Tom Peters - Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism

For the sake of the company, community, customer, and planet, Tom Peters wants every leader, everywhere, tofinallyput people first. He prods, provokes, cajoles, and charms his way through catchy examples and practical action steps that offer a path to sustainable excellence.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School professor, Author of Think Outside the Building

Although Tom Peters writes with a sense of urgency, savor his insights about what it takes to nurture our companiesin his words, full-fledged breathing communities, and ensure business plays the role it must in building the world we all deserve.

Linda A. Hill, Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School; Faculty Chair, Leadership Initiative; Author of Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation

Toms brilliant OPUS should not only be read and reread but tucked under your pillow at night, so these ideas seep in and guide our every behavior throughout our lives.

Jeanne Bliss, Bestselling Author and Customer Experience Expert

If you dont have people as your true north before you read Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism you will at the end. Tom gives us a master class in the soft stuff what really matters today.

Tiffani Bova, Growth Evangelist, Salesforce; WSJ Bestselling Author: Growth IQ; Thinkers50

Tom Peters is the Gandalf of business. Human potential is infinite magic, but most organizations blindly pursue mindless mechanical contributions. Teams change the world, leaders serve teamsand theres no such thing as over-serving! If you want the secret of the quest, Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism is a must read and a must often reread.

Linda Holliday, CEO and Founder of Citia

Excellence Now:

Extreme Humanism

by Tom Peters
Print: 978-1-944027-94-0
eBook: 978-1-944027-93-3

Copyright 2021 by Tom Peters.

www.networlding.com


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Dedication

Robbin Reynolds, who by happenstance read an article of mine that appeared in Business Week , in July 1980, sent me unbidden a letter with a Harper & Row book contract attached, and commanded, Theres a book in that article. Hence, with a few steps in between, In Search of Excellence .

Nancy Austin, business partner and colleague, who said In Search of Excellence was missing action items and needed more energy; and thus became my inspiring co-author of A Passion for Excellence and the primary source of my extreme use of italics, bold typeface, and, above all, Red Exclamation Marks!

Heather Shea, former president of my training company, The Tom Peters Company, who informed me one afternoon over a glass of chardonnay that I knew nothing about the puny representation and underutilized potential of women in leadership roles in business. She then convened a meeting of (very) powerful women and ordered me to be there; whence those women at Heathers command lectured me nonstop for three intense hours on my deficienciesthereby launching my 25-year (1996-2021) obsession with womens market power and demonstrated leadership excellence.

Sally Helgesen, whose book The Female Advantage was my number one tutorial on womens issues in business. It, and Sallys subsequent work and good counsel, re-engineered many of my neural pathwaysmy life has never been the same.

Susan Cain. Seldom does a single book flip ones life upside down. Ms. Cains 2013 book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Cant Stop Talking , did just that. It is my easy pick as most impactful new business book of the century to date. Susan told me, personally and pointedly, or so it felt, that I was a hotshot business guru / thought leader who had effectively ignored half the working population, those introverts, whose contributions as leaders, for example, typically outshine the noisy buggers. Head bowed, I am forever in her debt.

Marianne Lewis, Dean of the Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Lewis is using her tenure to re-invent business school education (so desperately in need of wholesale re-invention), putting the horribly misnamed soft stuff firstleadership, people, community, moral behavior, and excellence.

Susan Sargent, tapestry artist, home accessories designer-business owner whose approach to color changed an entire industry; and community organizer extraordinaire (conservation, climate change, the arts). Whose energy level makes the Energizer Bunny a snail by comparisonand my wife, colleague, and best friend for more than a quarter of a century.

Julie Anixter, Nancye Green, Melissa Wilson, and Shelley Dolley, for their tireless efforts to make this book, my summa, the best it can possibly bethat is, excellent! Their professional contributions were exceptional and then some; at least as important, they became full partners and collaborators in this effort.

Note: This is not a dedication to the women in my life. This is a dedication to eleven of the extraordinary professional women who have shaped my views about effective, diverse, humane, and morally-focused enterprises.

Foreword
by Vala Afshar

How can you focus on excellence after living through 2020, a year which brought the worst healthcare, economic, climate, racial and equality injustice, and large-scale dissemination of misinformation crises in a lifetime? Tom Peters answer is to actively engage and to serve our employees, our communities, and the planet, to aim for no less than the betterment of society. And do it with all your heart and all your soul and all your energy.

When business leaders conversations turn to excellence, they most often think of Tom Peters and In Search of Excellence , a book I first read in graduate school, which is widely considered to be one of the most influential management books of all time. Over the last 40 + years since that book, Tom has traveled to 50 states and 63 countries, presenting to over five million people. And now comes his 19th and, according to him, last book, Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism .

It is a book for today. Tom may have been around for quite a while, but there is no grass growing under his feet. He has taken to the digital age with a vengeance. His abundant daily engagements on Twitter are an example of constant excellence in advocacy for living and leading a commendable life. He has tweeted more than 125,000 times and earned over 170,000 followers. He is the principal reason I fell in love with Twitter. I first corresponded with Peters on Twitter, and he instantly became my mentor from afar. He is radically transparent and generous, willing to engage with everyone. The wisdom of Tom Peters, especially evident on Twitter, is knowing that everyone you meet knows more than you about something.