In Pursuit of Luck

 

If you believe success is mostly due to luck, there are strategies you can pursue to lure luck out of hiding. By contrast, if you believe that orderly plans and getting up an hour earlier than the next person are the answer, then by all means arise with the rooster and start planning.

Want to get lucky? Try the following strategies:   With Thanks to Tom Peters

 

1. At bats. More times at the plate, more hits
2. Try it. Cut out the baloney and get on with  something
3. Ready. Fire Aim (Rather than Ready. Aim. Aim. Aim…)
4. “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” Courtesy of Johnsonville Foods CEO Ralph Stayer, who reminds us that the first phone and airplane were nothing to write home about-but you have to start someplace
5. Read odd stuff. Look anywhere for ideas
6. Visit odd places. Want to “see” speed? Visit CNN
7. Make odd friends
8. Hire odd people. Boring folks, boring ideas
9. Cultivate odd hobbies. Raise orchids. Race Yaks
10. Work with odd partners
11. Ask dumb questions. “How come computer commands always come from the keyboards?” That’s how the mouse was born
12. Empower. Folks who own the task take more at bats
13. Train without limits. Pick up the tab for training unrelated to work – keep everyone engaged, period
14. Applaud passion. “Dispassionate innovator” is an oxymoron
15. Pursue failure. Failure is success’ only launching pad. (The bigger the better!)
16. Root out “not invented here”. Swipe from the best
17. Constantly reorganize. Mix, Match. Shake things up
18. Listen to everyone. Ideas come from anywhere
19. Don’t listen to anyone. Trust your inner ear
20. Get fired. (More than once is OK.) If you’re not pushing hard enough to get sacked you’re not pushing hard enough
21. Nurture intuition. If you can find an interesting idea that’s come from a rational plan I’ll eat my ha
22. Forget the same, tired trade association meetings, talking with the same, tired people about the same tired things
23. Decentralize. At bats are proportional to autonomy
24. Decentralize again
25. Smash all functional barriers
26. Destroy hierarchies
27. Open the books. Make everyone a “businessperson” with access to all the financials
28. Share all the information. The more real-time information front-line people have, the more “neat-stuff” happens
29. Take sabbaticals
30. “Repot” yourself every ten years
31. Spend half your time with “outsiders”. Distributors and vendors will give you more ideas in 5 minutes than another committee meeting
32. Spend half your “outsider” time with wacko outsiders
33. Pursue alternative rhythms. Spend a year on a farm, six months building houses in Costa Rica
34. Spread confusion in your wake. Keep people off balance: Don’t let the ruts get deeper than they already are
35. Dis-organize. Bureaucracy takes care of itself. The boss should be the “chief dis-organizer”, says Quad/Graphics CEO Harry Quadrucci
36. “Dis-equillibriate… create instability, even chaos.” Good advise to “real leaders” from professor Warren Bennis
37. Stir curiosity. Igniting youthful curiosity in followers is the lead dog’s task, per Sony chairman Akio Morita
38. Start a Corporate Traitor’s Hall of Fame. “Renegades” are not enough; you need people who despise what you stand for
39. Give out “Culture Scrud Awards”. Your best friend is the person who attacks your corporate culture head on. Wish them well!
40. Vary your pattern. Eat different breakfast cereal. Take a different route to work
41. Take off your jacket
42. Take off your tie
43. Roll up your sleeves
44. Take off your shoes
45. Get out of your office. Tell me, honestly, the last time something creative happened at your office?
46. Get rid of your office
47. Spend a work day each week at home
48. Nurture peripheral vision. Most interesting “stuff” goes on beyond the professional’s ever narrowing line of sight
49. Don’t “help”. Let people slip and trip-and grow and learn. As a manager, you earn the bulk of your pay for zipping your lips and letting them stumble forward
50. Avoid moderation in all things