The Excellence Dividend: Meeting the Tech Tide with Work That Wows and Jobs That Last Paperback – April 3, 2018

The Excellence Dividend: Meeting the Tech Tide with Work That Wows and Jobs That Last by Tom Peters is different. It’s different than other business books. It’s different from other Tom Peters’ books. Especially, it’s different than In Search of Excellence.I remember how excited I was when I read In Search of Excellence, shortly after it came out. It was the first business book that I read that challenged the planning and the pure numbers philosophy that was all around me and instead put an emphasis on people and on messy innovation.When In Search of Excellence was published, pretty much the entire business world and pundits of all kinds were sure that the future belonged to the Japanese. That turned out not to be true. Today, pretty much the entire business world seems to believe that the future belongs to robots and artificial intelligence. “Numbers-first” still rules in many places, often under the heading of “shareholder value.”In Search of Excellence was well-written, unlike most of the business books at the time. Tom Peters and Bob Waterman had a clear structure, told good stories about the companies they highlighted, and supported their points with more than 20 pages of notes. In Search of Excellence was a great book, but it was pretty much a book in standard business book format. The Excellence Dividend is different.If In Search of Excellence was the filtered and contained Tom Peters, then The Excellence Dividend is unfiltered Tom Peters. This is the man whose logo is an unadorned exclamation point. He’s passionate about everything he writes about, and he writes the way he talks.What that probably means for you is that if you love Tom Peters, you’ll love this book. If, on the other hand, his passion and exclamation points and sloppy emotion are a problem for you, you won’t like this book very much. Whether you like Tom or not, there are at least three reasons why you probably should read it.Reason #1: Everybody Will Be Reading This BookWhatever you like or don’t like about Tom Peters, he’s an important voice. Unlike his other books since In Search of Excellence, The Excellence Dividend is a survey of the entire business landscape. It’s going to get a lot of reviews, and there will be a lot of blog posts and tons of conversations about the book. If you want to have a meaningful part in those conversations, you should read the book.Reason #2: A Point of View with SourcesI have no idea how many topics Peters covers in this book, but I do know this. He has a point of view on them all. He shares that point of view, along with sources to support it. Pick an issue that you’re interested in or concerned about today, and there’s probably something on it in this book. That something will include a clear point of view and source material.Reason #3: Books and Quotes and Sources, Oh My!If you like quotes and book recommendations, Tom’s book is worth your attention for no other reason. The text itself is studded with quotes and book recommendations. And in case you miss the point, there are eight sections headed “READ! STUDY!” They are reading lists that will enrich your understanding of the world and deepen it as well.In A NutshellIn Search of Excellence was a great book for its day, and The Excellence Dividend is a great book for its day. The first was the filtered, more buttoned-down version of Tom Peters. The second, after 35 years of reading and researching and having conversations about important ideas, is the unfiltered, open-collar version of Tom Peters. Read the book because everyone else will. Read the book because you’ll gain Tom’s point of view and supporting sources on a wide range of issues. Read the book for all the quotes and examples and book recommendations.

Having read most of Tom Peter's works, this is clearly his MAGNUM OPUS and a tour de force. The term "must read" is over used but, being a voracious reader of business, leadership, history etc., The Excellence Dividend is a must-read, a top-3 book for me (and I have read hundreds). I am already using The Excellence Dividend in my leadership work with clients and just ordered copies to give to my favorite leaders. Tom lets it fly in this one, 40 plus years of knowledge, experience, reading (get this for the book recommendations alone) and best practices. I don't tweat much but I have been tweating about this book because it is an instant classic. My appreciation to my fellow (now former) Vermonter, Mr. Tom Peters!!

Tom Peters does it again. This book while small in size is packed full of content. The kind of content that we needed, need now, and will most certainly need in the near future. Peters tells us stepping up and showing up is NO LONGER enough to sustaining success. The tools and tips that Tom Peters graciously shares with us in "The Excellence Dividend" gives the reader something more than the obvious but a foundation to build a better future, which by the way happens to be today.

The “Meeting the Tech Tide” part of the subtitle undersells the scope of The Excellence Dividend. The book is a 460-page knowledge bomb, written in a frank, unfiltered style. Peters covers a huge swath of territory, which isn't surprising after you read his introduction. In the intro, Peters explains that the book is based on a massive 4,094 slide PowerPoint presentation he calls “The Works.” The book is a distillation of years of accumulated wisdom.As other reviewers have noted, often Peters uses large type. Bold type. Exclamation points. Even occasional cuss words. Sometimes, he uses large, bold type with cuss words and exclamation points all at once. (See photo. Don’t worry, the book is SFW.) My take on the over-the-top format: Peters is clearly tired of pussyfooting around clueless and overly cautious executives and is doing his best to hammer the truth about business through their thick skulls. They (or should I say “We?”) would do well to pay attention.Peters does deal with the coming disruption from AI and machine learning, and his outlook is optimistic. Even though some jobs will go away or be changed, he says, businesses that focus on excellence and great customer experience will thrive. He provides numerous examples of businesses in no-growth industries that achieved sales and profit growth by outshining their competition.One key point Peters emphasizes is that businesses need to emphasize top line revenue growth. Cost cutting, he says, is a death spiral. He gives the example of TD Bank, known, among other things, for encouraging customers to bring their dogs with them. While most banks are cutting back branches and staff, TD has aggressively opened new branches and focused on catering to the customer, resulting in them taking a million new accounts from their competitors.Much of the advice Peters has to offer deals with people – how to hire them, develop them, and treat them every day. He points out, for example, that annual employee turnover in retail averages 65%. Publix, the grocery chain, experiences just 5%. It’s no coincidence that Publix leads most customer satisfaction surveys. Peters emphasizes that to focus on the customer, you first have to focus on your people.There are far too many topics to mention here, and Peters covers them all in his straight-talk, common-sense style. If you are ready to drink from a firehose of wisdom, pick up a copy of The Excellence Dividend.

I read this in the pre-proof format so it's not all beautifully laid out and flowing. For all that, Tom Peters' wisdom shines through, perhaps even more so. On every page Peters talks about Everyday Excellence - the small ways that it shows up and impacts our businesses, our relationships and our lives - and that excellence is about practice of the evangelical kind. The book is packed with quotes and stories and recommended reading, a number of which I've ordered. But the quote that resonated with me most was from Chapter 1 titled Execution, First Among Equals:"Remember to tuck the shower curtain inside the bath." Conrad HiltonMaking excellence an everyday habit - a worthy 5-star read!

Es un libro ideal para cuestionarse muchas cosas sobre el management y lo que de verdad importa en las empresas. No es top, pero vale como introducción

Delusional book. It’s full of stereotype slogans without innovative ideas. Written only with the readers ( market) in mind! There is no soul!I can't remember any inspiring idea!

To make a long story short: Tom Peters is always inspiring. I read most of his books, love his „weekly quote“ and follow his twitter account. Therefore I had been waiting curiously for „The Excellence Dividend.“My expectations are fulfilled, no, more than fulfilled: Tons of content, tons of inspiration, tons of clear advice to take and most important: how to take action. No one who is ambitiuos and loves his or her job can ignore this. My refreshed to do-list is as long as the not-do-list and I'll read as many books he recommends as possible.Tom Peters is focussed on both: personal growth corresponding with more business opportunities. The goal: EXCELLENCE.Tom managed to talk about many topics which are interconnected within each other: people - innovation - leadership - values. He did it in a very special way and design. He gives great overviews over topics, shares his useful insights and his lifelong generated business experience with his readers. Tom tells stories which prove his ideas - own stories and stories of other successful people.Wow, he did a great job in selecting interesting books and gives us the best of the best in short. Nothing we read almost hundreds of times. Tom Peters hammers quotes and his insights in large letters and bold print into our brains… If we want this. I enjoyed couldn’t escape.Tom talks about topics like technical progress, AI etc. that will change our business and daily life rapidly. We have to react now. But nevertheless it is all about people… leadership. This is a huge opportunity to win the race men - machine. Tom Peters brings up topics which are widely underestimated - e.g. more women in charge and the womens and aging market - he did this years ago for the first time. We should have listened.The Excellence Dividend is a book to reread - each chapter, each sentence is important. It’s a book to work with, a very useful reminder to make the inspiration happen Tom Peters gave.

If you're read other books by Peters, you'll have seen all the material before.And the UPPER CASE writing and multiple exclamation points (!!!!!!) get extremely tiring.It's pretty good as a reading list for other publications