TV Reviews : ‘Speed Is Life’ Fails to Show Way to Success

A few years back, author Tom Peters--not content with reaping huge royalties on his books as well as megabucks from the business lecture circuit--started doing documentaries for PBS. Not surprisingly, Peters was the centerpiece of each show, and each managed to tie in nicely with his latest book and ideas. That wasn’t bad per se--Peters raised many serious issues and often did a decent job of examining them.

“Speed Is Life,” airing at 10 tonight on KCET Channel 28, is Peters’ latest offering. He may be running out of steam.

Subtitled “Get Fast or Go Broke,” the show is a paean to this month’s business buzzword (pick one: speed, velocity, whirlwind) and is remarkably short on specifics. It takes a look at four companies (a cable-TV network, a railroad, a tool manufacturer and a hose manufacturer) that, among other things, have shed bureaucratic layers, have simplified systems, have bold leaders, have up-to-the-minute information technology and so on.

All fine, necessary goals, and the companies have profited by meeting them, but Peters never quite manages to get to the meat of how they achieved them. Saying a company slashed six layers of bureaucracy is nice, but it would be nicer to get more detail about the process.

An example: Ingersoll-Rand’s managing to cut the development time on a new product from four years to one year was a gutsy, wondrous move that will be used as a textbook example in management courses for years to come, but Peters doesn’t explain enough for the viewer to learn from it.