Tom Peters on Getting Fired from McKinsey (and What He Learned)

Author of Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism.

Show notes: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake58

My guest for Episode #58 is Tom Peters, the legendary management speaker and consultant, author of 19 books including his latest: Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism.

You can also watch or listen to my interview with Tom back in August 2020 in my Lean podcast series.

Today, we talk about Tom's “favorite mistake” of getting fired from the consulting firm McKinsey for reasons that might include the long hair he had at the time. Other questions and topics include:

• Why and how Tom got “caught up in the work” and “forgot the rules” while working at McKinsey
• Why he hates “successful people who think they deserve their success”
• What is humanism? What is “exteme humanism”?
• Innovation means whoever tries the most stuff wins?
• Why we should hire people who are “decent” and “nice”
• Why research shows it's a mistake to not have 50% women in your executive team
• Why it's a mistake to think only “noisy” people are the most creative, the best at sales, the best leaders
• Tom Peters' party mistakes
• Books he mentions:
  Compassionomics (The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence that Caring Makes a Difference)
  Warren Buffett Invests Like a Girl: And Why You Should, Too
  Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking