Competitive Tool: Kooky Clients

construction.com August 14, 2001

By Judy Schriener

Peters

The problem as management guru Tom Peters sees it: "Everybody's going after the same space." His solution: Kooky clients and employees.

These days, a design or construction firm's core business isn't enough. Offering "just" design or construction services won't cut it. Every company must transform itself into a "high-value-added company," because otherwise it won't win work and succeed financially, Peters contends. And the way to add value is to come up with out-of-the-ordinary solutions, which involve both clients and employees who are heterogeneous in the extreme.

Success "has nothing to do with good management practices," he says. "It has everything to do with freaks," or, as the late advertising genius David Ogilvy described them, "nonconformists, dissenters and rebels." That's where the talent comes from, Peters insists, adding, "When people agree, nothing interesting happens....I believe in open warfare." The headline on one of his PowerPoint slides as he addressed the Society for Marketing Professional Services at its National Marketing Conference last week in Orlando, Fla., was "The cracked ones let in the light."

In order for firms to attract major talent, they must not be just like everybody else. The question for each CEO to ask himself or herself is, "Would the Craig Venter of architecture come work for us? And stay?" J. Craig Venter is president and chief scientific officer of Celera Genomics Inc., Rockville, Md. He was also Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2000. In its Dec. 17, 2000, issue, Time credited him with "one of the most important scientific milestones of the century—cracking the human genetic code."

Peters' point can be summed up in this sentence about Venter in that issue: "But if he hadn't decided to attack the problem with a radical approach, using the most sophisticated computer technology available, and to drive the effort with the full force of his rebellious personality, it would have taken years longer to complete." Attracting talented people like that is one challenge, but keeping them is a bigger challenge, Peters says.

Not only should a company's employees be "freaks." About 20% of a design or construction firm's portfolio should be with "kooky clients," Peters suggests. It's the only way to do "high standard-deviation work," work that is extraordinary, he believes.

Peters was one of the keynote speakers at the SMPS National Marketing Conference Aug. 8-11 in Orlando, Fla. About 800 people attended. Peters talked to a full ballroom, and virtually nobody left the room as he roamed around challenging a variety of traditional tenets. He hit on everything from daily workflow ("Eighty-five percent of what we do every day is total crap.") to the largely untapped capabilities of women (Female managers excel over their male counterparts in "almost every measure," he quotes from Business Week magazine.) to change in the workplace ("Ninety percent of white collar jobs will be gone or reconfigured beyond recognition in the next 120-150 months.") to passion for work ("You don't do great work unless you're in love.").

Peters sees Sept. 11, 2000, as the day that changed the way business was conducted in the U.S. It's the day that Hewlett-Packard bid $18 billion for the PricewaterhouseCoopers consulting business. A computer equipment manufacturer wanted to acquire a services business. Even though the deal didn't go through, it was significant, says Peters, because suddenly, in the words of HP executive Ann Livermore, "These days, building the best server isn't enough. That's the price of entry."

Companies can't survive just on what has been their core competencies anymore. For example, the package delivery services--United Parcel Service, FedEx, etc.--do not just deliver packages anymore. They provide consulting services too, as do most hardware and software firms these days. Peters pointed to IBM's Project eLiza, which he says is IBM's biggest current project. It focuses on creating computers and networks that heal themselves. Enron has grown from a $40-billion company to a $100-billion company without acquiring its way up, in large part to growing its Web business from nothing to $50 billion a year. And 80% of General Electric's revenue these days comes from services, not the products it manufactures. That attitude comes through in branding, which Peters says is crucial in all aspects of business, from recruiting to internal satisfaction to capturing the big jobs. Harley Davidson Inc., which some people think sells motorcycles, has done it the best, he says. He quotes a Harley exec with this statement: "What we sell is the ability for a 45-year-old accountant to dress in black leather, ride through small towns and have people be afraid of him."

In the design and construction business, the more that firms can help their customers with the entire process, the more their customers will rely on them. Think "turnkey," he suggests. Peters plucked a good example from the SMPS Marketer, the association's bimonthly magazine, this comment from Jean Bellas, founder of Space: "We are a 'real estate facilities consulting' organization, not just an 'interior design' firm." That's the attitude of the successful firm, he stressed.

Peters, who wanted construction.com readers to know that he has a photo credit in McGraw-Hill's Engineering News-Record  from the Viet Nam War era, is passionate about design. His love or hatred of a product depends little on its functionality, "Design is the principal difference between love and hate," he exclaims.

Next year, Peters says he is slated to be a keynote speaker at the American Institute of Architects' annual convention. He says, "I can't wait to speak to the AIA because I'm sick of look-alike buildings."

Photo by Judy Schriener

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