.

I loved it.

It was really, and he was a good guy.

He's a very, very good guy.

oh God, I can't remember the whole story, but there was some, I know it was a drought or whatever it was, something was knocking the heck out of the uh, central Midwest in the US, the Dakotas and so on.

And so Hal's response was to open a big facility out there to employ people instead of the other, the first 217 places people would've said he ought to have the facility.

And as he said, you know, you do something like that.

And what happened?

His absenteeism was approximately zero.

His lateness score was approximately zero and so on

Myself and Henry had a discussion about this beforehand, excellence is the next five minutes.

So, and I was like, well, tell me more.

Then it's like five minutes.

So it's gonna take five minutes for excellence to come about, or is it a loop that happens over and over again?

So tell me more about this.

Well, I think the general thought of excellence is winning an Olympic gold medal, winning a sports championship, being the most profitable company.

Real excellence is the quality of the three of our conversations.

It's what's happening right now.

And if it's a good quality conversation things will spin out of it.

People will listen to us or watch us.

And two people are, get an idea and really go for it.

So the long term to me is utter nonsense.

I've got a little, I don't remember where I got it.

It's a picture of three caskets.

One of 'em is a plain brown casket, wood casket.

Another second one's a plain brown wooden casket.

And the third one looks like it came from some Egyptian, you know, whatever.

And the first one says, the first plain brown casket says unsuccessful people.

Second plain brown casket says successful people.

And the third one say people who say thank you to the bus driver when they get off the bus the morning.

Oh my gosh.

And I just love it.

I mean, it was really a wonderful experience.

There's an awful lot not to be proud of in the American South.

But my mother came from the south and taught me pretty good manners.

And so one day I was flying somewhere and came into BWI Baltimore, Washington International Airport, and you had to take a, a bus to go out to where the rental cars were, and it was six 15 in the morning.

And so, you know, a bus came by that said rental car area.

And so I got on the bus and I said is this the bus that goes out to the rental car area?

And the driver looked at me and he got a big smile on his face, and he said, Don't we usually begin conversations like this with and how are you this morning?

Oh my God, my mother rolled in her and beat me into a bloody pulp.

It's so true.

David Brooks is a famous American columnist who writes for the New York Times, and one of his columns was on what he called resume virtues versus eulogy virtues, and resume Virtues were the degrees you have, the promotions, you got Cetera, et cetera.

The eulogy virtues, obviously, or what do they say about you at your funeral?

And they don't talk about your degrees and they don't talk about this.

They talk about what kind of a human being were you.

And I mean, I hope I'm on the right side of that one, but it really hit me, right, between the eyes.

Yeah.

Well, one, one more question, Tom.

What are your three tips for Happy Workplace

One of my favorite quotes, it's in the book.

Three things are Important in the world.

The first is to be kind.

The second is to be kind, and the third is to be kind.

Yeah.

And let me just add, there is a wonderful book that was called Kindness in Leadership.

it was edited or co-edited by a friend of mine whose name is Gay Haskins, who is with the Oxford Syed Business School.

. And it's just a fantastic book.

And it's Kindness in Leadership, and it goes through every kind of organization imaginable from sports teams to, whatever, whatever.

There was an Army General whose name was Melvin Zs, and he was giving a speech to senior US officers in the war college and he said, there is one tip that I can give you that'll be the most important tip that you ever hear.

And it doesn't require special intellect and it doesn't require special character.

And the tip is you must care.

And I was invited to the US Naval Academy to give an invited lecture, and I had read the ACE thing and was totally turned on by it.

And he was a general after all.

And these are the old days of, cassette tapes and I actually, I wasn't getting a fee, but I bought 4,000 cassette tapes with that speech and gave one to each of the US midshipman who were in that.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

And I think it's the best investment in the future I ever made.

So, we'll go with you must care or better.

Be kind.

Three things are important.

Be kind.

Be kind, and be kind.

I love it.

Back to the other thing that I said about resume virtues and so on.

I have a slide that I use occasionally.

And it is a tombstone.

And as I said to somebody I know about tombstones cuz my ex-wife father made tombstones or carved tombstones.

And the tombstone says $17,382,614 and 9 cents net worth on the day that he died.

There are no tombstones with net worth.

Remember that?

No,

So this is Tom Peters' Compact Guide to Excellence, which he says is his last book.

But Tom, I remember you saying that about the previous book.

So, yeah, but it's not going to be your last book is it?

it's a Little tiny hold in your handbook.

That's the whole point is the, the look and the feel and the character of the book.

So, trying to really boil it down as you guys have done such a brilliant job of doing in the last half hour.

I really thank you for this opportunity.

Oh, thank you, Tom.

Tom.

Here's what you have to remember.

There's a motivational speaker by the name of Tony Robbins.

And I said to somebody, if Tony Robbins walks into an audience of a thousand people, he expects to change a thousand lives.

If I walk into an audience of a thousand people and two people walk out and say, we're really gonna go after the world in a different way.

I've had the most successful day in my life.

Well, my hands up.

I'm, like I said, when I read that book, I was gleaming and I'm really, I'm going for it.

I'm gonna make some changes

Absolutely.

Well, thank you all both so much for taking the time to talk with me about it.

I'm still grinning.

There's so much goodness.

Like I like to say, there was so much juice.

Great tips and information and lovely stories.

They were.

And if only all organizations could be like that could, as he says, the three tips.

Be kind, Be kind, Be kind.

I know.

And this is the thing.

Everything is so simple and that can just make such a difference.

Absolutely.

If, If everybody could be like, that could be caring, kindness.

Yes.

They're just listening to your people.

I mean, what I took from the five minutes, you know, excellence and it's about just being present.

Being really present, listening and being present, and that's when you connect and that's where the great ideas and inspirations, motivation, everything that you want comes out of that little five minutes and being present.

Absolutely.