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Tom Peters

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For other uses of the name, see Thomas Peters

Thomas J. Peters (born November 7, 1942) is a business management guru of the late 1970s to the present. His first big book, co-written with Robert H. Waterman, Jr, was In Search of Excellence, which gained national exposure when a series of television specials based on the book appeared on PBS. Peters hosted the show.

Peters was born in Baltimore. He attended Cornell University, receiving a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1965, and a master's degree in 1966. He then studied business at Stanford University, receiving an M.B.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. He also has an honorary doctorate from the State University of Management in Moscow, which he received in 2004.

He served in the United States Navy from 1966-1970, making two deployments to Vietnam as a Navy Seabee, then later working in the Pentagon. In the White House he was a senior drug-abuse advisor during the Nixon administration, from 1973-1974.

From 1974-1981, he worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, becoming a partner and Organization Effectiveness practice leader in 1979.

In 1981, he became an independent consultant.

Peters' ideology is focused on solving business problems with as little business process overhead as possible. In Search Of Excellence was focused on devolving power to the lowest person possible in an organization to empower them to solve the most problems possible. Tom Peters has acknowledged the influence of Col. John Boyd on his work.

According to Peters, the traditional centralized authoritative structure of business governance was imperfect because it required business leaders to know too much and because it overburdened them with needless trivia.

Another main principle of his book was that managers allowing employees to fail, on the premise that doing nothing is usually much more expensive for a business than doing the wrong thing. Given the difficulty in predicting the future of markets and the consequences of management actions, Peters advocated that a business decision maker should be adaptable and adopt a policy of quick action, with changes as necessary as dictated by market feedback.

He is the author of many books on business management and continues to write and speak about personal and business empowerment and problem solving methodogies.

Peters currently lives in Vermont with his wife Susan Sargent.

Bibliography

  • 1982 - In Search of Excellence (co-written with Robert H. Waterman, Jr.)
  • 1985 - A Passion for Excellence (co-written with Nancy Austin)
  • 1987 - Thriving on Chaos
  • 1992 - Liberation Management
  • 1993 - The Tom Peters Seminar: Crazy Times Call for Crazy Organizations
  • 1994 - The Pursuit of WOW!
  • 1997 - The Circle of Innovation: You Can't Shrink Your Way to Greatness
  • 1999 - The Brand You50, The Project50 and The Professional Service Firm50
  • 2003 - Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age

References

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