But Where’s the Author?
Call it “In Search of Tom Peters.”
Brochures were mailed last week inviting Southern California executives to the “In Search of Excellence Seminar” in July at five Southland hotels. The one-day meetings, produced by the Utah seminar firm CareerTrak, along with the Tom Peters Group, offers for $95 the latest theories of management guru Peters, whose best-selling books include “In Search of Excellence,” “A Passion for Excellence” and “Thriving on Chaos.”
The promotional materials invite executives to “Join the Tom Peters management revolution.” They describe “Tom Peters and the excellence movement.” They even answer such pressing questions as whether Peters’ reference to drama, hoopla and love in business is “a bunch of feel-good fluff.”
But one thing is clear upon closer reading: For all the promotion of Peters, you won’t get him in person. Instead, the seminar is led by Mark Sandborn, a motivational speaker. The brochure claims that Sandborn’s audiences rate him “a phenomenal 4.9 on a 5.0 scale.”
Success Is All in the Mind
It’s not hard work, or even ability to do the job, that makes for success, say public relations bosses in the health-care business.
A survey by the executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles indicates that what matters to those who try to put their company’s best face forward are vision and imagination, at least in the western United States.
Of the health-care chief information officers surveyed, 100% said those esoteric traits contributed to their career success; only 5% said hard work was a contributing factor, and none said technical competence played a role.
Avoiding the ‘L’ Word
There’s plenty of bad earnings news, but you’d hardly notice from reading some annual reports. The ugly words “net loss” can be hard to find.
First Interstate Bancorp, for example, doesn’t detail its $124.5-million net loss until investors have worked their way through four pages of talk about the company’s “extensive banking franchise . . . in many of the fastest-growing and most attractive markets in the country.”
Northrop fails to mention an $80.5-million net loss in both its message to shareholders and in its “operations review.” Check the financial tables because that’s the only place the fact appears. To be fair, Northrop does say up front that the company is “in a difficult and uncertain period.”
Aussies Try New Pitch
California will be a primary market for new promotions to lure Americans “down under.”
The Australian Tourist Commission later this year will begin to develop advertising campaigns designed for different regions of the United States, said Julie Bayliss, the Los Angeles-based Australian trade commissioner.
The old advertising campaign, launched in 1984, featured Paul Hogan of “Crocodile Dundee” movie fame.
Although the advertising strategy will change, Aussie promoters will continue to use a celebrity who has a moniker associated with aquatic terror. The new campaign spokesman--blond pro golfer Greg Norman--is known as “The Great White Shark.”
