Thank you Gratis. Six minutes past 11 NPR programming is made possible in part by The Advocates of Minnesota Public Radio contributors include 3M winner of the national medal of technology and the Honeywell Foundation providing the benefits of control worldwide. And good morning. Welcome to midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary acting all the economic news. We've heard lately has been good news. I'll sure there's been some concern about the Asian crisis. But on the whole everything has looked as rosy as can be stocks are soaring business is booming. The US economy seems to be the strongest in the world unemployment virtually non-existent. All is well or seems to be today on our special Expanded Edition of midday. We're going to focus on a couple of potential trouble spots that could upset the applecart. That's our business Guru. Tom. Peters will be joining us talking about the American corporation big changes. He says are going to be needed to stay ahead of the competition then from noon to 2 week, and I'm excited or Chris Farrell will be along with a special report on deflation turns out there could be a dark side to Falling prices first all the best-selling author. I'd like to hear Tom Peters who is often credited with changing and to some degree saving the American corporation in the 1980s. His best seller in search of Excellence change the way that business does business. Tom Peters has written several best seller since then including his latest called the circle of innovation. You can't shrink your way to Greatness. Tom. Peters will be in the Twin Cities tomorrow for a program at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis call how to survive and thrive in uncertain times. We should know that the program is open to the public sponsored by Rasmussen College and is part of the lessons in leadership distinguished speakers series Peters joins us this morning from Chicago, and we invite you to join us as well. If you have a question or comment for Tom Peters about his latest theories on management for the corporation, give us a call Twin City area number is 227-6002 276 thousand if you're calling from outside the Twin Cities, you can reach us toll-free and that number is 1 800 242-282-8227. Thousand in the Twin Cities are outside the Twin Cities one 800-242-2828 or guess the sour Tom Peters morning, sir. Everything seems to be going so well today. Is there any reason for some measure of worried? We are facing this technology Revolution, which some people's comments the contrary is still in its diapers and Technology Revolution is going to continue to dislocate workers white-collar workers. Well paid workers by the tens of thousands or perhaps even by the tens of millions. I mean the great irony, is that the as you and I speak the they used to call me the best selling business author in America, and I've passed that mantle on to us. Scott Adams of the Dilbert series and the Dilbert message. Basically, is that the end of the GNP maybe up but morale is way way down as we go through this exceptional. Change. Well after essentially helping save the corporation 10 years ago 15 years ago. Are you now trying to destroy it? Somebody in the New Yorker magazine said that I'm I'm not I'm not willing to own up to either of those two things Gary if if the Detroit is a lot more healthy today than it was in the 1982. When we wrote In Search of Excellence. The the Kudos should go to a Honda Nissan and Toyota which woke Detroit up an awful lot more than Tom Peters and Bob Waterman did in terms of what I'm trying to do today. I'm trying to help people deal with the reality. The simple fact of the matter is That. You know, you said I'm in Chicago and the Sears Roebuck Company was just about flat on its back seven or eight years ago. And the reason was Walmart invented an entirely different way of doing business, but in terms of white-collar Quirk Works rather and middle managers in the light took the tiniest fraction of the the folks who have been doing it in the hundred story to your Sears Tower for decades and decades and then you know that you like the great news is that jobs are being created an exceptional paste from Minnesota to Silicon Valley to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but those jobs are not necessarily being a being being filled by the same people who are being booted out by us some of our best and biggest companies sounds kind of Grimm Grimm. I think it's I want to come Square lie down on both sides of the issue. How about that for a decisive management? We love it. I think it is a time of unprecedented opportunity for 22 year olds and 52 year olds will like everything is up for grabs opportunities are infinite. A lot of the rotten old work of passing papers in the corporate Towers is disappearing just as the heavy lifting mostly disappeared in the factory when first they invented the forklift and then they invented the robots and try to get the time of exceptional exceptional opportunity but along with that comes exceptional dislocation and for people who believe that they signed up for a 40-year run at 3 a.m. Or at Dayton Hudson or at the the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company where my dad work for 41 years. I think are are are are blowing. Smoke or shall we say smoking funny stuff and inhaling? What do you see for the worker? I'm just kind of individual every person for himself or herself to get out there and himself or herself as a crude way of putting it but you know, it's it's it's important to you that that you do something you meaning Gary and may that that you do something that your customers value and that you're what you're working for public radio is opposed to perhaps quite the same cutthroat people in the in the big networks, but fundamentally, if nobody's listening to your show, you got a problem and that means that you've got to do I enhance the show enhance yourself and continue to reinvent yourself and grow which I think is not only not a burden. I think it's a blessing and an awful lot of air of air White Collar corporate Tower types from you again, Minnesota to Miami to San Francisco work growing very much truth be known and so I don't think it is it I don't think it is a heart. Tom Peters is with us joining us from Chicago talking about some of his latest thinking on the status of business corporations Management in America. If you like to join our conversation, give us a call or Twin City area number is 227-6002 276 thousand. Side the Twin Cities. The number is 1 800 to +422-828-227-6000 or one 800-242-2828. This point is that corporations need to spend a whole lot more time trying to do new things as opposed to just doing the old things may be a little better is that an accurate assessment? We had a lot of companies that were in in in search of Excellence back in 82 that stumbled pretty badly amongst them General Motors and IBM and McDonald's. The three companies that I loved most when we did our research in 1979 and which I continue to love today the three big company or Hewlett-Packard Johnson & Johnson and you're very owner. St. Paul's very own 3M Corporation. It's the magic of all three of those company is that their quality is terrific and so on and so forth. But all three of them have understood that you have got to continually reinvent yourself and there a lot of companies that the other that didn't do that another way of saying the same thing Gary is that in a 15 or 20 years ago. The Japanese cars worked in quite frankly. The American cars didn't American cars were quite finally today and quality pretty good quality or even darn good quality is not the automatic advantage that it was 15 years ago. It's a requirement for competing but it's like a past of the players entrance of the stadium what is going to score points? In the game is that constant static dedications Innovation? And you know, I remember so clearly when I was doing my first interviewing at 3 a.m. And it was either 79 or 80. I don't member which one and I was talking to an executive there and he was revealing Secret After Secret After secret and I said why in the world are you doing this? And he said nobody's going to be able to copy it and that's the problem I continue to fight in my book today is is to use a pretty academic term a culture of innovation where people live for innovation in a big company is sadly just about as rare now as it was 15 years ago and I and a practical level. How does that play out that the the attempt to nurture the culture of innovation in a lot of ways small and large, you know thinking about where I had work the big Banks and so on as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and then moving in and discovering Sounds like 3M. I don't know whether it's Minnesota magic in general or 3M in particular but people aren't so damned uptight and wrapped up in there under drawers and terrified of making mistakes 3M at the Glorious Good Fortune to have been founded as a mistake in a couple of guys. Basically you thought they had bought a mine the mine turned out to be worthless. And so in order to recapture their investment, they essentially invented sandpaper and that's a very crude version of the story. But essentially they they they they they they understood that things don't always work out the way they're planned to do. You look Packard will check it on that. Same list has the same way you would Packard in this is a term that that really draws frowns in many many companies. Most companies is Hewlett-Packard and 3M while serious business women in business man are very playful and that there's a there's a kindergarten ish aspect the inventors of 3M in The Adventures of you with. They they never grew up and away and and and boy try to import that to do a hundred-year-old utility company facing deregulation in the electrical industry. And you are you are fighting a mighty uphill battle against this hour is Tom Peters and several callers on the line already. But if you'd like to join them, if you've got a question for Tom Peters, give us a call 227-6002 in City area number to 276 Thousand Oaks. I'd the Twin Cities one 800-242-2828 and we should note that again. If you just tuning in that Peters will be in the Twin Cities tomorrow for a program called how to survive and thrive in uncertain times. It's sponsored by Rasmussen College and it is open to the public damn. Go ahead. And your first time. I've got a situation I would like to roll out and then I have a question for example a county that has one big info. One Big Industry of this employer pays High wages are families go into this company, maybe three generations. They get into death. They take out loans, they buy houses and then when the corporation starts to thrive the taxpayers pay, well, it's kind of flush the toilet and what they do is they change ownership lay off all their employees rehire them. They have to come back and reapply at maybe 1/8 the income that they were originally making. This is already happening in our County Carlton County once and it just seems like there should be some rules and regulations and laws to protect the work yourself when companies feel like well it's time for the tax or for the stockholders to make some money. They flush the toilet change ownership dump all employees. There should be some protection. I've I thought people at 2 in the morning in a 55 year old man that were The way exposed to asbestos standing out reapplying for their job, you know, and of course they hired people back at you know for $5 an hour. Is there any type of protection that could be set up or are or is there one already existing in Minnesota or what can we do to protect our work is because of something like this happens again, you know the County's dad right next and I'm going to do that thing that carries eventually going to get on my case about in that is come a little bit down on both sides of the fence. But these the first of all simple answer I do not know Minnesota labor or employment law, so I can't give you the Minnesota answer. I can give you the American the national the federal government answer and that is we're doing a lousy job. I think that we do have to go through these transitions. There's not much question about that. I think at the federal level we have done a rotten job in terms of safety net. Unless you're talkin about the elderly being helped by Social Security Medicaid Medicare in I think it is a disgrace that the richest country in the world has 70 million people who don't have health insurance wherever I think that health insurance on to be immediately portable from one company to the next number to I think we ought to be spending a lot more money on training not corporate training but training credits that you are I as an individual can carry from one job to another and thirdly I think the tension benefits are to be portable. This is pretty close to the agenda that the former first term Clinton labor. Secretary Bob rice had he didn't get very far with it because of course mr. Gingrich controlled the Congress and mr. Clinton was Fur Elise interest, but I think indeed we do have to provide that kind of safety net. What what I'm not willing to say is that all stockholders who want to return on investment or are a bunch of greedy capitalists picked because the primary Stockholm burkholder's today and the ones that are putting the largest of No pressure on corporations are the pension fund owners. And so in fact, it's the it's the pension fund that might have the 3M pension in at the Dayton Hudson pension in it. And so on the northwest pension in it and said they've invested in some stock in the XYZ company mean the classic example the nastiest people in the world in terms of business performance is a group called Cowper Calpers. And that's the California public employees retirement system and its the Calpers people trying to protect the pensions of California public employees who are raising all sorts of cane with many corporate management. So it's it's not just you know, it is not just a bunch of Rich guys who own stocks paying themselves off and a huge amount of our stock unlike any country in the world is owned by her employees. I'll be it is not always the employees of the company. The truth all that too often corporate bigwigs are too quick to return to the worker to try to make that extra Dropbox squeeze out that little extra profit is actually happening less Gary and I don't want to be a Pollyanna about this but I think we have in fact gone through most of the blue collar cuts when the robots came to the automobile factories and so on and what we are doing now is working our way through white collar productivity issues. The truth of the matter is and I'm not asking her call her to feel sorry for him. But there is a major share of vice presidents that are on that list of people who are cut. We are cutting $250,000 a year jobs this time around and we're not doing what we used to do is was pretty pathetic if the man went down for automobiles, we took it all out on the Frontline UAW worker and the white collar people perhaps You get their usual raise but they certainly weren't laid off these days. It is the white collar worker who's taking it on the chin and I got your lie. I'm not disagreeing with our callers analysis, but relative to the economy is a whole the blue-collar population has pretty much stabilized but in terms of some concern for those white-collar workers, do you think there's enough of that does the human element and her into these decisions are not feeling enough is a strong word, you know, they're there their is the guy who's known as chainsaw Al Dunlap who I just slashed and burned it's got paper and then did the thing is a test in a Sunbeam you guys are in pretty great shape where you are because I remember some time I spent with 3m and the Minnesota area companies are the other the Twin Cities area companies full over themselves to achieve a leadership position and being helpful to the community. So there's a heck of a lot more of that the goes on in Minnesota than there is Then they're does thunder dozen other places. You've also got another kind of split and you know, you were talking about the seminar and giving tomorrow when I give those seminars and this is this is obviously not factual. It's what my iPhone is dummy there tends to be a Great Divide in that seminar room and I call it the under age 38 and a half Brown versus the / 38 and a half crowd the under 38 and a half Brown doesn't expect to have a job at General Mills General Motors. General Dynamics are General Electric's for Life the / 38 1/2 grout or a little bit stunned stymied terrified by all this and yes, I say, I'm not being fair there a lot of 20 year old 17 year olds in the world a lot of 70 year old 20 year olds in the world, but by and large I do see is split between those who know that they're going to have to scramble for a living in those who believe that once they got their degree from the University of Minnesota at that guaranteed him a 45-year ride from H20 12605. As long as you didn't shoot us. Rodger Allen your question for Tom Peters Place Management at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. And I've been a great fan of Time Peter stuff for a long time by teaches about the quote the intelligent Enterprise where the Enterprise of the future will be a place for thinking and for having conversations to share and create knowledge. I was wondering if he's given any thought to to this issue and and how that might change the actual in this new virtual world. We may be living in houses might even change the actual physical architecture of buildings in which Enterprises are headquartered very definitely this year for the first time. Businessweek magazine and Architectural digest initiated a major award series for companies that are creating spaces workspaces that are consistent with the new ways of doing business classic example, that's often cited and it deserves to be is the pyramid in Grand Rapids, Michigan where the big office furniture maker Steelcase does their work and that pyramid was specifically constructed to to enhance the kinds of things you're talkin about me give you an example. It's farther away from home and closer to home about eight or nine years ago. I did a public television documentary show and one of the things that we focused on was the new 3M Electronics place in Austin, Texas and at Austin, 3M work with a very Progressive architect called crss to create workspaces that were very specifically and in a revolutionary fashion at least 10 years ago designed to enhance casual communication problem solving chats here and there the ability for anybody in any function in that vast facility to always be within a 5-minute walk of the other person which is my 3M buddies who had migrated from Saint Paul said was very different than being in the Saint Paul campus in the middle of the winter when the wind was blowing 35 miles an hour. The temperature was 15 below in the windshield was -70 in which case communication between buildings other than by telephone was about zero if you were saying Jim your question, please. Thanks Bob. Mr. Peters. I'm a scientist turned entrepreneur and one of the most meaningful and relevant books that I've ever read in the business areas thriving on chaos, and I wondered if you were to rewrite a sequel to that book. Now how have your thoughts change? What would the overleaf to that book read like serving? But I did write the sequel fix this circle of innovation book. The answer is so significant degree really captured in our prior colors question. That is to say I'm talking much more about these organizations that are disembodied by yesterday standards where all the people who do the work don't live in the same Tower and where if you are an entrepreneur as you are with a three-person staff, you can run the last to use that hackneyed phrase have strategic alliances with big companies and small companies. That may be in Jakarta Indonesia that maybe next door in Minneapolis or st. Paul that maybe in sorry power off Palo Alto, California or Chicago Illinois. And so these new tools give the small Enterprise in particular the opportunity to the play in the best sense of that words with all sorts of people in all sorts of places and create teams that go after particular Market opportunities and then fade into the dust and companies can can maintain decent control over what what they're supposedly doing as they had a some print subcontract up. If you are my partner Gerry and I want to share secret information with you then you and I have got the to be colleagues. Not merely people engaged in a contractual relationship because no Rigolets guy encrusted contract that I'm going to give you is going to turn you into an honest, man. If you're not an honest, man until I've got to make sure that in a carries the kind of guy that I want to work with calendar for the next 2 or 3 years and so issues of trust and loyalty. So it's no longer necessarily loyalty to Dayton Hudson or what-have-you are more important than ever perversely enough and I think quite wonderfully Enough. Tom Peters is our guest this our joining us from Chicago. His latest book is called the circle of innovation. You can't shrink your way to Greatness. Peter is going to be in the Twin Cities tomorrow for a program called how to survive and thrive in uncertain times. It's open to the public sponsored by the Rasmussen College. We're going to continue our conversation in just a moment we have here for the first time in the history of Western Law the idea that child bearing does not equal motherhood. New questions about surrogate motherhood on Stephen Smith. Listen for the fertility race tomorrow at 7:20 on Morning Edition, Minnesota Public Radio k n o w FM 91.1 in the Twin Cities programming on Minnesota Public Radio is supported by standard heating and air conditioning the Twin Cities Home Comfort Experts for 68 years featuring York Heating and Cooling products. By the way. This is a special Expanded Edition of midday. Today. We're going to be on the air all the way until to Chris Farrell. Our economics editor will be joining us at noon today for a special a documentary report on deflation. This is something that the economist or starting to Noodle about it what happens if price is actually remain stable or start falling seems on the surface to be a great deal. But the there is a dark side here and we all left will be talking about that over the noon hour. And then it was Chris will be with us are the roll neck joins us from the Federal Reserve Bank and will be opening the phone lines so that you can take part in that conversation that's coming up noon to winter weather advisory remains in effect for the southern half of Minnesota through the afternoon 2 to 6 in of snow is being forecast along with a little sleet and freezing a rain chance for snow in the north as well though. Not as much highs today low to mid thirties the Twin City forecast includes that winter weather advisory light snow is likely to 24 in with a high temperature in the middle thirties currently in the Twin City metropolitan area. We have lights. No 31° a reminder that roll. Especially in the southern half of the state are not in the best condition. So if you're out and about take care, Tom Peters is our guest this our business Guru one of the one of the real influential voices in terms of management Theory and corporate Behavior and the rest joining us from Chicago to shower if you'd like to join our conversation. Give us a call to 276 thousand. I'll try the Twin Cities one. 800-242-2828 Craig your question, please right now and Miss Peters you talk a lot about middle management and white-collar Executives and and corporate culture. I'm wondering what you see on the future business landscape for classic sales people, like myself besides enhancing our skills with product knowledge in computers. What do you see the future for salespeople? They're I don't I don't I don't want to say clouds on the horizon. But I think increasingly goods and services are going to be sold over the internet. I think the internet is going to take over 25 or 30% of retailing in the course of the next 10 to 15 years. Maybe the next 5 to 15 years. I'm just coming from a breakfast seminar that I gave for big business people in Chicago and putting a number of retailers and I said to him I'm not telling you it's the end of so-called big box retailing the big stores, but I'm telling you that if you think it's going to remain unchanged you're you're absolutely would have text. I think the whole nature of customer involvement in the purchasing process is going to change dramatically the customer is going to know a heck of a lot more than the customer is known in the past. What are the issue is insurance or whatever. The issue is an automobile where the average customer if she or he spends for 5 hours. Trolling the internet can walk into the car dealer knowing precisely what the factory cost was of the 97 Taurus or Sable or what have you and so I think the sales people are going to have to be prepared to deal with a much more knowledgeable customer. I think relationships obviously will continue to be extraordinary really important. But boys are we going to see a lot of life I go from the salesperson on the road to the sales person who is dealing in a virtual organization to use that damnable overused word that perhaps she or he he creates themselves you're going to be creating, you know web relationships with people at various levels and supplier customer organizations and so on and it said that the days that they are of Willy Loman in the old-fashioned Hard Sell her over I think we're super were soon will be what do you suppose that says for the airline industry for expect Like there is going to be in trouble year of customer satisfaction. It ranked 190 companies and government agencies. Number 190 was was IRS the worst of the lot no surprise, but American Airlines game it at 187th and the best airline of all with Southwest Airlines, which was 97 out of 190. This stuff today is nobody really does know what the heck is going on. Somebody says 25% of retailing will gravitate to the web in the next 5 or 10 years could be 2% That could be 35% take the airline industry or at least an ancillary of it. And remember we had the other Carlson business school call her and that's of course the Carlson Empire turn the Carlson travel organization USA Today reported yesterday morning on the front page that 30% of customers are doing any picketing electronic ticketing now with the airline and that was 10% just 12 months ago, which is to say if you are an ordinary garden-variety travel agents agent, you should be petrified out of your way. And so, you know that the other piece of it is if these these virtual organizations in the so-called groupware and and particularly when the fiber-optic cables and Read everywhere. It is going to be entirely possible to have a meeting with your colleagues in California and your colleagues in Kuala Lumpur and your koala colleagues next door in Minneapolis or Saint Paul. And so maybe you aren't going to have to have quite as much business travel was in the past. It's tough to predict the future though, isn't it? I mean, I remember always hurt while as soon as the computers became more prominent that we would move to this paperless office for example, and yet more paper is generated now than it was before the computer came in that it's impossible today. However, one of my messages is that there is a message in that impossibility of predicting the future which means that essentially you literally as an individual or is an organization or business owner. I've got to be prepared to move to the left of moving to the left as what's important move to the right if moving to the rights watch important, but imagining that you can Do not do the same job with the same skills for 10 consecutive years is sheer lunacy. If not, the certifiable on Saturday Barbara your question for Tom Peters place a true counselor. I call myself a life-work concert cuz I deal with both the inner work in the outer work of career strategy. My problem is when I'm working with people. I need to know more about how to nurture that a culture of innovation in the individual. I can get somebody pretty people come to me and they're unhappy campers. And the first hope that I give them is that there are many possibilities and I can help them find work that they really want and then when they start hearing me give them the rundown of what the workplace is like today, even impossible turns all the possibilities. You need to reinvent yourself. I get a kind of a disappointment to real Oh, you mean I'm going to have to sell myself over and over again people, you know, I mean, they're the self-esteem kind of thing comes out can't image themselves doing that for the rest of their lives Tom. You are my eyeballs what I've been publicizing this this recent book The Circle of innovation and and I've done a fair amount of radio call-in shows and one of the most distressing parts of that has been the regular questions that I get from sort of middle management 42-inch 43's year old pipes is a boy time you're right in theory, but they don't allow us to make mistakes in our company and then I want to get sick at my stomach. I don't want to get sick at my stomach frankly because I think the company's dumb I want to get sick at my stomach because I feel so sad about a 42 year old who doesn't think that she or he is in charge of Their Own Which of course is a byproduct of those years when the corporation did Mommy is and daddy as from age 21 or age 18 to United age to age 65. I just got to add one small thing which is gratuitous and it was not your question, but you're going to get it anyway, and that is speaking of future Generations the K-12 school system is doing a rotten job of supporting a culture of innovation and that's an understatement. All of what's going on in national federal level educational reform is about certification standardization wrote ization. And it exactly the time that we should be pushing wild Willy experimentation culture of innovation within the K-12 system. We are tragically doing just the opposite and it's frankly makes me sick at my stomach. What about the people who are Well, they're they're insecure when they when they don't have security can those people be productive? I mean, there are a lot of people who who truly long for and probably did very well in the old style of operation. Number one. It's going to be harder than the Dickens and if I said anything different I would be a liar or some kind of a Tony Robbins kind of person who believes that all will be well in the world will be coated with peanut butter by this time tomorrow afternoon. There are a lot of people who are going to have significant problems. What I would say over the mid to long-term is there is such a thing as security that is not associated with a corporation and that is security that is associated with a discipline and being good at something, you know, a cameraman in Hollywood is not going to work for the same producer. Probably three movies in a row, but the cameramen security is being a good cameraman and having a good reputation with let me say one other side then Gary if we are allowed of snide comment from time to time and that is the the people are having the problem or the University of California the University of Minnesota in the University of Illinois, graduate the not to pick out any particular school, which is not my point the house painter understands this the house painter or the Gardner knows that she or he is got to serve the customer. Well everyday got to learn new tricks as no job security except the fact that she or he is a good house painter or a good Gardener and it's a funny thing, but the in fact the world of Minnesota and California and Florida is awarded with sup with independent one-person business contractors doing everything from accounting the house painting the gardening to whatever and then People get it and I do not believe that every one of them is an Einstein and I do not believe that every one of them or gate Works 18 hours a day the spoiled brats if you will or the post World War 2 college graduate generation who believe the getting the certificate from University was a 40-year job guarantee. Perry your question for Tom Peters, please visit the Mendes social isolation and there are people working together in same Department. Sometimes I don't even know each other as persons. They are just strangers in the many many years ago when you were still with MacKenzie you were Consulting for the right there potatoes in Idaho, right? I happen to be there at the same time. I did not part of the corporation and you introduced at that time a hoopla program, which I found was very successful for them. You recall the Hoople? I don't know if that was you or were driving. I wonder if you can talk about that a little bit the ties into your having fun message that I like very much. Well given that you said something very nice. I would love to take the credit. They all reality is the guy who did the work at. All. Right. I was my co-author Bob Waterman who for years and years worked with Heintz and worked with Ore-Ida, but I am familiar with with what Bob did and essentially what what Bob and I both said is that all of us have a surprising amount in common with the with the Tupperware ladies in the Tupperware, man. And in fact that people do enjoy social contact and they do enjoy being patted on the back or given a balloon when they got a pretty good day's work. And obviously these things can be done cynically, but in general I think the Best glasses and always been people who what Margie Blanchard who is the wife of the guru Ken Rancher made a wonderful comment of the seminar that I attended she is a career career Consulting Guru and she said if you don't have time for the little things then you've given your life away little things meeting the the 25 seconds at the end of the day to go to Mary or deck who did especially good job in the presentation 2 hours ago and say wow, I really appreciate the you know, they the effort the effort that you put in at one of my seminars 10 or 12 years ago. We had a senior 3M executive Anita just retired and he said that the most incredible thing about his retirement party is that he had people come up to him. Sometimes literally literally, please I hope that listeners will believe me with tears in their eyes to thank him for a little thank-you note that he had sent them 15 years ago. We so seldom take the effort to bring in the single rose or to write the little in longhand the little the little two lines. Thank you note that said boy, you went above and beyond the Call of Duty and so on but but the hoopla idea at all right, I was was a version for of that and then quite frankly and shamelessly. We stole it from organizations like Tupperware which which really really gets their kicks out of celebrating each other's successes. And as I say you can do it as phony baloney, but if it's from the heart it is, you know, it's got the it's got the the the power of many bombs. Tom Peters is what is joining us from Chicago. His latest book is called the circle of innovation. You can't shrink your way to Greatness Tammy your question Place. Hi, this is all starting to sound a little like Tony Robbins me. I've been looking for a job since January and Karai have a job and I was trying to catch the markets. You know, I have I graduated I don't have a college diploma. I'm not baby. I'm 37. I have a Vo-Tech from 81. I went back to school at night for three years and graduate from Vo-Tech again in 97 is electronic technician. I'm currently design drafter. I'm back in school now at night again learning a new software the only job I got offered with for eight bucks an hour with no insurance. That's not even half of what I make now, you know, I have not got a good answer cuz there's no way in the world. I I hope I don't sound like Tony Robbins, even though I do live in Silicon Valley we're making those job jumpsuits is number one easier and number to you. No more accepted. I think that what you're doing is the only thing that you can do which is to improve the devil out of your skills. And if for some strange set of reasons that's going to get us till result in an awful lot of pavement pounding. I think you would have been an idiot not to have done what you did which is keep working on those skills and going to keep sending the resume out keep working on improving the resume and I join a Toastmasters organization somewhere and improve your public presentation skills, if that's something that you need to brush up, but the simple fact is that hard work lots of pavement pounding rolling and adding new skills are about the only darn thing. We can do and absolutely the world is a is a tough and nasty and brutal place it some time. And if and if I have in any way come over is as saying that the world will automatically be your oyster. I don't believe that for a minute and I apologize if that's the impression that I've left when you see happening with wages. It appears, of course that the high flyer is going to get the big buck, but are sort of the average people going to get the much money for what they do in the future refer to it as the star system, you know where we're at. We're all living in. You know, Minnesota Vikings Timberwolves world where people who you really are the cleverest of train the hardest and so on are going to take an unfair share not an unfair share. That's the only but the largest the largest sums in terms of the low-skilled jobs very low. Your job there are some that obviously you don't have to go to people who live in the state or live in the country, but it awful lot of the load low-skilled jobs like that will continue to gravitate to Asia or wherever the low-wage nations are. So, you know, we are as we make this transition into a very new Society, you know, it's a it's a discussion that we had our unit probably 20 minutes ago in response to one colors question. I think we have a remarkably important high-priority responsibility to our citizens who are left behind in the three areas that I mentioned before pension training and health care to to make sure that we at least increase the odds of getting into the into the higher way Jerry this incidentally having now suddenly founded like doctor gloom-and-doom the statistics do not support Lee Iacocca theory that we're all going to end up flipping hamburgers at Wendy's. Lion's Share of the new jobs that we are putting into place in this country are high-wage jobs. They may be in smaller companies, but they are involved in the information Industries are involved in the healthcare industry and we are creating high-wage jobs at an amazing clip. We are unfortunately just about out of time. But let's get one more call around here quick question Paul my reminder binder reminder binder everybody owns shares in the company. So it was okay to bomb your own Deerfield is because Let's let's remember Gary's introduction to the program. I am completely sympathetic with the next-to-last guard who is having a devil's own time getting a decent job unemployment in the United States of America has the lowest it's been in a quarter of a century. We are creating jobs at a rate that we have never created jobs in before in every important technology from software the Aerospace the biotechnology America leads the world the so-called Japanese threat that never really was much of a threat certainly isn't much of a threat today. Lots of individuals in a nation of 260 million people are going to get left by the wayside and we darn well want to do something about it, but our economy is in fabulous shape fabulous shape. Couple quick ones before we run here Tom Peters merger Mania seems to be back good or bad and you don't put too big clumsy Banks together or whatever and and out of that achieve flexibility justice department cracking down on Microsoft good or bad hard to say no one. No one word answers on that. Sorry. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you joining us today Tom Peters who is the author of several bestsellers is newest is called the circle of innovation. You can't shrink your way to Greatness joining us from Chicago today is going to be in the Twin Cities tomorrow for a program called how to survive and thrive. It's at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis. It's open to the public and sponsored by the Rasmussen College. This is midday on Minnesota Public Radio will continue in just a moment water water. It will order the famous last words. Snow into the Earth the water will go Mark Seeley listener poets the Saint Paul fire department and they put Frosty will put an end winter and say hello to Spring at the 4th. Annual Minnesota Public Radio snowman burning. It's Friday morning at 10 here on Minnesota Public Radio, Canada W FM 91.1 in the Twin Cities. No big plans. So, excuse me for the second half of our midday program are going to be on the air until 2 this afternoon over the noon hour. Chris Farrell will be along with a special report on deflation. Falling prices something new to think about and then from 1 to 2:11 opportunity to call and we'll talk with Chris and also Arthur rolnick from the Federal Reserve. So that's noon to right now. It's time for Garrison Keillor.