| | | | |  | | | Tom Peters Times -- November 2009 | | Lessons in Excellence
"Psssst! This recession might really be over ... Pass it on!"
Back in the days of A Passion for Customers, Tom Peters often talked to his audiences about the power of perception and cited what he called "Perception's Rules" as fundamental to understanding customer service excellence. There were three rules as I recall:
1. Perception is never neutral.
2. Perception is the sum of lots of little things.
3. The bad news counts against you ten times more than the good news counts for you!
As we all contemplate the end of the recession [see the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and the New York Times on the subject] and the coming realities of the so-called Reset Economy, the timing and extent of the recovery may have as much to do with peoples' perception as it does with hard economic facts. Let me explain.
Recently, I have been a living example of Perception's Rule #1 on this very subject, feeling positive about the outlook one day and pessimistic the next. But never neutral! I care too much. I did finally make up my mind in August that the worst was behind us and decided to bolster my resolve with a personal "smile file" of positive economic news. My list was coming along nicely, as was my confidence to talk to others about it. With Perception's Rule #2 in mind, I started to push snippets of good economic news around my business network and asked others to respond in kind.
What I learned from this personal initiative was that it is still clearly "cool to be cautious" about the prospects for a recovery, in my circles at least. Many people's lives have been materially damaged by this recession. Most of us know someone who has paid the ultimate price of losing their job or having their small business go bust. In forming perception, there's no doubt that the bad news is counting ten times more than the good news around me right now, as predicted in Rule #3.
The economic indicators may now be on the upswing, but confidence certainly is not. If we can't find a way to close this gap, the recovery we're all desperate for will be that much slower in coming and that much weaker when it does finally arrive. So what can we do about it? Keeping Perception's Rules in mind, here are three suggestions.
First, we can all nurture and practice our "learned optimism," an essential competence for leaders in uncertain times according to psychologist Martin Seligman. Try to spend more time with positive people.
Second, find some small things that you can do to make things different and better around you. Tom peppered his recent presentations in London with examples of little things that can make a big difference, things that could be done to improve businesses without requiring big budgets or Senior Vice President job titles to implement.
Third, if you do think we are coming out of this recession, you can set a better example than I have on resilience and determination to get some good news stories into circulation! Shifting people's mindsets in the current context is not going to happen overnight. Starting the recession might have been easier! But if we all put effort into it, we can, maybe imperceptibly at first, nudge the people around us to adopt a more positive outlook, and get them thinking and acting in a more positive way. Optimism is the essential missing ingredient of recovery!
Richard King
Managing Partner, UK
Consultant and Facilitator |
 | Recession46
Tom published his Recession46 at tompeters.com in August 2009, and at the time it was aimed at giving people suggestions for dealing with the recession. We think it's helpful now as a list of measures you might take to help yourself climb out of it. You may not have a totally positive outlook, but you can positively change one thing. And Tom's list emphasizes small measures that one person can take, no matter what position he holds in an organization. Tom's label for this idea of taking control of seemingly small basics is The Little BIG Things--the title of his book to appear next year. Little things can have a big impact. You may not have control over all aspects of your situation, but you can change one little thing. For example, toward the end of the list you'll find "don't put limits on the budget for flowers--'bright and colorful' works marvels." But you don't have to break the bank. One stem at the most exclusive florist costs a dollar or two, and even one mum in an empty cola bottle on your desk makes you smile. Take a look at the list. Find one item that you can do today and put it into action. |
| A Preview of Videos to Come
We're starting a new series of videos at tompeters.com, and they're not announced there yet, so this newsletter brings you a preview. The videos are based on ideas from Tom's upcoming book, The Little BIG Things. These mini-speeches in front of a camera can actually be considered Tom's "first draft" of the book, since he was collecting his thoughts around the concepts to be presented there when we filmed. The words in the book will have little resemblance to the words Tom uses in these videos, as there have been numerous draft revisions, but all the thoughts are the same. The video series starts off with the recession as the topic, and you can watch "Recession Thoughts from Tom Peters--On Lending Officers and The World of Finance" here. Tom reminds us that the financial crisis was caused, essentially, by lending officers not remaining connected to the people to whom they were lending. Staying connected and seeing, smelling, and tasting where the action is are Little BIG Things.
Many thanks to Stewart Clifford, Dini Coffin, and the team at Enterprise Media for making this possible. |
| Excellence Audit Distance Learning
In October 2009, Tom Peters Company launched an exciting new offering; eight consultants from six countries joined in a Distance Learning program designed to enable them to become licensed users of our Excellence Audit product. If you are interested to know more, and perhaps apply to join in with a future program, you can find more information here. The program is aimed at independent consultants and internal organization development professionals.
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