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Tom Peters III | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1942-11-07)November 7, 1942 (age 83) |
| Alma mater | Cornell University(BS,MS) Stanford University(MBA,Ph.D.) |
| Occupations | Author, consultant |
| Website | tompeters |
Thomas J. Peters (born November 7, 1942), an American writer on business-management practices, became best-known for his 1982 bookIn Search of Excellence (co-authored withRobert H. Waterman Jr.)
Peters was born inBaltimore, Maryland. He went toSevern School, a private, preparatory high school, graduating in 1960.[1] Peters then attendedCornell University, receiving abachelor's degree incivil engineering in 1964,[2] and a master's degree in 1966.
He returned to academia in 1970 to study business atStanford Business School[3][self-published source] receiving anMBA followed by a PhD in Organizational Behavior in 1977. The title of his dissertation was "Patterns of Winning and Losing: Effects on Approach and Avoidance by Friends and Enemies."[4]Karl Weick credited Peters' dissertation with giving him the idea for his 1984 article:[5] "Small wins: Redefining the scale of social problems."[6]
While at Stanford, Peters was influenced byJim G. March,Herbert Simon (both at Stanford), and Karl Weick (at the University of Michigan). Later, he noted that he was influenced byDouglas McGregor andEinar Thorsrud.[7]
In 2004, he also received an honorary doctorate from theState University of Management in Moscow.[citation needed]
From 1966 to 1970, Peters served in theU.S. Navy, making two deployments toVietnam as aNavy Seabee, then later working forthe Pentagon. From 1973 to 1974, he worked in theWhite House as a senior drug-abuse advisor, during theNixon administration. Peters acknowledged both the influence of military strategist ColonelJohn Boyd andOODA loops in his later writing.
From 1974 to 1981, Peters worked as amanagement consultant atMcKinsey & Company, becoming a partner and Organization Effectiveness practice leader in 1979. In 1981, he left McKinsey to become an independent consultant.
In 1990, Peters was referred to in a BritishDepartment of Trade and Industry (DTI) publication as one of the world'sQuality Gurus.
In 1995, theNew York Times referred to Peters as one of the top three business experts in the highest demand as a speaker along withDaniel Burrus andRoger Blackwell.[8]
By 2000, Peters was noted for his ever-increasingly aggressive and sometimes "crackpot" demeanor while at the same time his target audiences had changed towards the considerably lower ranks of SMI management.[9]
In 2017, "Thinkers50" awarded Peters with its Lifetime Achievement Award for his paving the way for the "thought leadership" and business book industries.[10]
The publication of the popular business bookIn Search of Excellence in 1982 marked a turning point in Peters' career.
Peters states that directly after graduating with a PhD from Stanford in 1977, and returning to McKinsey, the new managing director,Ron Daniel, handed him a "fascinating assignment".[3][self-published source] Motivated by the new ideas coming from Bruce Henderson'sBoston Consulting Group, Daniel noted that businesses often failed to effectively implement new strategies, so Peters "was asked to look at 'organization effectiveness' and 'implementation issues' in an inconsequential offshoot project nested in McKinsey's rather offbeat San Francisco office".[3][self-published source]
In Search of Excellence became a bestseller, gaining exposure in the United States at a national level when a series of television specials based on the book and hosted by Peters appeared onPBS. The primary ideas espoused solving business problems with as littlebusiness-process overhead as possible, and empowering decision-makers at multiple levels of a company.
The December 2001 issue ofFast Company quoted Peters admitting that he and Waterman had falsified the underlying data forIn Search of Excellence. He is quoted as saying, "This is pretty small beer, but for what it's worth, okay, I confess: We faked the data. A lot of people suggested it at the time."[11] He later insisted that this was untrue and that he was the victim of an "aggressive headline".[12]
In 1987 Peters publishedThriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution.[13]
In later books, Peters has encouragedpersonal responsibility in response to the "New Economy."
More recent books are The Excellence Dividend, released in April 2018,[14] and Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism, released in 2021.[15]
Peters currently lives in South Dartmouth, MA with his wife Susan Sargent, and continues to write and speak about personal and businessempowerment andproblem-solving methodologies.
His namesake company "Tom Peters Company"[16] is based inEssex, UK.[17]
If you know one thing about Tom Peters, you know about his first book, and if you know two things, the second is that he hasn't written a book as good as that since, and if you know three things, the third is that sometime in the 18 years since that first precious book, he's gone bonkers.
