EXCELLENCE
IN
PURSUIT OF
EXCELLENCE
W
WITH TOM PETERS
With artificial intelligence (AI) replacing humans in
unprecedented ways, Tom Peters predicts a coming
“employment apocalypse.” As he notes, an Oxford study
shows that 50 percent of American white-collar jobs could
disappear over the next 10 to 15 years. “It may be an
extreme prediction, but if it happens, the effect will be
transformational,” says Peters, co-author, with Robert H.
Waterman, Jr., of the bestseller In Search of Excellence.
In his upcoming book, The Excellence Dividend, Peters offers
ideas on how both companies and individuals can stay
relevant. Although the business world has changed
drastically in the 36 years since In Search of Excellence came
out in 1982, the path to business distinction in many ways
remains the same.
“If you spend the $17 to purchase The Excellence Dividend, I
guarantee you there will be nothing really new in it,” he
jokes. “The principal messages of focusing on people, paying
attention to your customers, and managing by wandering
around [which Peters terms MBWA] is still not being done by
most companies.”
The solution to surviving this fallout from AI is to focus on
unique human attributes, which are likely to remain beyond
the scope of artificial intelligence, Peters suggests. “The
things I talked about over the last few decades were always
good things to do in order to stand out from the
competition, but now they are becoming basic survival
tactics,” he says. “You can’t in any way, shape, or form get
away with what you could 20 or 25 years ago. The heat has
been turned up dramatically.”
In The Excellence Dividend, Peters examines the success of
Vernon Hill, founder of Commerce Bank in the United States
and Metro Bank in the United Kingdom. While the recent
retail banking model has entailed closing brick-and-mortar
bank branches and reducing staffing in favor of online
alternatives, Hill has maintained a contrarian view. Rather
than specializing in “soulless transactions,” according to
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